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n 


A 


The 


'^^  Complete  Short  Stories 

of 
GUY  de  MAUPASSANT 


Ten  Volumes 

in 

One 


p.  F.  COLLIER  &  SON  CORPORATION 
3<^EW  TORK 


i<^ty^S><itL/^i><;!t/^J^>^!iL/^J^^ 


Copyrighted,  1003,  by 
M.  WALTER  DUNNE 
Ifislered  at  StaMoner&'  Hall.  London 
RA 


PRINTED   Itt    THE    UNITED    STATES   O/   AltfTTRIC/ 


PROVO.UTAH 


Contents 

Volume  I 


BALL-OF-FAT 1 

THE  DIAMOND  NECKLACE 28 

A  PIECE  OF  STRING 34 

>  THE  STORY  OF  A  FARM-GIRL 38 

[N  THE  MOONLIGHT 51 

MME.  TELLIER'S  EXCURSION 54 

LOVE  .., 71 

MME.  FIFI 75 

MONSIEUR  PARENT  S^ 

USELESS  BEAUTY 109 

AN  AFFAIR  OF  STATE 121 

BABETTE    127 

\  COCK  CROWED 132 

aLIE  LALA  135 

\  VAGABOND  138 

THE   MOUNTEBANKS   146 

UGLY    149 

THE  DEBT  152 

A  NORMANDY  JOKE 155 

THE  FATHER  150 

THE  ARTIST  164 

FALSE  ALARM   16/ 

THAT  PIG  OF  A  MORIN...  ..  .....^ 172 


Volume  II 


MISS  HARRIET   18J 

THE  HOLE 195 

THE  INN  199 

A  FAMILY  208 

BELLFLOWER   212 

IN  THE  WOOD 215 

THE  MARQUIS  DE  FUMEROL 219 

SAVED 224 

THE  SIGNAL  227 

THE  DEVIL  231 

THE  VENUS  OF  BRANIZA 236 

THE  RABBIT  238 

LA  MORILLONNE   243 

EPIPHANY    245 

SIMON'S  PAPA 253 

WAITER,  A  BOCK! 259 

THE  SEQUEL  TO  A  DIVORCE 264 

THE   CLOWN  268 

THE  MAD  WOMAN 271 

MADEMOISELLE    273 


Volume  III 


A  BAD  ERROR 277 

THE  PORT  280 

CHALI 286 

JEROBOAM 2Q5 


VIRTUE  IN  THE  BALLET 296 

THE  DOUBLE  PINS 300 

HOW  HE  GOT  THE  LEGION  OF  HONOR .303 

A  CRISIS 307 

GRAVEYARD   SIRENS   ;  311 

GROWING  OLD .316 

A  FRENCH  ENOCH  ARDEN 319 

JULIE   ROMAIN   323 

AN  UNREASONABLE  WOMAN 32S 

ROSALIE  PRUDENT 232 

HIPPOLYTE'S    CLAIM    335 

BENOIST   33S 

FECUNDITY  342 

A  WAY  TO  WEALTH 348 

AM  I  INSANE?  ^52 

FORBIDDEN  FRUIT  354 

THE  CHARM  DISPELLED 35<^ 

MADAME  PARISSE  361 

MAKING  A  CONVERT 366 


-•- 


Volume  IV 


A  LITTLE  WALK 371 

A  WIFE'S  CONFESSION 374 

A  DEAD  WOMAN'S  SECRET 378 

LOVE'S  AWAKENING  381 

BED  NO.   29 385 

MARROCA  39:^ 


A  PHILOSOPHER 398 

A  MISTAKE  402 

FLORENTINE    406 

CONSIDERATION  410 

WOMAN'S  WILES  414 

MOONLIGHT    418 

DOUBTFUL  HAPPINESS  421 

HUMILIATION    425 

THE  WEDDING  NIGHT 429 

THE  NONCOMMISSIONED  OFFICER 434 

IN  THE  COURT  ROOM.. 438 

A  PECULIAR  CASE 441 

A  PRACTICAL  JOKE 44.> 

A  STRANGE  FANCY 448 

AFTER  DEATH    453 

ON  CATS  458 

ROOM  NO.  ELEVEN 462 

ONE  PHASE  OF  LOVE 466 

GOOD  REASONS  471 

A  FAIR  EXCHANGE 474 

THE  TOBACCO  SHOP 47</ 

A  POOR  GIRL -...  484 

THE  SUBSTITUTE 48J» 

A  PASSION 491 


Volume  V 

CAUGHT 497 

THE  ORDERLY 490 

JOSEPH - 501 


REGRET     50f 

THE  DEAF-MUTE  SIC 

MAGNETISM   5V 

IN  VARIOUS  ROLES 519 

THE   FALSE   GEMS 523 

COUNTESS   SATAN   527 

A  USEFUL  HOUSE 531 

THE  COLONEL'S  IDEAS 533 

TWO  LITTLE  SOLDIERS 537 

GHOSTS 542 

WAS  IT  A  DREAM?  545 

THE  NEW  SENSATION 549 

VIRTUE!    551 

THE  THIEF 554 

THE  DIARY  OF  A  MADMAN 557 

ON  PERFUMES  560 

THE  WILL 562 

IN  HIS  SWEETHEART'S  LIVERY 565 

AN   UNFORTUNATE   LIKENESS 569 

A  NIGHT  IN  WHITECHAPEL 571 

LOST    575 

A  COUNTRY  EXCURSION 577 

THE  RELICS  584 

A  RUPTURE  ; 587 

MARGOT'S  TAPERS  589 

THE  ACCENT 592 

PROFITABLE  BUSINESS  595 

BERTHA  598 

THE  LAST  STEP  604 


Volume  VI 


A   MESALLIANCE   607 

AN  HONEST  DEAL 612 

IHE   LOG    615 

DELILA    619 

THE  ILL-OMENED  GROOM 623 

THE  ODALISQUE  OF  SENICHOU 627 

BRIC-A  BRAG  632 

THE  ARTIST'S  WIFE 635 

IN   THE   SPRING 639 

THE  REAL  ONE  AND  THE  OTHER 643 

THE    CARTER'S   WENCH 645 

THE  RENDEZVOUS  643 

SOLITUDE 652 

THE  MAN  WITH  THE  BLUE  EYES 656 

AN  ARTIFICE 659 

THE  SPECTER 662 

THE  RELIC   / 667 

THE  MARQUIS 67G 

A  DEER  PARK  IN  THE  PROVINCES 674 

AN  ADVENTURE 677 

THE   BED    680 

UNDER  THE  YOKE 682 

A  FASHIONABLE  WOMAN 685 

WORDS  OF  LOVE , 690 

THE  UPSTART  692 

HAPPINESS  695 

CHRISTMAS   EVE    699 


THE  AWAKENING   702 

THE  WHITE  LADY 705 

MADAME  BAPTISTE  709 

REVENGE   713 

AN  OLD  MAID ! 717 

COMPLICATION  722 

FORGIVENESS  726 

THE  WHITE  WOLF 730 

TOINE  734 

AN  ENTHUSIAST  739 

THE  TRAVELER'S  STORY -50 

■        — •- 

Volume  VII 

A  JOLLY  FELLOW y^S 

A  LIVELY  FRIEND 760 

THE  BLIND  MAN : 764 

THE  IMPOLITE   SEX 767 

THE  CORSICAN  BANDIT 771 

THE  DUEL 773 

THE  LOVE  OF  LONG  AGO 779 

THE  FARMER'S  WIFE 782 

BESIDE  A  DEAD  MAN ..., 787 

A  QUEER  NIGHT  IN  PARIS 790 

A  DUEL 79d 

THE  UMBRELLA 800 

THE  QUESTION  OF  LATIN 806 

MOTHER  AND  SON! ! ! 812 

HE?    816 


Volume  VIII 


THE  AVENGER  821 

THE  CONSERVATORY  824 

LETTER  FOUND  ON  A  CORPSE 828 

THE  LITTLE  CASK 832 

POOR  ANDREW  836 

A   FISHING  EXCURSION 840 

AFTER    843 

THE  SPASM  847 

A  MEETING  852 

A  NEW  YEAR'S  GIFT 857 

MY  UNCLE  SOSTHENES 861 

ALL  OVER  866 

MY  LANDLADY 870 

THE  HORRIBLE  874 

THE  FIRST  SNOWFALL 878 

THE  WOODEN  SHOES 884 

BOITELLE  887 

SELFISHNESS    803 


Volume  IX 


THE  WATCHDOG 897 

THE  DANCERS  900 

CHRISTENING    903 

A  COSTLY  OUTING 906 

THE  MAN  WITH  THE  DOGS 909 

A  KING'S   SON =  = 914 


MOHAMMED  FRIPOUU  915 

"BELL"  924 

THE  VICTIM  927 

THE  ENGLISHMAN 930 


'«- 


Volume  X 


SENTIMENT    935 

FRANCIS   938 

THE  ASSASSIN  942 

SEMILLANTE    945 

ON  THE  RIVER 948 

SUICIDES    952 

A  MIRACLE  955 

THE  ACCURSED   BREAD 959 

MY  TWENTY-FIVE  DAYS 962 

A  LUCKY   BURGLAR. 967 

AN  ODD  FEAST 970 

SYMPATHY 972 

A  TRAVELER'S  TALE 975 

LITTLE  LOUISE  ROQUE 979 


VOLUME  t 


BALL-OF'PAT 


For  many  dajrs  now  the  fag-end  of 
the  army  had  been  straggling  through 
the  town.  They  were  not  troops,  but  a 
disbanded  horde.  The  beards  of  the 
men  were  long  and  filthy,  their  uniforms 
in  tatters,  and  they  advanced  at  an 
easy  pace  without  flag  or  regiment.  All 
seemed  worn-out  and  back-broken,  inca- 
pable of  c.  thought  or  a  resolution, 
marching  by  habit  solely,  and  falling 
from  fatigue  as  soon  as  they  stopped.  In 
short,  they  were  a  mobilized,  pacific  peo- 
ple, bending  under  the  weight  of  the 
gun ;  some  little  squads  or.  the  alert,  easy 
to  take  alarm  and  prompt  in  enthusiasm, 
ready  to  attack  or  to  flee;  and  in  the 
midst  of  them,  some  red  breeches,  the 
remains  of  a  division  broken  up  in  a 
great  battle ;  Lon  e  somber  artillery  men 
in  line  with  these  varied  kinds  of  foot 
soldiers;  and,  sometimes  the  brilliant 
helmet  of  a  dragoon  on  foot  who  fol 
lowed  with  difficulty  the  shortest  march 
of  the  lines. 

Some  legions  of  free-shooters,  under 
the  heroic  names  of  "Avengers  of  the 
Defeat,"  "Citizens  of  the  Tomb,"  "Par- 
takers of  Death,"  passed  in  their  turn 
with  the  air  of  bandits. 

Their  leaders  were  former  cloth  or 
grain  merchants,  ex-merchants  in  tallow 
or  soap,  warriors  of  circumstance,  elected 
officers  on  account  of  their  escutcheons 
and  the  length  of  their  mustaches,  cov- 
ered with  arms  and  with  braid,  speaking 
in  constrained  voices,  discussing  plans  of 
campai^,  and  pretending  to  carry 
agonized  France  alone  on  their  swagger- 


ing shoulders,  but  sometimes  fearing 
Jheir  own  soldiers,  prison-birds,  that 
were  often  brave  at  first  and  later 
proved  to  be  plunderers  and  debauchees. 

It  was  said  that  the  Prussians  were 
going  to  enter  Rouen. 

The  National  Guard  who  for  two 
months  had  been  carefully  reconnoiter* 
ing  in  the  neighboring  woods,  shooting 
sometimes  their  own  sentinels,  and  ready 
fo::  a  combat  whenever  a  little  wolf 
stirred  in  the  thicket,  had  now  returned 
to  their  firesides.  Their  arms,  their  uni- 
forms, all  the  murderous  accoutrements 
with  which  they  had  lately  struck  fear 
into  the  national  heart  for  three  leagues 
in  every  direction,  had  suddenly  dis- 
appeared. 

The  last  French  soldiers  finally  came 
across  ihe  Seine  to  reach  tne  Audemer 
bridge  through  Saint-Sever  and  Bourg. 
Achard;  and,  marching  behind,  on  foot, 
between  two  officers  of  ordnance,  the 
General,  in  despair,  unable  to  do  any- 
thing with  these  incongruous  tatters, 
himself  lost  in  the  breaking-up  of  a  peo- 
ple accustomed  to  conquer,  and  disas- 
trously beaten,  in  spite  of  his  legendary 
bravery. 

A  profound  calm,  a  frightful,  silent 
expectancy  had  spread  over  the  city. 
Many  of  the  heavy  citizens,  emasculated 
by  commerce,  anxiously  awaited  the  con- 
querors, trembling  lest  their  roasting 
spits  or  kitchen  knives  be  considered 
arms. 

All  life  seemed  stopped;  shops  were 
closed,  the  streets  dumb.   Sometimes  an 


WORK^  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


inhabitant,  intimidated  by  this  silence, 
moved  rapidly  along  next  the  walls.  The 
agony  of  waiting  made  them. wish  the 
enemy  would  come. 

In  the  afternoon  of  the  day  which  fol- 
lowed the  departure  of  the  French 
troops,  some  uhlans,  coming  from  one 
knows  not  where,  crossed  the  town  with 
celerity.  Then,  a  little  later,  a  black 
mass  descended  the  side  of  St.  Catha- 
rine, while  two  other  invading  bands  ap- 
peared by  the  way  of  Darnetal  and  Bois- 
guillaume.  The  advance  guard  of  the 
three  bodies  joined  one  another  at  the 
same  moment  in  Hotel  de  Ville  square 
and,  by  all  the  neighboring  streets,  the 
German  army  continued  to  arrive, 
spieading  out  its  battalions,  making  the 
pavement  resound  under  their  hard, 
rhythmic  step. 

Some  orders  of  the  commander,  in  a 
foreign,  guttural  voice,  reached  the 
houses  which  seemed  dead  and  deserted, 
while  behind  closed  shutters,  eyes  were 
watching  these  victorious  men,  masters 
of  the  city,  of  fortunes,  of  lives, 
through  the  "rights  of  war."  The  in- 
habitants, shut  up  in  their  rooms,  were 
visited  with  the  kind  of  excitement  that 
a  cataclysm,  or  some  fatal  upheaval  of 
the  earth,  brings  to  us,  against  which  all 
force  is  useless.  For  the  same  sensa- 
tion is  produced  each  time  that  the 
established  order  of  things  is  over- 
turned, when  security  no  longer  exists, 
and  all  that  protect  the  laws  of 
man  and  of  nature  find  themselves  at 
the  mercy  of  unreasoning,  ferocious 
brutality.  The  trembling  of  the  earth 
crushing  the  houses  and  burying  an  en- 
tire people;  a  river  overflowing  its 
banks  and   carrying   in   its   course  the 


drowned  peasants,  carcasses  of  beeves^ 
and  girders  snatched  from  roofs,  or  a 
glorious  army  massacring  those  trying 
to  defend  themselves,  leading  others 
prisoners,  pillaging  in  the  name  of  the 
sword  and  thanking  God  to  the  sound 
of  the  cannon,  all  are  alike  frightful 
scourges  which  disconnect  all  belief  in 
eternal  justice,  all  the  confidence  that 
we  have  in  the  protection  of  Heaven 
and  the  reason  of  man. 

Some  detachments  rapped  at  each 
door,  then  disappeared  into  the  houses. 
It  was  occupation  after  invasion.  Then 
the  duty  commences  for  the  conquered 
to  show  themselves  gracious  toward  the 
conquerors. 

After  some  time,  as  soon  as  the  first 
terror  disappears,  a  new  calm  is  estab- 
lished. In  many  families,  the  Prussian 
ofi&cer  eats  at  the  table.  He  is  some- 
times well  bred  and,  through  politeness, 
pities  France,  and  speaks  of  his  repug- 
nance in  taking  part  in  this  affair.  One 
is  grateful  to  him  for  this  sentiment; 
then,  one  may  be,  some  Hay  or  other, 
in  neea  of  his  protection.  By  treating 
him  well,  one  has,  perhaps,  a  less  num- 
ber of  men  to  feed.  And  why  should 
we  wound  anyone  on  whom  we  are  en- 
tirely dependent?  To  act  thus  would 
be  less  bravery  than  temerity.  And 
temerity  is  no  longer  a  fault  of  the 
commoner  of  Rouen,  as  it  was  at  the 
time  of  the  heroic  defense,  when  their 
city  became  famous.  Finally,  each  told 
himself  that  the  highest  judgment  of 
French  urbanity  required  that  they  be 
allowed  to  be  polite  to  the  strange  sol- 
dier in  the  house,  provided  they  did  not 
show  themselves  familiar  with  him  in 
public.  Outside  they  would  not  make 
themselves  known  to  each  other,  but  at 


BALL-OF-FAT 


home  thf^'j  could  chat  freely,  and  the 
Gernian  la'ght  remain  longer  each  eve- 
ning warming  his  feet  at  their  hearth- 
stonei. 

Tht;  towTi  even  took  on,  little  by 
hrtle,  its  ordinary  aspect.  The  French 
Scarcely  went  out,  but  the  Prussian 
s6ldie]*s  grumbled  in  the  streets.  In 
short,  the  ofificers  of  the  Blue  Hussars, 
wno  dragged  with  arrogance  their  great 
weapons  of  death  up  and  down  the 
pavement,  seemed  to  have  no  more 
grievous  scorn  for  the  simple  citizens 
than  the  officers  or  the  sportsmen  who, 
the  year  before,  drank  in  the  same 
cafes. 

There  was  nevertheless,  something  in 
the  air,  something  subtle  and  unknown, 
a  strange,  intolerable  atmosphere  like  a 
penetrating  odor,  the  odor  of  invasion. 
It  filled  the  dwellings  and  the  public 
places,  changed  the  taste  of  the  food, 
gave  the  impression  of  being  on  a 
journey,  far  away,  among  barbarous  and 
dangerous  tribes. 

The  conquerors  exacted  money,  much 
money.  The  inhabitants  always  paid 
and  they  were  rich  enough  to  do  it. 
But  the  richer  a  trading  Norman  be- 
comes th3  more  he  suffers  at  every 
outlay,  at  each  part  of  his  fortune  that 
he  sees  pass  from  his  hands  into  those 
of  another. 

Therefore,  two  or  three  leagues  be- 
low the  town,  following  the  course  of 
the  river  toward  Croisset,  Dieppedalle, 
or  Biessart  mariners  and  fishermen 
often  picked  up  the  swollen  corpse  of  a 
German  in  uniform  from  the  bottom  of 
the  river,  kiiied  by  the  blow  of  a  knife, 
the  head  crushed  with  a  stone,  or  per- 
haps ihrcwn  into  the  water  by  a  push 
from  tlie  hig^a  bridge.    The  slime  of  the 


river  bed  buried  these  obscure  van* 
geances,  savage,  but  legitimate,  un- 
known heroisms,  mute  attacks  more 
perilous  than  the  battles  of  broad  day. 
and  without  the  echoing  sound  of  glory. 

For  hatred  of  the  foreigner  always 
arouses  some  intrepid  ones,  who  are 
ready  to  die  for  an  idea. 

Finally,  as  soon  as  the  invaders  had 
brought  the  town  quite  under  subjec- 
tion with  their  inflexible  discipline, 
without  having  been  guilty  of  any  of  the 
horrors  for  which  they  were  famous 
along  their  triumphal  line  of  march, 
people  began  to  take  courage,  and  the 
need  of  trade  put  new  heart  into  the 
commerce  of  the  country.  Some  had 
large  interests  at  Havre,  which  the 
French  army  occupied,  and  they  wished 
to  try  and  reach  this  port  by  going  to 
Dieppe  by  land  and  there  embarking. 

They  used  their  influence  with  the 
German  soldiers  with  whom  they  had  an 
acquaintance,  and  finally,  an  authoriza- 
tion of  departure  was  obtained  from  the 
General-in-chief. 

Then,  a  large  diligence,  with  four 
horses,  having  been  engaged  for  thi? 
journey,  and  ten  persons  having  en- 
gaged seats  in  it,  it  was  resolved  to  set 
out  on  Tuesday  morning  before  day- 
light, in  order  to  escape  observation. 

For  some  time  before,  the  frost  had 
been  hardening  the  earth  and  on  Mon- 
day, toward  three  o'clock,  great  black 
clouds  coming  from  the  north  brought 
the  snow  which  fell  without  interrup- 
tion during  the  evening  and  all  night. 

At  half  past  four  in  the  morning,  the 
travelers  met  in  the  courtyard  of  Hotel 
Normandie,  where  they  were  to  take 
the  carriage. 

They  were    still  full  of  sleep,    and 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


shivering  '/ith  cold  under  their  wraps. 
They  could  only  see  each  other  dimly  in 
the  obscure  hgnt,  and  the  accumulation 
of  heavy  winter  garments  made  them 
ail  resemble  fat  curates  in  long  cassocks. 
Only  two  of  the  men  were  acquainted; 
a  third  accosted  them  and  they 
chatted:  "I'm  going  to  take  my  wife," 
said  one.  "I  too,"  said  another.  "And 
I,"  said  the  third.  The  first  added: 
"We  shall  not  return  to  Rouen,  and  if 
the  Prussians  approach  Havre,  we  shall 
go  over  to  England."  All  had  the  same 
projects,  being  of  the  same  mind. 

As  yet  the  horses  were  not  harnessed. 
A  little  lantern,  carried  by  a  stable  boy, 
went  out  one  door  fron\  time  to  time, 
to  immediately  appear  at  another.  The 
feet  of  the  horses  striking  the  floor 
could  be  heard,  although  deadened  by 
the  straw  and  litter,  and  the  voice  of  a 
man  talking  to  the  beasts,  sometimes 
swearing,  came  from  the  end  of  the 
building.  A  light  tinkling  of  bells  an- 
nounced that  they  were  taking  down  the 
harness;  this  murmur  soon  became  a 
clear  and  continuous  rhythm  by  the 
movement  of  the  animal,  stopping 
sometimes,  then  breaking  into  a 
brusque  shake  which  was  accompanied 
by  the  dull  stamp  of  a  sabot  upon  th^ 
hard  earth. 

The  door  suddenly  closed.  All  noise 
ceased.  The  frozen  citizens  were  silent; 
they  remained  immovable  and  stiff. 

A  curtain  of  uninterrupted  white 
flakes  constantly  sparkled  in  its  de- 
scent to  the  ground.  It  effaced  forms, 
and  powdered  everything  with  a  downy 
moss.  And  nothing  could  be  heard  in 
*he  great  silence.  The  town  was  calm, 
and  buried  under  the  wintry  frost,  as 
iJijis  fall  of  spow.  unnamable  and  float- 


ing, a  sensation  rather  than  a  sound 
(trembling  atoms  which  only  seem  to 
fill  all  space),  came  to  cover  the  earth. 

The  man  reappeared  with  his  lantern, 
pulling  at  the  end  of  a  rope  a  sad  horse 
which  would  not  come  willingly.  He 
placed  him  against  the  pole,-  fastened 
the  traces,  walked  about  a  long  time  ad- 
justing the  harness,  for  he  had  the  usp 
of  but  one  hand,  the  other  carrying  the 
lantern.  As  he  went  for  the  second 
horse,  he  noticed  the  travelers,  mo- 
tionless, already  white  with  snow,  and 
said  to  them:  "Why  not  get  into  the 
carriage?  You  will  be  under  cover,  at 
least," 

They  had  evidently  not  thought  of  it, 
and  they  hastened  to  do  so.  The  three 
men  installed  their  wives  at  the  back 
and  then  followed  them.  Then  the 
other  forms,  undecided  and  veiled,  took 
in  their  turn  the  last  places  without  ex- 
changing a  word. 

The  floor  was  covered  with  straw,  in 
which  the  feet  ensconced  themselves. 
The  ladies  at  the  back  having  brought 
little  copper  foot  stoves,  with  a  carbon 
fire,  lighted  them  and,  for  some  time,  in 
low  voices,  enumerated  the  advantages 
of  the  appliances,  repeating?  things  that 
they  had  known  for  a  long  time. 

Finally,  the  carriage  was  harnessed 
with  six  horses  instead  of  four,  because 
the  traveling  was  very  bad,  and  a  voice 
called  out: 

"Is  everybody  aboard?" 

And  a  voice  within  answered:  *^es." 

They  were  off.  The  carriage  moved 
slowly,  slowly  for  a  little  way.  The 
wheels  were  imbedded  in  the  snow;  the 
whole  body  groaned  with  heavy  crack- 
ing sounds;  the  horses  glistened,  puffedr 
and  smoked;  and  the  great  whio  of  the 


BALL-OF-FAT 


driver  snapped  without  ceasing,  hover- 
ing about  on  all  sides,  knotting  and  un- 
rolling itself  like  a  thm  serpent,  lash- 
ing brusquely  some  horse  on  the  re- 
bound, which  then  put  forth  its  most 
violent  effort. 

Now  the  day  was  imperceptibly 
dawning.  The  light  flakes,  which  one  of 
the  travelers,  a  Rouenese  by  birth,  said 
looked  like  a  shower  of  cotton,  no 
longer  fell.  A  faint  light  filtered 
through  the  great  dull  clouds,  which 
rendered  more  brilliant  the  white  of  the 
fields,  where  appeared  a  line  of  great 
trees  clothed  in  whiteness,  or  a  chimney 
with  a  cap  of  snow. 

In  the  carriage,  each  looked  at  the 
others  curiously,  in  the  sad  light  of  this 
dawn. 

At  the  back,  in  the  best  places,  Mr. 
Loiseau,  wholesale  merchant  of  wine,  of 
Grand-Pent  street,  and  Mrs.  Loiseau 
were  sleeping  opposite  each  other. 
Loiseau  had  bought  out  his  former  pa- 
tron who  failed  in  business,  and  made 
his  fortune.  He  sold  bad  wine  at  a 
good  price  to  small  retailers  in  the 
country,  and  passed  among  his  friends 
and  acquaintances  as  a  knavish  wag, 
a  true  Norman  full  of  deceit  and 
joviality. 

His  reputation  as  a  sharpr'  ^as  so 
well  established  that  one  evening  at  the 
residence  of  the  prefect,  Mr.  Tournel, 
author  of  some  fables  and  songs,  of 
P  keen,  satirical  mind,  a  local  celebrity, 
having  proposed  to  some  ladies,  who 
seemed  to  be  getting  a  little  sleepy,  that 
they  make  up  a  game  of  'Xoiseau 
tricks,"  the  joke  traversed  the  rooms  of 
the  prefect,  reached  those  of  the  town, 
and  then,  in  the  months  to  come,  made 


many  a  face  in  the  provincj  expand 

with  laughter. 

Loiseau  was  especially  known  for  his 
lov<;  of  farce  of  every  kind,  for  his 
jokes,  good  and  bad;  and  no  one  could 
ever  talk  with  him  without  thinking. 
"He  is  invaluable,  this  Loiseau."  Of 
tall  figure,  his  balloon-shaped  front  was 
surmounted  by  a  ruddy  face  surrounded 
by  gray  whiskers. 

His  wife,  large,  strong,  and  resolute, 
with  a  quick,  decisive  manner,  was  the 
order  and  arithmetic  of  this  house  of 
commerce,  while  he  was  the  life  of  it 
through  his  joyous  activity. 

Beside  them,  Mr.  Carre  Lamadon 
held  himself  with  great  dignity,  as  if 
belonging  to  a  superior  caste;  a  con- 
siderable man,  in  cottons,  proprietor  ol 
three  mills,  ofi&cer  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor,  and  member  of  the  General 
Council.  He  had  remained,  during  the 
Empire,  chief  of  the  friendly  opposi- 
tion, famous  for  making  the  Emperor 
pay  more  dear  for  rallying  to  the  cause 
than  if  he  had  combated  it  with  blunted 
arms,  according  to  his  own  story. 
Madame  Carre-Lamadon,  much  younger 
than  her  husband,  v;as  the  cor.solation 
of  ofi&cers  of  good  family  sent  to  Rouen 
in  garrison.  She  sat  opposite  her  hus- 
band, very  dainty,  petite,  and  pretty, 
wrapped  closely  in  furs  and  looking  with 
sad  eycb  at  the  interior  of  the  carriage. 

Her  neighbors,  the  Count  and  Count- 
ess Hubert  de  Breville,  bore  the  name 
of  one  of  the  most  ancient  and  noble 
families  of  Normandy.  The  Count,  an 
old  gentleman  of  good  figure,  accen- 
tuated, by  the  artifices  of  his  toilette, 
his  resemblance  to  King  Henry  IV., 
who,  following  a  glorious  legend  of  the 
family,   had    impregnated    one    of   the 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


De  Breville  ladies,  whose  husband,  for 
this  reason,  was  made  a  count  and 
governor  ot  the  province. 

A  colleague  of  Mr.  Carre-Lamadon 
in  the  General  Council,  Count  Hubert 
represented  the  Orleans  party  in  the 
Department. 

The  story  of  his  marriage  with  the 
daughter  of  a  little  captain  of  a  priva- 
teer had  always  remained  a  mystery. 
But  as  the  Countess  had  a  grand  air, 
received  better  than  anyone,  and  passed 
for  having  been  loved  by  the  son  of 
Louis  Philippe,  all  the  nobility  did  her 
honor,  and  her  salon  remained  the  first 
in  the  country,  the  only  one  which  pre- 
served the  old  gallantry,  and  to  which 
the  entree  was  difficult.  The  fortune 
of  the  Brevilles  amounted,  it  was  said, 
to  five  hundrea  thousand  francs  in  in- 
come, all  in  good  securities. 

These-  six  persons  formed  the  foun- 
dation of  the  carriage  company,  the 
society  side,  serene  and  strong,  honest, 
established  people,  who  had  both  re- 
ligion and  principles. 

By  a  strange  chance,  all  the  women 
were  upon  the  same  seat ;  and  the  Count- 
ess had  for  neighbors  two  sisters  who 
picked  at  long  strings  of  beads  and 
muttered  some  Paters  and  Aves.  One 
was  old  and  as  pitted  with  smallpox  as 
if  she  had  received  a  broadside  of  grape- 
shot  full  in  the  face.  The  other,  very 
sad,  had  a  pretty  face  and  a  disease 
of  the  lungs,  which,  added  to  their  de- 
voted faith,  illumined  them  and  made 
them  appear  like  martyrs. 

Opposite  these  two  devotees  were  a 
man  and  a  woman  who  attracted  the 
notice  of  all.  The  man,  well  known, 
was  Cornudet  the  democrat,  the  terror 
of  respecta]?le  people.    For  twenty  years 


he  had  soaked  his  great  red  beard  in 
the  bocks  of  all  the  democratic  cafes. 
He  had  consumed  with  his  friends  and 
confreres  a  rathe:  pretty  fortune  left 
him  by  his  father,  an  oid  confectioner, 
and  he  awaited  the  establishing  of  the 
Republic  with  impatience,  that  he  might 
have  the  position  he  merited  by  his 
great  expenditures.  On  the  fourth  of 
September,  by  some  joke  perhaps,  he 
believed  himself  elected  prefect,  but 
when  he  went  to  assume  the  duties, 
the  clerks  of  the  office  were  masters  of 
the  place  and  refused  to  recognize  him, 
obliging  him  to  retreat.  Rather  a  good 
bachelor,  on  the  whole,  inoffensive  and 
serviceable,  he  had  busied  himself,  with 
incomparable  ardor,  in  organizing  the 
defense  against  the  Prussians.  He  had 
dug  holes  in  all  the  plains,  cut  down 
young  trees  from  the  neij^hboring 
forests,  sown  snares  over  all  routes  and, 
at  the  approach  of  the  enemy,  took 
himself  quickly  back  to  the  town.  He 
now  thought  he  could  be  of  more  use 
in  Havre  where  more  entrenchments 
would  be  necessary. 

The  woman,  one  of  those  called  a 
coquette,  was  celebrated  for  her  em- 
bonpoint, which  had  given  her  the  nick- 
name of  ''Ball-of-Fat."  Small,  round, 
and  fat  as  lard,  with  puffy  fingers  choked 
at  the  phalanges,  like  chaplets  of  short 
sausages;  with  a  stretched  and  shining 
skin,  an  enormous  bosom  which  shook 
under  her  dress,  she  was,  neverthe- 
less, pleasing  and  sought  after,  on  ac- 
count of  a  certain  freshness  and  breezi- 
ness  of  disposition.  Her  face  was  a 
round  apple,  a  peony  bud  ready  to  pop 
into  bloom,  and  inside  that  opened  two 
great    black    eyes,    shaded  with   thick 


BALL-OF-FAT 


brows  that  cast  a  shadow  within;  and 
below,  a  charming  mouth,  humid  for 
kissing,  furnished  with  shining,  micro- 
scopic baby  teeth.  She  was,  it  was  said, 
full  of  admirable  qualities. 

As  soon  as  she  was  recognized,  a 
whisper  went  around  among  the  honest 
women,  and  the  words  "prostitute"  and 
"public  shame"  were  whispered  so 
loud  that  she  raised  her  head.  Then  she 
threw  at  her  neighbors  such  a  provok- 
ing, courageous  look  that  a  great  silence 
reigned,  and  everybody  looked  down  ex- 
cept Loiseau,  who  watched  her  with  an 
exhilarated    air. 

And  immediately  conversation  began 
among  the  three  ladies,  whom  the  pres- 
ence of  this  girl  had  suddenly  rendered 
friendly,  almost  intimate.  It  seemed 
to  them  they  should  bring  their  married 
dignity  into  union  in  opposition  to  that 
sold  without  shame;  for  legal  love  al- 
ways takes  on  a  tone  of  contempt  for 
its  free  confrere. 

The  three  men,  also  drawn  together 
by  an  instinct  of  preservation  at  the 
sight  of  Cornudet,  talked  money  with 
^  certain  high  tone  of  disdain  for  the 
poor.  Count  Hubert  talked  of  the 
havoc  which  the  Prussians  had  caused, 
the  losses  which  resulted  from  being 
robbed  of  cattle  and  from  destroyed 
crops,  with  the  assurance  of  a  great 
lord,  ten  times  millionaire  whom  these 
ravages  would  scarcely  cramp  for  i 
year.  Mr.  Carre-Lamadon,  largely  ex- 
perienced in  the  cotton  industry,  had 
had  need  of  sending  six  hundred  thou- 
sand francs  to  England,  as  a  trifle  in 
reserve  if  it  should  be  needed.  As  for 
ivoiseau,  he  had  arranged  with  the 
French  administration  to  sell  them  all 
the  wines  that  remained  in  his  cellars. 


on  account  of  which  the  State  owed 
him  a  formidable  sum,  which  he 
counted  on  collecting  at  Havre. 

And  all  three  threw  toward  each  other 
swift  and  amicable  glances. 

Although  in  different  conditions,  they 
felt  themselves  to  be  brothers  through 
money,  that  grand  free-masonry  of 
those  who  possess  it,  and  make  the 
gold  rattle  by  putting  iheir  hands  in 
their  trousers'  pockets. 

The  carriage  went  so  slov/ly  that  at 
ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  they  had 
not  gone  four  leagues.  The  men  had 
got  down  three  times  to  climb  hills  on 
foot.  They  began  to  bo  disturbed  be- 
cause they  should  be  now  taking  break- 
fast at  Totes  and  they  despaired  now 
of  reaching  there  before  night.  Each 
one  had  begun  to  watch  for  an  inn  along 
the  route,  when  the  carriage  foundered 
in  a  snowdrift,  and  it  took  two  hours  to 
extricate  it. 

Growing  appetites  troubled  theit 
minds;  and  no  eating-house,  no  wine 
shop  showed  itself,  the  approach  of  the 
Prussians  and  the  passage  of  the  troops 
having  frightened  away  all  these  in- 
dustries. 

The  gentlemen  ran  to  the  farms  along 
the  way  for  provisions,  but  they  did 
not  even  find  bread,  for  the  defiant 
peasant  had  concealed  his  stores  for 
fear  of  being  pillaged  by  the  soldiers 
who,  having  nothing  to  put  between 
their  teeth,  took  by  force  whatever  they 
discovered. 

Toward  one  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
Loiseau  announced  that  there  was  a  de- 
cided hollow  in  his  stomach.  Every- 
body suffered  with  him,  and  the  violent 
need  of  eating,  ever  increasing,  had 
killed  conversation. 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANi' 


From  time  to  time  some  one  yawned; 
another  immediately  imitated  him;  and 
each,  in  his  turn,  in  accordance  with 
his  character,  his  knowledge  of  life,  and 
his  social  position,  opened  his  mouth 
with  carelessness  or  modesty,  placing 
his  hand  quickly  before  the  yawning 
hole  from  whence  issued  a  vapor. 

Ball-of-Fat,  after  many  attempts, 
bent  down  as  if  seeking  something  un- 
der her  skirts.  She  hesitated  a  second, 
looked  at  her  neighbors,  then  sat  up 
again  tranquilly.  The  faces  were  pale 
and  drawn.  Loiseau  affirmed  that  he 
would  give  a  thousand  francs  for  a  small 
ham.  His  wife  made  a  gesture,  as  if 
in  protest;  but  she  kept  quiet.  She  was 
always  troubled  when  anyone  spoke  of 
squandering  money,  and  could  not  com- 
prehend any  pleasantry  on  the  subject. 
"The  fact  is,"  said  the  Count,  "I  can- 
not understand  why  I  did  not  think  to 
.bring  some  provisions  with  me."  Each 
xeproached  himself  in  the  same  way. 

However,  Cornudet  had  a  flask  full 
of  rum.  He  offered  it;  it  was  refused 
coldly.  Loiseau  alone  accepted  two 
swallows,  and  then  passed  back  the 
flask  saying,  by  way  of  thanks:  "It  is 
good  all  the  same;  it  is  warming  and 
checks  the  appetite."  The  alcohol  put 
him  in  good-humor  and  he  proposed 
that  they  do  as  they  did  on  th^.  little 
ship  in  the  song,  eat  the  fattest  of  the 
passengers.  .  This  indirect  allusion  to 
Ball-of-Fat  choked  the  well-bred  people. 
They  said  nothing.  Cornudet  alone 
laughed.  The  two  good  sisters  had 
ceased  to  mumble  their  rosaries  and, 
with  their  hands  enfolded  in  their  great 
sleeves,  held  themselves  immovable,  ob- 
stinately  lowering   their   eyes,   without 


doubt  offering  to  Heaven  the  suffering 
it  had  brought  upon  them. 

Finally  at  three  o'clock,  when  they 
found  themselves  in  the  midst  of  an 
interminable  plain,  without  a  single  vil- 
lage in  sight,  Ball-of-Fat  bending  down 
quickly  drew  from  under  the  seat  a 
large  basket  covered  with  a  white 
napkin. 

At  first  she  brought  out  a  little  china 
plate  and  a  silver  cup;  tlien  a  large 
dish  in  which  there  were  two  whole 
chickens,  cut  up  and  imbedded  in  their 
own  jelly.  And  one  could  stiil  see 
in  the  basket  other  good  things,  some 
pates  f  fruits,  and  sweetmeats,  pro- 
visions for  three  days  if  they  should 
not  see  the  kitchen  of  an  inn.  Four 
necks  of  bottles  were  seen  among  the 
packages  of  food.  She  took  a  wing 
of  a  chicken  and  began  to  eat  it  deli- 
cately, with  one  of  those  little  biscuits 
called  "Regence"  in  Normandy. 

All  looks  were  turned  in  her  direction. 
Then  the  odor  spread,  enlarging  the 
nostrils  and  making  the  mouth  water, 
besides  causing  a  painful  contraction  of 
the  jaw  behind  the  ears.  The  scorn  of 
the  women  for  this  girl  became  fero- 
cious, as  if  they  had  a  desire  to  kill  her 
and  throw  her  out  cf  the  carriage  into 
the  snow,  her,  her  silver  cup,  her  basket, 
provisions  and  all. 

But  Loiseau  with  his  eyes  devoured 
the  dish  of  chicken.  He  said:  "For- 
tunately Madame  had  more  precaution 
than  we.  There  are  some  people  who 
know  how  to  think  ahead  always." 

She  turned  toward  him,  saying:  "If 
you  would  like  some  of  it,  sir?  It  is 
hard  to  go  without  breakfast  so  long." 

He  saluted  her  and  replied:  "Faith,  I 
franklv  cannot  refuse:  I  can  stand  it  no 


BALL-OF-FAT 


longer.  Everjrthing  goes  in  time  of  war, 
does  it  not,  Madame?"  And  then  cast- 
ing a  comprehensive  glance  around,  he 
added:  "In  moments  like  this,  one  can 
but  be  pleased  to  find  people  who  are 
obliging." 

He  had  a  newspaper  which  he 
spread  out  on  his  knees,  that  no  spot 
might  come  to  his  pantaloons,  rnd  upon 
the  point  of  a  knife  that  he  always 
carried  in  his  pocket,  he  took  up  a  leg 
all  glistening  with  jelly,  put  it  between 
his  teeth  and  masticated  it  with  a  satis- 
faction so  evident  that  there  ran  through 
the  carriage  a  great  sigh  of  distress. 

Then  Ball-of-Fat,  in  a  sweet  and 
humble  voice,  proposed  that  the  two 
sisters  partake  of  her  collation.  They 
both  accepted  instantly  and,  without 
raising  their  eyes,  began  to  eat  very 
quickly,  after  stammering  their  thanks. 
Cornudet  no  longer  refused  the  offers 
of  his  neighbor,  and  they  formed  with 
the  sisters  a  sort  of  table,  by  spreading 
out  some  newspapers  upon  their  knees. 

The  mouths  opened  and  shut  with- 
out ceasing,  they  masticated,  swallowed, 
gulping  ferociously.  Loiseau  in  his 
corner  was  working  hard  and,  in  a  low 
voice,  was  trying  to  induce  his  wife  to 
follow  his  example.  She  resisted  for  a 
long  time;  then,  when  a  drawn  sen- 
sation ran  through  her  body,  she 
yielded.  Her  husband,  rounding  his 
phrase,  asked  their  "charming  com- 
panion" if  he  might  be  allowed  to  offer 
a  little  piece  to  Madame  Loiseau. 

She  replied:  "Why,  yes,  certainly, 
sir,"  with  an  amiable  smile,  as  she 
passed  the  dish. 

An  embarrassing  thing  confronted 
them  when  they  opened  the  first  bottle 
of  Bordeaux:    they  had  but  one  cup. 


Each  passed  it  after  haviiig  tasted. 
Cornudet  alone,  for  politeness  without 
doubt,  placed  his  lips  at  the  spot  left 
humid  by  his  fair  neighbor. 

Then,  surrounded  by  people  eating, 
^ufff  :ated  by  the  odors  of  the  food,  the 
Count  and  Countess  de  Breville,  as  well 
cS  Madame  and  M.  Carre-Lamadon, 
\.ere  suffering  that  odious  torment 
which  has  preserved  the  name  of  Tan- 
talus. Suddenly  thi  young  wife  of  the 
manufacturer  gave  forth  such  a  sigh 
that  all  heads  were  turned  in  her  direc- 
tion; she  was  as  white  as  the  snow 
without;  her  eyes  closed,  her  head 
drooped;  she  had  lost  consciousness. 
Her  husband,  much  excited,  implored 
the  help  of  everybody.  Each  lost  his 
head  completely,  until  the  elder  of  the 
two  sisters,  holding  the  head  of  the 
sufferer,  slipped  Ball-of-Fat's  cup  be- 
tween her  lips  and  forced  her  to  swal- 
low a  few  drops  of  wine.  The  pretty 
little  lady  revived,  opened  her  eyes, 
smiled,  and  declared  in  a  dying  voice 
that  she  felt  very  well  now.  But,  in 
order  that  the  attack  might  not  return 
the  sister  urged  her  to  drink  a  full  glasj 
of  Bordeaux,  and  added:  *'It  is  jus» 
hunger,  nothing  more." 

Then  Ball-of-Fat,  blushing  and  em 
barrassed,  looked  at  the  four  travelers 
who  had  fasted  and  stammered:  "Good 
ness  knows!   if  I  dared  to  offer  any 
thing  to  these  gentlemen  and  ladies,  } 
would — "     Then  she  was  silent,  as  it 
fearing  an  insult.    Loiseau  took  up  the 
word:    "Ah!   certainly,    in    times    like 
these   all   the   world   are   brothers   and 
ought  to  aid  each  other.    Come,  ladies 
without   ceremony;   why  the   devil  not 
accept?     We  do  not  know  whether  we 
shall  even  find  a  house  where  we  cac 


10 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


pass  the  night.  At  the  pace  we  are 
going  now,  we  shall  not  reach  Totes 
before  noon  to-morrow — " 

They  still  hesitated,  no  one  daring  to 
assume  the  responsibility  of  a  "Yes." 
The  Count  decided  the  question.  He 
turned  toward  the  fat,  intimidated  girl 
and,  taking  on  a  grand  air  of  con- 
descension, he  said  to  her: 

"We  accept  with  gratitude,  Madame." 

It  is  the  first  step  that  counts.  The 
Rubicon  passed,  one  lends  himself  to 
the  occasion  squarely.  The  basket  was 
stripped.  It  still  contained  a  pate  de 
foie  graSy  a  pate  of  larks,  a  piece  of 
smoked  tongue,  some  preserved  pears, 
a  loaf  of  hard  bread,  some  wafers,  and 
a  full  cup  of  pickled  gherkins  and 
onions,  of  v/hich  crudities  Ball-of-Fat, 
like  all  women,  was  extremely  fond. 

They  could  not  eat  this  girl's  pro- 
visions without  speaking  to  her.  And 
so  tliey  chatted,  with  reserve  at  first; 
then,  as  she  carried  herself  well,  with 
more  abandon.  The  ladies  De  Breville 
and  Carre-Lamadon,  who  were  ac- 
quainted with  all  the  ins  and  outs  of 
good-breeding,  were  gracious  with  a 
certain  delicacyo  The  Countess,  espe- 
cially, showed  that  amiable  condescen- 
sion of  very  noble  ladies  who  do  not  fear 
being  spoiled  by  contact  with  anyone, 
and  was  charming.  But  the  great  Ma- 
dame Loiseau,  who  had  the  soul  of  a 
plebian,  remained  crabbed,  saying  little 
and  eating  much. 

The  conversation  was  about  the  war, 
naturally.  They  related  the  horrible 
deeds  of  the  Prussians,  the  brave  acts  of 
the  French;  and  all  of  them,  although 
running  away,  did  homage  to  those  who 
stayed  behind.  Then  personal  stories 
began   to  be  told,  and  Ball-of-Fat  re- 


lated, with  sincere  emotion,  and  in  the 
heated  words  that  such  girls  sometimes 
use  in  expressing  their  natural  feelings, 
how  she  had  left  Rouen: 

"I  believed  at  first  that  I  could  re- 
main," she  said.  "I  had  my  house  full 
of  provisions,  and  I  preferred  to  feed 
a  few  soldiers  rather  than  expatriate 
myself,  to  go  I  knew  not  where.  But  as 
soon  as  I  saw  them,  those  Prussians, 
that  was  too  much  for  me!  They  made 
my  blood  boil  with  anger,  and  I  wept 
for  very  shame  all  day  long.  Oh!  if  1 
were  only  a  man!  I  vvatched  them 
from  my  windows,  the  great  porkers 
with  their  pointed  helmets,  and  my  maid 
held  mv  hands  to  keep  me  from  throw- 
ing the  furniture  down  u[»on  them- 
Then  one  of  them  came  to  lodge  at  my 
house;  I  sprang  at  his  throat  the  first 
thing;  they  are  no  more  difficult  to 
strangle  than  other  people.  And  I 
should  have  put  an  end  to  that  one  then 
and  there  had  they  not  pulled  me  away 
by  the  hair.  After  that,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  keep  out  of  sight.  And  finally, 
when  I  found  an  opportunity,  I  left 
town  and — ^here  I  am!" 

They  congratulated  her.  She  grew 
in  the  estimation  of  her  companions, 
who  had  not  shown  themselves  so  hot- 
brained,  and  Cornudet,  while  listening 
to  her,  took  on  the  approving,  benevo- 
lent smile  of  an  apostle,  as  a  priest 
would  if  he  heard  a  devotee  praise  God, 
for  the  long-bearded  democrats  have  a 
monopoly  of  patriotism,  as  the  men  in 
cassocks  have  of  religion.  In  his  turn 
he  spoke,  in  a  doctrinal  tone,  with  the 
emphasis  of  a  proclamation  such  as  we 
see  pasted  on  the  walls  about  town, 
and    finished   by  a   bit   of   eloquence 


BALL-OF-FAT 


11 


-jvhereby   he    gave   that    "scamp    of    a 
Badinguet"  a  good  lashing. 

Then  Ball-of-Fat  was  angry,  for  she 
was  a  Bonapartist.  She  grew  redder 
than  a  cherry  and,  stammering  with 
indignation,  said: 

"I  would  like  to  have  seen  you  in 
his  place,  you  other  people.  Then 
everything  would  have  been  quite  right; 
oh,  yes!  It  is  you  who  have  betrayed 
this  man!  One  would  never  have  had 
to  leave  France  if  it  had  been  governed 
by  blackguards  I'ke  you!'* 

Cornudet,  undisturbed,  preserved  a 
disdainful,  superior  smile,  but  all  felt 
that  the  high  note  had  been  struck,  until 
the  Count,  not  without  some  difficulty, 
calmed  the  exasperated  girl  and  pro- 
claimed with  a  manner  of  authority  that 
all  sincere  opinions  should  be  respected. 
But  the  Countess  and  the  manufac- 
turer's wife,  who  had  in  their  souls  an 
unreasonable  hatred  for  the  people  that 
favor  a  Republic,  and  the  same  instinct- 
ive tenderness  that  all  women  have  for 
a  decorative,  despotic  government,  felt 
themselves  drawn,  in  spite  of  them- 
selves, toward  this  prostitute  so  full  of 
dignity,  whose  sentiments  so  strongly 
resembled  their  own. 

The  basket  was  empty.  By  ten 
o'clock  they  had  easily  exhausted  the 
contents  and  regretted  that  there  was 
not  more.  Conversation  continued  for 
some  time,  but  a  little  more  coldly  since 
they  had  finished  eating. 

The  night  fell,  the  darkness  little  by 
little  became  profound,  and  the  cold, 
felt  more  during  digestion,  made  Ball- 
of-Fat  shiver  in  spite  of  her  plumpness. 
Then  Madame  de  Breville  offered  her 
the  little  footstove,  in  which  the  fuel 
had   been    renewed    many    times    since 


morning;  she  accepted  it  immediately, 
for  her  feet  were  becoming  numb  with 
cold.  The  ladies  Carre-Lamadon  and 
Loiseau  gave  theirs  lo  the  two  religious 
sisters. 

The  driver  had  lighted  his  lanterns. 
They  shone  out  with  a  lively  glimmer 
showing  a  cloud  of  foam  beyond,  the 
sweat  of  the  horses;  and,  on  both  sides 
of  the  way,  the  snow  seemed  to  roll 
itself  along  under  the  moving  reflection 
of  the  lights. 

Inside  the  carriage  one  could  distin- 
guish nothing.  But  a  sudden  movement 
seemed  to  be  made  between  Ball-of-Fat 
and  Cornudet;  and  Loiseau,  whose  eye 
penetrated  the  shadow,  believed  that  he 
saw  the  big-bearded  man  start  back 
quickly  as  if  he  had  received  a  swift, 
noiseless  blow. 

Then  some  twinkling  points  of  fire 
appeared  in  the  distance  along  the  road. 
It  was  Totes.  They  had  traveled  eleven 
hours,  which,  with  the  two  hours  given 
to  resting  and  feeding  the  horses,  made 
thirteen.  They  entered  the  town  and 
stopped  before  the  Hotel  of  Commerce. 

The  carriage  door  opened!  A  well- 
known  sound  gave  the  travelers  a  start; 
it  was  the  scabbard  of  a  sword  hitting 
the  ground.  Immediately  a  German 
voice  was  heard  in  the  darkness. 

Although  the  diligence  was  not  mov- 
ing, no  one  offered  to  alight,  fearing 
some  one  might  be  waiting  to  murder 
them  as  they  stepped  out.  Then  the 
conductor  appeared,  holding  in  his  hand 
one  of  the  lanterns  which  lighted  the 
carriage  to  its  depth,  and  showed  ths 
two  rows  of  frightened  taces,  wnosv' 
mouths  were  open  and  whose  eyes  were 
v/ide  with  surprise  and  fear. 

Outside   beside   the   driver,   in   plair 


12 


WORKS  OF  GTJY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


sight,  stood  a  German  officer,  an  ex- 
cessively tail  young  man,  thin  and  blond, 
squeezed  into  his  uniform  like  a  girl 
in  a  corset,  and  wearing  on  his  head 
a  flat,  oilcloth  cap  which  made  him 
resemble  the  porter  of  an  English  hotel. 
His  enormous  mustache,  of  long  straight 
hairs,  growing  gradually  thin  at  each 
side  and  terminating  in  a  single  blond 
thread  so  fine  that  one  could  not  per- 
ceive where  it  ended,  seemed  to  weigh 
heavily  on  the  corners  of  his  mouth  and, 
drawing  down  the  cheeks,  left  a  decided 
wrinkle  about  the  lips. 

In  Alsatian  French,  he  invited  the 
travelers  to  come  in,  saying  in  a  suave 
tone:  "Will  you  descend,  gentlemen 
and  ladies?" 

The  two  good  sisters  were  the  first 
to  obey,  with  the  docility  of  saints 
accustomed  ever  to  submission.  The 
Count  and  Countess  then  appeared,  fol- 
lowed by  the  manufacturer  and  his  wife; 
then  Loiseau,  pushing  ahead  of  him 
his  larger  half.  The  last-named,  as  he 
set  foot  on  the  earth,  said  to  the  officer: 
"Good  evening,  sir,"  more  as  a  mea- 
sure of  prudence  than  politeness.  The 
officer,  insolent  as  all  powerful  people 
usually  are,  looked  at  him  without  a 
word. 

Ball-of-Fat  and  Comudet,  although 
nearest  the  door,  were  the  last  to  de- 
scend, grave  and  haughty  before  the 
enemy.  The  fat  giil  tried  to  control 
herself  and  be  calm.  The  democrat 
waved  a  tragic  hand  and  his  long  beard 
seemed  to  tremble  a  little  and  grow 
redder.  They  wished  to  preserve  their 
dignity,  comprehending  that  in  such 
meetings  as  these  they  represented  in 
some  degree  their  great  country,  and 
somewhat  disgusted  with  the  docility  of 


her  companions,  the  fat  girl  tried  tn 
show  more  pride  than  her  neighbcis, 
the  honest  women,  and,  as  she  felt  that 
some  one  should  set  an  example,  she 
continued  her  attitude  of  resistance  as- 
sumed at  the  beginning  of  the  journey. 

They  entered  the  vast  kitchen  of  the 
inn,  and  the  German,  having  demanded 
their  traveling  papers  signed  by  the 
General-in-chief  (in  which  the  name,  the 
description,  and  profession  of  each 
traveler  was  mentioned),  and  having  ex- 
amined them  all  critically,  comparing 
the  people  and  their  signatures,  said: 
"It  is  quite  right,"  and  went  out. 

Then  they  breathed.  They  were  still 
hungry  and  supper  was  ordered.  A  half 
hour  was  necessary  to  prepare  it,  and 
while  two  servants  were  attending  to 
this  they  went  to  their  rooms.  They 
found  them  along  a  corridor  which 
terminated  in  a  large  glazed  door. 

Finally,  they  sat  down  at  table,  when 
the  proprietor  of  the  inn  himself  ap- 
peared. He  was  a  former  horse  mer- 
chant, a  large,  asthmatic  man,  with  a 
constant  wheezing  and  rattling  in  his 
throat.  His  father  had  kft  him  the 
name  of  Follenvie.     He  asked: 

"Is  Miss  Elizabeth  Rousset  here?" 

Ball-of-Fat  started  as  she  answered: 
"It  is  I." 

"The  Prussian  officer  wishes  to  speak 
with  you  immediately." 

"With  me?" 

"Yes,  that  is,  if  you  are  Miss  Eliza- 
beth Rousset." 

She  was  disturbed,  and  reflecting  for 
an  instant,  declared  flatly: 

"That  is  my  name,  but  I  shall  not 
go." 

A  stir  was  felt  around  her;  each  dis- 
cussed and  tried  to  think  of  the  causfi 


BALL-OF-FAT 


«d 


if  this  order.  The  Count  approached 
Aer,  saying: 

*  You  aie  wrong,  Madame,  for  your 
fefusal  may  lead  to  considerable  difTi- 
culty,  not  only  for  yourself,  but  for  all 
your  companions.  It  is  never  worth 
while  to  resist  those  in  power.  This  re- 
quest cannot  assuredly  bring  any  dan- 
ger; it  is,  without  doubt,  about  some 
forgotten  formality." 

Everybody  agreed  with  Iiim,  asking, 
begging,  beseeching  her  to  go,  and  at 
last  they  convinced  her  that  it  was  best ; 
they  all  feared  the  complications  that 
might  result  from  disobedience.  She 
finally  said: 

'It  is  for  you  that  I  do  this,  you 
understand." 

The  Countess  took  her  by  the  hand, 
saying:  "And  we  are  grateful  to  you 
for  it." 

She  went  out.  They  waited  before 
sitting  down  at  table. 

Each  one  regretted  not  having  been 
sent  for  in  the  place  of  this  violent, 
irascible  girl,  and  mentally  prepared 
some  platitudes,  in  case  they  should  be 
called  in  their  turn. 

But  at  the  end  of  ten  minutes  she 
reappeared,  out  of  breath,  red  to  suffo- 
cation, and  exasperated.  She  stam- 
mered:  "Oh!  the  rascal;  the  rascal!" 

All  gathered  around  to  learn  some- 
thing, but  she  said  nothing;  and  when 
the  Count  insisted,  she  responded  with 
great  dignity:  "No,  it  does  not  concern 
you;  I  can  say  nothing." 

Then  they  all  seated  themselves 
around  a  high  soup  tureen,  whence  came 
the  odor  of  cabbage.  In  spite  of  alarm, 
the  suDDer  was  gay.  The  cider  was 
?ood,  the  beverage  Loiseau  and  the 
good  sisters  took  as  a  means  of  econ- 


omy. The  others  called  for  wine; 
Cornudet  demanded  beer.  He  had  a 
ipecial  fashion  of  uncorking  the  bottle, 
making  froth  on  the  liquid,  carefully 
filling  the  glass  and  then  holding  it  be- 
fore the  light  to  better  appreciate  the 
color.  When  he  drank,  his  great  beard, 
which  still  kept  some  of  the  foam  of 
his  beloved  beverage,  seemed  to  tremble 
with  tenderness;  his  eyes  were  squinted, 
in  order  not  to  lose  sight  of  his  tipple, 
and  he  had  the  unique  air  of  fulfilling 
the  function  for  which  he  was  born 
One  would  say  that  there  was  in  his 
mind  a  meeting,  like  that  of  aHinities, 
between  the  two  great  passions  that 
occupied  his  life — Pale  Ale  and  Revolu- 
tions; and  assuredly  he  could  not  taste 
the  one  without  thinking  of  the  other. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Follenvie  dined  at  the 
end  of  the  table.  The  man,  rattlmg 
like  a  cracked  locomotive,  had  too  much 
trouble  in  breathing  to  talk  while  eat- 
ing, but  his  wife  was  never  silent.  She 
told  all  her  impressions  at  the  arrival 
of  the  Prussians,  what  they  did,  what 
they  said,  reviling  then  because  they 
cost  her  some  money,  and  because  she 
had  two  sons  in  the  army.  She  ad* 
dressed  herself  especially  to  the  Count- 
ess, flattered  by  being  able  to  talk 
with  a  lady  of  quality. 

When  she  lowered  her  voice  to  say 
some  delicate  thing,  her  husband  would 
interrupt,  from  time  to  time,  with: 
"You  had  better  keep  silent,  Madame 
Follenvie."  But  she  paid  no  attention, 
continuing  in  this  fashion: 

"Yes,  Madame,  those  people  there  not 
-only  eat  our  potatoes  and  pork,  but  our 
pork  and  potatoes.  And  it  must  not  be 
believed  that  they  are  at  all  proper-^ 
oh,  do!  such  filthy  things  they  dOr  sav*. 


14 


WORKS  OF  GUY  D£  MAUPASSA^^ 


ing  the  respect  I  owe  to  you!  And 
if  you  could  see  them  exercise  for  hours 
in  the  day!  they  are  all  there  in  the 
field,  marching  ahead,  then  marching 
back,  turning  here  and  turning  there. 
They  might  be  cultivating  the  land,  or 
at  least  working  on  the  roads  of  their 
own  country!  But  no,  Madame,  these 
military  men  are  profitable  to  no  one. 
Poor  people  have  to  feed  them,  or  per- 
haps be  murdered!  I  am  only  an  old 
woman  without  education,  it  is  true,  but 
when  I  see  some  endangering  their  con- 
stitutions by  raging  from  morning  to 
night,  I  say:  "When  there  are  so  many 
geople  found  to  be  useless,  how  un- 
necessary it  is  for  others  to  take  so 
much  trouble  to  be  nuisances!  Truly, 
is  it  not  an  abomination  to  kill  people, 
whether  they  be  Prussian,  or  English, 
or  Polish,  or  French?  If  one  man 
revenges  himself  upon  another  who  has 
done  him  some  injury,  it  is  wicked  and 
he  is  punished;  but  when  they  exter- 
minate our  boys,  as  if  they  were  game, 
with  guns,  they  give  decorations,  in- 
deed, to  the  one  who  destroys  the  most! 
Now,  you  see,  I  can  never  understand 
that,  never!" 

Cornudet  raised  his  voice:  "War  is 
a  barbarity  when  one  attacks  a  peace- 
able neighbor,  but  a  sacred  duty  when 
one  defends  his  country." 

The  old  woman  lowered  her  head: 

"Yes,  when  one  defends  himself,  it 
is  another  thing;  but  why  not  make  it 
a  duty  to  kill  all  the  kings  who  make 
these  wars  for  their  pleasure?" 

Cornudet's  eyes  flashed.  "Bravo,  my 
country-woman!"  said  he. 

Mr.  Carre-Lamadon  reflected  pro- 
foundly. Although  he  was  prejudiced 
as  a  Captain  of  Industry,  the  good  sense 


of  this  peasant  woman  made  him  think 
of  the  opulence  that  would  be  brought 
into  the  country  were  the  idle  and  con- 
sequently mischievous  hands,  and  the 
troops  which  were  now  maintained  in 
unproductiveness,  employed  In.  some 
great  industrial  work  that  it  would  re- 
quire centuries  to  achieve. 

Loiseau,  leaving  his  place,  went  to 
speak  with  the  innkeeper  in  a  low  tone 
of  voice.  The  great  man  laughed, 
shook,  and  squeaked,  his  corpulence 
quivered  with  joy  at  the  jokes  of  his 
neighbor,  and  he  bought  of  him  six 
cases  of  wine  for  spring,  after  the  Prus- 
sians had  gone. 

As  soon  as  supper  was  finished,  as 
they  were  worn  out  with  fatigue,  they 
retired. 

However,  Loiseau,  who  had  observed 
things,  after  getting  his  wife  to  bed, 
glued  his  eye  and  then  his  ear  to  a  hole 
in  the  wall,  to  try  and  discover  what  are 
known  as  "the  mysteries  of  the  cor- 
ridor." 

At  the  end  of  about  an  hour,  he 
heard  a  groping,  and,  looking  quickly,  he 
perceived  Ball-of-Fat,  who  appeared  still 
more  plump  in  a  blue  cashmere  negli- 
gee trimmed  with  white  lace.  She  had 
a  candle  in  her  hand  and  was  directing 
her  steps  toward  the  great  door  at  the 
end  of  the  corridor.  But  a  door  at  the 
side  opened,  and  when  she  returned  at 
the  end  cf  some  minutes  Cornudet,  in 
his  suspenders,  followed  her.  They 
spoke  low,  then  they  stopped.  Ball-of' 
Fat  seemed  to  be  defending  the  en- 
trance to  her  room  with  energy. 
Loiseau,  unfortunately,  could  not  hear 
all  their  words,  but  finally,  as  they 
raised  their  voices,  he  was  able  to  catch 


BALL-OF-FAT 


IS 


a  few.    Cornudet  insrsted  with  vivacity. 
He  said: 

"Come,  now,  you  are  a  silly  woman; 
what  harm  can  be  done?" 

She  had  an  indignant  air  in  respond- 
ing: "No,  my  dear,  there  are  moments 
when  such  things  are  out  of  place. 
Here  it  would  be  a  shame." 

He  doubtless  did  not  comprehend  and 
asked  why.  Then  she  crid  out,  raising 
her  voice  still  more : 

"Why?  you  do  not  see  why?  When 
there  are  Prussians  in  the  house,  in  the 
very  next  room,  perhaps?" 

He  was  silent.  This  patriotic  shame 
01  the  harlot,  who  would  not  suffer  his 
caress  so  near  the  enemy,  must  have 
awakened  the  latent  dignity  in  his  heart, 
for  after  simply  kissing  her,  he  went 
back  to  his  own  door  with  a  bound. 

Loiseau,  much  excited,  left  the  aper- 
ture, cut  a  caper  in  his  room,  put  on 
his  pajamas,  turned  back  the  clothes 
that  covered  the  bony  carcass  of  his 
companion,  whom  he  awakened  with  a 
kiss,  murmuring:  "Do  you  love  me, 
dearie?" 

Then  all  the  house  was  still.  And 
Immediately  there  arose  somewhere, 
from  an  uncertain  quarter,  which  might 
be  the  cellar  but  was  quite  as  likely  to 
be  the  garret,  a  powerful  snoring, 
monotonous  and  regular,  a  heavy,  pro- 
longed sound,  like  a  great  kettle  under 
pressure.    Mr.  Follenvie  was  asleep. 

As  they  had  decided  that  they  would 
set  out  at  eight  o'clock  the  next  morn- 
ing, they  all  collected  in  the  kitchen. 
But  the  carriage,  the  roof  of  which 
was  covered  with  snow,  stood  undis- 
turbed in  the  courtyard,  without  horses 
and  without  a  conductor.  They  sought 
bkn  in  vain  in  the  stables,  in  the  hay, 


and  in  the  coach-house.  Then  they  re- 
solved to  scour  the  town,  and  started 
out.  They  found  themselves  in  a 
square,  with  a  church  at  one  end  and 
some  low  houses  on  either  side,  where 
they  perceived  some  Prussian  soldiers. 
The  first  one  they  saw  was  paring  po- 
tatoes.  The  second,  further  off,  was 
cleaning  the  hairdresser's  shop.  An- 
other, bearded  to  the  eyes,  was  tending 
a  troublesome  brat,  cradling  it  and  try- 
ing to  appease  it;  and  the  great  peasant 
women,  whose  husbands  were  "away  in 
the  army,"  indicated  by  signs  to  their 
obedient  conquerors  the  work  they 
wished  to  have  done:  cutting  wood, 
cooking  the  soup,  grinding  the  coffee, 
or  what  not.  One  of  them  even  washed 
the  linen  of  his  hostess,  an  impotent 
old  grandmother. 

The  Count,  astonished,  asked  ques- 
tions of  the  beadle  who  came  out  of 
the  rectory.     The  old  man  responded: 

"Oh!  those  men  are  not  wicked;  they 
are  not  the  Prussians  we  hear  about. 
They  are  from  far  off,  I  know  not 
where;  and  they  have  left  wives  and 
children  in  their  country;  it  is  not 
amuiing  to  them,  this  war,  I  can  tell 
you!  I  am  sure  they  also  weep  for 
their  homes,  and  that  it  makes  as  much 
sorrow  among  them  as  it  does  among 
us.  Here,  now,  there  is  not  so  much 
unhappiness  for  the  moment,  because 
the  soldiers  do  no  harm  and  they  work 
as  if  they  were  in  their  own  homes. 
You  see,  sir,  among  poor  people  it  iv<« 
necessary  that  thev  aid  one  another. 
These  are  the  great  traits  which  war 
develops." 

Cornudet,  indignant  at  the  cordial  re- 
lations between  the  conquerors  and  the 
conquered,  preferred  to  shut  himself  up 


16 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


in  the  inn.  Loiseau  had  a  joke  for  the 
occasion:  "They  will  repeople  the 
land." 

Mr.  Carre-Lamadon  had  a  serious 
word:    "They  try  to  make  amends." 

But  thijy  did  not  find  the  driver. 
Finally,  they  discovered  him  in  a  caj6 
of  the  village,  sitting  at  table  fraternally 
with  the  officer  of  ordinance.  The 
Count  called  out  to  him: 

"Were  ycu  not  ordered  to  be  ready 
at  eight  o'clock?" 

"Well,  yes;  but  another  order  has 
been  given  me  since." 

"By  whom?" 

"Faith!  the  Prussian  commander." 

"What  was  it?" 

"Not  to  harness  at  all." 

"Why?" 

**I  know  nothing  about  it.  Go  and 
ask  him.  They  tell  me  not  to  harness, 
ana  I  don't  harness.    That's  all." 

"Did  he  give  you  the  order  himself?'* 

"No,  sir,  the  innkeeper  gave  the  order 
for  him." 

**When  was  that?" 

"Last  evening,  as  I  was  going  to 
bed." 

The  three  men  returned,  much  dis- 
turbed. They  asked  for  Mr.  FoUenvie, 
but  the  servant  answered  that  that 
gentleman,  because  of  his  asthma, 
never  rose  before  ten  o'clock.  And  he 
had  given  strict  orders  not  to  be 
wakened  before  that,  except  in  case  of 
fire. 

They  wished  to  see  the  officer,  but 
that  was  absolutely  impossible,  since, 
while  he  lodged  at  the  inn,  Mr.  FoUenvie 
alone  was  authorized  to  speak  to  him 
Upon  civil  affairs.  So  they  waited.  The 
women  went  up  to  their  rooms  again 


and   occupied    themselves    with    futile 
tasks. 

Comudet  installed  himself  near  the 
great  chimney  in  the  kitcl  ^n,  where 
there  was  a  good  fire  bu  aing.  He 
ordered  one  of  the  little  .ajles  to  be 
brought  from  the  caf6,  then  a  can  of 
beer,  he  then  drew  out  his  pipe,  which 
plays  among  democrats  a  pr.rt  almost 
equal  to  his  own,  because  in  serving 
Comudet  it  Tas  serving  its  country.  It 
was  «4  superb  pipe,  an  admirably  colored 
meerschaum,  as  black  as  the  teeth  of  its 
master,  but  perfumed,  curved,  glisten- 
ing, easy  to  the  hand,  completing  his 
physiognomy.  And  he  remained  mo- 
tionless, his  eyes  as  much  fixed  upon 
the  flame  of  the  fire  as  upon  his  favorite 
tipple  and  its  frothy  crown;  and  each 
time  that  he  drank,  he  passed  his  long, 
thin  fingers  through  his  scanty,  gray 
hair,  with  an  air  of  satisfaction,  after 
which  he  sucked  in  his  mustache  fringed 
with  foam. 

Loiseau,  under  the  pretext  of  stretch- 
ing his  legs,  went  to  place  some  wine 
among  the  retailers  of  the  country.  Thd 
Count  and  the  manufacturer  began  to 
talk  politics.  They  could  foresee  the 
future  of  France.  One  of  them  believee 
in  an  Orleans,  the  other  in  some  un- 
known savior  for  the  country,  a  hero 
who  would  reveal  himself  when  all  were 
in  despair:  a  Guesclin,  or  a  Joan  of 
Arc,  perhaps,  or  would  it  be  anothef 
Napoleon  First?  Ah!  if  the  Prince 
Imperial  were  not  so  young! 

Comudet  listened  to  them  and  smilecj 
like  one  who  holds  the  word  of  destiny. 
His  pipe  perfumed  the  kitchen. 

As  ten  o'clock  struck,  Mr.  Follenvifl 
appeared.  They  asked  him  hurried 
questions;  but  he  could  only  repeat  two     , 


BALL-OF-FAT 


17 


or  three  times  without  variation,  these 
wcrds ; 

"The  officer  said  to  me:  'Mr.  Follen- 
vie,  you  see  to  it  that  the  carriage  is 
not  harnessed  for  those  travelers  to- 
morrow. I  do  not  wish  them  to  leave 
without  my  order.     That  is  sufficient." 

Then  they  wished  to  see  the  officer. 
The  Count  sent  him  his  card,  on  which 
Mr.  Carre-Lamadon  wrote  his  name  and 
all  his  titles.  The  Prussian  sent  back 
word  that  he  would  meet  the  two  gentle- 
men a/ter  he  had  breakfasted,  that  is 
to  say,  about  one  o'clock. 

The  ladies  reappeared  and  ate  a  little 
something,  despite  their  disquiet.  Ball- 
of-Fat  seemed  ill  and  prodigiously 
troubled. 

They  were  finishing  their  coffee  when 
the  word  came  that  the  officer  was 
ready  to  meet  the  gentlemen.  Loiseau 
joined  them;  but  when  they  tried  to 
enlist  Cornudet,  to  give  more  solemnity 
to  their  proceedings,  he  declared 
proudly  that  he  would  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  Germans;  and  he  be- 
took himself  to  his  chimney  corner  and 
ordered  another  liter  of  beer. 

The  three  men  mounted  the  staircase 
and  were  introduced  to  the  best  room 
of  the  inn,  where  the  officer  received 
them,  stretched  out  in  an  armchair,  his 
feet  on  the  mantelpiece,  smoking  3 
long,  porcelain  pipe,  and  enveloped  in 
a  flamboyant  dressing-gown,  appro- 
priated, without  doubt,  from  some 
dwelling  belonging  to  a  common  citizen 
of  bad  taste.  He  did  not  rise,  nor  greet 
them  in  any  way,  not  even  looking  at 
them.  It  was  a  magnificent  display  of 
natural  blackguardism  transformed  into 
the  military  \'ictor. 

At  the  expiration  of  some  moments. 


he   asked:      "What   is   it   you  wish?" 

The  Count  became  spokesman: 
"We  desire  to  go  on  our  way,  sir." 

"No." 

"May  I  ask  the  cause  of  this  re- 
fusal?" 

"Because  I  do  not  wish  it." 

"But,  I  would  respectfully  observe  to 
you,  sir,  that  your  General-in-chief 
gave  us  permission  to  go  to  Dieppe; 
and  I  know  of  nothing  we  have  done  to 
merit  your  severity." 

"I  do  not  wish  it — that  is  all;  you 
can  go." 

All  three  having  bowed,  retired. 

The  afternoon  was  lamentable.  They 
could  not  understand  this  caprice  of  the 
German;  and  the  most  singular  ideas 
would  come  into  their  heads  to  trouble 
them.  Everybody  stayed  in  the  kitchen 
and  discussed  the  situation  endlessly, 
imagining  all  sorts  of  unlikely  things. 
Perhaps  they  would  be  retained  as 
hostages — ^but  to  what  end? — or  taken 
prisoners — or  rather  a  considerable 
ransom  might  be  dem.anded.  At  this 
thought  a  panic  prevailed.  The  richest 
were  the  most  frightened,  already  see- 
ing themselves  constrained  to  pay  for 
their  lives  with  sacks  of  gold  poured 
into  the  hands  of  this  insolent  soldier. 
They  racked  their  brains  to  think  of 
some  acceptable  falsehoods  to  conceal 
their  riches  and  make  them  pass  them- 
selves off  for  poor  people,  very  poor 
people,  Loiseau  took  off  the  chain  to 
his  watch  and  hid  it  away  in  his  pocket. 
The  failing  night  increased  their  ap- 
prehensions. The  lamp  was  lighted, 
and  as  there  was  still  two  hours  before 
dinner,  Madame  Loiseau  proposed  a 
game  of  Thirty-one.  It  would  be  a 
diversion.     They   accepted.     Cornudet 


18 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


himself,  having  smoked  out  Ks  pipe, 
tooK  part  for  politeness. 

The  Count  shuffled  the  cards,  dealt, 
and  Ball-of-Fat  had  thirty-one  at  the 
outset;  and  immediately  the  interest 
was  great  enough  to  appease  the  fear 
that  haunted  tiieir  minds.  Then  Cornu- 
det  perceived  that  the  house  of  Loiseau 
was  given  to  tricks. 

As  they  were  going  to  the  dinner 
table,  Mr.  Folienvie  again  appeared, 
and,  in  wheezing,  rattling  voice,  an- 
nounced : 

"The  Prussian  officer  orders  me  to 
ask  Miss  Elizabeth  Rousset  if  she  has 
yet  changed  her  mmd." 

Ball-oi-Fat  remained  standing  and 
was  pale;  then  suddenly  becoming 
crimson,  such  a  stifling  anger  took  pos- 
session cf  her  that  she  could  not  speak. 
But  finally  she  flashed  out:  "You  may 
say  to  the  dirty  beast,  that  idiot,  that 
carrioii  of  a  Prussian,  that  I  shall  never 
change  it;  you  understand,  never, 
never,  never!" 

The  great  innkeeper  went  cu*:.  Then 
Ball-cf-Fat  was  immediately  sur- 
rounded, cuestioned,  and  solicited  by  all 
to  disclose  the  mystery  of  his  visit. 
She  resisted,  at  first,  but  soon  becom- 
ing exasperated,  she  said:  "What  does 
be  want?  Ycu  really  want  to  know 
whet  he  wants?  He  wants  to  sleep  with 
me." 

Everybody  was  choked  for  words, 
and  indignation  was  rife.  Cornudet 
broke  his  glass,  so  violently  did  he 
bring  his  fist  down  upon  the  table. 
There  was  a  clamor  of  censure  against 
this  ignoble  sold'er,  a  blast  of  anger, 
a  union  of  all  for  resistance,  as  if  a 
demand  had  been  made  on  each  one  of 
the  party  for  the  sacrifice  exacted  of 


her.  The  Count  declared  with  disgust 
that  those  people  conducted  themselves 
after  the  fashion  of  the  ancient  bar* 
barians.  The  women,  especially, 
showed  to  Ball-of-Fat  a  most  energetic 
and  tender  commiseration.  The  good 
sisters  who  only  showed  themselves  at 
mealtime,  lowered  their  heads  and  said 
nothing. 

They  all  dined,  nevertheless,  when 
the  first  furore  had  abated.  But  there 
v/as  little  conversation;  they  werci 
thinking. 

The  ladies  retired  early,  and  the  men, 
all  smoking,  organized  a  gam^  at  cards 
to  which  Mr.  Fcilenvie  was  invited, 
as  they  intended  to  put  a  few  casual 
questions  to  him  on  the  subject  of  con- 
quering the  resistance  of  this  officer. 
But  he  thought  of  nothing  but  the  cards 
and,  without  listening  or  answering, 
would  keep  repeating:  "To  th'^  game, 
sirs,  to  the  game."  His  attention  was 
ro  taken  that  he  even  forgot  to  ex- 
pectorate, which  must  have  put  hiro 
some  points  to  the  good  with  the  organ 
in  his  breast.  His  v/h!stling  lungs  ran 
Ihe  whole  asthmatic  scale,  from  deep, 
profound  tones  to  the  sharp  rustiness  o? 
a  young  cock  essaying  to  crow. 

He  even  refused  to  retire  when  his 
wife,  who  had  fallen  asleep  previously, 
came  to  look  for  him.  She  went  away 
alone,  for  che  was  an  "early  bird,** 
always  up  with  the  sun,  while  her  hus- 
band was  a  "night  owl,"  always  ready 
to  pass  the  night  with  his  friends.  He 
cried  out  to  her:  "Leave  my  creamed 
chicken  before  the  fire!"  and  then  went 
on  with  his  game.  When  they  saw 
that  they  could  get  nothing  from  him, 
they  declared  that  it  was  time  to  stop^ 
and  each  sought  his  bed. 


BALL-OF-FAT 


19 


They  all  rose  rather  early  the  next 
day,  With  an  undefined  hope  of  getting 
away,  which  desire  the  terror  of  pass- 
ing another  day  in  that  horrible  inn 
greatly  increased. 

Alas!  the  horses  remained  in  the 
stable  and  the  driver  was  invisible. 
For  want  cf  better  employment,  they 
went  out  and  walked  around  the  car- 
riage. 

The  breakfast  was  very  doleful;  and 
it  became  apparent  that  a  coldness  had 
arisen  toward  Ball-of-Fat,  and  that  th3 
night,  which  brings  counsel,  had  sl'ghtly 
modified  their  judgments.  They  almost 
wished  now  that  the  Prussian  had 
secretly  found  this  girl,  in  order  to 
give  her  companions  a  pleasant  surprise 
in  the  morning.  What  could  b3  more 
simple?  Besides,  who  would  know 
anything  about  it?  She  could  save  ap- 
pearances by  teJling  the  officer  that  she 
took  pity  on  their  distress.  To  her,  it 
wculd  malic  so  little  difference! 

No  one  had  avowed   these  thoughts 

yet. 

In  the  afternoon,  as  they  were  al- 
most perishing  from  ennui,  the  Count 
proposed  that  they  take  a  walk  around 
the  villar;?.  Each  wrapped  u:>  warmly 
and  the  I't'.le  party  set  cut,  w^'th  the 
exception  cf  Cornudet,  who  preferred 
to  remain  near  the  fire,  and  the  good 
sisters,  v;ho  pissed  their  time  in  the 
church  cr  at  the  curate's. 

The  cold,  growing  more  intense  every 
day,  cruelly  pinched  their  noses  and 
ears;  their  feet  became  so  numb  that 
each  step  was  torture;  and  when  they 
came  to  a  field  it  seemed  to  them 
frightfully  sad  under  this  limitless 
white,  so  that  everybody  returned  im- 


mediately, with  hearts  hard  pressed  and 
souls  congealed. 

The  four  women  walked  ahead,  the 
three  gentlemen  followed  just  behind. 
Loiseau,  who  understood  the  situation, 
asked  suddenly  if  they  thought  that 
girl  there  was  going  to  keep  them  long 
in  such  a  place  as  this.  The  Count, 
always  courteous,  said  that  they  could 
not  exact  from  a  woman  a  sacrifice  so 
hard,  unless  it  should  come  of  her  own 
will.  Mr.  Carrc-Lamadon  remarked 
that  if  the  French  made  their  return 
through  Dieppe,  as  they  v/erc  likely  to, 
a  battle  would  surely  take  piace  at 
Totes.  This  reflection  made  the  two 
others  anxious. 

"If  we  could  only  get  away  on  foot," 
said  Loiseau. 

The  Count  shrugged  his  shoulders: 
"How  ran  we  think  cf  it  in  this  snow? 
and  with  our  wives?'"  he  said.  "And 
then,  we  should  be  pursued  and  caught 
in  ten  minutes  and  led  back  prisoners 
at  the  mercy  of  these  soldiers." 

It  was  true,  and  they  were  silent. 

The  ladies  talked  of  their  clothes,  but 
a  certain  constraint  seemed  to  disunit': 
them.  Suddenly  at  the  end  cf  the 
street,  the  officer  appeared.  His  tall, 
wasp-like  figure  in  uniform  was  out- 
lined upon  the  horizon  formed  by  the 
snow,  and  he  was  marching  with  knees 
apart,  a  gait  particularly  military,  v/hich 
is  affected  that  they  may  not  spot  their 
carefully   blackened   boots. 

He  bowed  in  passing  near  the  ladies 
and  looked  disdai-^furiy  at  the  men. 
who  preserved  their  dignity  by  not  see- 
ing him,  except  Lo'seau,  who  made  a 
motion  toward  raising  his  hat. 

Ball-of-Fat  reddened  to  the  ears,  and 
the  three  married  women  resented  th<i 


20 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


great  humiliation  of  being  thus  met  by 
this  soldier  in  the  company  of  this  girl 
whom  he  had  treated  so  cavalierly. 

But  they  spoke  of  him,  of  his  figure 
and  his  face.  Madame  Carre-La madon 
who  had  known  many  officers  and  con- 
sidered herself  a  connoisseur  of  them, 
found  this  one  not  at  all  bad;  she  re- 
gretted even  that  he  was  not  French, 
because  he  would  make  such  a  pretty 
hussar,  one  all  the  women  would  rave 
over. 

Again  in  the  house,  no  one  knew 
what  to  do.  Some  sharp  words,  even, 
were  said  about  things  very  insignif- 
icant. The  dinner  was  silent,  and  al- 
most immediately  after  it,  each  one 
went  to  his  room  to  kill  time  in  sleep. 

They  descended  the  next  morning 
with  weary  faces  and  exasperated 
hearts.  The  women  scarcely  spoke  to 
Ball-of-Fat. 

A  bell  began  to  ring.  It  was  for  a 
baptism.  The  fat  girl  had  a  child 
being  brought  up  among  the  peasants  of 
Vvetot.  She  had  not  seen  it  for  a 
year,  or  thought  of  it;  but  now  the  idea 
of  a  child  being  baptized  threw  into 
her  heart  a  sudden  and  violent  tender- 
ness for  her  own,  and  she  strongly 
wished  to  be  present  at  the  ceremony. 

As  soon  as  she  was  gone,  everybody 
looked  at  each  other,  then  pulled  their 
chairs  together,  for  they  thought  that 
finally  something  should  be  decided 
upon.  Loiseau  had  an  inspiration:  it 
was  to  hold  Ball-of-Fat  alone  and  let 
the  others  go. 

Mr.  FdTlenvie  was  charged  with  the 
commission,  but  he  returned  almost  im- 
mediately, for  the  German,  who  under- 
stood human  nature,  had  put  him  out. 
He    pretended    that    he   would   retain 


everybody  so  long  as  his  desire  was  not 
satisfied. 

Then  the  commonplace  nature  of 
Mrs.  Loiseau  burst  out   with: 

"Well,  we  are  not  going  to  stay  here 
to  die  of  old  age.  Since  it  is  the  trade 
of  this  creature  to  accommodate  herself 
to  all  kinds,  I  fail  to  see  how  she  has 
the  right  to  refuse  one  more  than  an- 
other. I  can  tell  you  she  has  received 
all  she  could  find  in  Rouen,  even  the 
coachmen!  Yes,  Madame,  the  pre- 
fect's coachman!  I  know  him  very 
well,  for  he  bought  his  wine  at  our 
house.  And  to  think  that  to-day  we 
should  be  drawn  into  this  embarrass- 
ment by  this  affected  woman,  this 
miiix!  For  my  part,  I  find  that  this 
officer  conducts  himself  very  well.  He 
has  perhaps  suffered  privations  for  a 
long  time;  and  doubtless  he  would  have 
preferred  us  three;  but  no,  he  is  con- 
tented with  common  property.  He  re- 
spects married  women.  And  we  must 
remember  too  that  he  is  master.  He 
has  only  to  say  'I  wish,'  and  he  could 
take  us  by  force  with  his  soldiers." 

The  two  women  had  a  cold  shiver. 
Pretty  Mrs.  Carre-Lamadon's  eyes  grew 
brilliant  and  she  became  a  little  pale, 
as  if  she  saw  herself  already  taken  by 
force  by  the  officer. 

The  men  met  and  discussed  the  situa- 
tion. Loiseau,  furious,  was  for  de- 
livering "the  wretch"  bound  hand  and 
foot  to  the  enemy.  But  the  Count, 
descended  through  three  generations  of 
ambassadors,  and  endowed  with  the 
temperament  of  a  diplomatist,  was  the 
advocate  of  ingenuity. 

"It  is  best  to  decide  upon  some- 
thing," said  he.     Then  they  conspired 

The  women  kept  together,  the  tone 


BALL-OF-FAT 


ll 


#f  their  voices  was  lowered,  each  gave 
advice  and  the  discussion  was  general. 
Everything  was  very  hannonious.  The 
ladies  especially  found  delicate  shades 
and  charming  subtleties  of  expression 
for  saying  the  most  unusual  things.  A 
stranger  would  have  understood  nothing-, 
so  great  was  the  precaution  of  lan- 
guage observed.  But  the  light  edge  of 
modesty,  with  which  every  woman  of 
the  world  is  barbed,  only  covers  the 
mrface;  they  blossom  out  in  a  scandal- 
ous adventure  of  this  kind,  being  deeply 
eimused  and  feeling  themselves  in  their 
clement,  mixing  love  with  sensuality  as 
a  greedy  cook  prepares  supper  for  his 
master. 

Even  gaiety  returned;  so  funny  did 
the  whole  story  seem  to  them  at  last. 
The  Count  found  some  of  the  jokes  a 
little  off  color,  but  they  were  so  well 
told  that  he  was  forced  to  smile.  In 
his  turn,  Loiseau  came  out  with  some 
still  bolder  tales,  and  yet  nobody  was 
wounded.  The  brutal  thought,  ex- 
pressed by  his  wife,  dominated  all 
minds:  "Since  it  is  her  trade,  why 
should  she  refuse  this  one  more  than 
another?"  The  genteel  Mrs.  Carre- 
Lamadon  seemed  to  think  that  in  her 
place,  she  would  refu^.e  this  one  less 
than  some  others. 

They  prepared  the  blockade  at  length, 
as  if  they  were  about  to  surround  a 
fortress.  Each  took  some  role  to  play, 
some  arguments  he  would  bring  to  bear, 
some  maneuvers  that  he  would  en- 
deavor to  put  into  execution.  They 
decided  on  the  plan  of  attack,  the  ruse 
to  employ,  the  surprise  of  assault,  that 
should  force  this  living  citadel  to  re- 
ceive the  enemy  in  her  room. 

Comudet   remained  apart  from  the 


rest,  and  was  a  stranger  to  the  whole 

affair. 

So  entirely  were  their  minds  dis- 
tracted that  they  did  not  hear  Ball-of- 
Fat  enter.  The  Count  uttered  a  light 
"Ssh!"  which  turned  all  eyes  in  her 
direction.  There  she  was.  The  abrupt 
silence  and  a  certain  embarrassment 
hindered  them  from  speaking  to  her  at 
first.  The  Countess,  more  accustomed 
to  the  duplicity  of  society  than  the 
others,   finally   inquired : 

"Was  it  very  amusing,  that  baptism?" 

The  fat  girl,  filled  with  emotion,  told 
them  all  about  it,  the  faces,  the  atti- 
tudes, and  even  the  appearance  of  the 
church.  She  added :  "It  is  good  to  pray 
sometimes." 

And  up  to  the  time  for  luncheon 
these  ladies  continued  to  be  amiable 
toward  her,  in  order  to  increase  her 
docility  and  her  confidence  in  their 
counsel.  At  the  table  they  commenced 
the  approach.  This  was  in  the  shape 
01  a  vague  conversation  upon  devotion. 
They  cited  ancient  examples:  Judith 
and  Holophernes,  then,  without  reason, 
Lucrece  and  Sextus,  and  Cleopatra 
obliging  all  the  generals  of  the  enemy 
to  pass  by  her  couch  and  reducing  them 
in  servility  to  slaves.  Then  they 
brought  out  a  fantastic  story,  hatched 
in  the  imagination  of  these  ignorant 
millionaires,  where  the  women  of  Rome 
went  to  Capua  for  the  purpose  of  lulling 
Hannibal  to  sleep  in  their  arms,  and  his 
lieutenants  and  phalanxes  of  mercena- 
ries as  well.  They  cited  all  the  women 
who  have  been  taken  by  conquering 
armies,  making  a  battlefield  of  their 
bodies,  making  them  also  a  weapon,  and 
a  means  of  success;  and  all  those  hid- 
eous and  detestable  beings  who  have 


22 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


conquered  by  their  heroic  caresses,  and 
sacnhced  their  chastity  to  vengeance  or 
a  beloved  cause.  They  even  spoke  in 
veiled  terms  of  that  great  English  fam- 
ily which  allowed  one  of  its  women 
to  be  inoculated  with  a  horrible  and 
contagious  disease  in  order  to  transmit 
it  to  Bonaparte,  who  was  miraculously 
saved  by  a  sudden  illness  at  the  hour 
of  the  fatal  rendezvous. 

And  all  this  was  related  in  an  agree- 
able, temperate  fashion,  except  as  it 
was  enlivened  by  the  enthusiasm 
deemed  proper  to  excite  emulation. 

One  might  finally  have  believed  that 
the  sole  duty  of  woman  here  below  was 
a  sacrifice  of  her  person,  and  a  con- 
tinual abandonment  to  soldierly  ca- 
prices. 

The  two  good  sisters  seemed  not  to 
Lear,  lost  as  they  were  in  profound 
thoujjht.     Ball-of-Fat  said  nothing. 

During  the  whole  afternoon  they  let 
her  reflect.  But,  in  the  place  of  calling 
her  "Madame"  as  they  had  up  to  this 
time,  they  simply  called  her  "Made- 
moiselle" without  knowing  exactly  whv, 
as  if  they  had  a  desire  to  put  her  down 
a  degree  in  their  esteem,  which  she  had 
taken  by  storm,  and  make  her  feel  her 
shameful  situation. 

The  moment  supper  was  served.  Mr. 
Follenvie  appeared  with  his  old  phrase: 
"The  Prussian  officer  orders  me  to  ask 
if  Miss  Elizabeth  Rousset  has  yet 
changed  her  mind." 

Ball-of-Fat  resDonded  dryly:  "No, 
sir." 

But  at  d^'nner  the  coalition  weakened. 
Loiseau  m^^^e  three  mhappy  remarks. 
Each  one  beat  his  wits  for  new  examples 
but  found  nothinsr:  when  the  Countess, 
witbont  premedhation,  perhaps  feeling 


some  vague  need  of  rendering  homage 
to  religion,  asked  the  elder  of  the  good 
sisters  lo  teil  them  some  grjat  deeds 
in  the  lives  of  the  samus.  it  appeared 
that  many  of  their  acts  would  have  been 
considered  crimes  in  cur  eyes;  but  th'^ 
Church  gave  absolution  of  them  readily, 
since  they  were  done  for  the  glory  of 
God,  or  for  the  good  of  all.  It  was  a 
powerful  argument;  the  Countess  made 
the  most  of  it. 

Thus  it  may  be  by  one  of  those  tacit 
understandings,  or  the  veiled  compla- 
cency in  which  anyone  who  wears  the 
ecclesiastical  garb  excels,  it  may  be 
simply  from  the  effect  of  a  happy  un- 
intelligence,  a  helpful  stupidity,  but  in 
fact  the  religious  sister  lent  a  formid- 
able support  to  the  conspiracy.  They 
had  thought  her  timid,  but  she  showed 
herself  courageous,  verbose,  even 
violent.  She  was  not  troubled  by  the 
chatter  of  the  casuist;  her  doctrine 
seemed  a  bar  of  iron;  her  faith  never 
hesitated;  her  co-^science  had  no 
scruples.  She  found  the  sacrifice  of 
Abraham  perfectly  simple,  for  she 
would  immediately  kill  father  or  mother, 
on  an  order  from  on  high.  And  noth* 
ing,  in  her  opinion,  could  displease  the 
Lord,  if  the  intention  was  laudable.  The 
Countess  put  to  use  the  authority  of  her 
unwitting  accomplice,  and  added  to  it 
the  edifying  paraohrase  and  axiom  of 
Jesuit  morals:  "The  need  justifies  the 
means." 

Then  she  asked  her:  "Then,  my  sis- 
ter, do  you  think  that  God  accepts  in- 
tentions, and  pardons  the  deed  when 
the  motive  is  Dure?" 

"Who  could  doubt  it,  Madame?  An 
action  blamable  in  itself  often  becoma? 


BALL-OF-FAT 


23 


meritorious  by  the  thougnt  it  springs 
from." 

And  they  continued  thus,  unraveling 
the  will  of  God,  foreseeing  his  decisions, 
making  themselves  interested  in  things 
that,  in  truth,  they  would  never  think 
of  noticing.    All  this  was  guarded,  skill- 
ful,  discreet.      But   each   word   of   the 
saintly  sister  in  a  cap  helped  to  break 
down   the   resistance   of   the   unworthy 
courtesan.        Then     the     conversation 
changed    a    little,    the   woman    of    the 
chaplet  speaking  of  the  houses  of  her 
order,  of  h^r  Supericr,  of  herself,  of  her 
dainty  neighbor,  the  dear  sister  Saint- 
Nicephore.     They  had   been   called   to 
the  hospitals  of  Havre  to  care  for  the 
hundreds     of     soldiers     stricken     with 
siTiallpcx.    They  depicted  these  misera- 
ble   creatures,    giving    details    of    the 
malady.    And  while  they  were  stopped, 
en  route,  by  the  caprice  of  this  Prussian 
officer,  a  great  number  of  Frenchmen 
might    die,  whom    perhaps  they    could 
have  saved!     It  was  a  specialty  with 
her,  caring  for  soldiers.     She  had  been 
in  Crimea,  in  Italy,  in  Austria,  and,  in 
telling  of  her  campaigns,  she  revealed 
herself  as  one  of  those  religious  aids  to 
drums  and  trumpets,  who   seen   made 
to  follow  camps,  pick  up  the  wounded 
in  the  thick  of  battle,  and,  better  than 
an  officer,   subdue   with   a  word   great 
bands    of    undisciplined    recruits.      A 
true,  good  sister  of  the  rataplan,  whose 
ravaged  face,  marked  with  innumerable 
scars,  appeared  the  image  of  the  devas- 
tation of  war. 

No  one  could  speak  after  her,  so  ex- 
cellent seemed  the  effect  cf  her  words. 

As  soon  as  the  repast  was  ended  they 
quicklv  went  UD  to  their  rooms,  with 


the  purpose  of  not  coming  down  the 
next  day  until  late  in  the  mornii.g. 

The  luncheon  was  quiet.  Th^y  had 
given  the  grain  of  seed  time  to  ger- 
minate and  bear  fruit.  The  Countess 
proposed  that  they  take  a  walk  in  the 
afternoon.  The  Count,  being  agree- 
ably inclined,  gave  an  arm  to  Ball-of- 
Fat  and  walked  behind  the  others  with 
her.  He  talked  to  her  in  a  familiar, 
paternal  tone,  a  httle  disdainful,  after 
the  manner  cf  men  having  girls  in  their 
employ,  calling  her  "my  dear  child,*' 
from  the  height  of  his  social  position,  of 
his  undisputed  honor.  He  reached  the 
vital  part  of  the  question  at  once: 

"Then  you  prefer  to  leave  us  here, 
exposed  to  the  violences  which  follow 
a  defeat,  rather  than  consent  t-^  a  fa- 
vor which  you  have  so  often  given  id 
your  life?" 

Ball-of-Fat  answered  nothing. 

Then  he  tried  to  reach  her  through 
gentleness,  reason,  and  then  the  senti- 
ments. He  knew  how  ti  remain  "The 
Count,"  even  while  showing  himself 
gallant  or  complimentary,  or  very  ami- 
able if  it  became  necessary.  He  ex- 
nlted  the  service  that  she  would  ren- 
der them,  and  s::)oke  of  her  apprecia- 
tion; then  suddenly  became  gaily 
familiar,  and  said: 

"And  you  know,  my  dear,  it  would 
be  something  for  him  to  boast  of  that 
he  had  known  a  pretty  girl:  something 
it  is  difficult  to  find  in  his  countr^^" 

Ball-of-Fat  did  not  answer  b'lt  joined 
the  rest  of  the  partv.  As  roon  as  they 
entered  the  house  sh^  wc^t  to  her  room 
and  did  not  appear  again.  The  disquiet 
was  extreme.  What  were  thev  to  do?" 
If  she  continued  to  resist,  what  an  em- 
barrassment! 


24 


WORKjS  of  guy  DE  MAUPASSANT 


The  dinner  hour  struck.  They 
waited  in  vain.  Mr.  Follenvie  finally 
entered  and  said  that  Miss  Rousset  was 
indisposed,  and  would  not  be  at  the 
table.  Everybody  pricked  up  his  ears. 
The  Count  went  to  the  innkeeper  and 
said  in  a  low  voice: 

"Is  he  in  there?" 

"Yes." 

For  convenience,  he  said  nothing  to 
his  companions,  but  made  a  slight  sign 
with  his  head.  Immediately  a  great  sigh 
of  relief  went  up  from  every  breast  and 
a  light  appeared  in  their  faces.  Loiseau 
cried  out: 

"Holy  Christopher  1  I  pay  for  the 
champagne,  if  there  is  any  to  be  found 
in  the  establishment."  And  Mrs. 
Loiseau  was  pained  to  see  the  pro- 
prietor return  with  four  quart  bottles  in 
his  hands. 

Each  one  had  suddenly  become  com- 
municative and  buoyant.  A  wanton  joy 
filled  their  hearts.  The  Count  suddenly 
perceived  that  Mrs.  Carre-Lamadon 
was  charming,  the  manufacturer  paid 
compliments  to  the  Countess.  The  con- 
versation was  lively,  gay,  full  of 
touches. 

Suddenly  Loiseau,  with  anxious  face 
and  hand  upraised,  called  out: 
"Silence!"  Everybody  was  silent,  sur- 
prised, already  frightened.  Then  he 
listened  intently  and  said:  "S-s-sh!"  his 
two  eyes  and  his  hands  raised  toward 
the  ceiling,  listening,  and  then  continu- 
ing, in  his  natural  voice  :  "All  right! 
All  goes  well!" 

They  failed  to  comprehend  at  first, 
but  soon  all  laughed.  At  the  end  of  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  he  began  the  same 
farce  again,  renewing  it  occasionally 
during   ^he  whole   afternoon.     And   he 


pretended  to  call  to  some  one  in  the 
story  above,  giving  him  advice  in  a 
double  meaning,  drawn  from  the  foun- 
tain-head— the  mind  of  a  commercial 
traveler.  For  some  moments  he  would 
assume  a  sad  air,  breathing  in  a  whis- 
per: "Poor  girl!"  Then  he  would  mur- 
mur between  his  teeth,  with  an  appear- 
ance of  rage:  "Ugh!  That  scamp  of  a 
Prussian."  Sometimes,  at  a  moment 
when  no  more  was  thought  about  it, 
he  would  say,  in  an  affected  voice,  many 
times  over:  "Enough!  enough!"  and 
add,  as  if  speaking  to  himself.  "If  we 
could  only  see  her  again,  it  isn't  neces- 
sary that  he  should  kill  her,  the 
wretch!" 

Although  these  jokes  were  in  deplor- 
able taste,  they  amused  all  and 
wounded  no  one,  for  indignation,  like 
other  things,  depends  upon  its  surround- 
ings, and  the  atmosphere  which  had 
been  gradually  created  around  them 
was  charged  with  sensual  thoughts. 

At  the  dessert  the  women  themselves 
made  some  delicate  and  discreet  allu- 
sions. Their  eyes  glistened;  they  had 
drunk  much.  The  Count,  who  pre^ 
served,  even  in  his  flights,  his  grand  ap- 
pearance of  gravity,  made  a  compari- 
son, much  relished,  upon  the  subject  of 
those  wintering  at  the  pole,  and  the  joy 
of  ship-wrecked  sailors  who  saw  an 
opening  toward  the  south. 

Loiseau  suddenly  arose,  a  glass  of 
champagne  in  his  hand,  and  said:  "I 
drink  to  our  deliverance."  Everybody 
was  on  his  feet;  they  shouted  in  agree- 
ment. Even  the  two  good  sisters  con- 
sented to  touch  their  lips  to  the  froth 
of  the  wine  which  they  had  never  be- 
fore   tasted.     They    declared   that    it 


BALL-OF-FAT 


25 


tasted    like    charged    lemonade,     only 
much  nicer. 

Loiseau  resumed*  "It  is  unfortunate 
that  we  have  no  piano,  for  we  might 
make  up  a  quadrille." 

Cornudet  had  not  said  a  word,  nor 
made  a  gesture;  he  appeared  plunged 
in  very  grave  thoughts,  and  made 
sometimes  a  furious  motion,  so  that  his 
great  beard  seemed  to  wish  to  free  it- 
self. Finally,  toward  midnight,  as  they 
were  separating,  Loiseau,  who  was  stag- 
gering, touched  him  suddenly  on  the 
stomach  and  said  to  him  in  a  stammer: 
"You  are  not  very  funny,  this  evening; 
you  have  said  nothing,  citizen!'*  Then 
Cornudet  raised  his  head  brusquely  and, 
casting  a  brilliant,  terrible  glance 
around  the  company,  said:  "I  tell  you 
all  that  you  have  been  guilty  of  in- 
famy!" He  rose,  went  to  the  door,  and 
again  repeated:  "Infamy,  I  say!"  and 
disappeared. 

This  made  a  coldness  at  first. 
Loiseau,  interlocutor,  was  stupefied; 
but  he  recovered  immediately  and 
laughed  heartily  as  he  said:  "He  is 
very  green,  my  friends.  He  is  very 
green."  And  then,  as  they  did  not  com- 
prehend, he  told  them  about  the  "mys- 
teries of  the  corridor."  Then  there  was 
a  return  of  gaiety.  The  women  be- 
haved like  lunatics.  The  Count  and 
Mr.  Carre-Lamadon  wept  from  the 
force  of  their  laughter.  They  could 
not   believe   it. 

"How  is  that?     Are  you  sure?" 

"I  tell  you  I  saw  it." 

"And  she  refused — " 

''Yes,  because  the  Prussian  officer 
was  in  the  next  room." 

"Impossible!" 

"I  swear  it!" 


The  Count  was  stifled  with  laughter. 
The  industrial  gentleman  held  his  sides 
with  both  hands.  Loiseau  continued: 

"And  now  you  understand  why  he 
saw  nothing  funny  this  evening!  No, 
nothing  at  all!"  And  the  three  started 
out  half  ill,  suffocated. 

They  separated.  But  Mrs.  Loiseau, 
who  was  of  a  spiteful  nature,  remarked 
to  her  husband  as  they  were  getting 
into  bed,  that  "that  grisette"  of  a  little 
Carre-Lamadon  was  yellow  with  envy 
all  the  evening.  "You  know,"  she  con- 
tinued, "hcyw  some  women  will  take  to 
a  uniform,  whether  it  be  French  or 
Prussian!  It  is  all  the  same  to  them! 
Oh!  what  a  pity!" 

And  all  night,  in  the  darkness  of  the 
corridor,  there  were  to  be  heard  light 
noises,  like  whisperings  and  walking  in 
bare  feet,  and  imperceptible  creakings. 
They  did  not  go  to  sleep  until  late, 
that  is  sure,  for  there  were  threads  of 
light  shining  under  the  doors  for  a  long 
time.  The  champagne  had  its  effect; 
they  say  it  troubles  sleep. 

The  next  day  a  clear  winter's  sun 
made  the  snow  very  brilliant.  The  dili- 
gence, already  harnessed,  v/aited  before 
the  door,  v/hile  an  army  of  white  pig- 
eons, in  their  thick  plumage,  with  rose- 
colored  eyes,  with  a  black  spot  in  the 
center,  walked  up  and  down  gravely 
among  the  legs  of  the  six  horses,  seeking 
their  livelihood  in  the  manure  there 
scattered. 

The  driver,  enveloped  in  his  sheep- 
skin, had  a  lighted  pipe  under  the  seat, 
and  all  the  travelers,  radiant,  were 
rapidly  packing  some  provisions  for  the 
rest  of  the  journey.  They  were  only 
waiting  for  Ball-of-Fat.  Finally  she 
appeared. 


26 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


She  seemed  a  little  troubled, 
ashamed.  And  she  advanced  timidly 
toward  her  companions,  who  all,  with 
one  motion,  tu.ned  as  if  they  had  not 
seen  her.  The  Count,  with  dignity, 
took  the  arm  of  his  wife  and  removed 
her  from  this  impure  contact. 

The  fat  girl  stopped,  half  stupefied; 
then,  plucking  up  courage,  she 
approached  the  manufacturer's  wife 
with  "Good  morning,  Madame,'*  hum- 
bly murmured.  The  lady  made  a  slight 
bow  of  the  head  which  sh2  accompanied 
with  a  look  of  outraged  virtue. 
Everybody  seemed  busy,  and  kept 
themselves  as  far  from  her  as  if  she  had 
bad  some  infectious  disease  in  her 
skirts.  Then  they  hurried  into  Lhe  car- 
riage, where  she  came  last,  alone,  and 
where  she  took  the  place  she  had  occu- 
pied during  the  first  part  of  the  journey. 

They  seemed  n^t  to  see  her  or  know 
her;  although  Madame  Loiseau,  looking 
at  her  from  afar,  said  to  her  husband 
in  a  half-tone:  "Happily,  I  don't  have 
to  sit  beside  her." 

The  heavy  carriage  began  to  move 
and  the  remainder  of  the  journey  com- 
menced. No  one  spoke  ai  first.  Ball- 
of-Fat  dared  not  raise  her  eyes.  She 
felt  indignant  toward  all  her  neighbors, 
and  at  the  same  time  humiliated  at 
having  yielded  to  the  foul  kisses  of  this 
Prussian,  into  whose  arms  they  had 
hypocritically  thrown  her. 

Then  the  Countess,  turning  toward 
Mrs.  Carre-Lamadon,  broke  the  difficult 
silence: 

"I  believe  you  know  Madame 
^i'Etrelles?" 

''Ye*;,  she  is  one  of  my  friends." 

*'Wh"t  a  charming  woman!" 

"Delightful!      A  very  gentle  nature, 


and  well  educated,  besides;  then  she  fs 
an  artist  to  the  tips  of  her  fingers, 
sings  beautifully,  and  draws  to  perfec- 
tion." 

The  manufacturer  chatted  with  the 
Count,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  rattling 
cf  the  glass,  ail  occasional  word  escaped 
such  as  "coupon — premium — ^limit — ex- 
piration." 

Loiseau,  who  had  pilfered  the  old 
pack  of  cards  from  the  inn,  greasy 
through  five  years  of  contact  with 
tables  badly  cleaned,  began  a  game  of 
bezique  with  his  wife. 

The  good  sisters  took  from  their  belt 
the  long  rosary  which  hung  there,  made 
together  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  sud- 
denly began  to  move  their  lips  in  a 
lively  murmur,  as  if  they  were  going 
through  the  whole  of  the  "Oremus." 
And  from  time  to  time  they  kissed  a 
medal,  made  the  sign  anew,  ihen  re- 
commenced their  muttering,  which  was 
rapid  and  continued. 

Cornudet  sat  motionless,  thinking. 

At  the  end  of  three  hours  on  the  way, 
Loiseau  put  up  the  cards  and  said:  "I 
am  hungry." 

His  wife  drew  out  a  package  frora 
v/henco  she  brought  a  piece  cf  cold 
veal.  She  cut  it  evenly  in  thin  pieces 
and  they  both  began  to  eat. 

"Suppose  we  do  the  same,"  said  the 
Countess. 

They  consented  to  it  and  she  undid 
the  provisions  prepared  for  the  two 
couples.  It  was  in  one  of  those  dishes 
whose  lid  is  decorated  with  a  china 
hare,  to  signify  that  a  pate  of  hare  is 
inside,  a  succulent  dish  of  pork,  where 
v/hi'e  rivers  of  lard  cross  the  brown 
flesh  of  the  game,  mixed  with  some 
other  viands  hashed  fine.    A  beautiful 


BALL-OF-FAT 


2) 


f.quare  of  Gruyere  cheese,  wrapped  in 
a  piece  of  newspaper,  preserved  the  im- 
print "divers  things"  upon  the  unctuous 
plate. 

The  two  good  sisters  unrolled  a  big 
sausage  which  smelled  of  garlic;  and 
Cornudct  plunged  his  two  hands  into 
the  vast  pockets  of  his  overcoat,  at  the 
same  time,  and  drew  out  four  hard 
eggs  and  a  piece  of  bread.  He  removed 
the  shells  and  threw  them  in  the  straw 
under  h's  feet;  then  he  began  to  eat 
the  eggs,  letting  fall  on  his  vast  beard 
some  biLs  of  clear  yellow,  which  looked 
like  stars  caught  there. 

Ball-cf-Fat,  in  the  haste  and  distrac- 
tion of  her  rising,  had  not  thought  of 
anything;  and  she  looked  at  them  exas- 
perated, suffocating  with  rage,  at  all  of 
ihem  eating  so  placidly.  A  tumultuous 
anger  swept  over  her  at  first,  and  she 
opened  her  mouth  to  cry  out  at  them, 
to  hurl  at  them  a  flood  of  injury  which 
mounted  to  her  lips;  but  she  could  not 
speak,  her   exasperaticn   strangled  her. 

No  one  looked  at  her  or  thought  of 
her.  She  felt  herself  drowned  in  the 
scorn  of  these  honest  scoundrels,  who 
had  first  sacrificed  her  and  then  rejected 
her,  like  some  improper  or  useless  arti- 
cle. She  thouj^ht  of  her  great  basket 
full  of  good  things  which  they  had 
greedily  devoured,  of  her  two  chickens 
shining  with  jelly,  of  her  pdt^Sy  her 
pears,  and  the  four  bottles  of  Bordeaux; 
and  her  fury  suddenly  falling,  as  a  cord 
drawn  too  tightly  breaks,  she  felt 
ready  to  weep.  She  made  terrible 
efforts  to  prevent  it,  making  ugly  faces, 
swallowing  her  sobs  as  children  do,  but 
the  tears  came  and  glistened  in  the 
corners  of  her  eyes,  and  then  two  great 
^'rops,   detaching  themselves   from   the 


rest,  rolled  slowly  down  like  little 
streams  of  water  that  filter  through 
rock,  and,  falling  regularly,  rebounded 
upon  her  breast.  She  sits  erect,  her 
eyes  fixed,  her  face  rigid  and  pale, 
hoping  that  no  one  will  notice  her. 

But  the  Countess  perceives  her  and 
tells  her  husband  by  a  sign.  He  shrugs 
his  shoulders,  as  much  as  to  say: 

"What  would  you  have  me  do,  it  is 
not  mv  fault." 

Mrs.  Loiseau  indulged  in  a  mute 
laugh  of  triumph  and  murmured: 

"She  weeps  for  shame." 

The  two  good  sisters  began  to  pray 
again,  after  having  wrapped  in  a  paper 
the  remainder  of  their  sausage. 

Then  Comudet,  who  was  digesting 
his  eggs,  extended  his  legs  to  the  seat 
opposite,  crossed  them,  folded  his  arms, 
smiled  like  a  man  who  ii  watching  a 
good  farce,  and  began  to  whistle  the 
"Marseillaise." 

All  face?  grew  dark.  The  popular 
song  assuredly  did  not  please  his  neigh- 
bors. They  became  nervous  and  agi- 
tated, having  an  appearance  of  wishing 
to  howl,  like  dogs,  when  they  hear  a 
barbarous  organ.  He  perceived  this  but 
did  not  stop.  Sometimes  he  would  hum 
the  v/ords: 

"Sacred  love  of  country 
Help,  sustain  th'  avenging  arm; 
Liberty,    sweet    Liberty 
Ever  fight,  v.'ith  no  alarm." 

They  traveled  fast,  the  snow  hdn^ 
harder.  But  as  far  as  Dieppe,  durmg 
the  long,  sad  hours  of  the  journey, 
across  the  jolts  in  the  road,  through  the 
falling  night,  in  the  profound  darkness 
^f  the  carriage,  he  continued  his  venge- 
ful, monotonous  whistling  with  a  fero* 


28 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


cious  obstinacy,  constraining  his  neigh- 
bors to  follow  the  song  from  one  end 
to  the  other,  and  to  recall  the  words 
that  belonged  to  each  measure. 


And  Ball-of-Fat  wept  continually; 
and  sometimes  a  sob,  which  she  was  not 
able  to  restrain,  echoed  between  fhc 
two  rows  of  people  in  the  shadows. 


The  Diamond  Necklace 


She  was  one  of  those  pretty,  charm- 
ing young  ladies,  born,  as  if  through  an 
error  of  destiny,  into  a  family  of  clerks. 
She  had  no  dowry,  no  hopes,  no  means 
of  becoming  known,  appreciated,  loved, 
and  married  by  a  man  either  rich  or 
distinguished;  and  she  allowed  herself 
to  marry  a  petty  clerk  in  the  office  of 
the  Board  of  Education. 

She  was  simple,  not  being  able  to 
adorn  herself;  but  she  was  unhappy,  as 
one  out  of  her  class;  for  women  belong 
to  no  caste,  no  race;  their  grace,  their 
beauty,  and  their  charm  serving  them 
in  the  place  of  birth  and  family.  Their 
inborn  finesse,  their  instinctive  elegance, 
their  suppleness  of  wit  are  their  only 
aristocracy,  making  some  daughters  of 
the  people  the  equal  of  great  ladies. 

She  suffered  incessantly,  feeling  her- 
self born  for  all  delicacies  and  luxuries. 
She  suffered  from  the  poverty  of  her 
apartment,  the  shabby  walls,  the  worn 
chairs,  and  the  faded  stuffs.  All  these 
things,  which  another  woman  of  her 
station  would  not  have  noticed,  tortured 
and  angered  her.  The  sight  of  the  little 
Breton,  who  made  this  humble  home, 
awoke  in  her  sad  regrets  and  desperate 
dreams.  She  thought  of  quiet  ante- 
chambers, with  their  Oriental  hangings, 
lighted  by  high,  bronze  torches,  and  of 
the  two  grPAt  footmen  in  short  trousers 


who  sleep  in  the  large  armchairs,  made 
sleepy  by  the  heavy  air  from  the  heat- 
ing apparatus.  She  thought  of  large 
drawing-rooms,  hung  in  old  silks,  of 
graceful  pieces  of  furniture  carrying 
bric-a-brac  of  inestimable  value,  and  of 
the  little  perfumed  coquettish  apart- 
ments, made  for  five  o'clock  chats  with 
most  intimate  friends,  men  known  and 
sought  after,  whose  attention  all  womec 
envied  and  desired. 

When  she  seated  herself  for  dinner, 
before  the  round  table  where  the  table- 
cloth had  been  used  three  days,  opposite 
her  husband  who  uncovered  the  tureen 
with  a  delighted  air,  raying:  "Oh!  the 
good  potpie!  I  know  nothing  better 
than  that — "  she  would  think  of  the 
elegant  dinners,  of  the  shining  silver,  of 
the  tapestries  peopling  the  walls  with 
ancient  personages  and  rare  birds  in  the 
midst  of  fairy  forests;  she  thought  of 
the  exquisite  food  served  on  marvelous 
dishes,  of  the  whispered  gallantries,  lis- 
tened to  with  the  smile  of  the  sphinx, 
while  eating  the  rose-colored  flesh  of  the 
trout  or  a  chicken's  wing. 

She  had  neither  frocks  nor  jewels, 
nothing.  And  she  loved  only  those 
things.  She  felt  that  she  was  made  for 
them.  She  had  such  a  desire  to  please, 
to  be  sought  after,  to  be  clever,  and 
courted 


THE  DIAMOND  NECKLACE 


29 


She  had  a  rich  friend,  a  schoolmate 

at  the  convent,  whom  she  did  not  like 

to  visit,  she  suffered  so  much  when  she 

returned.    And  she  wept  for  whole  days 

from  chagrin,  from  regret,  from  despair, 

and  disappointment. 
****** 

One  evening  her  husband  returned 
elated  bearing  in  his  hand  a  large  en- 
velope. 

"Here,"  he  said,  "here  is  something 
for  you." 

She  quickly  tore  open  the  wrapper 
and  drew  out  a  printed  card  on  which 
were  inscribed  these  words: 

*'The  Minister  of  Public  Instruction 
and  Madame  George  Ramponneau  ask 
the  honor  ot  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Loisel's  com- 
pany Monday  evening,  January  18,  at  the 
Minister's  residence." 

Instead  of  being  delighted,  as  her  hus- 
band had  hoped,  she  threw  the  invita- 
tion spitefully  upon  the  table  murmur- 
ing: 

"What  do  you  suppose  I  want  with 
that?" 

"But,  my  dearie,  I  thought  it  would 
make  you  happy.  You  never  go  out, 
and  this  is  an  occasion,  and  a  fine  one! 
I  had  a  great  deal  of  trouble  to  get  it. 
Everybody  wishes  one,  and  it  is  very 
select;  not  many  are  given  to  employees. 
You  will  see  the  whole  official  world 
there." 

She  looked  at  him  with  an  irritated 
eye  and  declared  impatiently: 

"What  do  you  suppose  I  have  to 
wear  to  such  a  thing  as  that?" 

He  had  not  thought  of  that;  he  stam- 
mered : 

"Why,  the  dress  you  wear  when  we 
go  to  the  theater.  It  seems  very  pretty 
to  me—" 


He  was  silent,  stupefied,  in  dismay, 
at  the  sight  of  his  wife  weeping.  Two 
great  tears  fell  slowly  from  the  corners 
of  his  eyes  toward  the  corners  of  his 
mouth;  he  stammered: 

"What  is  the  matter?  What  is  the 
matter?" 

By  a  violent  effort,  she  had  con- 
trolled her  vexation  and  responded  in 
a  calm  voice,  wiping  her  moist  cheeks: 

"Nothing.  Only  I  have  no  dress  and 
consequently  I  cannot  go  to  this  affair. 
Give  your  card  to  some  colleague  whose 
wife  is  better  fitted  out  than  I." 

He  was  grieved,  but  answered: 

"Let  us  see,  Matilda.  How  much 
would  a  suitable  costume  cost,  some- 
thing that  would  serve  for  other  oc- 
casions, something  very  simple?" 

She  reflected  for  some  seconds,  mak- 
ing estimates  and  thinking  of  a  sum 
that  she  could  ask  for  without  bringing 
with  it  an  immediate  refusal  and  a 
frightened  exclamation  from  the  eco- 
nomical clerk. 

Finally  she  said,  in  a  hesitating  voice : 

"I  cannot  tell  exactly,  but  it  seems 
to  me  that  four  hundred  francs  ought 
to  cover  it." 

He  turned  a  little  pale,  for  he  had 
saved  just  this  sum  to  buy  a  gun  that 
he  might  be  able  to  join  some  hunting 
parties  the  next  summer,  on  the  plains 
at  Nanterre,  wfth  some  friends  who 
went  to  shoot  larks  up  there  on  Sun- 
day.    Nevertheless,  he  answered: 

"Very  well.  I  will  give  you  four  hun- 
dred francs.  But  try  to  have  a  pretty 
dress." 

3|C  ^  3|*  3fC  3j*  Jp 

The  day  of  the  ball  approached  and 
Mme.  Loisel  seemed  sad,  disturbed, 
anxious.      Nevertheless,    her  dress  wa- 


30 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


nearly  ready.  Her  husband  said  to  her 
one  evening: 

*'WhaL  is  the  matter  with  you?  You 
have  acted  strangely  for  two  or  three 
clays." 

And  she  responded:  "I  am  vexed  not 
to  have  a  jewel,  not  one  stone,  nothing 
to  adorn  myself  with.  I  shall  have 
such  a  poverty-laden  look.  I  would  pre- 
fer not  to  go  to  this  party." 

He  replied:  "You  can  wear  some 
natural  flowers.  At  this  season  they 
look  very  ch'x.  For  ten  francs  you  can 
have  two  or  three  magnificent  roses." 

She  was  net  convinced.  "No,"  she 
replied,  *  there  is  nothing  more  humili- 
ating than  to  h::ve  a  shabby  air  in  the 
midst  of  rich  women." 

Then  her  husband  cried  out:  "How 
stupid  we  arc!  Co  and  find  your  friend 
Mrs.  Fcrt-stier  and  ask  her  to  lend  you 
her  jewels.  Ycu  are  well  enough  ac- 
quainted with  her  to  do  this." 

She  uttered  a  cry  of  joy;  "It  is  true'" 
she  said.    "I  hi  1  not  thought  of  that." 

The  next  dcy  she  took  herself  to 
ber  friend's  house  and  related  her  story 
of  distress.  LIrs.  Forestier  went  to  her 
closet  Y/*lh  the  glass  doors,  took  out  a 
large  jewel-case,  brought  it,  opened  it, 
and  said:    "Choose,  my  dear." 

She  saw  at  first  some  bracelets,  then 
a  collar  of  pearls,  then  a  Venetian  cross 
of  gold  and  jewels  and  of  adniirablc 
workmanship.  She  tried  the  jewels  be- 
fore the  glass,  hesitated,  but  could 
neither  decide  to  take  them  nor  leave 
them.    Then  she  asked: 

"Have  ycu  nothmg  more?" 

"Why,  yes.  Look  for  yourself.  I 
do  not  know  what  will  please  you." 

Suddenly  she  discovered,  \^  a  black 
atin  box,  a  superb  necklace  of  diamonds. 


and  her  heart  beat  fast  with  an  im- 
moderate desire.  Her  hands  trembled 
as  she  took  them  up.  She  placed  them 
about  her  throat  against  her  dress,  and 
remained  in  ecstasy  before  them.  Then 
she  asked,  in  a  hesitating  voice,  full  of 
anxiety : 

"Could  you  lend  me  this?  Only 
this?" 

"Why,  yes,   certainly." 

She  fell  upon  the  neck  of  her  friend, 

embraced  her  with  passion,  then  went 

away  with  her  treasure. 
****** 

The  day  of  the  ball  arrived.  Mme. 
Loisel  was  a  great  success.  She  was  the 
prettiest  of  all,  elegant,  gracious,  smil- 
ing, and  full  of  joy.  All  the  men 
noticed  her,  asked  her  name,  and 
wanted  to  be  presented.  All  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Cabinet  wished  to  waltz  with 
her.  The  Minister  of  Education  paid 
her  some  attention. 

She  danced  with  enthusiasm,  with 
passion,  intoxicated  with  pleasure,  think* 
ing  of  nothinjj,  in  the  triumph  of  her 
beauty,  in  the  glory  cf  her  success,  in 
a  kind  of  cloud  cf  happiness  that  came 
of  all  this  homage,  and  all  this  admira- 
tion, of  all  these  awakened  desires,  and 
this  victory  so  complete  and  sweet  to 
th:;  heart  of  woman. 

She  went  home  toward  four  o'clock 
in  the  morning.  Her  husband  had  been 
half  asleep  in  one  of  the  little  salons 
since  midnight,  with  three  other  gentle- 
men whose  wives  were  enjoying  them- 
selves very  much. 

He  threw  around  her  shoulders  the 
wraps  they  £ad  carried  for  the  cominjj 
home,  modest  garments  of  everyday 
wear,  whose  poverty  clashed  with  the 
elegance  of  the  ball  costume.     She  felt 


TRZ  DIAMOND  NZCKLACE 


31 


this  and  wished  to  hurry  away  in  order 
not  to  be  noticed  by  the  other  women 
who  were  wrapping  themselves  in  rich 
furs. 

Loisel  retained  her:  "Wait,  said  he. 
"You  will  catch  cold  out  there.  I  am 
going  to  call  a  cab." 

But  she  would  not  listen  and  de- 
scended the  steps  rapidly.  When  they 
were  in  the  street,  they  found  no  car- 
riage; and  they  began  to  seek  for  one, 
hailing  the  coachmen  whom  they  saw  at 
a  distance. 

They  walked  along  toward  the  Seine, 
hopeless  and  shivering.  Finally  they 
found  on  the  dock  one  of  those  old, 
nocturnal  coupes  that  one  sees  in  Paris 
after  nightfall,  as  if  they  were  ashamed 
of  their  misery  by  day. 

It  took  them  as  far  as  their  door  in 
Martyr  street,  and  they  went  wearily 
up  to  their  apartment.  It  was  all  over 
for  her.  And  en  his  part,  he  remem- 
bered that  he  would  have  to  be  at  the 
office  by  ten  o'clock. 

She  removed  the  wraps  from  her 
shoulders  before  the  glass,  for  a  final 
view  of  herself  in  her  glory.  Suddenly 
she  uttered  a  cry.  Her  necklace  was 
not  around  her  neck. 

Her  husband,  already  half  undressed, 
asked:    "What  is  the  matter?" 

She  turned  toward  him  excitedly: 

'1  have — I  have — I  no  longer  have 
Mrs.   Forestier's  necklace." 

He  arose  in  dismay:  "What!  How  is 
that?     It  is  not  possible." 

And  they  looked  in  the  folds  of  the 
dress,  in  the  folds  rf  the  mantle,  in  the 
pockets,  everywhere.  They  could  not 
find  it. 

He  asked:  "You  are  sure  yon  still 
had  if  when  we  left  the  house?" 


"Yes,  I  felt  it  in  the  vestibule  as  we 
came  out." 

"But  if  you  had  lost  it  in  the  street, 
we  should  have  heard  it  fail.  It  must 
be  in  the  cab." 

"Yes.  It  is  probable.  Did  you  take 
the  number?" 

"No.  And  you,  did  you  notice  what 
it  was?" 

"No." 

They  looked  at  each  other  utterly  cast 
down.  Finally,  Loisel  dressed  himself 
again. 

"I  am  going,"  said  he,  "over  the 
track  where  we  went  on  foot,  to  see  if 
I  can  find  it." 

And  he  went.  She  remain'^d  in  her 
evening  gown,  not  having  the  force  to 
go  to  bed,  stretched  upon  a  chair,  with- 
out  ambition  or  thoughts. 

Toward  seven  o'clock  h:;r  husband  re 
turned.     He  had  found  no'Jiing. 

He  went  to  the  police  and  to  the  cab 
offices,  and  put  an  advertisement  in  the 
newspapers,  offering  a  reward;  he  did 
ev^ery thing  that  afforded  them  a  sus- 
picion of  hope. 

She  waited  all  day  in  a  state  of  be- 
wilderment before  this  frightful  dis- 
aster. Loisel  returned  at  evening  with 
his  face  harrowed  and  pale;  and  had 
discovered  nothing. 

"It  will  be  necessary,"  said  he,  "to 
write  to  your  friends  that  you  have 
broken  the  clasp  cf  the  necklace  and 
that  you  will  have  it  repaired.  That 
will  give  us  time  to  turn  around." 

She  wrote  as  he  dictated. 
4c  ^  *  i  *  ^ 

At  the  end  cf  a  week,  they  had  lost 
all  hope.  And  Loisel,  older  by  five 
years,   declared: 


32 


WORKS  OF  GUY  D£  MAUP ASSAM! 


"We  must  take  measures  to  replace 
this  jewel." 

The  next  day  they  took  the  box  which 
had  inclosed  it,  to  the  jeweler  whose 
name  was  on  the  inside.  He  consulted 
his  books: 

"It  is  not  I,  Madame,"  said  he,  "who 
sold  this  necklace;  I  only  furnished 
the  casket." 

Then  they  went  from  jeweler  to 
jeweler  seeking  a  necklace  like  the  other 
one,  consulting  their  memories,  and  ill, 
both  of  them,  with  chagrin  and  anxiety. 

In  a  shop  of  the  Palais-Royal,  they 
found  a  chaplet  of  diamonds  which 
seemed  to  them  exactly  like  the  one 
they  had  lost.  It  was  valued  at  forty 
thousand  francs.  They  could  get  it  for 
thirty-six  thousand. 

They  begged  the  jeweler  not  to  sell 
it  for  three  days.  And  they  made  an 
arrangement  by  which  they  might  re- 
turn it  for  thirty-four  thousand  francs 
if  they  found  the  other  one  before  the 
end  of  February. 

Loisel  possessed  eighteen  thousand 
francs  which  his  father  had  left  him. 
He  borrowta  the  rest. 

He  borrowed  it,  asking  for  a  thou- 
sand francs  of  one,  five  hundred  of  an- 
other, five  louis  of  this  one,  and  three 
louis  of  that  one.  He  gave  notes,  made 
ruinous  promises,  took  money  of  usur- 
ers and  the  whole  race  of  lenders.  He 
compromised  his  whole  existence,  in 
fact,  risked  his  signature,  without  even 
knowing  whether  he  could  make  it  good 
or  not,  and,  harassed  by  anxiety  for  the 
future,  by  the  black  misery  which 
surrounded  him,  and  by  the  prospect 
of  cM  physical  privations  and  moral 
torture,  he  went  to  get  the  new  neck- 
lace,    depositing     on     the     merchant's 


counter      thirty-six     thousand      francs 
When    Mrs.    Loisel     took   back   the 

jewels  to  Mrs.  Forestier,  the  latter  said 

to  her  in  a  frigid  tone: 

"You  should  have  returned  them  to 

me  sooner,   for  I   might  have  needed 

them." 
She  did  open  the  jewel-box  as  her 

friend  feared  she  would.    If  she  should 

perceive  the   substitution,   what  would 

she    think?      What    should    she    say? 

Would  she  take  her  for  a  robber? 

Mrs.  Loisel  now  knew  the  horrible  life 
of  necessity.  She  did  her  part,  how- 
ever, completely,  heroically.  It  was 
necessary  to  pay  this  frightful  debt. 
She  would  pay  it.  They  sent  away  the 
maid,  they  changed  their  lodgings;  they 
rented  some  rooms  under  a  mansard 
roof. 

She  learned  the  heavy  cares  of  a 
household,  the  odious  work  of  a  kitchen. 
She  washed  the  dishes,  using  her  rosy 
nails  upon  the  greasy  pots  and  the  bot- 
toms of  the  stewpans.  She  washed  the 
soiled  linen,  the  chemises  and  dish- 
cloths, w&ich  she  hung  on  the  line  to 
dry;  she  took  down  the  refuse  to  the 
street  each  morning  and  brought  up  the 
water,  stopping  at  each  landing  to 
breathe.  And,  clothed  like  a  woman  of 
the  people,  she  went  to  the  grocer's,  the 
butcher's,  and  the  fruiterer's,  with  her 
basket  on  her  arm,  shopping,  haggling 
to  the  last  sou  her  miserable  money. 

Every  month  it  was  necessary  to  re- 
new some  notes,  thus  obtaining  time» 
and  to  pay  others. 

The  husband  worked  evenings,  putting 
the  books  of  some  merchants  in  order, 
and  nights  he  often  did  copying  at  fiv* 
sous  a  page. 


THE   DIAMOND   NECKLACE 


33 


And  this  life  lasted  for  ten  years. 

At  the  end  of  ten  years,  they  had 
restored  all,  all,  with  interest  of  the 
usurer,  and  accumulated  interest  be- 
sides. 

Mrs.  Loisel  seemed  old  now.  She  had 
become  a  strong,  hard  woman,  the  crude 
woman  of  the  poor  household.  Her 
hair  badly  dressed,  her  skirts  awry,  her 
hands  red,  she  spoke  in  a  loud  tone, 
and  washed  the  floors  in  large  pails  of 
water.  But  sometimes,  when  her  hus- 
band was  at  the  office,  she  would  seat 
herself  before  the  window  and  think  of 
that  evening  party  of  former  times,  of 
that  ball  whe:e  she  was  so  beautiful  and 
so  flattered. 

How  would  it  have  been  if  she  had 
not  lost  that  necklace?  Who  knows? 
Who  knows?  How  singular  is  life,  and 
how  full  of  changes!  How  small  a 
thing  will  ruin  or  save  one! 

t"  V  T*  ^  1*  T* 

One  Sunday,  as  she  was  taking  a  walk 
in  the  Champs-Elysees  to  rid  herself 
of  the  cares  of  the  week,  she  suddenly 
perceived  a  woman  walking  with  a  child. 
It  was  Mrs.  Forestier,  still  young,  still 
pretty,  still  attractive.  Mrs.  Loisel  was 
affected.  Should  she  speak  to  her?  Yes, 
certainly.  And  now  that  she  had  paid, 
she  would  tell  her  all.    Why  not? 

She  approached  her.  "Good  morning, 
Jeanne." 

Her  friend  did  not  recognize  her  and 
was  astonished  to  be  so  familiarly  ad- 
dressed by  this  common  personage.  She 
stammered; 


"But,  Madame — ^I  do  not  know — ^You 
must  be  mistaken — " 

''No,  I  am  Matilda  Loisel." 

Her  friend  uttered  a  cry  of  astonish- 
ment: "Oh!  my  poor  Matilda!  How 
you  have  changed — " 

"Yes,  I  have  had  some  hard  days 
since  I  saw  you;  and  some  miserable 
ones — and  all  because  of  you — " 

"Because  of  me?    How  is  that?" 
"You  recall  the  diamond  necklace  that 
you  loaned  me   to   wear  to  the   Com- 
missioner's ball?" 

"Yes,  very  well." 

"Well,  I  lost  it." 

"How  is  that,  since  you  returned  it 
to  me?" 

"I  returned  another  to  you  exactly 
like  it.  And  it  has  taken  us  ten  years 
to  pay  for  it.  You  can  understand 
that  it  was  not  easy  for  us  who  aave 
nothing.  But  it  is  finished  and  I  am 
decently  content." 

Madame  Forestier  stopped  short. 
She  said: 

"You  say  that  you  bought  a  diamond 
necklace  to  replace  mine?" 

"Yes.  You  did  not  perceive  it  then? 
They  were  just  alike." 

And  she  smiled  with  a  proud  and 
simple  joy.  Madame  Forestier  was 
touched  and  took  both  her  hands  as  she 
replied : 

"Oh!  my  poor  Matilda!  Mine  wei*|<| 
false.  They  were  not  worth  over  fivej- 
hundred  francs!" 


A  Piece  of  String 


Along  all  the  roads  around  Goder- 
viLe  the  peasants  and  their  wives  were 
commg  toward  the  burgh  because  it  was 
market  day.  The  men  were  p:cceed- 
ing  with  slow  steps,  the  whole  body  bent 
forward  at  each  movement  of  their  long 
twisted  legs,  deformed  by  their  hard 
work,  by  the  weight  on  the  plow  which, 
at  the  same  time,  raised  the  left  shoul- 
der and  swerved  the  figure,  by  the  reap- 
ii"ig  of  the  wheat  which  made  the  knees 
spread  to  make  a  firm  "purchase,"  by 
all  the  slow  and  painful  labors  of  the 
country.  Their  blouses,  blue,  "stiff- 
starched,"  shining  as  if  varnished,  orna- 
mented with  a  little  design  in  white  at 
the  neck  and  wrists,  puffed  about  their 
bony  bodies,  seemed  like  balloons  ready 
to  carry  them  off.  From  each  of  them 
a  head,  two  arms,  and  two  feet  pro- 
truded. 

Some  led  a  cow  or  a  calf  by  a  cord, 
and  their  wives,  walking  behind  the 
animal,  whipped  its  haunches  with  a 
leafy  branch  to  hasten  its  progress. 
They  carried  large  baskets  on  their  arms 
from,  which,  in  some  cases,  chickens 
and,  in  others,  ducks  thrust  out  their 
heads.  And  they  walked  with  a  quicker, 
livelier  step  than  their  husbands.  Their 
spare  straight  figures  were  wrapped  in 
a  scanty  I'ttle  shawl,  pinned  over  their 
flat  bosscms,  and  their  heads  were  en- 
veloped in  a  white  cloth  glued  to  the 
hair  and  surmounted  by  a  cap. 

Then  a  wagon  passed  ac  the  jerky 
trot  of  a  nag,  shaking  strangely,  two 
men  seated  side  by  side  and  a  woman 
in  the  bottom  of  the  vehicle,  the  latter 
holding  on  to  the  sides  to  lessen  the 
hard  jolts. 


In  the  public  square  of  GodervilU 
there  was  a  crowd,  a  throng  cf  human 
beings  and  animals  mixed  together. 
The  horns  of  the  cattle,  the  tall  hats 
with  long  nap  cf  tiic  ri:h  peasant,  and 
the  headgear  cf  the  peasar.t  women  rose 
above  the  surface  of  the  assembly. 
And  the  clamorous,  shrill,  screaming 
voices  made  a  continuous  and  savage 
tiin  v/hich  sometimes  was  dominated  by 
the  robust  lungs  of  some  countryman's 
hu:;jh,  or  the  long  lowing  of  a  cow  tied 
to  the  wall  of  a  house. 

All  that  smacked  of  the  stable,  thf 
dairy  and  the  dirt  heap,  hay  and  sweat, 
giving  for'ch  that  unpleasant  odor,  hu- 
man and  animal,  pecuhar  to  the  people 
cf  the  field. 

Maitre  Hauchecomc,  of  Breaute,  had 
just  arrived  at  Goderville,  and  he  was 
directing  his  steps  toward  the  public 
square,  when  he  perceived  upon  the 
ground  a  little  piece  of  string.  Maitre 
Hauchecom.e,  eeoncmiccl  like  a  true 
Norman,  thought  tlrt  ever 'thing  use- 
ful ought  to  be  picked  up,  and  he  bent 
painfully,  for  he  suffered  from  rheuma- 
tism. He  took  the  bit  of  thin  cord  from 
the  ground  and  began  to  roll  it  carefully 
when  he  noticed  Ma'tre  Malandain,  the 
harness-maker,  on  the  threshold  of  his 
doer,  locking  rt  h'm.  Th^y  had  here- 
tofore had  business  together  on  the 
subject  cf  a  halter,  and  they  were  on 
bad  terms,  being  both  good  haters. 
Maitre  Hauchecome  was  seized  with  a 
sort  of  shrme  to  be  seen  thus  by  his 
enemy,  picking  a  bit  cf  string  out  of 
the  dirt.  He  concealed  his  "find" 
ruickly  under  his  blouse,  then  in  his 
trousers*  pocket;   then  he  pretended  to 


A  PIECE  OF  STRING 


35 


be  still  looking  on  the  ground  for  some- 
thing which  he  did  not  find,  and  he 
went  toward  the  market,  his  head  for- 
ward, bent  double  Ly  his  pains. 

He  was  soon  lest  in  the  noisy  and 
slowly  moving  crowd,  which  was  busy 
with  inlermlnable  bargainings.  The 
peasants  milked,  went  and  came,  per- 
plexed, always  in  fear  of  being  cheated, 
not  daring  to  decide,  watching  the  ven- 
der's eye,  ever  trying  to  find  the  trick 
in  the  man  and  the  flaw  in  the  beast. 

The  women,  having  placed  th^Ir  great 
baskets  at  their  feet,  had  taken  out 
the  poultry  which  lay  upon  the  ground, 
tied  together  by  the  feet,  with  terrified 
eyes  and  scarlet  crests. 

They  heard  offers,  stated  their  prices 
with  a  dry  air  and  impassive  face,  or 
perhaps,  suddenly  deciding  en  some  pro- 
posed reduction,  shouted  to  the  cus- 
tomer who  was  slowly  going  away: 
"All  right,  IMaitre  Authirne,  I'll  give 
it  to  you  for  that." 

Then  little  by  little  the  square  was 
deserted,  and  the  Angelus  ringing  at 
noon,  those  who  had  stayed  too  long, 
scattered  to  their  shops. 

At  Jourdain's  the  great  room  was  full 
of  people  eating,  as  the  big  court  was 
full  of  vehicles  of  all  kinds,  carts,  gigs, 
wagons,  dump  carts,  yellow  with  dirt, 
mended  and  patched,  raising  their  shafts 
to  the  sky  like  two  arms,  or  perhaps 
with  their  shafts  in  the  ground  and  their 
backs  in  the  air. 

Just  opposite  the  diners  seated  at  the 
table,  the  immense  fireplace,  filled  with 
bright  flames,  cast  a  lively  heat  on  the 
backs  of  the  row  on  the  right.  Three 
spits  were  turning  on  which  were  chick- 
ens, pigeons,  and  legs  of  mutton;  and 
an  appetizing  odor  of  roast  beef  and 


gravy  dripping  over  the  nicely  browned 
skin  rose  from  the  hearth,  increased 
the  jovialness,  and  made  everybody's 
mouth  water. 

Ail  the  aristocracy  of  the  plow  ate 
there,  at  Maitre  Jourdain's,  tavern 
keeper  and  horse  dealer,  a  rascal  who 
had  money. 

The  dishes  were  passed  and  emptied, 
as  were  the  jugs  of  yellow  cider. 
Everyone  told  his  affairs,  his  purchases, 
and  sales.  They  discussed  the  crops. 
The  weather  was  favorable  for  the 
green  things  but  not  for  the  wheat. 

Suddenly  the  drum  beat  in  the  court, 
before  the  house.  Everybody  rose  ex- 
cept a  few  indifferent  persons,  and  ran 
to  the  door,  or  to  the  windows,  their 
mouths  still  full  and  napkins  in  their 
hands. 

After  the  public  crier  had  ceased  his 
drum-beating,  he  called  out  in  a  jerky 
voice,  speaking  his  phrases  irregularly: 

'Tt  is  hereby  made  known  to  the  in- 
habitants of  Goderville,  and  in  general 
to  all  persons  present  at  the  market, 
that  there  was  lost  this  morning,  on 
the  road  to  Benzeville,  between  nine  and 
ten  o'clock,  a  black  leather  pocketbook 
containing  five  hundred  francs  and  some 
business  papers.  The  finder  is  requested 
to  return  same  with  all  haste  to  the 
mayor's  office  or  to  Maitre  Fortune 
Houlbreque  of  Manneville,  there  will 
be  twenty  francs  reward." 

Then  the  man  went  away.  The  heavy 
roll  of  the  drum  and  the  crier's  voice 
were  again  heard  at  a  distance. 

Then  they  began  to  talk  of  this  event 
discussing  the  chances  that  Maitre 
Houlbreque  had  of  finding  or  not  find- 
ing his  pocketpook. 

And  the  meal  concluded.    They  wero 


36 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


finishing  their  coffee  when  a  chief  of  the 
gendarmes  appeared  upon  the  threshold. 

He  inquired: 

"Is  Maitre  Hauchecome,  of  Breaute, 
here?" 

Maitre  Hauchecome,  seated  at  the 
Other  end  of  the  table,  rephed: 

*'Here  I  am." 

And  the  officer  resumed: 

**Maitre  Hauchecome,  will  you  have 
the  goodness  to  accompany  me  to  the 
mayor's  ofhce?  The  mayor  would  like 
to  talk  to  you." 

The  peasant,  surprised  and  disturbed, 
swallowed  at  a  draught  his  tiny  glass  of 
brandy,  rose,  and,  even  more  bent  than 
in  the  morning,  for  the  first  steps  after 
each  rest  were  specially  difficult,  set  out, 
repeating:    ''Here  I  am,  here  I  am." 

The  mayor  was  awaiting  him,  seated 
on  an  armchair.  He  was  the  notary  of 
the  vicinity,  a  stout,  serious  man,  with 
pompous  phrases. 

"Maitre  Hauchecome,"  said  he, 
"you  were  seen  this  morning  to  pick 
up,  on  the  road  to  Benzeville,  the 
pocketbook  lost  by  Maitre  Houlbreque, 
of  Manneville." 

The  countryman,  astounded,  looked 
at  the  mayor,  already  terrified,  by  this 
suspicion  resting  on  him  without  his 
knowing  why. 

"Me?  Me?  Me  pick  up  the  pocket- 
book?" 

"Yes,  you,  yourself." 

"Word  of  honor,  I  never  heard  of  it." 

"But  you  were  seen." 

"I  was  seen,  me?  Who  says  he  saw 
me?" 

"Monsieur  Malandain,  the  harness- 
maker." 

The  old  man  remembered,  understood, 
•ind  flushed  with  anff**h 


"Ah,  he  saw  me,  the  clodhopper,  he 
saw  me  pick  up  this  string,  here, 
M'sieu,  the  Mayor."  And  rummaging  in 
his  pocket  he  drew  out  the  little  piece 
of  string. 

But  the  mayor,  incredulous,  shook  his 
head. 

"You  will  not  make  me  believe, 
Maitre  Hauchecome.  that  Monsieur 
Malandain,  who  is  a  man  worthy  of 
credence,  mistook  this  cord  for  a  pocket- 
book." 

The  peasant,  furious,  lifted  his  hand, 
spat  at  one  side  to  attest  his  honor, 
repeating: 

"It  is  nevertheless  the  truth  of  the 
good  God,  the  sacred  truth,  M'sieu'  the 
Mayor.  I  repeat  it  on  my  soul  and  my 
salvation." 

The  mayor  resumed: 

"After  picking  up  the  object,  you 
stood  like  a  stilt,  looking  a  long  while 
in  the  mud  to  see  if  any  piece  of  monev 
had  fallen  out." 

The  good,  old  man  choked  with  in- 
dignation and  fear. 

"How  anyone  can  tell — ^how  anyone 
can  tell — such  lies  to  take  away  an 
honest  man's  reputation!  How  can 
anyone — " 

There  was  no  use  in  his  protesting, 
nobody  believed  him.  He  was  con- 
fronted with  Monsieur  Malandain,  who 
repeated  and  maintained  his  affirma- 
tion. They  abused  each  other  for  an 
hour.  At  his  own  request,  Maitre 
Hauchecome  was  searched,  nothing  was 
found  on  him. 

Finally  the  mayor,  very  much  per- 
plexed, discharged  him  with  the  warn- 
ing that  he  would  consult  the  public 
prosecutor  and  ask  for  further  orders. 


A  PIECE  OF  STRING 


37 


rhe  news  had  spread.  As  he  left  the 
mayor's  oifice,  the  old  man  was  sur- 
rounded and  questioned  with  a  serious 
or  bantering  curiosity,  in  which  there 
was  no  indignation.  He  began  to  tell 
the  story  of  the  string.  No  one  be- 
lieved him.     They  laughed  at  him. 

He  went  along,  stopping  his  friends, 
beginning  endlessly  his  statement  and 
his  protestations,  showing  his  pockets 
turned  inside  out,  to  prove  that  he  had 
nothing. 

They  said: 

"Old  rascal,  get  out!" 

And  he  gre\v  angry,  becoming  ex- 
asperated, hot,  and  distressed  at  not 
being  believed,  not  knowing  what  to  do 
and  always  repeating  himself. 

Night  came.  He  must  depart.  He 
started  on  his  way  with  three  neighbors 
to  whom  he  pointed  out  the  place  where 
he  had  picked  up  the  bit  of  string;  and 
all  along  the  road  he  spoke  of  his  ad- 
venture. 

In  the  evening  he  took  a  turn  in  the 
village  of  Breaute,  in  order  to  tell  it 
to  everybody.  He  only  met  with  in- 
credulity. 

It  made  him  ill  at  night. 

The  next  day  about  one  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  Marius  Paumelle,  a  hired 
man  in  the  employ  of  Maitre  Breton, 
husbandman  at  Ymanville,  returned  the 
pocketbook  and  its  contents  to  Maitre 
Houlbreque  of  Manneville. 

This  man  claimed  to  have  found  the 
object  in  the  road;  but  not  knowing 
how  to  read,  he  had  carried  it  to  the 
house  and  given  it  to  his  employer. 

The  news  spread  through  the  neigh- 
borhood. Maitre  Hauchecome  was  in- 
formed of  it.  He  immediately  went 
'  ke   circuit  and  began   to   recount  his 


story  completed  by  the  happy  climax. 
He  was  in  triumph. 

*'What  grieved  me  so  much  was  not 
the  thing  itself,  as  the  lying.  There  is 
nothing  so  shameful  as  to  be  placed 
under  a  cloud  on  account  of  a  lie." 

He  talked  of  his  adventure  all  day 
long,  he  told  it  on  the  highway  to  peo- 
ple who  were  passing  by,  in  the  wine- 
shop to  people  who  were  drinking  there, 
ana  to  persons  coming  out  of  church 
the  following  Sunday.  He  stopped 
strangers  to  tell  them  about  it.  He 
was  calm  now,  and  yet  something  dis* 
turbed  him  without  his  knowing  ex* 
actly  what  it  was.  People  had  the  air 
of  joking  while  they  Hstened.  They 
did  not  seem  convinced.  He  seemed 
to  feel  that  remarks  were  being  made 
behind  his  back. 

On  Tuesday  of  the  next  week  he  went 
to  the  market  at  Goderville,  urged  solely 
by  the  necessity  he  felt  of  discussing 
the  case. 

Malandain,  standing  at  his  door,  be- 
gan to  laugh  on  seeing  him  pass.   Why? 

He  approached  a  farmer  from  Creque- 
tot,  who  did  not  let  him  finish,  and 
giving  him  a  thump  in  the  stomach  said 
to  his  face: 

"You  big  rascal." 

Then  he  turned  his  back  on  hipi. 

Maitre  Hauchecome  was  confused, 
why  was  he  called  a  big  rascal? 

When  he  was  seated  at  the  table,  in 
Jourdain's  tavern  he  commenced  to  ex- 
plain "the  affair." 

A  horse  dealer  from  Monvilliers  callerf 
to  him: 

"Come,  come,  old  sharper,  that's  ap 
old  trick;  I  know  all  about  your  piecf 
of  string!" 

Hauchecome  stammered: 


38 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DZ  MAUPASSANT 


"But  since  the  pocketbook  was 
found." 

But   the  other  man  replied: 

*'S*hut  up,  papa,  there  is  one  that  finds, 
and  there  is  one  that  reports.  At  any 
rate  you  are  mixed  with  it." 

The  peasant  stood  choking.  He  un- 
derstood. They  accused  him  of  having 
had  th3  pocketbook  returned  by  a  con- 
federate, by  an  accomplice. 

He  tried  to  protest.  All  the  table 
began  to  laugh. 

He  could  net  finish  his  dinner  and 
went  away,  m  the  midst  of  jeers. 

He  went  home  ashamed  and  indig- 
nant, choking  with  anger  and  confusion, 
tha  more  dejected  that  he  was  capable 
with  his  Norman  cunning  c'l  doing 
what  they  had  accused  him  ci.  and  ever 
boasting  of  it  as  Df  a  good  tivrn.  His 
innocence  to  him,  in  a  confused  way, 
was  impossible  to  prove,  as  his  sharp- 
ness was  known.  And  he  was  stricken 
to  the  heart  by  the  injustice  of  the  sus- 
picion. 

Then  he  began  to  recount  th^^  adven- 
t'^res  again,  prolonging  his  history  every 


day,  adding  each  time,  new  reasons, 
more  energetic  protestations,  more 
solemn  oaths  which  he  imagined  and 
prepared  in  h!s  hours  of  soLtudc,  his 
whole  mind  given  up  to  the  story  of 
the  string.  He  was  believed  so  much 
the  less  as  his  def2nse  was  mo'rz  com- 
plicated and  hio  arguing  more  subtile. 

"Those  are  lying  excuses,"  they  said 
behind  his  back. 

He  felt  it,  consumed  his  heart  over 
it,  and  wore  himself  out  with  useless 
efforts.  He  wasted  away  before  their 
very  eyes. 

The  wags  now  made  him  tell  about 
the  string  to  amuse  them,  as  they  make 
a  soldier  who  }'as  been  on  a  campaign 
tell  about  his  battles.  His  mind, 
touched  to  the  depth,  began  to  weaken. 

Toward  the  end  of  December  he  took 
to  his  bed. 

He  died  in  the  first  days  of  January, 
and  in  the  deliriun  rf  his  death  strug- 
frles  he  kept  claiming  his  innocence, 
reiterating: 

"A  piece  of  string,  a  piece  of  string, 
— look — ^here  it  is,  M'sieu'  the  Mayor." 


The  Story  of  a  Farm-Girl 


As  THE  weather  was  ver>'  fine,  the 
people  on  the  farm  had  dined  mort 
quickly  than  usual,  and  had  returned  to 
the  fields. 

The  female  servant.  Rose,  remained 
alone  in  the  large  kitchen,  where  the 
fire  on  th?  hearth  was  dying  out,  un- 
der the  large  boiler  of  hot  water.  From 
time  *o  time  ?he  took  some  water  out 
of  i^    and  slowlv  washed  her  plates  and 


dishes,  stopping  occasionally  to  look  at 
the  two  streaks  of  light  which  the  sun 
threw  on  to  the  long  table  through  the 
window,  and  which  showed  the  defects 
in  the  glass. 

Three  venturesome  hens  were  picking 
up  the  crumbs  under  the  chairs,  while 
the  smell  of  the  T^'>uUry  yard  and  the 
warmth  from  the  cow-stall  came  in 
through  the  half  open  door,  and  a  cock 


THE  STORY  OF  A  FARM-GIRL 


b^ 


was    heard    crowing    in    the    distance. 

When  she  had  finished  her  work, 
'viped  down  the  table,  dusted  the  mantel- 
piece, and  put  the  plates  on  to  the  high 
dresser,  close  to  the  wooden  clock,  with 
its  enormous  pendulum,  she  drew  a  long 
breath,  as  she  felt  rather  oppressed, 
without  exactly  ki  .owing  why.  She 
looked  at  the  black  clay  walls,  the'  raft- 
ers that  were  blackened  with  smoke, 
from  which  spiders'  webs  were  hanging 
amid  pickJed  herrings  and  strings  of 
cnions,  and  then  she  sat  down,  rather 
overcome  by  the  stale  emanations  from 
the  floor,  on  which  so  many  things  had 
been  spilled.  WitL  these  wp.3  mingled 
the  smell  of  the  pans  of  milk,  which 
were  set  out  to  raise  the  cream  in  the 
adjoining  dairy. 

She  wanted  to  sew,  as  usual,  but  she 
did  not  feel  strong  enough  for  it,  and 
so  she  went  to  get  a  mouthful  of  fresh 
air  at  the  door,  which  seemed  to  do  her 
good. 

The  fowls  were  lying  on  the  smoking 
dung-hill;  some  of  them  were  scratch- 
ing with  one  claw  in  search  of  worms, 
while  the  cock  stood  up  proudly  among 
them.  Now  and  then  he  selected  one 
of  them,  and  walkea  round  her  with  a 
slight  cluck  of  amorous  invitation.  The 
hen  got  up  in  a  careless  way  as  she  re- 
ceived his  attentions,  supported  her- 
self en  her  legs  and  spread  out  her 
wings;  then  she  shook  her  feathers  to 
shake  out  the  dust,  and  stretched  her- 
self out  on  the  dung-h'll  again,  while 
he  crowed,  in  sign  of  triumph,  and  the 
cocks  in  all  the  neighboring  farmyards 
replied  to  him,  as  if  they  were  uttering 
amorous  challenges  from  farm  to  farm. 

The  girl  looked  at  them  without 
thinking;  then  she  raised  her  eyes  and 


was  almost  dazzled  at  the  sight  of  the 
apple-trees  in  blossom,  which  looked  al- 
most like  powdered  heads.  Just  then, 
a  colt,  full  of  life  and  friskiness,  gal* 
loped  past  her.  Twice  he  jumped  over 
the  ditches,  and  then  stopped  suddenly^ 
as  if  surprised  at  being  alone. 

She  also  felt  inclined  to  run;  she  felt 
inclined  to  move  and  to  stretch  her 
limbs,  and  to  repose  in  the  warm> 
breathless  air.  She  took  a  few  unde- 
cided steps,  and  closed  her  eyes,  for  she 
was  seized  with  a  feeling  of  animal 
comfort;  then  she  went  to  look  for  the 
eggs  in  the  hen  loft.  There  were  thir- 
teen of  them,  which  she  took  in  and 
put  into  the  storeroom;  but  the  smell 
from  the  kitchen  disgusted  her  again 
and  she  went  out  to  sit  on  the  grass 
for  a  time. 

The  farmyard,  which  was  sun'ounded 
by  trees,  seemed  to  be  asleep.  The  tall 
grass,  among  which  the  tall  yellow 
dandelions  rose  up  like  streaks  of  yel- 
low light,  was  cf  a  vivid  green,  the  fresh 
spring  green.  The  apple-trees  threw 
their  snade  all  round  them,  and  the 
thatched  houses,  on  wh'ch  the  blue  and 
yellow  iris  flowers,  with  their  sword- 
like leaves,  grew,  rmoked  as  if  the 
moisture  cf  the  stables  and  barns  v/as 
coming  through  the  straw. 

The  girl  went  to  the  shed  where  the 
carts  and  traps  were  kept.  Close  to  it, 
in  a  dilch,  there  was  a  large  patch  of 
violets  whose  scent  was  perceptible  all 
round,  while  beyond  it  could  be  seen 
the  open  country  where  the  corn  was 
growing,  with  clumps  of  trees  in  the  dis- 
tance, and  groups  of  laborers  here  and 
there,  who  looked  as  small  as  dolls,  and 
white  horses  like  toys,  who  were  pulling 


40 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


a  child's  cart,  driven  by  a  man  as  tall 
as  one's  finger. 

She  took  up  a  bundle  of  straw,  threw 
it  into  the  ditch  and  sat  down  upon  it; 
then,  not  feeling  comfortable,  she  un- 
did it,  spread  it  out  and  lay  down  upon 
it  at  full  length,  on  her  back,  with  both 
arms  under  her  head,  and  her  limbs 
btretched  out. 

Gradually  her  eyes  closed,  and  she 
was  falling  into  a  state  of  delightful 
languor.  She  was,  in  fact,  almost  asleep, 
when  she  felt  two  hands  on  her  bosom, 
and  then  she  sprang  up  at  a  bound. 
It  was  Jacques,  one  of  the  farm  labor- 
ers, a  tall  fellow  from  Picardy,  who  had 
been  making  iove  to  her  for  a  long 
tim.e.  He  had  been  looking  after  the 
isheep,  and  seeing  her  lying  down  in  the 
shade,  he  had  come  stealthily,  and  hold- 
ing his  breath,  with  glistening  eyes,  and 
bits  of  straw  in  his  hair. 

He  tried  to  kiss  her,  but  she  gave 
him  a  smack  in  the  face,  for  she  was 
as  strong  as  he,  and  he  was  shrewd 
enough  to  beg  her  pardon:  so  they  sat 
down  side  by  side  and  talked  amicably. 
They  spoke  about  the  favorable  weather, 
of  their  master,  who  was  a  good  fellow, 
then  of  their  neighbors,  of  all  the  peo- 
ple in  the  country  round,  of  themselves, 
of  their  village,  of  their  youthful  days, 
©f  their  recollections,  of  their  relatives, 
whom  they  had  not  seen  for  a  long 
time,  and  might  not  see  again.  She  grew 
sad,  as  she  thought  of  it,  while  he,  with 
one  fixed  idea  in  his  head,  rubbed  against 
her  with  a  kind  of  a  shiver,  overcome 
by  desire. 

*T  have  not  seen  my  mother  for  a 
long  time,"  she  said.  "It  is  very  hard 
to  be  separated  like  that."  And  she 
directed  her   looks   into   the   distance, 


toward  the  village  in  the  North,  which 
she  had  left. 

Suddenly,  however,  he  seized  her  by 
the  neck  and  kissed  her  again!  but  she 
struck  him  so  violently  in  the  face  with 
her  clenched  fist,  that  his  nose  began  to 
bleed,  and  he  got  up  and  laid  his  head 
against  the  stem  of  a  tree.  When  she 
saw  that,  she  was  sorry,  and  going  up 
to  him,  she  said: 

'Have  I  hurt  you?" 

He,  however,  only  laughed.  "No,  it 
was  a  mere  nothing;"  though  she  had 
hit  him  right  on  the  middle  of  the  nose. 
"What  a  devil!"  he  said,  and  he  looked 
at  her  with  admiration,  for  she  had  in- 
spired him  with  a  feeling  of  respect  and 
of  a  very  different  kind  of  admiration, 
which  was  the  beginning  of  real  love 
for  that  tall,  strong  wench. 

When  the  bleeding  had  stopped,  he 
proposed  a  walk,  as  he  was  afraid  of 
his  neighbor's  heavy  hand,  if  they  re- 
mained side  by  side  like  that  much 
longer;  but  she  took  his  arm  of  her 
own  accord,  in  the  avenue,  as  if  they 
had  been  out  for  an  evening  walk,  and 
said:  **It  is  not  nice  of  you  to  despise 
me  like  that,  Jacques." 

He  protested,  however.  No,  he  did 
not  despise  her.  He  was  in  love  with 
her,  that  was  all. 

"So  you  really  want  to  marry  me?" 
she  asked. 

He  hesitated,  and  then  looked  at  her 
aside,  while  she  looked  straight  ahead  of 
her.  She  had  fat,  red  cheeks,  a  full, 
protuberant  bust  under  her  muslin  dress, 
thick,  red  lips,  and  her  neck,  which  was 
almost  bare,  was  covered  with  small 
beads  of  perspiration.  He  felt  a  fresh 
access  of  desire,  and  putting  his  lips  to 


THE  STORY  OF  A  FARM-GIPX 


41 


her  ear,  he  murmured;  "Yes,  of  course 
I  do." 

Then  she  threw  her  arms  round  his 
neck,  and  kissed  for  such  a  long  time, 
that  they  both  of  them  lost  their 
breath.  From  that  moment  the  eternal 
stor>'  of  love  began  between  them. 
They  plagued  one  another  in  corners; 
they  met  in  the  moonlight  under  a  hay- 
stack, and  gave  each  other  bruises  on 
the  legs,  with  their  heavy  nailed  boots. 
By  degrees,  however,  Jacques  seemed 
to  grow  tired  of  her:  he  avoided  her; 
scarcely  spoke  to  her,  and  did  not  try 
any  longer  to  meet  her  alone,  which 
made  her  sad  and  anxious,  especially 
when  she  found  that  she  was  pregnant. 

At  first,  she  was  in  a  state  of  con- 
sternation; then  she  got  angry,  and  her 
rage  increased  every  day,  because  she 
could  not  meet  him,  as  he  avoided  her 
most  carefully.  At  last,  one  night 
when  everyone  in  the  farmhouse  was 
asleep,  she  went  out  noiselessly  in  her 
petticoat,  with'  bare  feet,  crossed  the 
yard  and  opened  the  door  of  the  stable 
where  Jacques  was  lying  in  a  large  box 
of  straw,  over  his  horses.  He  pre- 
tended to  snore  when  he  heard  her  com- 
ing, but  she  knelt  down  by  his  side  and 
shook  him  until  he  sat  up. 

"What  do  you  want?"  he  then  asked 
of  her.  And  she  with  clenched  teeth, 
and  trembling  v/ith  anger,  replied: 

"I  want — I  want  you  to  marry  me, 
as  you  promised." 

But  he  only  laughed,  and  replied: 
"Oh,  If  a  man  were  to  marry  all  the 
girls  with  whom  he  has  made  a  slip, 
he  would  have  more  than  enough  to  do." 

Then  she  seized  him  by  the  throat, 
threw  him  on  to  his  back,  so  that  he 
could  not  disengage  himself  from  her. 


and  half  strangling  him,  she  shouted 
into  his  face:"  "I  am  enceinte,  do  you 
hear?    I  am  ettceinte!'* 

He  gasped  for  breath,  as  he  was 
nearly  choked,  and  so  they  remained, 
both  of  them,  motionless  and  without 
speaking,  in  the  dark  silence,  which  was 
only  broken  by  the  noise  that  a  horse 
made  as  he  pulled  the  hay  out  of  the 
manger,  and  then  slowly  chewed  it. 

When  Jacques  found  that  she  was 
the  stronger,  he  stammered  out:  "Very 
well,  I  will  marry  you,  as  that  is  the 
case." 

But  she  did  not  believe  his  promises, 
"It  must  be  at  once,"  she  said.  "You 
must  have  the  banns  put  up." 

"At  once,"  he  replied. 

"Swear  solemnly  that  you  will." 

He  hesitated  for  a  few  moments,  and 
then  said:    "I  swear  it,  by  heaven." 

Then  she  released  her  grasp,  and  went 
away  without  another  word. 

She  had  no  chance  of  speaking  to 
him  for  several  days,  and  as  the  stable 
was  now  always  locked  at  night,  she 
was  afraid  to  make  any  noise,  for  fear 
of  creating  a  scandal.  One  day,  how- 
ever, she  saw  another  man  come  in  at 
dinner-time,  and  so  she  said:  "Has 
Jacques  left?" 

"Yes,"  the  man  replied;  "I  have  got 
his  place." 

This  made  her  tremble  so  violently, 
that  she  could  not  take  the  saucepan  off 
the  fire;  and  later  when  they  were  all 
at  work,  she  went  up  into  her  room 
and  cried,  burying  her  head  in  her 
bolster,  so  that  she  might  not  be  heard. 
During  the  day,  however,  sh?  tried  to 
obtain  some  information  without  excit- 
ing any  suspicions,  but  she  was  so  over- 
whelmed  by   the  thouprb^?;   of  her  rais« 


42 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


fortune  that  she  fancied  that  all  the 
people  ivhom  she  asked,  laughed  ma- 
liciouslv'.  Ail  she  learned,  however,  was, 
that  he  had  left  the  neighborhood  alto- 
gether, 

II. 

Then  a  cloud  of  constant  misery  be- 
gan for  her.  She  worked  mechanically, 
without  thinking  of  what  she  was  doing, 
with  one  fixed  idea  in  her  head:  "Sup- 
pose people  were  to  know.' 

This  continual  feeling  nade  her  so 
incapable  of  reasoning,  that  she  did  not 
even  try  to  th'nk  of  any  means  of 
avoiding  the  disgrace  that  she  knew  must 
ensue,  which  was  irreparable,  and  draw- 
ing nearer  every  day,  and  which  was  as 
sure  as  death  itself.  She  got  up  every 
morning  long  before  the  others,  and 
persistently  tried  to  look  at  her  figure 
in  a  piec3  of  broken  looking-glass  at 
which  she  did  her  hair,  as  she  was  very 
anxious  to  know  whether  anybody 
would  notice  a  change  in  her,  and  dur- 
ing the  day  she  stopped  working  every 
few  minutes  to  look  at  herself  from  top 
to  toe,  to  see  whether  the  size  of  her 
abdomen  did  not  make  her  apron  look 
too  short. 

The  months  went  on.  Sh:;  scarcely 
spoke  now,  and  when  she  was  asked  a 
question,  she  did  not  appear  to  under- 
stand. She  had  a  frightened  look,  with 
haggard  eyes  and  trembling  handSj 
which  made  her  master  say  to  her  oc- 
casionally: "My  poor  girl,  how  stupid 
you  have  grown  lately." 

In  church,  she  hid  behind  a  pillar,  and 
no  longer  ventured  to  go  to  confession. 
She  feared  to  face  the  priest,  to  whom 
she  attributed  a  superhuman  power, 
which  enabled  him  to  read  people's  con- 


sciences; and  at  meal  times,  the  looks 
of  her  fellow-servants  almost  made  her 
faint  with  mental  agony.  She  was  al- 
v/ays  fancying  that  she  had  been  found 
cut  by  the  cowherd,  a  precocious  and 
cunning  liitle  lad,  whose  br'ght  eye* 
seemed  always  to  be  watching  her. 

One  morning  the  postman  brought  her 
a  letter,  and  as  she  had  never  received 
cne  in  her  Kfe  before,  she  was  so  upset 
by  it,  that  she  was  obliged  to  sit  down. 
Perhaps  it  was  from  him?  But  as  she 
could  not  read,  she  sat  anxious  and 
trembling  with  that  piece  of  paper  cov- 
ered with  irk  in  her  hand;  after  a  time, 
however,  she  put  it  into  her  pocket,  as 
she  did  not  venture  to  confide  her  secret 
to  anyone.  She  ©rten  stopped  in  her 
work  to  look  at  the  lines,  v/ritten  at 
regular  intervals,  and  term'nating  In  a 
signature,  im.agining  vaguely  that  she 
would  suddenly  discover  their  meaning. 
At  last,  as  she  felt  half  mad  with  im- 
patience and  anxiety,  she  went  to  the 
schoolm.aster,  who  told  her  to  sit  down, 
and  read  the  letter  to  her,  as  follows: 

'*My  Dear  Daughter  : — T  write  to  tell 
you  that  I  am  verv  ill.  Our  neighbor. 
'Monsieur  Dentu,  begs  you  to  come,  if 
you  cnn, 

'Tor  your  affectionate  mother, 
"Cesaire   Dentu, 
"Deputy  Mayor." 

She  did  not  say  a  word,  and  went 
away,  but  as  soon  as  she  was  aione,  her 
legs  gave  way,  and  she  fell  down  by  the 
roadside,  and  remained  there  t'U  night. 

When  she  got  back,  she  told  the 
farmer  her  trouble.  He  allowed  her  to 
go  home  for  as  long  as  she  wanted, 
promised  to  have  her  work  done  by  a 
charwoman,  and  to  take  her  back  whep 
she  returned. 


Tirr:  story  of  a  farm-girl 


41 


Her  mother  died  soon  after  she  got 
there,  and  the  next  day  Rose  gave  birth 
to  a  seven  months'  child,  a  miserable 
little  skeleton,  thin  enough  to  make  any- 
body shudder.  It  seemed  to  be  suffer- 
ing continually,  to  judge  from  the  pain- 
ful manner  in  which  it  moved  its  poor 
little  limbs,  wnich  were  as  thin  as  a 
crab's  legs,  but  it  lived,  for  all  that. 
She  said  that  she  was  married,  but  that 
she  could  not  saddle  herself  with  the 
child,  so  she  left  it  with  some  neigh- 
bors, who  promised  to  take  great  care 
of  it,  and  she  went  back  to  tho  farm. 

But  then,  in  her  heart,  which  had  been 
wounded  so  long,  there  arose  somethmg 
like  brightness,  an  unknown  love  for 
that  frail  little  creature  which  she  had 
left  behind  her,  but  there  was  fresh 
suffering  in  that  very  love,  suffering 
which  she  felt  every  hour  and  every 
minute,  because  she  was  parted  from 
the  child.  What  pained  her  most,  how- 
ever, was  a  mad  longing  to  kiss  it,  to 
press  it  in  her  arms,  to  feel  the  warmth 
of  its  little  body  against  her  skin.  She 
could  not  sleep  at  night;  she  thought 
of  it  the  whole  day  long,  and  in  the 
evening,  when  her  work  was  done,  she 
used  to  sit  in  frcr.t  cf  the  fire  and  look 
at  it  intently,  like  people  do  whose 
thoughts  a"e  far  away. 

They  began  to  talk  about  her,  and  to 
tease  her  about  her  lover.  They  asked 
her  whether  he  was  tall,  handsome,  and 
rich.  When  was  the  wedding  to  be,  and 
the  christening?  And  often  she  ran 
away  to  cry  by  herself,  for  these  ques- 
tions seemed  to  hurt  her,  Hke  the  prick 
of  a  pin,  and  in  order  to  forget  their 
jokes,  she  began  to  work  still  more 
energetically,  and  still  thinking  of  her 
child,  she  sought  for  the  means  of  sav- 


ing up  money  for  it,  and  determined 
to  work  so  that  her  master  would  be 
obliged  to  raise  her  wages. 

Then,  by  degrees,  she  almost  monop- 
olized the  work,  and  persuaded  him  to 
get  rid  of  one  servant  girl,  who  had 
become  useless  since  she  had  taken  to 
working  like  two;  she  economized  in  the 
bread,  oil,  and  candles,  in  the  com 
which  they  gave  to  the  fowls  too  ex- 
travagantly, and  in  the  fodder  for  the 
horses  and  cattle,  which  was  rather 
wasted.  She  was  as  miserly  about  her 
master's  money  as  if  it  had  been  her 
own,  and  by  dint  of  making  good  bar- 
gains, of  getting  high  prices  for  all  their 
produce,  and  by  baffling  the  peasants' 
tricks  when  they  offered  anything  for 
sale,  he  at  last  intrusted  her  with  buy- 
ing and  selling  everything,  with  the  di- 
rection of  all  the  laborers,  and  with  the 
quantity  of  provisions  necessary  for  the 
household,  so  that  in  a  short  time  she 
became  indispensable  to  him.  She  kept 
such  a  strict  eye  on  everything  about 
her,  that  under  her  direction  the  farm 
prospered  wonderfully,  and  for  five 
miles  round  people  talked  of  "Master 
Vallin's  servant,"  and  the  farmer  him- 
self said  everywhere:  "That  girl  is 
worth  more  than  her  weight  in  gold." 

But  time  passed  by,  and  her  wages 
remained  the  same.  Her  hard  work  was 
accepted  as  something  that  was  due  from 
every  good  servant,  and  as  a  mere  token 
of  her  good-will ;  and  she  began  to  think 
rather  bitterly,  that  if  the  farmer  could 
put  fifty  or  a  hundred  crowns  extra  into 
the  bank  every  month,  thanks  to  her^ 
rhe  was  still  only  earnhig  her  two  hun- 
dred francs  a  year,  neither  more  noi 
less,  and  so  she  made  un  her  mind  to 
ask  for  an  increase  of  v/ages.    She  went 


•'44 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


lo  see  the  schoolmaster  three  times 
about  it,  but  when  she  got  there,  she 
spoke  about  something  else.  She  felt  a 
kind  of  modesty  in  asking  for  money, 
as  if  it  were  something  disgraceful; 
but  at  last,  one  day,  when  the  farmer 
was  having  breakfast  by  himself  in  the 
kitchen,  she  said  to  him,  with  some 
embarrassment,  that  she  wished  to  speak 
to  him  particularly.  He  raised  his  head 
in  surprise,  with  both  his  hands  on  the 
table,  holding  his  knife,  with  its  point 
in  the  air,  in  one,  and  a  piece  of  bread 
in  the  other.  He  looked  fixedly  at  the 
girl,  who  felt  uncomfortable  under  his 
gaze,  but  asked  for  a  week's  holiday, 
so  that  she  might  get  away,  as  she  was 
not  very  well.  He  acceded  to  her  re- 
quest immediately,  and  then  added,  in 
some  embarrassment,  himself: 

"When  you  come  back,  I  shall  have 
something  to  say  to  you,  myself." 

Ill 

The  child  was  nearly  eight  months 
old,  and  she  did  not  know  it  again.  It 
had  grown  rosy  and  chubby  all  over  like 
a  little  bundle  of  living  fat.  She  threw 
herself  on  to  it  as  if  it  had  been  some 
prey,  and  kissed  it  so  violently  that  it 
began  to  scream  with  terror,  and  then 
she  began  to  cry  herself,  because  it  did 
not  know  her,  and  stretched  out  its  arms 
to  its  nurse,  as  soon  as  it  saw  her.  But 
the  next  day,  it  began  to  get  used  to  her, 
and  laughed  w'hen  it  saw  her,  and  she 
took  it  into  the  fields  and  ran  about 
excitedly  with  it,  and  sat  down,  under 
the  shade  of  the  trees,  and  then,  for  the 
first  time  in  her  life,  she  opened  her 
heart  to  somebody,  and  told  the  infant 
ber  troubles,  how  hard  her  work  was. 


her  anxieties  and  her  hopes,  and  she 
quite  tired  the  child  with  the  violence 
of  her  caresses. 

She  took  the  greatest  pleasure  in  han- 
dling it,  in  washing  and  dressing  it,  for 
it  seemed  to  her  that  all  this  was  the 
confirmation  of  her  maternity,  and  she 
would  look  at  it,  almost  feeling  sur- 
prised that  it  was  hers,  and  she  used  to 
say  to  herself  in  a  low  voice,  as  she 
danced  it  in  her  arms :  "It  is  my  baby, 
it  is  my  baby." 

She  cried  all  the  way  home  as  she 
returned  to  the  farm,  and  had  scarcely 
got  in,  before  her  master  called  her  into 
his  room.  She  went  in,  feeling  aston- 
ished and  nervous,  without  knowing 
why. 

"Sit  down  there,"  he  said. 

She  sat  down,  and  for  some  moments 
they  remained  side  by  side,  in  some 
embarrassment,  with  their  arms  hang- 
ing at  their  sides,  as  if  they  did  not 
know  what  to  do  with  them,  and  looking 
each  other  in  the  face,  after  the  man- 
ner of  peasants. 

The  farmer,  a  stout,  jovial,  obstinate 
man  of  forty-five,  who  had  lost  two 
wives,  evidently  felt  embarrassed,  which 
was  very  unusual  with  him.  But  at  last 
he  made  up  his  mind,  and  began  to 
speak  vaguely,  hesitating  a  little,  and 
looking  out  of  the  window  as  he  talked. 

"How  is  it.  Rose,"  he  said,  "that  you 
have  never  thought  of  settling  in  life?" 

She  grew  as  pale  as  death,  and  seeing 
that  she  gave  him  no  answer,  he  went 
on: 

"You  are  a  good,  steady,  active,  and 
economical  girl,  and  a  wife  like  you 
would  make  a  man's  fortune." 

She  did  not  move,  but  looked  fright- 
ened: she  did  not  even  try  to  compre- 


THE  STORY  OF  A  FARM-GIRL 


45 


hend  his  meaning,  for  her  thoughts  were 
in  a  whirl,  as  if  at  the  approach  of 
some  great  danger;  so  after  waiting  for 
a  few  seconds,  he  went  on: 

*'You  see,  a  farm  without  a  mistress 
can  never  succeed,  even  with  a  servant 
like  you  are." 

Then  he  stopped,  for  he  did  not  know 
what  else  to  say,  and  Rc:e  looked  at 
him  with  the  air  of  a  person  who  thinks 
that  he  is  face  to  face  with  a  murderer, 
and  ready  to  flee  at  the  slightest  move- 
ment he  may  make;  but  after  waiting 
for  about  five  minutes,  he  asked  her: 

"Well,  will  it   suit   you?" 

"Will  ivhat  suit  me,  master?" 

And  he  said,  quickly:  "Why,  to  marry 
me,  by  Jove!" 

She  jumped  up,  but  fell  back  on  to 
her  chair  as  if  she  had  been  struck,  and 
there  she  remained  motionless,  like  a 
person  who  is  overwhelmed  by  some 
great  misfortune.  But  at  last  the 
farmer  grew  impatient,  and  said: 
"Come,  what  more  do  you  want?" 

She  looked  at  him  almost  in  terror; 
then  suddenly  the  tears  came  into  her 
eyes,  and  she  said  twice,  in  a  choking 
voice:    "I  cannot,  I  cannot!" 

"Why  not?"  he  asked.  "Come,  don't 
be  silly ;  I  will  give  you  until  to-morrow 
to  think  it  over." 

And  he  hurried  out  of  the  room,  very 
glad  to  have  finished  a  matter  which 
had  troubled  him  a  good  deal.  He  had 
no  doubt  that  she  would  the  next  morn- 
ing accept  a  proposal  which  she  could 
never  have  expected,  and  which  would 
be  a  capital  bargain  for  him,  as  he  thus 
bound  a  woman  to  himself  who  would 
certainly  bring  him  more  than  if  she 
had  the  best  dowry  in  the  district. 

Neither  could  there  be  any  scruples 


about  an  unequal  match  between  them, 
for  in  the  country  everyone  is  very 
nearly  equal.  The  farmer  works  just 
like  his  laborers  do ;  the  latter  frequently 
become  masters  in  their  turn,  and  the 
female  servants  constantly  become  the 
mistresses  of  the  estabKshment,  without 
making  any  change  in  their  life  or 
habits. 

Rose  did  not  go  to  bed  that  night. 
She  threw  herself,  dressed  as  she  was, 
on  to  her  bed,  and  she  had  not  even 
strength  to  cry  left  in  her,  she  was  so 
thoroughly  astonished.  She  remained 
quite  inert,  scarcely  knowing  that  she 
had  a  body,  and  without  being  at  all 
able  to  collect  her  thoughts,  though  at 
moments  she  remembered  a  part  of  that 
which  had  happened,  and  then  she  was 
frightened  at  the  idea  of  what  might 
happen.  Her  terror  increased,  and 
every  time  the  great  kitchen  clock  struck 
the  hour,  she  broke  into  a  perspiration 
from  grief.  She  lost  her  head,  and  had 
a  nightmare;  her  candle  went  out,  and 
then  she  began  to  imagine  that  some 
one  had  thrown  a  spell  over  her,  as 
country  people  so  often  fancy,  and  she 
felt  a  mad  inclination  to  run  away,  to 
escape  and  flee  before  her  misfortune, 
as  a  ship  scuds  before  the  wind. 

An  owl  hooted,  and  she  shivered,  sat 
up,  put  her  hands  to  her  face,  into  her 
hair,  and  all  over  her  body,  and  then 
she  went  downstairs,  as  if  she  were 
walking  in  her  sleep.  When  she  got  into 
the  yard,  she  stooped  down,  so  as  not  to 
be  seen  by  any  prowling  scamp,  for  the 
moon,  which  was  setting,  shed  a  bright 
light  over  the  fields.  Instead  of  open- 
ing the  gate,  she  scrambled  over  the 
fence,  and  as  soon  as  she  was  outside, 
she  started  off.     She  went  on  straight 


46 


WORKS  OP  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


before  her,  with  a  quick,  elastic  trot, 
and  from  time  to  time,  she  unconsci- 
ously uttered  a  piercing  cry.  Her  long 
shadow  accompanied  her,  and  now  and 
then  some  night-bird  flew  over  her  head, 
while  th^  dogs  in  the  farmyards  barked, 
as  they  heard  her  pass.  One  even 
jumped  over  the  ditch,  followed  her, 
and  tried  to  bite  her,  but  she  turned 
round  at  it,  and  gav3  such  a  terrible  yell 
that  the  frightened  animal  ran  back, 
and  cowered  in  silence  in  its  kennel. 

The  stars  grew  dim,  and  the  birds 
began  to  twitter;  day  was  breaking. 
The  girl  was  worn  out  and  panting,  and 
Nhen  the  sun  rose  in  the  purple  sky,  she 
stopped,  for  her  swollen  feet  refused  to 
go  any  further.  But  she  saw  a  pond 
in  the  distance,  a  large  pond  whose  stag- 
nant water  looked  like  blood  under  tht 
reflection  of  this  new  day,  and  she 
limped  en  with  short  step?  and  with  her 
hand  on  her  heart,  in  order  to  dip  both 
her  feet  in  it. 

She  sat  down  on  a  tuft  of  grass,  took 
eft  her  sabots  which  were  full  of  dust, 
pulled  off  her  stockings  and  plunged  her 
legs  into  the  still  wp.ter,  from  which 
bubbles  were  rising  here  and  there. 

A  feeling  of  delicious  coolness  per- 
vaded her  fnm  head  to  foot,  and  sud- 
denly, while  she  was  looking  fixedly  at 
the  deep  pool,  ^he  was  seized  with  giddi- 
ness, and  with  a  mad  longing  to  throw 
herself  into  it.  All  her  sufferings  would 
be  ovei  in  there;  over  forever.  She  no 
longer  thought  of  her  child;  she  only 
wanted  peace,  complete  rest,  and  to 
sleep  forever,  and  she  got  up  with  raised 
arms  and  took  two  steps  forward.  She 
was  in  the  water  up  to  her  thighs,  and 
she  was  just  about  to  throw  herself  in, 
wLcD  sharp,  piit^klng  pains  m  ber  ankles 


Liadc  her  jump  back.  She  uttered  a 
cry  Gi  despair,  for,  from  her  knees  to 
the  tips  01  her  feet,  long,  biac^;  leeches 
were  sucking  in  her  Lie  blood,  nud  were 
swelling,  as  they  adhered  to  her  flesh. 
She  did  n-^t  dare  to  touch  tiicm,  and 
screamed  with  horror,  so  that  her  cries 
of  despair  attracted  a  peasant,  who  was 
driving  along  at  some  distance,  to  the 
spot.  Ke  pulled  off  the  leeches,  one  by 
one,  applied  herbs  to  the  wounds,  and 
drove  the  girl  to  her  master's  farm,  in 
his  gig. 

She  was  in  bed  for  a  fortnight,  and 
as  she  was  sitting  outside  the  door  on 
the  first  morning  that  she  got  up,  the 
farmer  suddenly  came  and  planted  him- 
self before  her. 

"Well,"  he  said,  '"I  suppose  the  affair 
is  settled,  isn't  it?" 

She  did  net  reply  at  first,  and  then, 
as  he  remained  standing  and  looking  at 
her  intently  with  his  piercing  eyes,  she 
said  with  difficulty:  "No,  master,  I  can- 
not." 

But  he  immediately  flew  into  a  rage. 
"You  cannot,  girl;  you  cannot?  I 
rhould  just  like  to  kno.v  th3  reason 
why?'* 

She  began  to  cry,  and  repeated:  *'I 
cannot." 

He  looked  at  her,  and  then  exclaimed, 
angrily:  "Then  I  suppose  ycu  have  a 
lover?" 

"Perhaps  that  is  it,''  she  replied,  trem- 
bling with  shame. 

The  man  got  as  red  as  a  poppy,  and 
stammered  out  in  a  rage:  "Ah!  So  you 
confess  it,  you  slut!  And  pray  who  is 
the  fellow?  Some  penniless,  half- 
rtarved  ragamuffin,  without  a  roof  to 
his  head,  I  suppose?    Who  is  it,  I  say?" 

And  as  she  gave  him  no  answer,  he 


THE  STORY  OF  A  FARM-^GIRL 


49 


continued:  **Ah!  So  you  vill  not  tell 
me.  Then  1  will  tell  ycu;  it  is  Jean 
Bauda!" 

"No,  not  he,"  she  exclaimed. 

**Thc:i  it  is  Pierre  Martin?" 

*'0h!  no,  master." 

And  h3  angrily  mentioned  all  the 
young  fellows  in  the  neighborhood, 
while  she  denied  that  he  had  hit  upon 
the  right  ono,  and  every  moment  wiped 
her  eyes  wllh  the  corner  of  her  blue 
apron.  But  ho  still  tr'ed  to  find  it  out, 
with  h!s  brutizh  obstinacy,  and,  as  it 
were,  scratched  her  heart  to  discover 
her  secret,  as  a  tcrrior  scratches  at  a 
hole  to  try  and  get  at  the  animal  which 
he  scents  in  it.  Suddenly,  however,  the 
man  shouted:  "By  George!  It  is 
Jacques,  the  man  who  was  here  last  year. 
They  used  to  say  that  you  were  always 
talking  together,  and  that  you  thought 
about  getting  married." 

Rose  was  choking,  and  she  grew  scar- 
let, while  her  tears  suddenly  stopped, 
and  dried  up  on  her  cheeks,  like  drops 
of  water  on  hot  iron,  and  she  exclaimed: 
**No,  it  is  not  he,  it  is  not  he!" 

*Ts  that  really  a  fact?"  asked  the  cun- 
ning farmer,  who  partly  guessed  the 
truth,  and  she  replied  hastily: 

*T  will  swear  it;  I  will  swear  it  to 
you."  She  tried  to  think  of  something 
by  whi:h  to  swear,  as  she  did  not  dare 
to  invoke  sacred  things. 

But  he  interrupted  her:  "At  any  rate, 
he  used  to  follow  you  into  every  corner, 
and  devoured  you  with  his  eyes  at  meal 
times.  Did  you  ever  give  him  your 
promise,  eh?" 

This  time  she  looked  her  master 
straight  in  the  face.  "No,  never,  never; 
I  will  solemnly  swear  to  you,  that  if 
he  were  to  come  to-day  and  ask  mo  to 


marry  him,  I  would  have  nothing  to  dc 
with  him." 

She  spoke  with  such  an  air  of  sin« 
cerity,  that  the  farmer  hesitated,  and 
then  he  continued,  as  if  speaking  tc 
himseh*:  ''What,  then?  Ycu  have  not 
had  a  Tnisforttme,  as  they  call  it,  or  it 
would  have  been  known,  and  as  it  has 
no  consequences,  no  girl  would  refuse 
her  master  on  t'Lat  account.  There  must 
be  something  at  the  bottom  of  it,  how- 
ever." 

She  could  say  nothing;  she  had  not 
the  strength  to  speak,  and  he  asked  her 
again:   "You  will  not?" 

"I  cannot,  master,"  she  said,  with  a 
sigh,  and  he  turned  on  his  heel. 

She  thought  sho  had  get  rid  of  him 
altogether,  and  spent  the  rest  of  the  day 
rlmost  tranquilly,  but  as  worn  out  as  i* 
she,  instead  of  the  old  white  horse,  had 
been  turning  the  threshing  machine  all 
day.  She  went  to  bed  as  soon  as  she 
could,  and  fell  asleep  immediately.  In 
the  middle  of  the  night,  however,  two 
hands  touching  the  bed  woke  her.  She 
trembled  with  fear,  but  sh3  immediately 
recognized  the  farmer's  voice,  when  he 
said  to  her:  "Don't  be  frightened. 
Rose;  I  have  come  to  speak  to  you." 

She  was  surprised  at  first,  but  when 
he  tried  to  take  liberties  with  her,  she 
understooc*.  what  be  wanted,  and  began 
to  tremble  violently.  She  felt  quite 
alone  in  the  darkness,  still  hoavy  from 
sleep,  and  quite  unprotected,  by  the  side 
of  the  man  who  stood  near  her.  She 
certainly  did  not  consent,  but  resisted 
carelessly,  herself  struggling  against 
that  instinct  which  is  always  strong  in 
simple  natures,  and  very  imnerfectly 
protected,  by  the  undecided  w'll  of  an 
exhausted  body.     She  turned  her  head 


48 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


now  to  the  wall,  and  now  toward  the 
room,  in  order  to  avoid  the  attentions 
which  the  farmer  tried  to  press  on  her, 
and  her  body  writhed  under  the  cover- 
let, weakened  as  she  was  by  the  fatigue 
of  the  struggle,  while  he  became  brutal, 
intoxicated  by  desire. 

They  lived  together  as  man  and  wife, 
and  one  morning  he  said  to  her:  *1 
have  put  up  our  banns,  and  we  will  get 
married  next  month." 

She  did  not  reply,  for  what  could  she 
say?  She  did  not  resist,  for  what  could 
she  do? 

IV. 

She  married  him.  She  felt  as  if  she 
were  in  a  pit  with  inaccessible  edges, 
from  which  she  could  never  get  out, 
and  all  kinds  of  misfortunes  remained 
hanging  over  her  head,  like  huge  rocks, 
which  would  fall  on  the  first  occasion. 
Her  husband  gave  her  the  impression 
of  a  man  whom  she  had  stolen,  and  who 
would  £nd  it  out  some  day  or  other. 
And  then  she  thought  of  her  child,  who 
was  the  cause  of  her  misfortunes,  but 
was  also  the  cause  of  all  her  happiness 
on  earth.  She  went  to  see  him  twice  a 
year,  and  she  came  back  more  unhappy 
each  time. 

But  she  gradually  grew  accustomed 
to  her  life,  her  fears  were  allayed,  her 
heart  was  at  rest,  and  she  lived  with 
an  easier  mind,  although  still  with  some 
vague  fear  floating  in  her  mind.  So 
years  went  on,  and  the  child  was  six. 
She  was  almost  happy  now.  when  sud- 
denly the  farmer's  temper  grew  very 
bad. 

For  two  or  three  years,  he  seemed  to 
have  been  nursing  some  secret  anxiety. 
to  be  troubled  by  some  care,  some  men- 


tal disturbance,  which  was  gradually  in- 
creasing. He  remained  at  table  a  long 
time  after  dinner,  with  his  head  in  his 
hands,  sad  and  devoured  by  sorrow.  He 
always  spoke  hastily,  sometimes  even 
brutally,  and  it  even  seemed  as  if  he 
bore  a  grudge  against  his  wife,  for  at 
times  he  answered  her  roughly,  almost 
angrily. 

One  day,  when  a  neighbor's  boy  came 
for  some  eggs,  and  she  spoke  rather 
crossly  to  him,  for  she  was  very  busy, 
her  husband  suddenly  came  in,  and  said 
to  her  in  his  unpleasant  voice:  "If  that 
were  your  own  child,  you  would  nol 
treat  him  so," 

She  was  hurt  and  did  not  reply,  and 
then  she  went  back  into  the  house  with 
all  her  grief  awakened  afresh.  At  din- 
ner, the  farmer  neither  spoke  to  her  nor 
looked  at  her,  and  seemed  to  hate  her, 
to  despise  her,  to  know  something  about 
the  affair  at  last.  In  consequence,  she 
lost  her  head  and  did  not  venture  to  re- 
main alone  with  him  after  the  meal  was 
over,  but  left  the  room  and  hastened 
to  the  church. 

It  was  getting  dusk;  the  narrow  nave 
was  in  total  darkness,  but  she  heard 
footsteps  in  the  choir,  for  the  sacristan 
was  preparing  the  tabernacle  lamp  for 
the  night.  That  spot  of  trembling  light, 
which  was  lost  in  the  darkness  of  the 
arches,  looked  to  Rose  like  her  last 
hope,  and  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  it, 
she  fell  on  her  knees.  The  chain  rattled 
as  the  little  lamps  swung  up  into  the  air, 
and  almost  immediately  the  small  bell 
rang  out  the  "Angelus"  through  the  in- 
creasing mist.  She  went  up  to  him,  as 
he  was  going  out. 

"Is  Monsieur  le  Cure  at  home?"  she 
asked. 


THE  STORY  OF  A  FARM-GIRL 


4</ 


"Of  course  he  is;  this  is  his  dinner- 
time." 

She  trembled  as  she  rang  the  bell  of 
the  parsonage.  The  priest  was  just 
sitting  down  to  dinner,  and  he  made  her 
sit  down  also.  **Yes,  yes,  I  know  all 
about  it;  your  husband  has  mentioned 
the  matter  to  me  that  brings  you  here." 

The  poor  woman  nearly  fainted,  and 
the  priest  continued:  "What  do  you 
want,  my  child?"  And  he  hastily 
swallowed  several  spoonfuls  of  soup, 
some  of  which  dropped  on  to  his  greasy 
cassock.  But  Rose  did  not  venture  to 
say  anything  more,  but  got  up  to  go, 
while  the  priest  said:     "Courage." 

So  she  went  out,  and  returned  to  the 
farm,  without  knowing  what  she  was 
doing.  The  farmer  was  waiting  for  her, 
as  the  laborers  had  gone  away  during 
her  absence,  and  she  fell  heavily  at  his 
feet,  and  shedding  a  flood  of  tears,  she 
said  to  him:  "What  have  you  got 
against  me?" 

He  began  to  shout  and  to  swear: 
"What  have  I  got  against  you?  That  I 
have  no  children,  by  God!  When  a 
man  takes  a  wife,  he  does  not  want  to 
be  left  alone  with  her  until  the  end  of 
his  days.  That  is  what  I  have  against 
you.  When  a  cow  has  no  calves,  she  is 
not  worth  anything,  and  when  a  woman 
has  no  children,  she  is  also  not  worth 
anything." 

She  beean  to  cry,  and  said:  "It  is  not 
my  fault!    It  is  not  my  fault!" 

He  grew  rather  more  gentle  when  he 
heard  that,  and  added:  "I  do  not  say 
that  it  is,  but  it  is  very  annoying,  all  the 
same.'* 

V, 

From  that  day  forward,  she  had  only 
one  thought — to  have  a  child,,  another 


child.  She  confided  her  w'sh  to  every- 
body, and  in  consequence  of  this,  a 
neighbor  told  her  of  an  infallible 
method.  This  was,  to  make  her  hus- 
band a  glass  of  water  with  a  pinch  of 
ashes  in  it,  every  evening.  The  farmer 
consented  to  try  it,  but  without  success, 
so  they  said  to  each  other:  "Perhaps 
there  are  some  secret  ways?"  And  they 
tried  to  find  out.  They  were  told  of  a 
shepherd  who  lived  ten  leagues  off,  and 
so  Vallin  one  day  drove  off  to  consult 
him.  The  shepherd  gave  him  a  loaf  on 
which  he  had  made  some  marks;  it  was 
kneaded  up  with  herbs,  and  both  of 
them  were  to  eat  a  piece  of  it  before 
and  after  their  mutual  caresses;  but 
they  ate  the  whole  loaf  without  obtain- 
ing any  results  from  it. 

Next,  a  schoolmaster  unveiled  mys- 
teries and  processes  of  love  which  were 
unknown  in  the  country,  but  infallible, 
so  he  declared;  but  none  of  them  had 
the  desired  effect.  Then  the  priest  ad* 
vised  them  to  make  a  pilgrimage  to  the 
shrine  at  Fecamp.  Rose  went  with  the 
crowd  and  prostrated  herself  in  the 
abbey,  and  mingling  her  prayers  wich 
the  coarse  wishes  of  the  peasants  around 
her,  she  prayed  that  she  m^.ght  be  fruit- 
ful a  second  time;  but  it  was  in  vain, 
and  then  she  thought  that  she  was  be- 
ing punished  for  her  first  fault,  and 
she  was  seized  by  terrible  grief.  She 
was  wasting  away  wath  sorrow:  her  hus- 
band was  growing  old  prematurely,  and 
was  wearing  himself  out  in  useless 
hopes. 

Then  war  broke  out  between  them; 
he  called  her  names  and  beat  her.  They 
quarreled  all  day  long,  and  when  they 
were  in  bed  together  at  night  he  flung 
insults  and  obscenities  at  her,  panting 


50 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


with  rage,  until  one  night,  not  being 
able  to  think  of  any  means  of  making 
her  suffer  more,  he  ordered  her  to  get 
up  and  go  and  stand  out  of  doors  iu  the 
rain,  until  dayLght.  As  she  did  not 
obey  him,  he  seized  her  by  the  neck, 
and  began  to  strike  her  in  the  face  with 
his  fists,  but  sne  said  nothing,  and  did 
not  move.  In  his  exasperation  he  knelt 
on  her,  and  with  clenched  teeth  and 
mad  with  rage  began  to  beat  her.  Then 
in  her  despair  she  rebelled,  and  flinging 
him  against  the  wall  with  a  furious  ges- 
ture, she  sat  up,  and  in  an  altered  voice, 
she  hissed:  *T  have  had  a  child,  I  have 
had  one!  I  had  it  by  Jacques;  you 
know  Jacques  well.  He  promised  to 
marry  me,  but  he  left  this  neighborhood 
without  keeping  b!s  word." 

The  man  was  thunderstruck,  and 
could  hardly  speak,  but  at  last  he 
stammered  out:  "What  are  you  say- 
ing?   What  are  you  saying?" 

Then  she  began  to  sob,  and  amid  her 
tears  she  said:  'That  was  the  reason 
why  1  did  not  want  to  marry  you.  I 
could  not  tell  you,  for  you  would  have 
left  me  without  any  bread  for  my 
child.  You  have  never  had  any  chil- 
dren, so  you  cannot  understand,  you 
cannot  understand!" 

He  said  again,  mechanically,  with  in- 
creasing surprise:  "You  have  a  child? 
You  have  a  child?" 

'You  won  me  by  force,  as  I  suppose 
you  know.  I  did  not  want  to  marry 
you,"  she  said,  still  sobbing. 

Then  he  got  up,  lighted  the  candle, 
and  began  to  walk  up  and  down,  with 
bis  arms  behind  him.  She  was  cower- 
ing on  the  bed  and  crying,  and  sud- 
denly he  stopped  in  front  of  her,  and 


said:  'Then  it  is  my  fault  that  you 
have  no  children?" 

She  gave  him  no  answer,  and  he  be- 
gan to  walk  up  and  down  again,  and 
then,  stopping  again,  he  continued: 
''How  old  is  your  child?" 

"Just  six,"  she  whispered. 

"Why  did  you  not  tell  me  about  it?'* 
he  asked. 

"How  could  I?"  she  replied,  with  a 
sigh. 

He  remained  standing,  motionless. 
"Come,  get  up,"  he  said. 

She  got  up,  with  some  diuiculty,  and 
then  when  she  was  standing  on  the  floor, 
he  suddenly  began  to  bugh,  with  his 
hearty  laugh  of  his  good  days,  and  see- 
ing how  surprised  she  was,  he  added: 
"Very  well,  we  will  go  and  fetch  the 
child,  as  you  and  I  can  have  none  to- 
gether." 

She  was  so  scared  that  if  she  had  the 
strength  she  would  assuredly  have  run 
away,  but  the  farmer  rubbed  his  hands 
and  said:  "I  wanted  to  adopt  one,  and 
now  we  have  found  one.  I  asked  the, 
Cure  about  an  orphan,  some  time  ago." 

Then,  still  laughing,  he  kissed  his 
weeping  and  agitated  wife  on  both 
cheeks,  and  shouted  out,  as  if  she  could 
not  hear  him:  "Come  along,  mother, 
we  will  go  and  see  whether  there  is  any 
soup  left;  I  should  not  mind  a  plateful." 

She  put  on  her  petticoat,  and  they 
went  downstairs;  and  while  she  was 
kneeling  in  front  of  the  fireplace,  and 
lighting  the  fire  under  the  saucepan,  he 
continued  to  walk  up  and  down  the 
kitchen  with  long  strides,  and  said: 
*'Wel],  I  aiii  really  glad  at  this;  I  am 
not  saying  it  for  form's  sake,  but  I  am 
glad,  I  am  really  very  dad." 


In  the  Moonlight 


Well-merited  was  the  name,  "sol- 
dier of  God,"  by  the  Abbe  Marignan. 
He  was  a  tall,  thia  priest,  fanatical  to 
a  degree,  but  just,  and  of  an  exalted 
soul.  All  h^s  beliefs  were  fixed,  with 
never  a  waver.  He  thought  that  he  un- 
derstocc!  Gud  thoroughly,  that  he  pene- 
trated His  designs.  His  wishes,  His  in- 
tentions. 

Striding  up  and  down  the  garden  walk 
of  his  little  country  parsonage,  some- 
times a  question  arose  in  his  mind: 
"Why  did  God  make  that?"  Then  in 
his  thoughts,  putting  himself  in  God's 
place,  he  searched  obstinately,  and 
nearly  always  was  satisfied  that  he 
found  the  reason.  He  was  not  th3  man 
to  murmur  in  transports  of  pious  hu- 
mility, "O  Lord,  thy  ways  are  past 
finding  out!"  What  he  said  was:  "I  am 
the  servant  of  God;  I  ought  to  know 
the  reason  cf  what  he  does,  or  to  divine 
it  if  I  do  net." 

Everything  in  nature  seemed  to  him 
created  with  an  absolute  and  admirable 
logic.  The  "wherefore"  and  the  "be- 
cause*' were  always  balanced.  The 
dawns  were  made  to  rejoice  you  on 
waking,  the  days  to  ripen  the  harvests, 
the  rains  to  water  them,  the  evenirgs  to 
prepare  for  sleeping,  and  the  nights  dark 
for  sleep. 

The  four  seasons  corresponded  per- 
fectly to  all  the  needs  of  agriculture; 
and  to  him  the  suspicion  could  never 
have  come  that  nature  has  no  inten- 
tion, and  that  all  which  lives  has  accus- 
tomed itself,  en  the  contrary,  to  the 
hard  conditions  of  different  periods,  of 
climates,  and  of  matter. 

But  he  hated  women;  he  hated  them 


unconsciously,  and  despised  them  by 
instinct.  He  often  repeated  the  words 
of  Christ,  "Woman,  what  have  1  to  do 
''v.ith  thee?"  and  he  would  add,  "One 
v;ould  almost  say  that  God  himself  was 
ill-pleased  with  that  particular  work  of 
Lis  hands."  Woman  for  him  was  indeed 
the  "child  twelve  times  unclean"  of 
v/hom  the  poet  speaks.  She  was  the 
temptress  who  had  ensnared  the  first 
man,  and  who  still  continued  her  dam- 
nable work;  she  was  the  being  who  is 
feeble,  dangerous,  mysteriously  troub- 
lous. And  even  more  than  her  poisonous 
beauty,  he  hated  her  loving  soul. 

He  had  often  felt  women's  tenderness 
attack  him,  and  though  he  knew  himself 
to  be  unassailable,  he  grew  exasperated 
at  this  need  cf  loving  which  quivers 
continually  in  their  hearts. 

To  his  mind,  God  had  only  created 
woman  to  tempt  man  and  to  test  him. 
Man  should  not  approach  her  without 
those  precautions  for  defense  which  he 
would  take,  and  the  fears  he  would 
cherish,  near  an  ambush.  Woman,  in- 
deed, was  just  like  a  trap,  with  her  arms 
extended  and  her  lips  open  toward  a 
man. 

He  had  toleration  only  for  nuns,  ren- 
dered harmless  by  their  vow;  but  he 
treated  them  harshly  notwithstanding, 
because,  ever  at  the  bottom  cf  their 
chained-up  hearts,  their  chastened 
hearts,  he  perceived  the  eternal  tender- 
ness that  constantly  went  out  even  to 
him,  although  he  was  a  priest. 

He  had  a  niece  who  lived  with  her 
mother  in  a  little  house  near  by.  He 
was  bent  on  making  her  a  sister  of 
charity.      She  was    pretty   and    hare 


52 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


brained,  and  a  great  tease.  When  the 
abbe  sermonized,  she  laughed;  when  he 
ras  angry  at  her,  she  kissed  him  ve- 
hemently, pressing  him  to  her  heart, 
while  he  would  seek  involuntarily  to 
free  himself  from  her  embrace.  Not- 
withstanding, it  made  him  taste  a  cer- 
tain sweet  joy,  awaking  deep  within  him 
that  sensation  of  fatherhood  which 
slumbers  in  every  man. 

Often  he  talked  to  her  of  God,  of  his 
God,  walking  beside  her  along  the  foot- 
paths through  the  fields.  She  hardly 
listened,  but  looked  at  the  sky,  the 
grass,  the  flowers,  with  a  joy  of  living 
which  covld  be  seen  in  her  eyes.  Some- 
times she  rushed  forward  to  catch  some 
flying  creature,  and  bringing  it  back 
would  cry:  "Look,  my  uncle,  how 
pretty  it  is;  I  should  like  to  kiss  it." 
And  this  necessity  to  "kiss  flies"  or 
sweet  flowers  worried,  irritated,  and 
revolted  the  priest,  who  saw,  even  in 
that,  the  iiieradicable  tenderness  which 
ever  springs  in  the  hearts  of  women. 

One  day  the  sacristan's  wife,  who 
kept  house  for  the  Abbe  Marignan.  told 
him,  very  cautiously,  that  his  niece  nad 
a  lover! 

He  experienced  a  dreadful  emotion, 
and  he  stood  choking,  with  the  soap  all 
over  his  face,  in  the  act  of  shaving. 

When  he  found  himself  able  to  think 
and  speak  once  more,  he  cried:  "It  is 
not  true;  you  are  lying,  Melanie!" 

But  the  peasant  woman  put  her  hand 
on  her  heart;  "May  our  Lord  judge 
me  if  I  am  lying,  Monsieur  le  Cure 
I  tell  you  she  goes  to  him  every  eve- 
ning as  soon  as  your  sister  is  in  bed. 
They  meet  each  other  beside  the  river. 
You  have  only  to  so  the^e  between  ten 


o'clock  and  midnight,  and  see  for  yeir- 
self." 

He  ceased  scratching  his  chin  and 
commenced  to  pace  the  room  quickly, 
as  he  always  did  in  his  hours  of  gravest 
thought.  When  he  tried  to  begin  his 
shaving  again,  he  cut  himself  three 
times  from  nose  to  ear. 

All  day  long,  he  remained  silent, 
swollen  with  anger  and  with  rage.  To 
his  priestly  zeal  against  the  mighty 
power  of  love  was  added  the  moral  in- 
dignation of  a  father,  of  a  teacher,  of  a 
keeper  of  souls,  who  has  been  deceived, 
robbed,  played  with  by  a  child.  He  felt 
the  egotistical  sorrow  that  parents  feel 
when  their  daughter  announces  that  she 
has  chosen  a  husband  without  them 
and  in  spite  of  their  advice. 

After  his  dinner,  he  tried  to  read  a 
little,  but  he  could  not  attune  himself 
to  it;  and  he  grew  angrier  and  angrier. 
When  it  struck  ten,  me  took  his  cane, 
a  formidable  oaken   club  which  he  al- 
ways carried  when  he  had  to  go  out  at 
night  to  visit   the  sick.     Smilingly  he 
regarded  the  enormous  cudgel,  holding 
it   in  his   solid,  countryman's   fist  and 
cutting  threatening  circles  with  it  in  the 
air.    Then,  suddenly,  he  raised  it,  and } 
grinding  his  teeth,  he  brought  it  down  ' 
upon  a  chair,  the  back  of  which,  split  in . 
two,  fell  heavily  to  the  ground.  • 

He  opened  his  door  to  go  out ;  but  he 
stopped  upon  the   threshold,   surprised 
by  such  3  splendor  of  moonlight  as  you ; 
seldom  see.  i 

Endowed  as  he  was  with  an  exalted  i 
spirit,  such  a  spirit  as  must  have  be- 
longed    to    those     dreamer-poets,     the 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  he  felt  himself 
suddenlv   softened  and   moved   by   the 


IN  THE  MOONLIGHl 


06 


grand  and  serene  beauty  of  the  pale- 
faced  night. 

In  his  little  garden,  bathed  in  the  soft 
brilliance,  his  fruit-trees,  all  a-row,  were 
outlining  in  shadow  upon  the  walk  their 
slender  limbs  of  wood  scarce  clothed 
with  green;  while  the  giant  honeysuckle 
climbing  on  the  house  wall  exhaled 
delicious,  sugared  breaths,  which 
hovered  through  the  warm,  clear  night 
like  a  perfumed  soul. 

He  began  to  breathe  deep,  drinking 
the  air  as  drunkards  drink  their  wine, 
and  walking  slowly,  ravished,  surprised, 
and  almost  oblivious  of  his  niece. 

As  he  stepped  into  the  open  country 
be  stopped  to  contemplate  the  whole 
plain,  inundated  by  this  caressing  radi- 
ance, and  drowned  in  the  tender  and 
languishing  charm  of  the  serene  night. 
In  chorus  the  frogs  threw  into  space 
their  short,  metallic  notes,  and  with  the 
seduction  of  the  moonlight,  distant 
nightingales  mingled  that  fitful  music 
of  theirs  which  brings  no  thoughts  but 
dreams,  a  light  and  vibrant  melody 
which  seems  attuned  to  kisses. 

The  abbe  continued  his  walk,  his 
courage  failing,  he  knew  not  why.  He 
felt,  as  it  were,  enfeebled,  and  sud- 
denly exhausted;  he  had  a  great  desire 
to  sit  down,  to  pause  right  there  and 
praise  God  in  all  His  works. 

Below  him,  following  the  bends  of 
the  little  river,  wound  a  great  line  of 
poplars.  On  and  about  the  banks, 
wrapping  all  the  tortuous  watercourse 
in  a  kind  of  light,  transparent  wadding, 
hung  suspended  a  fine  mist,  a  white  va- 
por, which  the  moon-rays  crossed,  and 
silvered,  and  caused  to  gleam. 

The  priest  paused  yet  again,  pene- 
trated to  the  depths  of  his  soul  by  a 


strong   and   growing   emouon.     And  a 

doubt,  a  vague  uneasiness,  seized  on 
him;  he  felt  that  one  of  those  questions 
he  sometimes  put  to  himself  was  now 
being  born. 

Why  had  God  done  this?  Since  the 
night  is  destined  for  sleep,  for  uncon- 
sciousness, for  repose,  for  forgetful- 
ness  of  everything,  why,  then,  make  it 
more  charming  than  the  day,  sweeter 
than  dawns  and  sunsets?  And  this  slow, 
seductive  star,  more  poetical  than  the 
sun  and  so  discreet,  that  it  seems 
designed  to  light  up  things  too  deli- 
cate, too  mysterious,  for  the  great 
luminary, — ^why  had  it  come  to 
brighten  all  the  shades?  Why  did 
not  the  sweetest  of  all  songsters  go  to 
rest  like  the  others?  Why  set  himself 
to  singing  in  the  vaguely  troubling 
dark?  Why  this  half -veil  over  the 
world?  W^hy  these  quiverings  of  the 
heart,  this  emotion  of  the  soul,  this 
languor  of  the  body?  Why  this  display 
of  seductions  which  mankind  never  sees, 
since  night  brings  sleep?  For  whom 
was  this  sublime  spectacle  intended,  this 
flood  of  poetry  poured  from  heaven  to 
earth?  The  abbe  did  not  understand  it 
at  all. 

But  then,  down  there  along  the  edg3 
of  the  pasture  appeared  two  shadows 
walking  side  by  side  under  the  arched 
roof  of  the  trees  all  soaked  in  glittering 
mist. 

The  man  was  the  taller,  and  had  his 
arm  about  his  mistress's  neck;  from 
time  to  time  he  kissed  her  on  the  fore- 
head. They  animated  the  lifeless  land- 
scape which  enveloped  them,  a  divine 
frame  made,  as  it  were,  expressly  for 
them.  They  seemed  these  two,  a  single 
being,  the  being  for  whom  this  calm 


54 


WOrvKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  silent  night  was  destined;  and  they 
approached  the  priest  like  a  living 
answer,  the  answer  vouchsafed  by  his 
Master  to  his  question. 

He  stood  stock-still,  overwhelmed, 
and  with  a  beating  heart.  He  likened  it 
to  some  Bible  story,  such  as  the  loves 
of  Rulh  and  Boaz,  the  accomplishment 
of  the  will  of  the  Lord  in  one  of  those 
great  scenes  tall:ed  of  in  holy  writ. 
Through  his  head  ran  the  versicles  of 
the  Song  of  Songs,  the  ardent  cries,  the 
calls  of  the  body,  all  the  passionate 
poetry  of  that  poem  which  bums  with 


tenderness  and  love.  And  he  said  to 
himself,  "God  perhaps  has  made  such 
nights  as  this  to  clothe  with  his  ideals 
the  loves  cf  men." 

He  withdrew  before  the  couple,  who 
went  on  arm  in  arm.  It  was  really  his 
niece;  and  now  he  asked  himself  if  he 
had  not  been  about  to  disobey  God 
For  does  not  God  indeed  permit  love, 
since  He  surrounds  it  visibly  with  splen- 
dor  such  as  this? 

And  he  fled,  in  amaze,  almost 
ashamed,  as  if  he  had  penetrated  intr 
a  temple  where  he  nad  no  right  to  entei 


Mme.  Tellier's  Excursion 


Men  went  there  every  evening  at 
about  eleven  o'clock,  just  as  they  went 
to  the  caje.  Six  or  eight  of  them  used 
to  meet  there;  always  the  same  set,  not 
fast  men,  but  respectable  tradesmen,  and 
young  men  in  government  or  some  other 
employ;  and  they  used  to  drink  their 
Chartreuse,  and  tease  the  girls,  or  else 
they  would  talk  seriously  with  Madame, 
whom  everybody  respected,  and  then 
would  go  home  at  twelve  o'clock!  The 
younger  men  would  sometimes  stay  the 
night. 

It  was  a  small,  comfortable  house,  at 
the  corner  of  a  street  beliind  Saint 
Etienne's  church.  From  the  windows 
one  could  see  the  docks,  full  of  ships 
which  were  being  unloaded,  and  on  the 
hill  the  old,  gray  chapel,  dedicated  to 
the  Virgin. 

Madame,  who  came  of  a  respectable 
family  of  peasant  proprietors  in  the  de- 
partment of  the  Eure,  had  taken  up  her 


profession,  just  as  she  would  have  be^ 
come  a  milliner  or  dressmaker.  The 
prejudice  against  prostitution,  which  is 
so  violent  and  deeply  rooted  in  large 
towns,  does  not  exist  in  the  country 
places  in  Normandy.  The  peasant 
simply  says:  "It  is  a  paying  business,'' 
and  sends  his  daughter  to  keep  a  harem 
of  fast  girls,  just  as  he  would  send  her 
to  keep  a  girls'  school. 

She  had  inherited  the  house  from  an  ' 
old   uncle,   to  whom   it  had   belonged.  . 
Monsieur   and   Madame  who  had   for-  i 
merly  been  innkeepers  near  Yvetot,  had  , 
immediately  sold  their  house,  as  they 
thought   that  the  business   at   Fecamp 
was  more  profitable.    They  arrived  one 
fine  morning  to  assume  the  direction  of 
the  enterprise,  which  was  declining  on 
account  of  the  absence  of  a  head.    They 
were  good  people  enough  in  iheir  way, 
and  soon  m.ade  themselves  liked  by  theii 
staff  and  their  neighbors- 


MME.  TTLLILRS  EXCURSION 


53 


Monsieui  died  of  apoplexy  two  years 
later,  for  as  his  new  profession  kept  him 
in  idleness  and  without  exercise,  hj  nad 
grown  excessively  stout,  and  his  health 
had  suffered.  Since  Madame  had  been  a 
widow,  all  the  frequenters  ot  the  estab- 
lishment had  wanted  her;  but  people  said 
that  personally  she  was  quite  virtuous, 
and  even  the  girls  in  the  house  could  not 
discover  anything  against  her.  She  was 
tall,  stout,  and  affable,  and  her  com- 
plexion, which  had  become  pale  in  the 
dimness  of  her  house,  the  shutters  of 
which  were  scarcely  ever  opened,  shone 
as  if  it  had  been  varnished.  She  had  a 
fringe  of  curly,  false  hair,  v/hich  gave 
her  a  juvenile  look,  which  in  turn  con- 
trasted strongly  with  her  matronly  fig- 
ure. She  was  always  smiling  and  cheer- 
ful, and  was  fond  of  a  joke,  but  there 
was  a  shade  of  reserve  about  her  which 
her  new  occupation  had  not  quite  made 
her  lose.  Coarse  words  always  shocked 
her,  and  when  ary  young  fellow  who 
had  been  badly  brought  up  called  her 
establishment  by  its  right  name,  she  was 
angry  and  disgusted. 

In  a  word,  she  had  a  refined  mJnd, 
and  although  she  treated  her  women  as 
friends,  yet  she  very  frequently  used  to 
say  that  she  and  they  were  not  made  of 
the  same  stuff. 

Sometimes  during  the  week  she  would 
hire  a  carriage  and  take  some  of  her 
girls  into  the  country,  where  they  used 
to  enjoy  themselves  on  the  grass  by  the 
side  of  the  little  river.  They  behaved 
like  a  lot  of  girls  let  out  from  a  school, 
and  used  to  run  races,  and  play  childish 
games.  They  would  have  a  cold  dinner 
on  the  grass,  and  drink  cider,  and  go 
home  at  night  with  a  delicious  feeling 
of    fatigue,    and    in    the    carriage    kiss 


Madame  as  a  kind  mother  who  v;as  iuD 
of  goodness  and  complaisance. 

The  house  had  two  entrances.  At  the 
corner  there  was  a  sort  of  low  caje, 
v.'hich  sailors  and  the  lower  orders  fre- 
quented at  night,  and  she  had  two  girb 
v;hose  special  duty  it  was  to  attend  to 
that  part  of  the  business.  With  the  as- 
sistance of  the  waiter,  whose  name  was 
Frederic,  and  who  was  a  short,  light- 
haired,  beardless  fellow,  as  strong  as  a 
horse,  they  set  the  half  bottles  of  wine 
and  the  jugs  of  beer  on  the  shaky 
marble  tables  and  then,  sitting  astride 
on  the  customers'  knees,  would  urge 
them  to  drink. 

The  three  other  girls  (there  were  only 
five  in  all),  formed  a  kind  of  aristocracy, 
and  were  reserved  for  the  company  on 
the  first  floor,  unless  they  were  wanted 
downstairs,  and  there  was  nobody  on  the 
first  floor.  The  salon  of  Jupiter,  where 
the  tradesmen  used  to  meet,  was  papered 
in  blue,  and  embellished  with  a  large 
drawing  representing  Leda  stretched  out 
under  the  swan.  That  room  was  reached 
by  a  winding  staircase,  which  ended  «it  a 
narrow  door  opening  on  to  the  street, 
end  above  it,  all  night  lorg  a  little  lamp 
burned,  behind  wire  bars,  such  as  one 
still  sees  in  some  towns,  at  the  foot  of 
the  shrine  of  some  saint. 

The  house,  which  was  old  and  damp, 
rather  smelled  of  mildew.  At  times 
there  was  an  odor  of  eau  de  Cologne 
in  the  passages,  or  a  half  open  door 
downstairs  allowed  the  nuise  of  the  com- 
mon men  sitting  and  drinking  down- 
stairs to  reach  the  fi-st  floor,  much  to 
the  disgust  of  the  gentlemen  who  were 
there.  Madame,  who  v/as  quite  familiar 
with  those  of  her  customers  with  whom 
she  was  on  friendly  terms,  did  not  leave 


56 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


the  salon.  She  took  much  interest  in 
what  was  going  on  in  the  town,  and  they 
regularly  told  her  all  the  news.  Her 
serious  conversation  was  a  change  from 
the  ceaseless  chatter  of  the  three  wo- 
men; it  was  a  rest  from  the  doubtful 
jokes  of  those  stout  individuals  who 
every  evening  indulged  in  the  common- 
place am^usement  of  drinking  a  glass  of 
liquor  in  company  with  girls  of  easy 
virtue. 

The  names  of  the  girls  on  the  first 
floor  were  Fernande,  Raphaelle,  and 
Rosa  "the  Jade."  As  the  staff  was 
limited,  Madame  had  endeavored  that 
each  member  of  it  should  be  a  pattern, 
an  epitome  of  each  feminine  type,  so 
that  every  customer  might  find  as  nearly 
as  possible,  the  realization  of  his  ideal. 
Fernande  represented  the  handsome 
blonde;  she  was  very  tall,  rather  fat,  and 
lazy;  a  country  girl,  who  could  not  get 
rid  of  her  freckles,  and  whose  short, 
light,  almost  colorless,  tow-like  hair, 
which  was  like  combed-out  flax,  barely 
covered  her  head. 

Raphaelle,  who  came  from  Marseilles, 
played  the  indispensable  part  of  the 
handsome  Jewess.  She  was  thin,  with 
high  cheek-bones  covered  with  rouge, 
and  her  black  hair,  which  was  always 
covered  with  pomatum,  curled  on  to  her 
forehead.  Her  eyes  would  have  been 
handsome,  if  the  right  one  had  not  had 
a  speck  in  it.  Her  Roman  nose  came 
down  over  a  square  jaw,  where  two  false 
upper  teeth  contrasted  strangely  with 
the  bad  color  of  the  rest. 

Rosa  the  Jade  was  a  little  roll  of  fat, 
nearly  all  stomach,  with  very  short  legs. 
From  morning  till  night  she  sang  songs, 
which  were  alternately  indecent  or  senti- 
mental, in  a  harsh  voice,  told  silly,  in- 


terminable tales,  and  only  stopped  talk- 
ing in  order  to  eat,  or  left  off  eating  in 
order  to  talk.  She  was  never  still,  was 
as  active  as  a  squirrel,  in  spite  of  her 
fat  and  her  short  legs;  and  her  laugh, 
which  was  a  torrent  of  shrill  cries,  re- 
sounded here  and  there,  ceaselessly,  in  a 
bedroom,  in  the  loft,  in  the  caji,  every* 
where,  and  always  about  nothing. 

The  two  women  on  the  ground  floor 
were  Louise,  who  was  nicknamed  "la 
Cocotte,"*  and  Flora,  whom  they  called 
"Balangiere,"t  because  she  limped  a 
little.  The  former  always  dressed  as 
Liberty,  with  a  tri-colored  sash,  and  the 
other  as  a  Spanish  woman,  with  a  string 
of  copper  coins  which  jingled  at  every 
step  she  took,  in  her  carroty  hair.  Both 
looked  like  cooks  dressed  up  for  the 
carnival,  and  were  like  all  other  women 
of  the  lower  orders,  neither  uglier  nor 
better  looking  than  they  usually  are.  In 
fact  they  looked  just  like  servants  at  an 
inn,  and  were  generally  called  "the  Two 
Pumps." 

A  jealous  peace,  very  rarely  dis- 
turbed, reigned  among  these  five  women, 
thanks  to  Madame's  conciliatory  wisdom 
and  to  her  constant  good  humor;  and 
the  establishment,  which  was  the  only 
one  of  the  kind  in  the  little  town,  was 
very  much  frequented.  Madam.e  had 
succeeded  in  giving  it  such  a  respectable 
appearance;  she  was  so  amiable  and 
obliging  to  everybody,  her  good  heart 
was  so  well  known,  that  she  was  treated 
with  a  certain  amount  of  consideration. 
The  regular  customers  spent  money  on 
her,  and  were  delighted  when  she  was  es- 
pecially friendly  toward  them.  When 
they  met   during  the  day,  they  would 


*  Slang  for  a  lady  of  easy  virtue. 
fSwing,  or  seesaw. 


MME.  TELLIER'S  EXCURSION 


5) 


fcay:  "This  evening,  you  know  where," 
just  as  men  say:  "At  the  cafe,  after 
dinner."  In  a  word  Madame  Tellier's 
house  was  somewhere  to  go  to,  and  her 
customers  very  rarely  missed  their  daily 
meetings  there. 

One  evening,  toward  the  end  of  May, 
the  first  arrival.  Monsieur  Poulin,  who 
was  a  timber  merchant,  and  had  been 
mayor,  found  the  door  shut.  The  little 
lantern  behind  the  grating  was  not 
alight;  ♦iere  was  not  a  sound  in  the 
house;  everything  seemed  dead.  He 
knocked,  gently  at  first,  and  then  more 
loudly,  but  nobody  answered  the  door. 
Then  he  went  slowly  up  the  street,  and 
when  he  got  to  the  market  place,  he  met 
Monsieur  Duvert,  the  gun-maker,  who 
was  going  to  the  same  place,  so  they 
went  back  together,  but  did  not  meet 
with  any  better  success.  But  suddenly 
they  heard  a  loud  noise  close  to  them, 
and  on  going  round  the  corner  of  the 
house,  they  saw  a  number  of  English 
and  French  sailors,  who  were  hammer- 
ing at  the  closed  shutters  of  the  caj6 
with  their  fists. 

The  two  tradesmen  immediately  made 
their  escape,  for  fear  of  being  com- 
promised, but  a  low  Pst  stopped  them; 
it  was  Monsieur  Tournevau,  the  fish- 
curer,  who  had  recognized  them,  and 
was  trying  to  attract  their  attention. 
They  told  him  what  hM  happened,  and 
he  was  all  the  more  vexed  at  it,  ^.s  he,  a 
married  man,  and  father  of  a  family, 
only  went  there  on  Saturdays — securi^ 
talis  cajisa,  as  he  said,  alluding  to  a 
measure  of  sanitary  policy,  which  his 
friend  Doctor  Borde  had  advised  him  to 
observe.  That  was  his  regular  evening, 
and  now  he  would  be  deprived  of  it  for 
the  whole  week. 


The  three  men  went  as  far  as  the  quay 
together,  and  on  the  way  they  met  young 
Monsieur  Phillippe,  the  banker's  son, 
who  frequented  the  place  regularly,  and 
Monsieur  Pinipesse,  the  collector.  They 
all  returned  to  the  Rue  aux  Juifs  to- 
gether, to  make  a  last  attempt.  But  the 
exasperated  sailors  were  besieging  the 
house,  throwing  stones  at  the  shutters, 
and  shouting,  and  the  five  first-floor  cus- 
tomers went  away  as  quickly  as  possible, 
and  walked  aimlessly  about  the  streets. 

Presently  they  met  Monsieur  Dupuis, 
the  insurance  agent,  and  then  Monsieur 
Vassi,  the  Judge  of  the  Tribunal  of 
Commerce,  and  they  all  took  a  long 
walk,  going  to  the  pier  first  of  all. 
There  they  sat  down  in  a  row  on  the 
granite  parapet,  and  watched  the  rising 
tide,  and  when  the  promenaders  had  sat 
there  for  some  time.  Monsieur  Tourne- 
vau said:     *This  is  not  very  amusing!" 

"Decidedly  not,"  Monsieur  Pinipesse 
replied,  and  they  started  off  to  walk 
again. 

After  going  through  the  sti-eet  on  the 
top  of  the  hill,  they  returned  over  the 
wooden  bridge  which  crosses  the  Re- 
tenue,  passed  close  to  the  railway,  and 
came  out  again  on  to  the  market  place, 
when  suddenly  a  quarrel  arose  between 
Monsieur  Pinipesse  and  Monsieur  Tour- 
nevau, about  an  edible  fungus  which  one 
of  them  declared  he  had  found  in  the 
neighborhood. 

As  they  were  out  of  temper  already 
from  annoyance,  they  would  very  prob- 
ably have  come  to  blows,  if  the  others 
had  not  interfered.  Monsieur  Pinipesse 
went  off  furious,  and  soon  another  alter- 
cation arose  between  the  ex-mayor. 
Monsieur  Poulin,  and  Monsieur  Dupuis, 
the  insurance  agent,  on  the  subject  of 


58 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


the  tax-collector's  salary,  and  the  profits 
which   he   might   make.     Insulting   re- 
marks were  ireely  passing  between  them, 
j^'hen  a  torrent  of  formidable  cries  were 
heard,  and  th*^  body  of  sailors,  who  were 
tired  of  waiting  so  long  outside  a  closed 
house,  came  into  the  square.    They  were 
walkmg  arm-in-arm,  two  and  two,  and 
formed    a    long    procession,    and    were 
shouting  furiously.    The  landsmen  went 
and  hid  themselves  under  a  gateway,  and 
the  yelling  crew  disappeared  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  abbey.    For  a  long  time 
they   still   heard   the   noise,   which   di- 
minished like  a  storm  in  the  distance, 
and   then   silence  was  restored.     Mon- 
sieur Poulin  and  Monsieur  Dupuis,  who 
were  enraged  with  each  other,  went  in 
different  directions,  without  wishing  each 
other  good-bye. 

The  other  four  set  off  again,  and  in- 
stinctively went  in  the  direction  of 
Madame  Tellier's  establishment,  which 
was  still  closed,  silent,  impenetrable.  A 
<juiet,  but  obstinate,  drunken  man  was 
knocking  at  the  door  of  the  cafS;  then 
he  stopped  and  called  Frederic,  the 
waiter,  in  a  low  voice,  but  finding  that 
he  got  no  answei,  he  sat  down  on  the 
doorstep,  and  awaited  the  course  of 
events. 

The  others  were  just  going  to  retire, 
when  the  noisy  band  of  sailors  reap- 
peared at  the  end  of  the  street.  The 
French  sailors  were  shouting  the  "Mar- 
seillaise," and  the  Englishmen,  "Rule 
Britannia."  There  was  a  general  lurch- 
ing against  the  wall,  and  then  the  drunk- 
en brutes  went  on  their  way  toward 
the  quay,  where  a  fight  broke  out  be- 
tween the  two  nations,  in  the  course  of 
which  an  Englishman  had  his  arm  bro- 
ken, and  a  Frenchman  his  nose  split. 


The  drunken  man,  who  had  stopped 
outside  the  door,  was  crying  by  tliis 
time,  as  drunken  men  and  children  cry 
when  they  are  vexed,  and  the  others 
wen^  away.  By  degrees,  calm  was  re- 
stored in  the  noisy  town ;  here  and  there, 
at  moments,  the  distant  sound  of  voices 
could  be  heard,  only  to  die  away  in  the 
distance. 

One  man  was  still  wandering  about, 
Monsieur  Tournevau,  the  fish-curer,  who 
was  vexed  at  having  to  wait  until  the 
next  Saturday.  He  hoped  for  some- 
thing to  turn  up,  he  did  not  know  what; 
but  he  was  exasperated  at  the  police 
for  thus  allowing  an  establishment  of 
such  public  utility,  which  they  had  un- 
der their  control,  to  be  thus  closed. 

He  went  back  to  it,  examined  the 
walls,  and  tried  to  find  out  the  reason. 
On  the  shutter  he  saw  a  notice  stuck  up, 
so  he  struck  a  wax  vesta,  and  read  the 
following,  in  a  large,  uneven  hand: 
"C'oced  on  account  of  the  Confirma- 
tion." 

Then  he  went  away,  as  he  saw  it  was 
useless  to  remain,  and  left  the  drunken 
man  lying  on  the  pavement  fast  asleep, 
outside  the  inhospitable  door. 

The  next  day,  all  the  regular  cus- 
tomers, one  after  the  other,  found  some 
reason  for  going  through  the  Rue  aux 
Juifs  with  a  bundle  of  papers  under  their 
arm,  to  keep  them  in  countenance,  and 
with  a  furtive  glance  they  all  read  that 
mysterious  notice: 

"Closed  on  Account  of  the 
Confirmation." 


n. 


Madame  had  a  brother,  who  was  a 
carpenter  in  their  native  place,  Virville, 


MME.  TIXLILrv'S  ZXCU?vCION 


50 


in  the  department  of  Euro.  V/hen 
Madame  had  still  kept  the  inn  at  Yvetot, 
she  had  stood  godmother  to  that 
brother's  dnu-liter,  who  had  received  the 
name  of  Constance,  Constance  Rivet; 
she  herself  being  a  Rivet  on  her  father's 
side.  The  carpenter,  who  knew  that  his 
sister  was  in  a  good  position,  did  not 
lose  sight  of  her,  although  they  did  not 
meet  often,  as  they  were  both  kept  at 
home  by  their  occunations,  and  lived  a 
long  way  from  each  other.  But  when 
the  girl  was  twelve  years  old,  and  about 
to  be  confirmed,  he  seized  the  oppor- 
tunity to  wrile  to  his  sister,  and  ask  her 
to  come  and  be  present  at  the  cere- 
mony. Their  old  parents  were  dead,  and 
as  Madame  could  not  well  refuse,  she 
accepted  the  invitation.  I-er  brother, 
whose  name  was  Joseph,  hoped  that  by 
dint  of  showing  his  sister  attentions,  she 
might  be  induced  to  make  her  will  in 
the  girl's  favor,  as  she  had  no  children 
of  her  own. 

His  sister's  occupation  did  not 
trouble  his  scruples  in  the  least,  and,  be- 
sides, nobody  knew  anything  about  it  at 
Virville.  When  they  spoke  of  her,  they 
only  said :  "Madame  Tellier  is  living  at 
Fecamp,"  which  might  mean  that  she 
was  living  on  her  own  private  income. 
It  was  quite  twenty  leagues  from 
Fecamp  to  Virville,  and  for  a  peasant, 
twenty  leagues  on  land  are  more  than  is 
crossing  the  ocean  to  an  educated  per- 
son. The  people  at  Virville  had  never 
beon  further  than  Rouen,  and  nothing 
attracted  the  people  from  Fecamp  to  a 
village  of  five  hundred  houses,  in  the 
middle  of  a  plain,  and  situated  in  an- 
other department.  At  any  rate,  noth- 
ing was  known  about  her  business. 

But  the  Confirmation  was  coming  on 


and  Madame  was  in  great  embarrass- 
ment. She  had  no  undei-mistress,  and 
did  not  at  all  dare  to  leave  her  house, 
even  for  a  day.  She  feared  the  rivalries 
between  the  girls  upstairs  and  those 
downstairs  would  certainly  break  out; 
that  Frederic  would  get  drunk,  for  when 
he  was  in  that  state,  he  would  knock 
anybody  down  for  a  mere  word.  At 
last,  however,  she  made  up  her  mind  to 
take  them  all  with  her,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  man,  to  whom  she  gave  a 
holiday,  until  the  next  day  but  one. 

When  she  asked  her  brother,  he  made 
no  objection,  but  undertook  to  put  them 
all  up  for  a  night.  So  on  Saturday 
morning  the  eight  o'clock  express  car- 
ried off  Madame  and  her  companions  in 
a  second-class  carriage.  As  far  as  Beu- 
zeille  they  were  alone,  and  chattered 
like  magpies,  but  at  that  station  a  couple 
got  in.  The  man,  an  aged  peasant 
dressed  in  a  blue  blouse  with  a  folding 
collar,  wide  sleeves  tight  at  the  wrist, 
and  ornamented  with  white  embroidery, 
wore  an  old  high  hat  with  long  nap. 
He  held  an  enormous  green  umbrella  in 
one  hand,  and  a  large  basket  in  the 
other,  from  which  the  heads  of  three 
frightened  ducks  protruded.  The  wo- 
man, who  sat  stiffly  in  her  rustic  finery, 
had  a  face  like  a  fowl,  and  with  a  nose 
that  was  as  pointed  as  a  bill.  She  sat 
down  opposite  her  husband  and  did  not 
stir,  as  she  was  startled  at  finding  her- 
self in  such  smart  company. 

There  was  certainly  an  array  of  strik- 
ing colors  in  the  carriage.  Madame  was 
dressed  in  blue  silk  from  head  to  foot, 
and  had  over  her  dress  a  dazzling  red 
shawl  of  imitation  French  cashmere. 
Fernande  was  panting  in  a  Scottish  plaid 
dress,   whose   bodice,   which   her   com- 


60 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


panions  had  laced  as  tight  as  they  could, 
had  forced  up  her  falling  bosom  into  a 
double  dome,  that  was  continually  heav- 
ing up  and  down,  and  which  seemed 
Hquid  beneath  the  material.  Raphaelle, 
with  a  bonnet  covered  with  feathers,  so 
that  it  looked  like  a  nest  full  ui  birds, 
had  on  a  luxe  dress  with  gold  spots  on 
it;  there  was  something  Oriental  about 
it  that  suited  her  Jewish  face.  Rosa 
the  Jade  had  on  a  pink  petticoat  with 
large  flounces,  and  looked  like  a  very  fat 
child,  an  obese  dwarf;  while  the  Two 
Pumps  looked  as  if  they  had  cut  their 
dresses  out  of  old,  flowered  curtains, 
dating  from  the  Restoration. 

Perceiving  that  they  were  no  longer 
alone  in  the  compartment,  the  ladies  put 
on  staid  looks,  and  began  to  talk  of 
subjects  which  might  give  the  others  a 
high  opinion  of  them.  But  at  Bolbec  a 
gentleman  with  light  whiskers,  with  a 
gold  chain,  and  wearing  two  or  three 
rings,  got  in,  and  put  several  parcels 
wrapped  in  oil  cloth  into  the  net  over 
his  head.  He  looked  inclined  for  a  joke, 
and  a  good-natured  ii^low. 

"Are  you  ladies  changing  your  quar- 
ters?" he  asked.  The  question  em- 
barrassed them  all  considerably.  Ma- 
dame, however,  quickly  recovered  her 
composure,  and  said  sharply,  to  avenge 
the  honor  of  her  corps : 

*'I  think  you  might  try  and  be  polite!" 

He  excused  himself,  and  said:  *T 
beg  your  pardon,  I  ought  to  have  said 
your  nunnery." 

As  Madame  could  not  think  of  a  re- 
tort, or  perhaps  as  she  thought  herself 
justified  sufficiently,  she  gave  him  a  dig- 
nified bow,  and  pinched  in  her  lips. 

Then  the  gentleman,  who  was  sitting 
between  Rosa  the  Jade  and  the  old  peas- 


ant, began  to  wink  knowingly  at  the 
ducks,  whose  heads  were  sticking  out  of 
the  basket.  When  he  felt  that  he  ha.6 
fixed  the  attention  of  his  pubUc,  he  be- 
gan to  tickle  them  under  their  bills,  and 
spoke  funnily  to  them,  to  make  the 
company  smile. 

"We  have  left  our  little  pond,  qu-ack! 
qu-ack !  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the 
little  spit,  qu-ack!  qu-ack!" 

The  unfortunate  creatures  turned  their 
necks  away  to  avoid  his  caresses,  and 
made  desperate  efforts  to  get  out  of  their 
wicker  prison,  and  then,  suddenly,  all  at 
once,  uttered  the  most  lamentable  quacks 
of  distress.  The  women  exploded  with 
laughter.  They  leaned  forward  and 
pushed  each  other,  so  as  to  see  better; 
they  were  very  much  interested  in  the 
ducks,  and  the  gentleman  redoubled  hi; 
airs,  his  wit,  and  his  teasing. 

Rosa  joined  in,  and  leaning  over  hei 
neighbor's  legs,  she  kissed  the  three  ani* 
mals  on  the  head.  Immediately  all  the 
girls  wanted  to  kiss  them  in  turn,  and 
the  gentleman  took  them  on  to  his  knees, 
made  them  jump  up  and  down  and 
pinched  them.  The  two  peasants,  who 
were  even  in  greater  consternation  than 
their  poultry,  rolled  their  eyes  as  if  they 
were  possessed,  without  venturing  to 
move,  and  their  old  wrinkled  faces  had 
not  a  smile  nor  a  movement. 

Then  the  gentleman,  who  was  a  com- 
mercial traveler,  offered  the  ladies  braces 
by  way  of  a  joke  and  taking  up  one  of 
his  packages,  he  opened  it.  It  was  a 
trick,  for  the  parcel  contained  garters. 
There  were  blue  silk,  pink  silk,  red  silk, 
violet  silk,  mauve  silk  garters,  and  the 
buckles  were  made  of  two  gilt  metal 
Cupids,  embracing  each  other.  The  girls 
uttered    exclamations    of    delight,    and 


MME.  TELLIER'S  EXCURSlO-N 


<5( 


looked  at  them  with  that  gravity  which 
is  natural  to  a  woman  when  she  is  han- 
kering after  a  bargain.  They  consulted 
one  another  by  their  looks  or  in  a  whis- 
per, and  replied  in  the  same  manner,  and 
Madame  was  longingly  handling  a  pair  of 
orange  garters  that  were  broader  and 
more  imposing  than  the  rest;  really  fit 
for  the  mistress  of  such  an  establish- 
ment. 

"Come,  my  kittens,"  he  said,  "you 
must  try  them  on." 

There  was  a  torrent  of  exclamations, 
and  they  squeezed  their  petticoats  be- 
tween their  legs,  as  if  they  thought  he 
was  going  to  ravish  them,  but  he  quietly 
waited  his  time,  and  said:  "Well,  if  you 
will  not,  I  shall  pack  them  up  again." 

And  he  added  cunningly:  "I  offer 
any  pair  they  like,  to  those  who  will  try 
them  on." 

But  they  would  y.ot,  and  sat  up  very 
straight,  and  looked  dignified. 

But  the  Two  Pumps  looked  so  dis- 
tressed that  he  renewed  the  offer  to 
them.  Flora  especially  hesitated,  and  he 
pressed  her: 

"Come,  my  dear,  a  little  courage! 
Just  look  at  that  lilac  pair;  it  will  suit 
your  dress  admirably." 

That  decided  her,  and  pulling  up  her 
dress  she  showed  a  thick  leg  fit  for  a 
milk-maid,  in  a  badly-fitting,  coarse 
stocking.  The  commercial  traveler 
stooped  down  and  fastened  the  garter 
below  the  knee  first  of  all  and  then 
above  it;  and  he  tickled  the  girl  gently, 
which  made  her  scream  and  jump. 
When  he  had  done,  he  gave  her  the  lilac 
pair,  and  asked:     "Who  next?" 

"I!  I!"  they  all  shouted  at  once,  and 
he  began  on  Rosa  the  Jade,  who  un- 
covered a  shapeless,  round  thing  with- 


out any  ankle,  a  regular  "sausage  of  a 
leg,"  as  Raphaelle  used  to  say. 

The  commercial  traveler  compli- 
mented Fernande,  and  grew  quite  en- 
thusiastic over  her  powerful  columns. 

The  thin  tibias  of  the  handsome 
Jewess  met  with  less  flattery,  and  Louise 
Cocotte,  by  way  of  a  joke,  put  her  petti- 
coats over  the  man's  head,  so  that 
Madame  was  obliged  to  interfere  to 
check  such  unseemly  behavior. 

Lastly,  Madame  herself  put  out  her 
leg,  a  handsome,  muscular,  Norman  leg, 
and  in  his  surprise  and  pleasure  the 
commercial  traveler  gallantly  took  off 
his  hat  to  salute  that  master  calf,  like  a 
true  French  cavalier. 

The  two  peasants,  who  were  speech- 
less from  surprise,  looked  askance,  out 
of  the  corners  of  their  eyes.  They 
looked  so  exactly  like  fowls,  that  the 
man  with  the  light  whiskers,  when  he 
sat  up,  said  "Co — co — ri — co,"  under 
their  very  noses,  and  that  gave  rise  to 
another  storm  of  amusement. 

The  old  people  got  out  at  Motteville, 
with  their  basket,  their  ducks,  and  their 
umbrella,  and  they  heard  the  v/oman 
say  to  her  husband,  as  they  went  away : 

"They  are  sluts,  who  are  off  to  that 
cursed  place,  Paris." 

The  funny  commercial  traveler  him- 
self got  out  at  Rouen,  after  behaving 
so  coarsely  that  Madame  was  obliged 
sharply  to  put  him  into  his  right  place. 
She  added,  as  a  moral:  "This  will  teach 
us  not  to  talk  to  the  first  comer." 

At  Oissel  they  changed  trains,  and  at 
a  little  station  further  on  Monsieur 
Joseph  Rivet  was  waiting  for  them  with 
a  large  cart  and  a  number  of  chairs  in 
it,  which  was  drawn  by  a  white  horse. 

The  carpenter  politely  kissed  all  the 


62 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ladies,  and  then  helped  them  into  his 
conveyance. 

Three  of  them  sat  on  three  chairs  at 
the  back,  Raphaelle,  Madame,  and  her 
brother  on  the  three  chairs  in  front,  and 
Rosa,  who  had  no  seat,  settled  herself  as 
comfortably  as  rhe  could  on  tall  Fer- 
nande's  knees,  and  then  they  set  off. 

But  the  horse's  jerky  trot  shook  the 
cart  so  terribly,  that  the  chairs  began 
to  dance,  throwing  the  travelers  into  the 
air,  to  the  right  and  to  the  left,  as  if 
they  had  been  dancing  puppets.  This 
made  them  make  horrible  grimaces  and 
screams,  which,  however,  were  cut  short 
by  another  jolt  of  the  cart. 

They  clung  to  the  sides  of  the  vehicle, 
their  bonnets  fell  on  to  their  backs, 
their  noses  on  their  shoulders,  and  the 
white  horse  trotted  on,  stretching  out  his 
head  and  holding  out  his  tail  quite 
straight,  a  little  hairless  rat's  tail,  with 
which  he  whisked  his  buttocks  from 
time  to  time. 

Joseph  Rivet,  with  one  leg  on  the 
shafts  and  the  other  bent  under  him, 
held  the  reins  with  elbows  high  and  kept 
uttering  a  kind  of  chuckling  sound, 
which  made  the  horse  prick  up  its  ears 
and  go  faster. 

The  green  country  extended  on  either 
side  of  the  road,  and  here  and  there  the 
:olza  in  flower  presented  a  waving  ex- 
panse of  yellow,  from  which  there  arose 
1  strong,  wholesome,  sweet  and  pene- 
tnting  smell,  which  the  wind  carried  to 
some  distaii'  r. 

The  cornflowers  showed  their  little 
blue  heads  among  the  rye,  and  the  wo- 
men wanted  to  pick  them,  but  Monsieur 
Rivet  refused  to  stop. 

Then  sometimes  a  whole  field  ap- 
^i^eared   to  be   covered   with  blood,   so 


thickly  v/ere  the  poppies  growing,  and 
the  cart,  which  looked  as  if  it  were  filled 
with  flowers  of  more  brilliant  hue,  drove 
on  through  the  fields  colored  with  wild 
flowers,  to  disappear  behind  the  trees 
of  a  farm,  then  to  reappear  and  go  on 
again  through  the  yellow  or  green  stand- 
ing crops  studded  with  red  or  blue. 

One  o'clock  struck  as  they  drove  up 
to  the  carpenter's  door.  They  were  tired 
out,  and  very  hungry,  as  they  had  eater 
nothing  since  they  left  home.  Madame 
Rivet  ran  out,  and  made  them  alight, 
one  after  another,  kissing  them  as  soon 
as  they  were  on  the  ground.  She 
seemed  as  if  she  would  never  tire  of 
kissing  her  sister-in-law,  whom  she  ap- 
parently wanted  to  monopolize.  They 
had  lunch  in  the  workshop,  which  had 
been  cleared  out  for  the  next  day's 
dinner. 

A  capital  omelette,  followed  by  boiled 
chitterlings,  and  washed  down  by  good, 
sharp  cider,  made  them  all  feel  comfort- 
able. 

Rivet  had  taken  a  glass  so  that  he 
might  hob-nob  with  them,  and  his  wife 
cooked,  waited  on  them,  brought  in  the 
dishes,  took  them  out,  and  asked  all  of 
them  in  a  whisper  whether  they  had 
everything  they  wanted.  A  number  ot 
boards  standing  against  the  walls,  and 
heaps  of  shavings  that  had  been  swept 
into  the  corners,  gave  out  the  smell 
of  planed  wood,  of  carpentering,  that 
resinous  odor  which  penetrates  the  lungs. 

They  wanted  to  see  the  little  girl,  but 
she  had  gone  to  church,  and  would  not 
be  back  until  evening,  so  they  all  went 
out  for  a  stroll  in  the  country. 

Jt  was  a  small  village,  through  which 
the  high  road  passed.  Ter  or  a  dozen 
houses  on  either  side  of  the  single  street 


MME.  TELLIER^S  EXCURSION 


63 


had  for  tenants  the  butcher,  the  grocer, 
the  carpenter,  the  innkeeper,  the  shoe- 
maker, and  the  baker,  and  others. 

The  church  was  at  the  end  of  the 
street.  It  was  surrounded  by  a  small 
churchyard,  and  four  enormous  lime- 
trees,  which  stood  just  outside  the 
porch,  shaded  it  completely.  It  was 
built  of  flint,  in  no  particular  style,  and 
had  a  slated  steeple.  When  you  got  past 
it,  you  were  in  the  open  country  again, 
which  was  broken  here  and  there  by 
clumps  of  trees  which  hid  some  home- 
stead. 

Rivet  had  given  his  arm  to  his  sister, 
out  of  politeness,  although  he  was  in  his 
working  clothes,  and  was  walking  with 
her  majestically.  His  wife,  who  was 
overwhelmed  by  Raphaelle's  gold-striped 
dress,  was  walking  between  her  and  Fer- 
nande,  and  rotund  Rosa  was  trotting  be- 
hind with  Louise  Cocotte  and  Flora,  the 
seesaw,  who  was  limping  along,  quite 
tired  out. 

The  inhabitants  came  to  their  doors, 
the  children  left  off  playing,  and  a  win- 
dow curtain  would  be  raised,  so  as  to 
show  a  muslin  cap,  while  an  old  woman 
with  a  crutch,  who  was  almost  blind, 
crossed  herself  as  if  it  were  a  religious 
procession.  They  all  looked  for  a  long 
time  after  those  handsome  ladies  from 
the  town,  who  tad  come  so  far  to  be 
present  at  the  confirmation  of  Joseph 
Rivet's  little  girl,  and  the  carpenter  rose 
very  much  in  the  public  estimation. 

.\$  they  passed  the  church,  they  heard 
some  children  singing;  little  shrill  voices 
were  singing  a  hymn,  but  Madame  would 
not  let  them  go  in,  for  fear  of  disturbing 
the  little  cherubs. 

After  a  walk,  during  which  Joseph 
Rivet  enumerated  the  principal  landed 


proprietors,  spoke  about  the  yield  of  the 
land,  and  the  productiveness  of  the  cows 
and  sheep,  he  took  his  flock  of  women 
home  and  installed  them  in  his  house, 
and  as  it  was  very  small,  he  had  put 
tliem  into  the  rooms,  two  and  two. 

Just  ,^or  once,  Rivet  would  sleep  in 
tlie  workshop  on  the  shavings;  his  wife 
was  going  to  share  her  bed  with  her 
sister-in-law,  and  Fernande  and  Ra- 
phaelle  were  to  sleep  together  in  the 
next  room.  Louise  and  Flora  were  put 
into  the  kitchen,  where  they  had  a  mat- 
tress on  the  floor,  and  Rosa  had  a  little 
dark  cupboard  at  the  top  of  the  stairs 
to  herself,  close  to  the  loft,  where  the 
candidate  for  confirmation  was  to  sleep. 

When  the  girl  came  in,  she  was  over- 
whelmed with  kisses;  all  the  women 
wished  to  caress  her,  wi^h  that  need  oi 
tender  expansion,  that  habit  of  profes- 
sional wheedling,  which  had  made  them 
kiss  the  ducks  in  the  railway  carriage. 

They  took  her  on  to  their  laps, 
stroked  her  soft,  light  hair,  and  pressed 
her  in  their  arms  with  vehement  and 
rpontaneous  outbursts  of  affection,  and 
the  child,  who  was  very  good-natured 
and  docile,  bore  it  all  patiently. 

As  the  day  had  been  a  fatiguing  one 
for  everybody,  they  all  went  to  bed 
soon  after  dinner.  The  whole  village 
was  wrapped  in  that  perfect  stillness  of 
the  country,  which  is  almost  like  a  re- 
ligious silence,  and  the  girls  who  were 
accustomed  to  the  noisy  evenings  o\ 
their  establishment,  felt  rather  impressed 
by  the  perfect  repose  of  the  sleeping 
village.  They  shivered,  not  with  cold,  but 
with  those  little  shivers  of  solitude 
which  come  ove^  uneasy  and  troiiblec^ 
hearts, 

A.«  soon  as  they  were  in  be  J.  two  and 


64 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


two  together,  they  clasped  each  other 
in  their  arms,  as  if  to  protect  them- 
selves against  this  feeling  of  the  calm 
and  profound  slumber  of  the  earth. 
But  Rosa  the  Jade,  who  was  alone  in 
her  little  dark  cupboard,  felt  a  vague 
and  painful  emotion  come  over  her. 

She  was  tossing  about  in  bed,  unable 
to  get  to  sleep,  when  she  heard  the 
faint  sobs  of  a  crying  child  close  to  her 
head,  through  the  partition.  She  was 
frightened,  and  called  out,  and  was  an- 
swered by  a  weak  voice,  broken  by  sobs. 
It  was  the  little  girl  who,  being  used  to 
sleeping  in  her  mother's  room,  was 
frightened  in  her  small  attic. 

Rosa  was  delighted,  got  up  softly  so 
as  not  to  awaken  anyone,  and  went  and 
fetched  the  child.  She  took  her  into 
her  warm  bed,  kissed  her  and  pressed 
her  to  her  bosom,  caressed  her,  lavished 
exaggerated  manifestations  of  tender- 
ness on  her,  and  at  last  grew  calmer  her- 
self and  went  to  sleep.  And  till  morn- 
ing, the  candidate  for  confirmation  slept 
with  her  head  on  Rosa's  naked  bosom. 

At  five  o'clock,  the  little  church  bell 
ringing  the  "Angelus"  woke  these  women 
up,  who  as  a  rule  slept  the  whole  morn- 
ing long. 

The  peasants  were  up  already,  and 
the  women  went  busily  from  house  to 
house,  carefully  bringing  short,  starched, 
muslin  dresses  in  bandboxes,  or  very 
long  wax  tapers,  with  a  bow  of  silk 
fringed  with  gold  in  the  middle,  and 
with  dents  in  the  wax  for  the  fingers. 

The  sun  was  already  high  in  the  blue 
sky,  which  still  had  a  rosy  tint  toward 
the  horizon,  like  a  faint  trace  of  dawn, 
remaining.  Families  of  fov;ls  were 
walking  about  the  henhouses,  and  here 
and  there  a  black  cock,  with  a  glistening 


breast,  raised  his  head,  crowned  by  his 
red  comb,  flapped  his  wings,  and  uttered 
his  shrill  crow,  which  the  other  cocks 
repeated. 

Vehicles  of  all  sorts  came  from  neigh- 
boring parishes,  and  discharged  tall, 
Norman  women,  in  dark  dresses,  with 
neck-handkerchiefs  crossed  over  the 
bosom,  and  fastened  with  silver 
brooches,  a  hundred  years  old. 

The  men  had  put  on  blouses  over  their 
new  frock  coats,  or  over  their  old  dress 
coats  of  green  cloth,  the  tails  of  which 
hung  down  below  their  blouses.  When 
the  horses  were  in  the  stable,  there  was 
a  double  line  of  rustic  conveyances  along 
the  road;  carts,  cabriolets,  tilburies, 
char-a-bancs,  traps  of  every  shape  and 
age,  resting  on  their  shafts,  or  pointing 
them  in  the  air 

The  carpenter's  house  was  as  busy 
as  a  beehive.  The  ladies,  in  dressing 
jackets  and  petticoats,  with  their  long, 
thin,  light  hair,  which  locked  as  if  it 
were  faded  and  w^orn  by  dyeing,  were 
busy  dressing  the  child,  who  was  stand- 
ing motionless  on  a  table,  while  Madame 
Tellier  was  directing  the  movements  of 
her  battalion.  They  washed  her,  did 
her  hair,  dressed  her,  and  with  the  help 
of  a  number  of  pins,  they  arranged  the 
folds  of  her  dress,  and  took  in  the  waist, 
v;hich  was  too  large. 

Then,  when  she  was  ready,  she  was 
told  to  sit  down  and  not  to  move,  and 
the  women  hurried  off  to  get  ready 
themselves. 

The  church  bell  began  to  ring  again, 
and  its  tinkle  was  lost  in  the  air,  like  a 
feeble  voice  which  is  soon  drowned  in 
space.  The  candidates  came  out  of  the 
houses,  and  went  toward  the  parochial 
building  which  contained  the  school  and 


MME.  TELLIERS  EXCURSION 


o5 


the  mansion  house.  This  stood  quite  at 
one  end  of  the  village,  while  the  church 
was  situated  at  the  other. 

The  parents,  in  their  very  best  clothes, 
followed  their  children  with  awkward 
looks,  and  with  the  clumsy  movemexits 
of  bodies  that  are  always  bent  at  work. 

The  little  girls  disappeared  in  a  cloud 
of  muslin,  which  looked  like  whipped 
cream,  while  the  lads,  who  looked  like 
embryo  waiters  in  a  cafe,  and  whose 
heads  shone  with  pomatum,  walked  with 
their  legs  apart,  so  as  not  to  get  any 
dust  or  dirt  on  to  their  black  trousers. 

It  vas  something  for  the  family  to  be 
proud  of;  a  large  number  of  relatives 
from  distant  parts  surrounded  the  child, 
and,  consequently,  the  carpenter's 
triumph  was  complete. 

Madame  Tellier's  regiment,  with  its 
mistress  at  its  head,  followed  Constance; 
her  father  gave  his  arm  to  his  sister, 
her  mother  walked  by  the  side  of  Ra- 
phaelle,  Fernande  with  Rosa,  and  the 
Two  Pumps  together.  Thus  they  walked 
majestically  through  the  village,  like  a 
general's  staff  in  full  uniform,  while  the 
effect  on  the  village  was  startling. 

At  the  school,  the  girls  arranged  them.- 
selves  under  the  Sister  of  Mercy,  and 
the  boys  under  the  schoolmaster,  and 
they  started  off,  singing  a  hymn  as  they 
went.  The  boys  led  the  way,  in  two 
files,  between  the  two  rows  of  vehicles, 
from  which  the  horses  had  been  taken 
out,  and  the  girls  followed  in  the  same 
order.  As  all  the  people  in  the  village 
had  given  the  town  ladies  the  precedence 
out  of  politeness,  they  came  immediately 
behind  the  girls,  and  lengthened  the 
double  line  of  the  procession  still  more, 
three  on  the  light  and  three  on  the  left, 


while  their  dresses  were  as  striking  as  a 
bouquet  of  fireworks. 

When  they  went  into  the  church,  the 
congregation  grew  quite  excited.  They 
pressed  against  each  other,  they  turned 
round,  they  jostled  one  another  in  order 
to  see.  Some  of  the  devout  ones  almost 
spoke  aloud,  so  astonished  were  they  at 
the  sight  of  these  ladies,  whose  dresses 
were  trimmed  more  elaborately  than  the 
priest's  chasuble. 

The  Mayor  offered  them  his  pew,  the 
first  one  on  the  right,  close  to  the  choir, 
and  Madame  Tellier  sat  there  with  her 
sister-in-law;  Fernande  and  Raphaelle, 
Rosa  the  Jade,  and  the  Two  Pumps 
occupied  the  second  seat,  in  company 
with  the  carpenter. 

The  choir  was  full  of  kneeling  chil- 
dren, the  girls  on  one  side,  and  the  boys 
on  the  other,  and  the  long  wax  tapers 
which  they  held,  looked  like  lances, 
pointing  in  all  directions.  Three  men 
were  standing  in  front  of  the  lectum, 
singing  as  loud  as  they  could. 

They  prolonged  the  syllables  of  the 
sonorous  Latin  indefinitely,  holding  on 
to  the  Amens  with  interminable  a — a's, 
which  the  serpent  of  the  organ  kept  up 
in  the  monotonous,  long-drawn-out 
notes,  emitted  by  the  deep-throated 
pipes. 

A  child's  shrill  voice  took  up  the  reply, 
and  from  time  to  time  a  priest  sittmg 
in  a  stall  and  wearing  a  biretta,  got  up, 
muttered  something,  and  sat  down  again. 
The  three  singers  continued,  with  their 
eyes  fixed  on  the  big  book  of  plain-song 
lying  open  before  them  on  the  out- 
stretched wings  of  an  eagle,  mounted  on 
a  pivot. 

Then  silence  ensued.  The  service 
went   on,   and    toward    the   end    of   it, 


66 


VvORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Rosa,  with  her  head  in  both  her  hands, 
suddenly  thought  of  her  mother,  and  her 
village  church  on  2.  similar  occasion. 
She  almost  fancied  that  that  day  had 
returned,  when  she  was  so  small,  and 
almost  hidden  in  her  white  dress,  and 
she  began  to  cry. 

First  of  all  she  wept  silently,  the  tears 
dropped  slowly  from  her  eyes,  but  her 
emotion  increased  with  her  recollections, 
and  she  began  to  sob.  She  took  out  her 
pocket-handkerchief,  wiped  her  eyes, 
and  help  it  to  her  mouth,  so  as  not  to 
scream,  but  it  was  useless. 

A  sort  of  rattle  escaped  her  throaf, 
and  she  was  answered  by  two  other  pro- 
found, heart-breaking  sobs;  for  her  two 
neighbors,  Louise  and  Flora,  who  were 
kneeling  near  her,  overcome  by  similar 
recollections,  were  sobbing  by  her  side. 
There  was  a  flood  of  tears,  and  as  weep- 
ing is  contagious,  Madame  soon  found 
that  her  eyes  were  wet,  and  on  turning 
to  her  sister-in-law,  she  saw  tha:  all  the 
occupants  of  the  pew  were  crying. 

Soon,  throughout  the  church,  here  and 
there,  a  wife,  a  mother,  a  sister,  seized 
by  the  strange  sympathy  of  poignant 
emotion,  and  agitated  by  the  grief  of 
those  handsome  ladies  on  their  knees, 
who  were  shaken  by  their  sobs,  was 
tnoistenmg  her  camibric  pocket-handker- 
chief, and  pressing  her  beating  heart 
with  her  left  hand. 

Just  as  the  sparks  from  an  engine  will 
set  fire  to  dry  grass,  so  the  tears  of 
Rosa  and  of  her  companions  infected 
the  whole  congregation  in  a  moment. 
Men,  women,  old  men.  and  lads  in  new 
blouses  were  soon  sobbing;  something 
superhuman  seemed  to  be  hovering  over 
their    heads — a    spirit,    the    oowerful 


breath  of  an  invisible  and  ail-powerfit. 
being. 

Suddenly  a  species  of  madness  seemed 
to  pervade  the  church,  the  noise  of  a 
crowd  in  a  state  of  frenzy,  a  tempest  of 
sobs  and  of  stifled  cries.  It  passed  over 
the  people  like  gusts  of  wind  which 
bow  the  trees  in  a  forest,  and  the  priest, 
overcome  by  emotion,  stammered  out 
incoherent  prayers,  those  inarticulate 
prayers  of  the  soul,  when  it  soarj 
toward  heaven. 

The  people  behind  him  gradually  grew 
calmer.  The  cantors,  in  all  the  dignity 
of  their  white  surplices,  went  on  in 
somewhat  uncertain  voices,  and  the  or- 
gan itself  seemed  hoarse,  as  if  the  instru- 
ment had  been  weeping.  The  priest, 
however,  raised  his  hand,  as  a  sign  for 
them  to  be  still,  and  went  to  the  chan- 
cel steps.    All  were  silent,  immediately. 

After  a  few  remarks  on  what  bad  just 
taken  place,  which  he  attributed  to  a 
miracle,  he  continued,  turning  to  the 
seats  where  the  carpenter's  guests  were 
sitting : 

"I  especially  thank  you,  my  dear  sis- 
ters, who  have  come  from  such  a  dis- 
tance, and  whose  presence  among  us, 
whose  evident  faith  and  ardent  piety 
have  set  such  a  salutary  example  to  all 
You  have  edified  my  parish;  your  emo- 
tion has  warmed  all  hearts;  without  you 
this  day  would  not,  perhaps,  have  had 
this  really  div'ne  character.  It  is  suffi- 
cient, at  times,  that  there  should  be 
one  chosen  to  keep  in  the  flock,  to 
make  tHe  whole  flock  blessed." 

His  voice  failed  him  again,  from  emo- 
tion and  he  said  no  more,  but  concluded 
the  service. 

Thev  all  left  the  church  as  nuickly  as 
Dussible:   the  children  themselves  were 


MME.  TELLIER'S  EXCURSION 


ev 


restless,  tired  with  such  a  prolonged  ten- 
sion of  the  mind.  Besides,  the  elders 
were  hungry,  and  one  after  another  left 
the  churchyard,  to  see  about  dinner. 

There  was  a  crowd  outside,  a  noisy 
crowd,  a  babel  of  loud  voices,  in  which 
the  shrill  Norman  accent  was  discern- 
ible. The  villagers  formed  two  ranks, 
and  when  the  children  appeared,  each 
family  seized  their  own. 

The  whole  houseful  of  women  caught 
hold  of  Constance,  surrounded  her  and 
kissed  her,  and  Rosa  was  especially 
demonstrative.  At  last  she  took  hold  of 
one  hand,  while  Madame  Tellier  held  the 
other,  and  Raphaelle  and  Fernande  held 
up  her  long  muslin  petticoat,  so  that  it 
might  not  dr^g  in  the  dust.  Louise  and 
Flora  brcu::ht  up  the  rear  with  Madame 
Rivet,  and  the  child,  who  was  very  silent 
and  thoughtful,  set  off  home,  in  the 
oiidst  of  this  guard  of  honor. 

The  ainner  was  served  in  th2  work- 
shop, on  lorxg  Doards  supported  by 
trestles,  and  through  the  open  door  they 
could  see  all  the  enjoyment  that  was  go- 
ing on.  Everywhere  people  were  feast- 
ing; throuj^h  every  window  could  be 
seen  tabl?s  surrounded  by  people  in  their 
Sunday  clothes.  There  was  merriment 
in  eve»-y  house — men  sitting  in  their 
shirt  sleeves,  drinking  cider,  glass  after 
glass. 

In  the  carpenter's  house  the  gaiety 
took  on  somewhat  of  an  air  of  reserve, 
the  consequence  of  the  emotion  of  the 
girls  in  the  morning.  Rivet  was  the 
only  one  who  was  in  good  cue,  and  ne 
was  drinking  to  excess.  Madame 
rellier  was  looking  at  the  clock  every 
moment,  for,  in  order  not  to  lose  tA'O 
days  following,  they  ought  to  take  the 


3.55  train,  which  would  bimg  them  to 
Fecamp  by  dark. 

The  carpenter  tried  very  hard  to  dis- 
tract her  attention,  ro  as  to  keep  his 
guests  until  the  next  day.  But  he  did 
not  succeed,  for  she  never  joked  when 
there  was  business  to  be  done,  and  as 
soon  as  they  had  had  their  coffee  she  or- 
dred  her  girls  to  make  haste  and  get 
ready.  Then,  turning  to  her  brother, 
she  said: 

"You  must  have  the  horse  put  in  im- 
mediately," and  she  herself  went  to  com- 
plete her  preparations. 

When  she  came  down  again,  her 
sister-in-law  was  waiting  to  speak  to 
her  about  the  child,  and  a  long  conver- 
£.ition  took  place,  in  which,  however, 
nothing  was  settled.  The  carpenter*s 
wife  finessed,  and  pretended  to  b2  very 
much  moved,  and  Madame  Tcllicr,  who 
was  holding  the  girl  on  her  knees,  would 
not  pledge  herself  to  anything  definite, 
but  merely  gave  vague  promises:  she 
would  not  forget  her,  there  was  plenty 
of  time,  and  then,  they  were  sure  to 
meet  again. 

But  the  conveyance  did  not  come  to 
the  door,  and  the  women  did  not  come 
downstairs.  Upstairs,  they  even  heard 
loud  laughter,  falls,  little  screams,  and 
much  clapping  of  hands,  and  so,  while 
the  carpenter's  wife  v;ent  to  the  stable 
to  see  whether  the  cart  was  ready, 
Madame  went  upstairs. 

Rivet,  who  was  very  drunk  and  hall 
undressed,  was  vainly  trying  to  kiss 
Rosa,  who  was  choking  with  laughter. 
The  Two  Pumps  were  holding  him  by 
the  arms  and  trying  to  calm  him,  as  thej 
were  shocked  at  such  a  scene  after  tha'c 
morning's  ceremony;  but  Raphaelle  and 
Fernande  were  urging  him  on,  writhing 


6^ 


\mRKhi  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  holding  their  sides  with  laughter, 
and  they  uttered  shrill  cries  at  every 
useless  attempt  that  the  drunken  fellow 
made. 

The  man  was  furious,  his  face  was 
red,  his  dress  disordered,  and  he  was 
trying  to  shake  off  the  two  women  who 
were  clinging  to  him,  while  he  was  pull- 
ing Rosa's  bodice,  with  all  his  might, 
and  ejaculating:  ''Won't  you,  you 
slut?" 

But  Madame,  who  was  very  indignant, 
went  up  to  her  brother,  seized  him  by 
the  shoulders,  and  threw  him  out  of  the 
room  with  such  violence  that  he  fell 
against  a  wall  in  the  passage,  and  a 
minute  afterward,  they  heard  him  pump- 
ing water  on  to  his  head  in  the  yard. 
When  he  came  back  with  the  cart,  he 
was  already  quite  calmed  down. 

They  seated  themselves  in  the  same 
way  as  they  had  done  the  day  before, 
4nd  the  little  white  horse  started  off  with 
his  quick,  dancing  trot.  Under  the  hot 
sun,  their  fun,  which  had  been  cliecked 
during  dinner,  broke  out  again.  The  girls 
now  were  amused  at  the  jolts  which  the 
wagon  gave,  pushed  their  neighbors' 
chairs,  and  burst  out  laughing  every  mo- 
ment, for  they  were  in  the  vein  for  it, 
after  Rivet's  vain  attempt. 

There  was  a  haze  over  the  country, 
the  roads  were  glaring,  and  dazzled  their 
eyes.  The  wheels  raised  up  two  trails 
of  dust,  which  followed  the  cart  for  a 
long  time  alon^  the  highroad,  and  pres- 
ently Fernande,  who  wa3  fond  of  music, 
asked  Rosa  to  sing  something.  She 
boldly  struck  up  the  "Gros  Cure  de 
Meudon,"  b^Jt  Madame  made  her  stop 
immediately  as  she  thought  it  a  song 
wh'.ch  was  very  unsuitable  for  such  a 
day.  Had  r;dded: 


"Sing  us  something  of  Beranger's." 
After  a  moment's  hesitation,  Rosa  be- 
gan Beranger's  song,  "The  Grand- 
mother," in  her  worn-out  voice,  and  aU 
the  girls,  and  even  Madame  herself, 
joined  in  the  chorus: 

"How  I  regret 

My  dimpled  arms, 
My  well-made  legs, 

And  my  vanished  charms!'* 

"Tliat  is  first-rate,"  Rivet  declared, 
carried  away  by  the  rhythm!  They 
shouted  the  refrain  to  every  verse,  while 
Rivet  beat  time  on  the  shafts  with  his 
foot,  and  on  the  horse's  back  with  the 
reins.  The  animal,  himself,  carried  away 
by  the  rhythm,  broke  into  a  wild  gallop, 
and  threw  all  the  women  in  a  heap,  one 
on  top  of  the  other,  in  the  bottom  of 
the  conveyance. 

They  got  up,  laughing  as  if  they  were 
crazy,  and  the  song  went  on,  shouted  at 
the  top  of  their  voices,  beneath  the 
burning  sky  and  among  the  ripening 
grain,  to  the  rapid  gallop  of  the  little 
horse,  who  set  off  every  time  the  re- 
frain was  sung,  and  galloped  a  hundred 
yards,  to  their  great  delight.  Occasion- 
ally a  stone  breaker  by  the  roadside 
sat  up,  and  looked  at  the  wild  and  shout- 
ing female  load,  through  his  wire  spec- 
tacles. 

When  they  got  out  at  the  station,  the 
carpenter  said: 

'T  am  sorry  you  are  going;  we  might 
have  had  some  fun  together." 

But  Madame  replied  very  sensibly: 
"Everything  has  its  right  time,  and  we 
cannot  always  be  enjoying  ourselves." 

And  then  he  had  a  sudden  inspiration: 
"Look  here,  I  will  come  and  see  you 
at  Fecamp  next  month."    And  he  gave 


MME.  TELLIER'S  EXCURSION 


6C 


a   knowing  look,   with   his   bright   and 
roguish  eyes. 

"Come,"  Madame  said,  "you  must  be 
sensible;  you  may  come  if  you  like,  but 
you  are  not  to  be  up  to  any  of  your 
tricks." 

He  did  not  reply,  and  as  they  heard 
the  whistle  of  the  train  he  immediately 
began  to  kiss  them  all.  When  it  came 
to  Rosa's  turn,  he  tried  to  get  to  her 
mouth,  which  she,  however,  smiling 
with  her  lips  closed,  turned  away  from 
him  each  time  by  a  rapid  movement  of 
her  head  to  one  side.  He  held  her  in 
his  arms,  but  he  could  not  attain  his 
object,  as  his  large  whip,  which  he  was 
holding  in  his  hand  and  waving  behind 
the  girl's  back  in  desperation,  interfered 
with  his  efforts. 

"Passengers  for  Rouen,  take  your 
seats,  please!"  a  guard  cried,  and  they 
got  in.  There  was  a  slight  whistle  fol- 
lowed by  a  loud  one  from  the  engine, 
which  noisily  puffed  out  its  first  jet  of 
steam,  while  the  wheels  began  to  turn  a 
little,  with  visible  effort.  Rivet  left  the 
station  and  went  to  the  gate  by  the  side 
of  the  line  to  get  another  look  at  Rosa, 
and  as  the  carriage  full  of  human  mer- 
chandise passed  him,  he  began  to  crack 
his  whip  and  to  jump,  singing  at  the 
top  of  his  voice : 

"How  I  regret 

My  dimpled  arms, 
My  well-made  legs, 
And  my  vanished  charms  1" 

And  then  he  watched  a  white  pocket- 
handkerchief,  which  somebody  was 
waving,  as  it  disappeared  in  the  dis- 
tance. 


III. 

They  slept  the  peaceful  sleep  of  quiet 
consciences,  until  they  got  to  'Rouen» 
When  they  returned  to  the  house,  re- 
freshed and  rested,  Madame  could  not 
help  saying: 

"It  was  all  very  well,  but  I  was  al- 
ready longing  to  get  home." 

They  hurried  over  their  supper,  and 
then,  when  they  had  put  on  their  usual 
light  evening  costumes,  waited  for  their 
usual  customers.  The  little  colored  lamp 
outside  the  door  told  the  passers-by  that 
the  flock  had  returned  to  the  fold,  and 
in  a  moment  the  news  spread,  nobody 
knew  how,  or  by  whom. 

Monsieur  Philippe,  the  banker's  son, 
even  carried  his  audacity  so  *  far  as  to 
send  a  special  messenger  to  Monsieur 
Tournevau  who  was  in  the  bosom  of  his 
family. 

The  fish-curer  used  every  Sunday  to 
have  several  cousins  to  dinner,  and  they 
were  having  coffee,  when  a  man  came  in 
with  a  letter  in  his  hand.  Monsieur 
Tournevau  was  much  excited ;  he  opened 
the  envelope  and  grew  pale ;  it  only  con- 
tained these  words  in  pencil: 

"The  cargo  of  fish  has  been  found ;  the 
ship  has  come  into  port;  good  business 
for  you.     Come  immediately." 

He  felt  in  his  pockets,  gave  the  mes- 
senger two-pence,  and  suddenly  blushing 
to  his  ears,  he  said:  "I  must  go  out." 
He  handed  his  wife  the  laconic  and  mys* 
terious  note,  rang  the  bell,  and  when  the 
servant  came  in,  he  asked  her  to  bring 
him  his  hat  and  overcoat  immediately, 
As  soon  as  he  was  in  the  street,  he  be- 
gan  to  run,  and  the  way  seemed  to  him 


70 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


to  be  twice  as  long  as  usual,  in  conse- 
quence of  his  impatience. 

Madame  Teilier's  establishment  had 
put  on  quite  a  holiday  look.  On  the 
ground  Hoor,  a  number  of  sailors  were 
making  a  deafening  noise,  and  Louise 
and  Flora  drank  with  one  and  the  other, 
so  as  to  merit  their  name  of  the  Two 
Pumps  more  than  ever.  They  were  be- 
ing called  for  everywhere  at  once;  al- 
ready they  weiti  not  quite  sober  enough 
for  theii  business,  and  the  night  bid 
fair  to  be  a  very  jolly  one. 

The  upstairs  room  was  full  by  nine 
o'clock.  Monsieur  Vassi,  the  Judge  of 
the  Tribunal  of  Commerce,  Madame's 
usual  Platonic  wooer,  was  talking  to  her 
in  a  corner,  in  a  low  voice,  and  they 
were  both  smiling,  as  if  they  were  about 
to  come  to  an  understanding. 

Monsieur  Poulin,  the  ex-mayor,  was 
holding  Rosa  on  his  knees;  and  she, 
with  her  nose  close  to  his,  was  running 
\ier  hands  through  the  old  gentleman's 
white  whiskers. 

Tall  Fernande,  who  was  lying  on  the 
sofa,  had  both  her  feet  on  Monsieur 
Pinipesse  the  tax-collector's  stomach, 
and  her  back  on  young  Monsieur 
Philippe's  waistcoat;  her  right  arm  was 
round  his  neck,  and  she  held  a  cigarette 
in  ner  left. 

Raphaelle  appeared  to  be  discussing 
matters  with  Monsieur  Depuis,  the  in- 
surance agent,  and  she  finished  by  say- 
ing:   "Yes,  my  dear,  I  will." 

Just  then,  the  door  opened  suddenly, 
and  Monsieur  Tournevau  came  in.  He 
was  greeted  with  enthusiastic  cries  of: 
"Long  live  Tournevau!"  and  Raphaelle, 
who  was  twirling  round,  went  and  threw 
herself  into  his  arms.  He  seized  her  in 
a  vigorous  embrace,  and  without  saying 


a  word,  lifting  her  up  as  if  she  had 
been  a  feather,  he  carried  her  through 
the  room. 

Rosa  was  chatting  to  the  ex-mayor, 
kissing  him  every  moment,  and  pulling 
both  his  whiskers  at  the  same  time  in 
order  to  keep  his  head  straight. 

Fernande  and  Madame  remained  with 
the  four  men,  and  Monsieur  Philippe 
exclaimed:  "I  will  pay  for  some 
champagne;  get  three  bottles,  Madame 
Tellier."  And  Fernande  gave  him  a 
hug,  and  whispered  to  him:  "Play  us 
a  waltz,  will  you?"  So  he  rose  and  sat 
do^n  at  the  old  piano  in  the  corner,  and 
managed  to  get  a  hoarse  waltz  out  of 
the  entrails  of  the  instrument. 

The  tall  girl  put  her  arms  round  the 
tax-collector,  Madame  asked  Monsieur 
Vassi  to  take  her  in  his  arms,  and  the 
two  couples  turned  round,  kissing  as 
the>  danced.  Monsieur  Vassi,  who  had 
formerly  danced  in  good  society,  waltzed 
with  such  elegance  that  Madame  was 
quite  captivated. 

Frederic  brought  the  champagne;  the 
first  cork  popped,  and  Monsieur  Philippe 
played  the  introduction  to  a  quadrille, 
through  which  the  four  dancers  walked 
in  society  fashion,  decorously,  with  pro- 
priety of  deportment,  with  bows,  and 
curtsies,  and  then  they  began  to  drink. 

Monsieur  Philippe  next  struck  up  a 
lively  polka,  and  Monsieur  Tournevau 
started  off  with  the  handsome  Jewess, 
whom  he  held  up  in  the  air,  without 
letting  her  feet  touch  the  ground.  Mon- 
sieur Pinipesse  and  Monsieur  Vassi  had 
started  off  with  renewed  vigor  and  from 
time  to  time  one  or  other  couple  would 
stop  to  toss  off  a  long  glass  of  sparkling 
wine.    The  dance  was  threatening  to  be- 


LOVE 


71 


come  never-ending,  when  Rosa  opened 
the  door. 

"I  want  to  dance,"  she  exclaimed. 
And  she  caught  hold  of  Monsieur 
Dupuis,  who  v.T.s  sitting  idle  on  the 
couch,  and  the  dance  began  again. 

But  the  bottles  were  empty.  "I  will 
pay  for  one."  Monsieur  Tournevau  said. 

"So  will  I,"  ^lonsieur  Vas:i  declared. 

*'And  I  will  do  the  same,"  Monsieur 
Dupuis  remarked. 

They  all  began  to  clap  their  hands, 
and  it  soon  became  a  regular  ball.  From 
time  to  time,  Louise  and  Flora  ran  up- 
stairs quickly,  had  a  few  turns  while 
their  customers  downstairs  grew  im- 
patient, and  then  they  returned  regret- 


fully to  the  cafe.  At  midnight  they 
were  still  dancing. 

Madame  shut  her  eyes  to  what  wast 
going  on,  and  she  had  long  private  talks 
in  comers  with  Monsieur  Vassi,  as  if  to 
settle  the  last  details  of  something  that 
had  already  been  agreed  upon. 

At  last,  at  one  o'clock,  the  two  married 
men,  Monsieur  Tournevau  and  Monsieur 
Pinipesse,  declared  that  they  were  going 
home,  and  wanted  to  pay.  Nothing  was 
charged  for  except  the  champagne,  and 
that  only  cost  six  francs  a  bottle,  in- 
stead of  ten.  which  was  the  usual  price, 
and  when  they  expressed  their  surprise 
at  such  generosity,  Madame,  who  was 
beaming,  said  to  them: 

"We  don't  have  a  holiday  every  day.** 


Love 


THREE  PAGES  FROM  A  SPORTSMAN'S  BOOK 
I  HAVE  just  read  among  the  general 
news  in  one  of  the  papers  a  drama  of 
passion.  He  killed  her  and  then  he 
killed  himself,  so  he  must  have  loved 
her.  What  matters  He  or  She?  Their 
love  alone  matters  to  me;  and  it  does 
not  interest  me  because  it  moves  me 
or  astonishes  me,  or  because  it  softens 
me  or  makes  me  think,  but  because  it  re- 
calls to  my  mind  a  remembrance  of 
my  youth,  a  strange  recollection  of  a 
hunting  adventure  where  Love  appeared 
io  me,  as  the  Cross  appeared  to  the  early 
Christians,  in  the  midst  of  the  heavens. 
I  was  born  with  all  the  instincts  and 
the  senses  of  primitive  man,  tempered 
by  the  arguments  and  the  restraints  of 
a   civilized   beinp:.      I   am    passionately 


fond  of  shooting,  yet  the  sight  of  the 
wounded  animal,  of  the  blood  on  its 
feathers  and  on  my  hands,  affects  my 
heart  so  as  almost  to  make  it  stop. 

That  year  the  cold  weather  set  in 
suddenly  toward  the  end  of  autumn,  and 
I  was  invited  by  one  of  my  cousins^ 
Karl  de  Rauville,  to  go  with  him  and 
shoot  ducks  on  the  marshes,  at  day- 
break. 

My  cousin  was  a  jolly  fellow  of  forty, 
with  red  hair,  very  stout  and  bearded, 
a  country  gentleman,  an  amiable  semi- 
brute,  of  a  happy  disposition  and  en- 
dowed with  that  Gallic  wit  which  makes 
even  mediocrity  agreeable.  He  lived  in 
a  house,  half  farm-house,  half  chateau, 
situated  in  a  broad  valley  through 
which  a  river  ran.    The  bills  right  and 


72 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


left  were  covered  with  woods,  old 
manorial  woods  where  magnificent  trees 
still  remained,  and  where  the  rarest 
feathered  game  in  that  part  of  France 
was  to  be  found.  Eagles  were  shot 
there  occasionally,  and  birds  of  pas- 
sage, such  as  rarely  venture  into  our 
over-populated  part  of  the  country,  in- 
variably lighted  amid  these  giant  oaks, 
as  if  they  knew  or  recognized  some 
little  corner  of  a  primeval  forest  which 
had  remained  there  to  serve  them  as 
a  shelter  during  their  short  nocturnal 
halt. 

In  the  valley  there  were  large  mea- 
dows watered  by  trenches  and  separated 
by  hedges;  then,  further  on,  the  river, 
which  up  to  that  point  had  been  kept 
between  banks,  expanded  into  a  vast 
marsh.  That  marsh  was  the  best  shoot- 
ing ground  I  ever  saw.  It  was  my 
cousin's  chief  care,  and  he  kept  it  as  a 
preserve.  Through  the  rushes  that 
covered  it,  and  made  it  rustling  and 
rough,  narrow  passages  had  been  cut, 
through  which  the  flat-bottomed  boats, 
impelled  and  steered  by  poles,  passed 
along  silently  over  dead  water,  brush- 
ing up  against  the  reeds  and  making  the 
swift  fish  take  refuge  in  the  weeds,  and 
the  wild  fowl,  with  their  pointed,  black 
heads,  dive  suddenly. 

I  am  passionately  fond  of  the  water: 
of  the  sea,  though  it  is  too  vast,  too 
full  of  movement,  impossible  to  hold; 
of  the  rivers  which  are  so  beautiful,  but 
which  pass  on,  and  flee  away;  and  above 
all  of  the  marshes,  where  the  whole  un- 
known existence  of  aquatic  animals  pal- 
pitates. The  marsh  is  an  entire  world 
in  itself  on  the  world  of  earth — a  differ- 
ent world,  which  has  its  own  life,  its 
settled     inhabitants     and     its     passing 


travelers,  its  voices,  its  noises,  and  above 
all  its  mystery.  Nothing  is  more  im- 
pressive, nothing  more  disquieting,  more 
terrifying  occasionally,  than  a  fen. 
Why  should  a  vague  terror  hang  over 
these  low  plains  covered  with  v;ater? 
Is  it  the  low  rusthng  of  the  rushes,  the 
strange  will-o'-the-wisp  lights,  the 
silence  which  prevails  on  calm  nights, 
the  still  mists  which  hang  over  the  sur- 
face like  a  shroud;  or  is  it  the  almost 
inaudible  splashing,  so  sHght  and  so 
gentle,  yet  sometimes  more  terrifying 
than  the  cannons  of  men  or  the  thunders 
of  the  skies,  which  make  these  marshes 
resemble  countries  one  has  dreamed  of, 
terrible  countries  holding  an  unknown 
and  dangerous  secret? 

No,  something  else  belongs  to  it — 
another  mystery,  perhaps  the  mystery 
of  the  creation  itself!  For  was  it  not 
in  stagnant  and  muddy  water,  amid  the 
heavy  humidity  of  moist  land  under  the 
heat  of  the  sun,  that  the  first  germ  of 
life  pulsated  and  expanded  to  the  day? 

I  arrived  at  my  cousin's  in  the  eve- 
ning. It  was  freezing  hard  enough  to 
split  the  stones. 

During  dinner,  in  the  large  room 
whose  sideboards,  walls,  and  ceiling  were 
covered  with  stuffed  birds,  with  wings 
extended  or  perched  on  branches  to 
which  they  were  nailed, — ^hawks,  herons 
owls,  nightjars,  buzzards,  tiercels,  vul* 
tures,  falcons, — my  cousin  who,  dressed 
in  a  sealskin  jacket,  himself  resembled 
some  strange  animal  from  a  cold  coun- 
try, told  me  what  preparations  lie  had 
made  for  that  same  night. 

We  were  to  start  at  half  past  three 
in  the  morning,  so  as  to  arrive  at  the 
place    which   he   had    chosen    for    our 


LOVE 


n 


"watching-place  at  about  half  past  four. 
On  that  spot  a  hut  had  been  built  of 
lumps  of  ice,  so  as  to  shelter  us  some- 
what from  the  trying  wind  which  pre- 
cedes daybreak,  a  wind  so  cold  as  to 
tear  the  flesh  like  a  saw,  cut  it  like  the 
blade  of  a  knife,  prick  it  like  a  poisoned 
sting,  twist  it  like  a  pair  of  pincers, 
and  burn  it  like  fire. 

My  cousin  rubbed  his  hands:  *i 
have  never  known  such  a  frost,"  he 
said;  "it  is  already  twelve  degrees  be- 
low zero  at  six  o'clock  in  the  evening." 
I  threw  myself  on  to  my  bed  imme- 
diately after  we  had  finished  our  meal, 
and  went  to  sleep  by  the  light  of  a  bright 
fire  burning  in  the  grate. 

At  three  o'clock  he  woke  me.  In 
my  turn,  I  put  on  a  sheepskin,  and 
found  my  cousin  Karl  covered  with  a 
bearskin.  After  having  each  swallowed 
two  cups  of  scalding  coffee,  followed 
by  glasses  of  liqueur  brandy,  we  started, 
accompanied  by  a  gamekeeper  and  our 
dogs,  Plongeon  and  Pierrot. 

From  the  first  moment  that  I  got 
outside,  I  felt  chilled  to  the  very  mar- 
row. It  was  one  of  those  nights  on 
which  the  earth  seems  dead  with  cold. 
The  frozen  air  becomes  resisting  and 
palpable,  such  pain  does  it  cause;  no 
breath  of  wind  moves  it,  it  is  fixed  and 
motionless;  it  bites  you,  pierces  through 
you,  dries  you,  kills  the  trees,  the  plants, 
the  insects,  the  small  birds  themselves, 
who  fall  from  the  branches  on  to  the 
hard  ground,  and  become  stiff  themselves 
under  the  grip  of  the  cold. 

The  moon,  which  was  in  her  last  quar- 
ter and  was  inclining  all  to  one  side, 
seemed  fainting  in  the  midst  of  space, 
so  weak  that  she  was  unable  to  wane, 
forced  to  stay  up    yonder,    seized  and 


paralyzed  by  the  severity  of  the  weather. 
She  shed  a  cold,  mournful  light  over 
the  world,  that  dyin^  and  wan  light 
which  she  gives  us  every  month,  at  the 
end  of  her  period. 

Karl  and  I  walked  side  by  side,  our 
backs  bent,  our  hands  in  our  pockets  and 
our  guns  under  our  arms.  Our  boots 
which  were  wrapped  in  wool  so  that 
we  might  be  able  to  walk  without  slip- 
ping on  the  frozen  river,  made  no  sound, 
and  I  looked  at  the  white  vapor  which 
our  dogs'  breath  made. 

We  were  soon  on  the  edge  of  the 
marsh,  and  entered  one  of  the  lanes  of 
dry  rushes  which  ran  through  the  lo\« 
forest. 

Our  elbows,  which  touched  the  long, 
ribbonlike  leaves,  left  a  slight  noise  be- 
hind us,  and  I  was  seized,  as  I  had 
never  been  before,  by  the  powerful  and 
singular  emotion  which  marshes  cause 
m  me.  This  one  was  dead,  dead  from 
cold,  since  we  were  walking  on  it,  in 
the  middle  of  its  population  of  dried 
rushes. 

Suddenly,  at  the  turn  of  one  of  the 
lanes,  I  perceived  the  ice-hut  which  had 
been  constructed  to  shelter  us.  I  went 
in,  and  as  we  had  r  early  an  hour  to 
wait  before  the  wandering  birds  would 
awake,  I  rolled  myself  up  in  my  rug  in 
order  to  try  and  get  warm.  Then,  ly- 
ing on  my  back,  I  began  to  look  at 
the  misshapen  moon,  which  had  four 
horns  through  the  vaguely  transparent 
walls  of  this  polar  house.  But  the  frost 
of  the  frozen  marshes,  the  cold  of  these 
walls,  the  cold  from  the  firmament 
penetrated  me  so  terribly  that  I  began 
to  cough.  My  cousin  Karl  became  un- 
easy. 

"No  matter  if  we  do  not  kill  much  to* 


74 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


day/*  he  said:  "I  do  not  want  you  to 
catch  cold;  we  will  light  a  fire."  And 
he  told  the  gamekeeper  to  cut  some 
rushes. 

We  made  a  pile  in  the  middle  of  our 
hut  which  had  a  hole  in  the  middle  of 
the  roof  to  let  out  the  smoke,  and  when 
the  red  flames  rose  up  to  the  clear, 
crystal  blocks  they  began  to  melt, 
gently,  imperceptibly,  as  if  they  were 
sweating.  Karl,  who  had  remained  out- 
side, called  out  to  me:  "Come  and  look 
here!"  I  went  out  of  the  hut  and  re- 
mained struck  with  astonishment.  Our 
hut,  in  the  shape  of  a  cone,  looked  like 
an  enormous  diamond  with  a  heart  of 
fire,  which  had  been  suddenly  planted 
there  in  the  midst  of  the  frozen  water 
of  the  marsh.  And  inside,  we  saw  two 
fantastic  forms,  those  of  our  dogs,  who 
were  warming  themselves  at  the  fire. 

But  a  peculiar  cry,  a  lost,  a  wander- 
ing cry,  passed  over  our  heads,  and  the 
light  from  our  hearth  showed  us  the  wild 
birds.  Nothing  moves  one  so  much  as 
the  first  clamor  of  a  life  which  one  does 
not  ^ee,  which  passes  through  the  som- 
ber air  so  quickly  and  so  far  off,  just 
before  the  first  streak  of  a  winter's  day 
appears  on  the  horizon.  It  seems  to 
me,  at  this  glacial  hour  of  dawn,  as  if 
that  passing  cry  which  is  carried  away 
by  the  wings  of  a  bird  is  the  si^h  of  a 
joul  from  the  world! 

•Tut  out  the  fire,"  said  Karl,  "it  is 
getting  daylight." 

The  sky  was,  in  fact,  beginning  to 
grow  pale,  and  the  flights  of  ducks  made 
long,  rapid  streaks  which  were  soon  ob- 
literated on  the  sky. 

A  stream  of  light  burst  out  into  the 
night;  Karl  had  fired,  and  the  two  dogs 
fan  forv.ard. 


And  then,  nearly  every  minute,  now 
he,  now  I,  aimed  rapidly  as  soon  as  the 
shadow  of  a  flying  flock  appeared  above 
the  rushes.  And  Pierrot  and  PlongeoR, 
out  of  breath  but  happy,  retrieved  the 
bleeding  birds,  whose  eyes  still,  oc» 
casionclly,  looked  at  us. 

The  sun  had  risen,  and  it  was  a  bright 
day  with  a  blue  sky,  and  we  were  think- 
ing of  taking  our  departure,  when  two 
birds  with  extended  necks  and  out- 
stretched wings,  glided  rapidly  over  out 
heads.  I  fired,  and  one  of  them  fell 
almost  at  my  feet.  It  was  a  teal,  with  a 
silver  breast,  and  then,  in  the  blue  space 
above  me,  I  heard  a  voice,  the  voice  of 
a  bird.  It  was  a  short,  repeated,  heart- 
rending lament;  and  the  bird,  the  little 
animal  that  had  been  spared  began  to 
turn  round  in  the  blue  sky,  over  our 
heads,  looking  at  its  dead  companiou 
which  I  was  holding  in  my  hand. 

Karl  was  on  his  knees,  his  gun  to  his 
shoulder  watching  it  eagerly,  until  it 
should  be  within  shot.  "You  have  killed 
the  duck,"  he  said,  "and  the  drake  will 
not  fly  away." 

He  certainly  did  not  fly  away;  he 
circled  over  our  heads  continually,  and 
continued  his  cries.  Never  heve  any 
groans  of  suffering  pained  rr.e  so  much 
as  that  desolate  appeal,  as  that  lament- 
able reproach  of  this  poor  bird  which 
was  lost  in  space. 

Occasionally  he  took  flight  under  the 
menace  of  the  gun  which  followed  his 
movements,  and  seemed  ready  to  con- 
tinue his  flight  alone,  but  as  he  could 
not  make  up  his  mind  to  this,  he  re- 
turned to  find  his  mate. 

"Leave  her  on  the  ground,"  Karl  said 
to  me,  "he  will  come  within  shot  bv 
and  by."    And  he  did  indeed  come  neai 


MADEMOISELLE  FIFI 


75 


us,  careless  of  danger,  infatuated  by  his 
animal  love,  by  his  affection  for  his 
mate,  which  I  had  just  killed. 

Karl  fired,  and  it  was  as  if  somebody 
bad  cut  the  string  which  held  the  bird 
suspended.     I  saw  something  black  de- 


scend, and  I  heard  the  noise  of  a  fall 
among  the  rushes.  And  Pierrot  brought 
it  to  me. 

I  put  them — they  were  already  cold — 
into  the  same  game-bag,  and  I  returned 
to  Paris  the  same  evening. 


Mademoiselle  Fiji 


The  Major  Graf*  von  Farlsberg,  the 
Prussian  commandant,  was  rcaa^ng  his 
newspaper,  lying  back  in  a  great  arm- 
chair, with  his  booted  feet  on  the  beau- 
tiful marble  fireplace,  where  his  spurs 
had  made  two  holes,  which  grew  deeper 
every  day,  during  the  three  months  that 
he  had  been  in  the  chateau  of  Urville. 

A  cup  of  coffee  was  smoking  on  a 
small,  inlaid  table,  which  was  stained 
with  liquors,  burnt  by  cigars,  notched  by 
the  penknife  of  the  victorious  officer, 
who  occ::sionally  wodd  stop  while 
sharpening  a  pencil,  to  jot  down  figures, 
or  to  make  a  drawing  on  it,  just  a?  it 
took  his  fancy. 

When  he  had  read  his  letters  and  the 
German  newspapers,  which  his  baggagc- 
fraster  had  brought  him,  he  got  up,  and 
after  throwing  three  or  four  enormous 
pieces  of  green  wood  on  to  the  fire — for 
these  gentlemen  were  gradually  cutting 
down  the  park  in  ordei  to  keep  them- 
selves warm — ^he  went  to  the  window. 
The  rain  was  descending  in  torrents, 
a  regular  Normandy  rain,  which  looked 
as  if  it  were  being  poured  out  by  some 
furious  hand,  a  slanting  rain,  which  was 
as  thick  as  a  curtain,  and  which  formed 
a  kind  of  wail  with  oblique  stripes,  and 
which    deluged    everything,    a    regular 


rain,  such  as  one  frequently  experiences 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Rouen,  which 
is  the  watering-pot  of  France. 

For  a  long  time  the  officer  looked  at 
the  sodden  turf,  and  at  the  swollen 
Andelle  beyond  it,  which  was  overflow- 
ing its  banks,  and  he  was  drumming  a 
waltz  from  tne  Rhine  on  the  window- 
panes,  with  his  fingers,  when  a  noise 
made  him  turn  round;  it  was  his  second 
in  command,  Captain  Baron  von  Kel- 
weinstein. 

The  major  was  a  giant,  with  broad 
shoulders,  and  a  long,  fair  beard,  which 
hung  like  a  cloth  on  to  his  chest.  His 
whole,  solemn  person  suggested  the  idea 
of  a  military  peacock,  a  peacock  who 
was  carrying  his  tail  spread  out  en  to  his 
breast.  He  had  cold,  gentle,  blue  eyes, 
and  the  scar  from  a  sword-cut,  which 
he  had  received  in  the  war  with  Austria ; 
he  was  said  to  be  an  honorable  man,  a& 
v.'cU  as  a  brave  officer. 

The  captain,  in  short,  red-faced  man, 
vv^ho  was  tightly  girthed  in  at  the  waist, 
had  his  red  hair  cropped  quite  close  to 
his  head,  and  in  certain  lights  almost 
looked  as  if  he  had  been  rubbed  over 
with  phosphorus.    He  had  lost  two  front 


*Count 


76 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


teeth  one  night,  though  he  could  not 
quite  remember  how.  This  defect  made 
him  speak  so  that  he  could  not  always  be 
understood,  and  he  had  a  bald  patch  on 
the  top  of  his  head,  which  made  him 
look  rather  like  a  monk,  with  a  fringe  of 
curly,  bright,  golden  hair  round  the 
circle  of  bare  skin. 

The  commandant  shook  hands  with 
him,  and  drank  his  cup  of  coffee  (the 
sixth  that  morning)  at  a  draught,  while 
he  listened  to  his  subordinate's  report 
of  what  had  occurred;  and  then  they 
both  went  to  the  window,  and  declared 
that  it  was  a  very  unpleasant  outlook. 
The  major,  who  was  a  quiet  man,  with 
a  wife  at  home,  could  accommodate 
himself  to  everything;  but  the  captain, 
who  was  rather  fast,  being  in  the  habit 
of  frequenting  low  resorts,  and  much 
given  to  women,  was  mad  at  having 
been  shut  up  for  three  months  in  the 
compulsory  chastity  of  that  wretched 
hole. 

There  was  a  knock  at  the  door,  and 
when  the  commandant  said,  "Come  in,'* 
one  of  their  automatic  soldiers  appeared, 
and  by  his  mere  presence  announced 
that  breakfast  was  ready.  In  the  dining- 
room,  they  met  three  other  officers  of 
lower  rank:  a  lieutenant,  Otto  von 
Grossling,  and  two  sub-lieutenants,  Fritz 
Scheunebarg,  and  Count  von  Eyrick, 
a  very  short,  fair-haired  man,  who  was 
proud  and  brutal  toward  men,  harsh 
toward  prisoners,  and  very  violent. 

Since  he  had  been  in  France,  his  com- 
rades had  called  him  nothing  but 
"Mademoiselle  Fifi."  They  had  given 
him  that  nickname  on  account  of  his 
dandified  style  and  small  waist,  which 
looked  as  if  he  wore  stays,  from  his 
Dale  face,  on  which  his  budding  mus- 


tache scarcely  showed,  and  on  account 
of  the  habit  he  had  acquired  of  em- 
ploying the  French  expression,  ^,  ji 
done,  which  he  pronounced  with  a  shght 
whistle,  v/hen  he  wished  to  express  his 
sovereign  contempt  for  persons  or 
things. 

The  dining-room  of  the  chateau  was  a 
magnificent  long  room,  whose  fine  old 
mirrors,  now  cracked  by  pistol  bullets, 
and  Flemish  tapestry,  now  cut  to  rib- 
bons and  hanging  in  rags  in  places,  from 
sword-cuts,  told  too  well  w^hat  Ma- 
demoiselle Fifi's  occupation  was  during 
his  spare  time. 

There  were  three  family  portraits  on 
the  walls;  a  steel-clad  knight,  a  cardinal, 
and  a  judge,  who  v/ere  all  smoking  long 
porcelain  pipes,  which  had  been  inserted 
into  holes  in  the  canvas,  while  a  lady 
in  a  long,  pointed  waist  proudly  ex- 
hibited an  enormous  pair  of  mustaches, 
drawn  with  a  piece  of  charcoal. 

The  officers  ate  their  breakfast  al- 
most in  silence  in  that  mutilated  room, 
which  looked  dull  in  the  rain,  and  mel- 
ancholy under  its  vanquished  appear- 
ance, although  its  old,  oak  floor  had  be- 
come as  solid  as  the  stone  floor  of  a 
public-house. 

When  they  had  finished  eating,  and 
were  smoking  and  drinking,  they  began, 
as  usual,  to  talk  about  the  dull  life  they 
were  leading.  The  bottle  of  brandy 
and  of  liquors  passed  from  hand  to  hand, 
and  all  sat  back  in  their  chairs,  taking 
repeated  sips  from  their  glasses,  and 
scarcely  removing  the  long,  bent  stems, 
which  terminated  in  china  bowls  painted 
in  a  manner  to  delight  a  Hottentot,  from 
their  mouths. 

As  soon  as  their  glasses  were  empty, 
they  filled  them  again,  with  a  gesture 


MADEMOISELLE  FIFI 


n 


of  resigned  weariness,  but  Mademoiselle 
Fifi  emptied  his  every  minute,  and  a 
soldier  immediately  gave  him  another. 
They  were  enveloped  in  a  cloud  of 
strong  tobacco  smoke;  they  seemed  to 
be  sunk  in  a  state  of  drowsy,  stupid  in- 
toxication, in  that  dull  state  of  drunk- 
enness of  men  who  have  nothing  to  do, 
when  suddenly,  the  baron  sat  up,  and 
said:  "By  heavens!  This  cannot  £jo 
on;  we  must  think  of  something  to  do." 
And  on  hearing  this,  Lieutenant  Otto 
and  Sub-lieutenant  Fritz,  who  pre- 
eminently possessed  the  grave,  heavy 
German  countenance,  said:  *'What, 
Captain?" 

He  thought  for  a  few  moments,  and 
then  replied:  "What?  Well,  we  must 
get  up  some  entertainment,  if  the 
commandant  will  allow  us." 

"What  sort  of  an  entertainment,  cap- 
tain?" the  major  asked,  taking  his  pipe 
out  of  his  mouth. 

"I  will  arrange  all  that,  commandant," 
the  baron  said:  "I  will  send  Le  Devoir 
to  Rouen,  who  will  bring  us  some  ladies. 
I  know  where  they  can  be  found.  We 
will  have  supper  here,  as  all  the  mate- 
rials are  at  hand,  and,  at  least,  we  shall 
have  a  jolly  evening." 

Graf  von  Farlsberg  shrugged  his 
shoulders  with  a  smile:  "You  must 
surely  be  mad,  my  friend." 

But  all  the  other  officers  got  up,  sur- 
rounded their  chief,  and  said:  "Let  cap- 
tain have  his  own  way,  commandant;  it 
is  terribly  dull  here." 

And  the  major  ended  by  yielding. 
"Very  well,"  he  replied,  and  the  baron 
immediately  sent  for  Le  Devoir. 

The  latter  was  an  old  corporal  who 
had  never  been  seen  to  smile,  but  who 
carried  out  all  orders  of  his  superiors 


to  the  letter,  no  matter  what  they 
might  be.  He  stood  there,  with  an  im- 
passive face,  while  he  received  the 
baron's  instructions,  and  then  went  out; 
five  minutes  later  a  large  wagon  be- 
longing to  the  military  train,  covered 
with  a  miller's  tilt,  galloped  off  as 
fast  as  four  horses  could  take  it,  under 
the  pouring  rain,  and  the  officers  all 
seemed  to  awaken  from  their  lethargy, 
their  looks  brightened,  and  they  began 
to  talk. 

Although  it  was  raining  as  hard  as 
ever,  the  major  declared  that  it  was 
not  so  dull,  and  Lieutenant  von  Grossling 
said  with  conviction,  that  the  sky  was 
clearing  up,  while  Mademoiselle  Fifi. 
did  not  seem  to  be  able  to  keep  in  his 
place.  He  got  up,  and  sat  down  again, 
and  his  bright  eyes  seemed  to  be  look- 
ing for  something  to  destroy.  Suddenly, 
looking  at  the  lady  with  the  mustaches, 
the  young  fellow  pulled  out  his  revolver, 
and  said:  "You  shall  not  see  it. '  And 
without  leaving  his  seat  he  aimed,  and 
with  two  successive  bullets  cut  out  both 
the  eyes  of  the  portrait. 

"Let  us  make  a  mine!"  he  then  ex- 
claimed, and  the  conversation  was  sud- 
denly interrupted,  as  if  they  had  found 
some  fresh  and  powerful  subject  ^i  in- 
terest. The  mine  was  his  invention,  his 
method  of  destruction,  and  his  favorite 
amusement. 

When  he  left  the  chateau,  the  lawful 
owner,  Count  Fernand  d'Amoys  d'Ur- 
ville,  had  not  had  time  to  carry  away 
or  to  hide  anything,  except  the  plate, 
which  had  been  stowed  away  in  a  hole 
made  in  one  of  the  walls,  so  that,  as  he 
was  very  rich  and  had  good  taste,  the 
large  drawing-room,  which  opened  into 
the   dining-room,   had   looked   like  the 


78 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


gallery  in  a  museum,  before  liis  pre- 
cipitate flight. 

Expensive  oil-paintings,  water-colors, 
and  drawings  hung  upon  the  walls,  while 
OP  the  tables,  on  the  hanging  shelves, 
and  in  elegant  glass  cupboards,  there 
were  a  thousand  knickknacks:  small 
vases,  statuettes,  groups  in  Dresden 
china,  grotesque  Chinese  figures,  old 
yory,  and  Venetian  glass,  which  filled  the 
large  room  with  their  precious  and 
fantastical  array. 

Scarcely  anything  was  le^t  now;  not 
that  the  things  had  been  stolen,  for  the 
major  would  not  have  allowed  that,  but 
Mademoiselle  Fifi  would  have  a  mi7te, 
and  on  that  occasion  all  the  officers 
thoroughly  enjoyed  themselves  for  five 
minutes.  The  little  marquis  went  into 
the  drawing-room  to  get  what  he  wanted, 
and  he  brought  back  a  small,  delicate 
china  teapot,  which  he  filled  with  gun- 
powder, and  carefully  introduced  a 
piece  of  German  tinder  into  it,  through 
the  spout.  Th?n  he  lighted  it,  and  took 
this  infernal  machine  into  the  next 
room;  but  he  came  back  immediately, 
and  shut  the  door.  The  Germans  all 
stood  expectantly,  their  faces  full  of 
childish,  smiling  curiosity,  and  as  soon 
as  the  explosion  had  shaken  the  chateau, 
they  all  rushed  in  at  once. 

Mademoiselle  Fifi,  who  got  in  first, 
clapped  his  hands  in  delight  at  the 
sight  of  a  terra-cotta  Venus,  whose  head 
had  been  blown  off,  and  each  picked  up 
pieces  of  porcelain,  and  wondered  at 
the  stran.^e  shape  of  the  fragments, 
while  the  major  was  looking  with  a  pa- 
ternal eye  at  the  large  drawing-room 
which  had  been  wrecked  in  such  a  Ne- 
ronic  fnshion,  and  wh'ch  was  strewn  with 
the   fragments   of   works   of  art.     He 


went  out  first,  and  said,  with  a  smile: 
"He  managed  that  very  Vveil!"' 

But  there  was  such  a  cloud  of  smoke 
in  the  dining-room  mingled  with  the  to- 
bacco smoke,  that  tlicy  could  not 
breathe,  so  the  commandant  opened  the 
window,  and  all  the  officers,  who  had 
gone  into  the  room  for  a  glass  of 
cognac,  went  up  to  it. 

The  moist  air  blew  into  the  room,  and 
brought  a  sort  of  spray  with  it,  which 
powdered  their  beards.  They  looked  at 
the  tall  trees  which  were  dripping  with 
the  rain,  at  the  broad  valley  which  was 
covered  with  mist,  and  at  the  church 
spire  in  the  distance,  which  rose  up  like 
a  gray  point  in  the  beating  rain. 

The  bells  had  not  rung  since  their  ar- 
rival. That  was  the  only  resistance 
which  the  invaders  had  met  with  in  the 
neighborhood.  The  parish  priest  had 
not  refused  to  take  in  and  to  feed  the 
Prussian  soldiers;  he  had  several  times 
even  drunk  a  bottle  of  beer  or  claret 
v;:th  the  hostile  commandant,  who 
often  employed  him  as  a  benevolent  in- 
termediary; but  it  was  no  use  to  ask 
him  for  a  single  stroke  of  the  bells;  he 
would  sooner  have  allowed  himself  to 
be  shot.  That  was  h:s  way  of  protest- 
ing against  the  invasion,  a  peaceful  and 
silent  protest,  the  only  one,  he  said, 
which  was  suitable  to  a  priest,  who  was 
a  man  of  mildness,  and  not  of  blood; 
and  everyone,  for  twenty-five  miles 
round,  praised  Abbe  Chantiivoire's  firm- 
ness and  heroism,  in  venturing  to  pro- 
claim the  public  mourning  by  the  ob- 
stinate silence  of  his  church  bells. 

The  whole  village  grew  enthusiastic 
over  his  resistance,  and  was  rendy  to 
back  up  their  pastor  and  to  risk  any- 
thina:,  as  they  looked  uoon  that  silent 


MADEMOISELLE  FIFI 


79 


protest  as  the  safeguard  of  the  national 
honor.  It  seemed  to  the  peasants  that 
thus  they  had  deserved  better  of  their 
country  than  Belfort  and  Strassburg, 
that  they  had  set  an  equally  valuable 
example,  and  that  the  name  of  their  lit- 
tle village  would  become  immortalized 
by  that;  but  with  that  exception,  they 
refused  their  Prussian  conquerors  noth- 
ing. 

The  commandant  and  his  ofiicers 
laughed  among  themselves  at  that  in- 
offensive courage,  and  as  the  people  in 
the  whole  country  round  showed  them- 
selves obliging  and  compliant  toward 
them,  they  v;illingly  tolerated  their  si- 
lent patriotism.  Only  little  Count  Wil- 
helm  would  have  liked  to  have  forced 
them  to  rir.g  the  beils.  He  was  very 
angry  at  his  superior's  politic  com- 
pliance with  the  priest's  scruples,  and 
every  da}^  he  bagged  the  commandant 
to  allow  h's  to  sound  ''ding-dong,  ding- 
dong,"  just  once,  only  just  once,  just 
by  way  of  a  joke.  And  he  asked  it 
like  a  wheedling  woman,  in  the  tender 
voice  of  seme  mistress  who  wishes  to 
obtain  something,  but  the  commandant 
would  not  yield,  and  to  console  herself, 
Mademoiselle  Fifi  made  a  mine  in  the 
chateau. 

The  fi\e  men  stood  there  together  for 
some  minutes,  inhaling  the  moist  air, 
and  at  last.  Lieutenant  Fritz  said,  with 
a  laugh:  'The  ladies  will  certainly  not 
have  fine  weather  for  their  drive."  Then 
they  separated,  each  to  bis  own  duties, 
while  the  captain  had  plenty  to  do  in 
seeing  about  the  dinner. 

When  they  met  again,  as  it  was  grow- 
ing dark,  they  began  to  laugh  at  seeing 
each  other  as  dandified  and  smart  as  on 
the  day  of  a  grand  review.    The  com- 


mandant's hair  did  not  look  as  gray  as 
it  did  in  the  morning,  and  the  captain 
had  shaved — had  only  kept  his  mustache 
on,  which  made  him  look  as  if  he  had  a 
streak  of  fire  under  his  nose. 

In  spite  of  the  rain,  they  left  the  win- 
dow open,  and  one  of  them  went  to  lis- 
ten from  time  to  time.  At  a  quarter 
past  six  the  baron  said  he  heard  a  rum- 
bling in  the  distance.  They  all  rushed 
down,  and  soon  the  wagon  drove  up  at 
a  gallop  with  its  four  horses,  splashed 
up  to  their  backs,  steaming  and  pant- 
ing. Five  women  got  out  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  steps,  five  handsome  girls 
whom  a  comrade  of  the  captain,  to 
whom  Le  Devoir  had  taken  his  card,  had 
selected  with  care. 

They  had  not  required  much  press- 
ing, as  they  v/ere  sure  of  being  well 
treated,  for  they  had  got  to  know  the 
Prussians  in  the  three  months  during 
which  they  had  had  to  do  with  them. 
So  they  resigned  themselves  to  the  men 
as  they  did  to  the  state  of  affairs.  "It 
is  part  of  our  business,  so  it  must  bo 
done,"  they  said  as  they  drove  along; 
no  doubt  to  allay  some  slight,  secret 
scruples  of  conscience. 

They  went  into  the  dining-room  im- 
mediately, which  looked  still  more  dis- 
mal in  its  dilapidated  state,  when  it  was 
lighted  up;  while  the  table  covered  with 
choice  dishes,  the  beautiful  china  and 
glass,  and  the  plate,  wh'ch  had  been 
found  in  the  hole  in  the  wall  where  its 
owner  had  hidden  it,  gave  to  the  place 
the  look  of  a  bandits'  resort,  where  they 
were  supping  after  committing  a  rob- 
bery. The  captain  was  radiant;  he 
took  hold  of  the  women  as  if  he  were 
familiar  with  them;  appraising  them, 
kissmg  them,  valuing  them  for  what  they 


30 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


were  worth  as  ladies  of  pleasure;  and 
when  the  three  young  men  wanted  to 
appropriate  one  each,  he  opposed  them 
authoritatively,  reserving  to  himself  the 
right  to  apportion  them  justly,  accord- 
ing to  their  several  ranks,  so  as  not  to 
wound  the  hierarchy.  Therefore,  so  as 
to  avoid  all  discussion,  jarring,  and 
suspicion  of  partialty,  he  placed  them 
all  in  a  line  according  to  height,  and 
addressing  the  tallest,  he  said  in  a 
sroice  of  command: 

"What  is  your  name?" 

"Pamela,"  she  replied,  raising  her 
voice. 

Then  he  said:  "Number  One,  called 
Pamela,  is  adjudged  to  the  comman- 
dant." 

Then,  having  kissed  Blondina,  the 
second,  as  a  sign  of  proprietorship,  he 
proffered  stout  Amanda  to  Lieutenant 
Otto,  Eva,  "the  Tomato,"  to  Sub- 
lieutenant Fritz,  and  Rachel,  the  short- 
est of  them  all,  a  very  young,  dark 
girl,  with  eyes  as  black  as  ink,  a  Jewess, 
whose  snub  nose  confirmed  by  exception 
the  rule  which  allots  hooked  noses  to  all 
her  race,  to  the  youngest  officer,  frail 
Count  Wilhelm  von  Eyrick. 

They  were  all  pretty  and  plump,  with- 
out any  distinctive  features,  and  all 
•were  very  much  alike  in  look  and  per- 
son, from  their  daily  dissipation,  and 
the  life  common  to  houses  of  public 
accommodation. 

The  three  younger  men  wished  to 
carry  off  their  women  immediately,  un- 
der the  pretext  of  finding  them  brushes 
and  soap;  but  the  captain  wisely  op- 
posed this,  \or  he  said  they  were  quite 
fit  to  sit  down  to  dinner,  and  that  those 
who  went  up  would  wish  for  a  change 
when  they  came  down,   and  so  would 


disturb  the  other  couples,  and  his  ex« 
perience  in  such  matters  carried  the  day. 
There  were  only  many  kisses;  expectant 
kisses. 

Suddenly  Rachel  choked,  and  began 
to  cough  until  the  tears  came  into  her 
eyes,  while  smoke  came  through  her 
nostrils.  Under  pretense  of  kissing  her, 
the  count  had  blown  a  whiff  of  tobacco 
into  her  mouth.  She  did  not  fly  into  a 
rage,  and  did  not  say  a  word,  but  she 
looked  at  her  possessor  with  latent 
hatred  in  her  dark  eyes. 

They  sat  down  to  dinner.  The  com- 
mandant seemed  delighted;  he  made 
Pamela  sit  on  his  right,  and  Blondina  on 
his  left,  and  said,  as  he  unfolded  his 
table  napkin:  "That  was  a  delightful 
idea  of  yours,  captain." 

Lieutenants  Otto  and  Fritz,  «vho 
were  as  polite  as  if  they  had  been  with 
fashionable  ladies,  rather  intimidated 
their  neighbors,  but  Baron  von  Kel- 
weinstein  gave  the  reins  to  ail  his  vicious 
propensities,  beamed,  made  doubtful  re- 
marks, and  seemed  on  fire  with  his 
crown  of  red  hair.  He  paid  th'im  com- 
pliments in  French  from  the  other  side 
of  the  Rhine,  and  sputtered  out  gallant 
remarks,  only  fit  for  a  low  pothouse, 
from  between  his  two  broken  teeth. 

They  did  not  undertsand  him,  how- 
ever, and  their  intelligence  did  not  seem 
to  be  awakened  until  he  uttered  nasty 
words  and  broad  expressions,  which 
were  mangled  by  his  accent.  Then  all 
began  to  laugh  at  once,  like  mad  women, 
and  fell  against  each  other,  repeating  the 
words,  which  the  baron  then  began  to 
say  all  wrong,  in  order  that  he  might 
have  the  pleasure  of  hearing  them  say 
doubtful  things.  They  gave  him  as 
much  of  that  stuff  as  he  wanced,  fox 


MADEMOISELLE  FIFI 


SI 


they  were  drunk  after  the  first  bottle 
of  wine,  and,  becoming  themselves  once 
more,  and  opening  the  door  to  their 
usual  habits,  they  kissed  the  mustaches 
on  the  right  and  left  of  them,  pinched 
their  arms,  uttered  furious  cries,  drank 
out  of  every  glass,  and  sang  French 
couplets,  and  bits  of  German  songs, 
which  they  had  picked  up  in  their  daily 
intercourse  with  the  enemy. 

Soon  the  men  themselves,  intoxicated 
by  that  which  was  displayed  to  their 
sight  and  touch,  grew  very  amorous, 
shouted  and  broke  the  plates  and  dishes, 
while  the  soldiers  behind  them  waited 
on  them  stolidly.  The  commandant 
was  the  only  one  who  put  any  restraint 
upon  himself. 

Mademoiselle  Fifi  had  taken  Rachel 
on  to  his  knees,  and,  getting  excited,  at 
one  moment  kissed  the  little  black  curls 
on  her  nock,  inhahng  the  pleasant 
warmth  of  her  body,  and  all  the  savor 
of  her  person,  through  the  slight  space 
there  was  between  her  dress  and  her 
skin,  and  at  another  pinched  her  furi- 
ously through  the  material,  and  made 
her  scream,  for  he  was  seized  with  a 
species  of  ferocity,  and  tormented  by 
his  desire  to  hurt  her.  He  often  held 
her  close  to  him,  as  if  to  make  her  part 
of  himself,  and  put  his  lips  in  a  long 
kiss  on  the  Jewess's  rosy  mouth,  until 
she  lost  her  breath;  and  at  last  he  bit 
her  until  a  stream  of  blood  ran  down 
her  chin  and  on  to  her  bodice. 

For  the  second  time,  she  looked  him 
full  in  the  face,  and  as  she  bathed  the 
wound,  she  said:  "You  will  have  to 
pay  for  that!" 

But  he  merely  laughed  a  hard  laugh, 
and  said:     "I  will  pay.'' 

At   dessert,    champagne   was   .<;erved, 


and  the  commandant  rose,  and  in  the 
same  voice  in  which  he  would  have 
drunk  to  the  health  of  the  Empress 
Augusta,  he  drank:  "To  our  ladies!" 
Then  a  series  of  toasts  began,  toasts 
worthy  of  the  lowest  soldiers  and  ol 
drunkards,  mingled  with  filthy  jokes, 
which  were  made  still  more  brutal  by 
their  ignorance  of  the  language.  They 
rot  up,  one  after  the  other,  trying  to 
cay  something  witty,  forcing  themselves 
to  be  funny,  and  the  women,  who  were 
so  drunk  that  they  almost  fell  off  their 
chairs,  with  vacant  looks  and  clammy 
tongues,  applauded  madly  each  time. 

The  captain,  who  no  doubt  wished  to 
impart  an  appearance  of  gallantry  to  the 
orgy,  raised  his  glass  again,  and  said: 
"To  our  victories  over  hearts!"  There- 
upon Lieutenant  Otto,  who  was  a  species 
of  bear  from  the  Black  Forest,  jumped 
up,  inflamed  and  saturated  with  drink 
and  seized  by  an  access  of  alcoholic 
patriotism,  cried:  "To  our  victoriea 
over  France!" 

Drunk  as  they  were,  the  women  were 
silent,  and  Rachel  turned  round  with  a 
shudder,  and  said:  "Look  here,  I 
know  some  Frenchmen,  in  whose  pres- 
ence you  would  not  dare  to  say  that." 
But  the  little  count,  still  holding  her  on 
his  knees,  began  to  laugh,  for  the  wine 
had  made  him  very  merry,  and  said: 
"Ha !  ha !  ha !  I  have  never  met  any  of 
them,  myself.  As  soon  as  we  snow  our- 
selves, they  run  away!" 

The  girl,  who  was  in  a  terrible  rage, 
shouted  into  his  face:  "You  are  lying, 
you  dirty  scoundrel!" 

For  a  moment,  he  looked  at  her 
steadily,  with  his  bright  eyes  upon  her, 
as  he  had  looked  at  the  portrait  before 
he  d<=»stroyed   it  with   revolver  bullets^ 


82 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  then  he  began  tc  laugh:  "Ah!  yes, 
talk  about  them,  my  dear!  Should  we 
be  here  now,  if  they  were  brave?"  Then 
getting  excited,  he  exclaimed:  "We  are 
the  masters!  France  belongs  to  usl" 
She  jumped  off  his  knees  with  a  bound, 
and  threw  herself  into  her  chair,  while 
he  rose,  held  out  his  glass  over  the 
table,  and  repeated:  "France  and  the 
French,  the  woods,  the  fields,  and  the 
.houses  of  France  belong  to  us!" 

The  others,  who  were  quite  drunk, 
md  who  were  suddenly  seized  by  mili- 
tary enthusiasm,  the  enthusiasm  of 
brutes,  seized  tneir  glasses,  and  shout- 
ing, "Long  live  Prussia!"  emptied  them 
at  a  draught. 

The  girls  did  not  protest,  for  they 
were  reduced  to  silence,  and  were  afraid. 
Even  Rachel  did  not  say  a  word,  as  she 
had  no  reply  to  make,  and  then  the 
little  count  put  his  champagne  glass, 
which  bad  just  been  refilled,  on  to  the 
head  of  the  Jewess,  and  exclaimed:  "All 
the  women  in  France  belong  to  us,  also!" 

At  that  she  got  up  so  quickly  that 
the  glass  upset,  spilling  the  amber  col- 
ored wine  on  to  her  black  hair  as  if  to 
baptize  her,  and  broke  into  a  hundred 
fragments  as  it  fell  on  to  the  floor. 
With  trembling  lips,  she  defied  the  looks 
of  the  officer,  who  was  still  laughing, 
and  she  stammered  out,  in  a  voice 
choked  with  rage:  "That— that— that 
— ^is  not  true, — for  you  shall  certainly 
not  have  any  French  women," 

He  sat  down  again,  so  as  to  laugh  at 
his  ease,  and  trying  effectually  to  speak 
in  the  Parisian  accent,  he  said:  "That 
is  good,  very  good!  Then  what  did  you 
come  here  for,  my  de^r?" 

She  was  thunderstruck,  and  made  no 
reply  for  a  moment,  for  in  her  agitation 


she  did  not  understand  him  at  first; 
but  as  soon  as  she  grasped  his  meaning, 
she  said  to  him  indignantly  and  vehe- 
mently: "I!  I!  am  not  a  woman;  1 
am  only  a  strumpet,  and  that  is  all 
that  Prussians  want." 

Almost  before  she  had  finished,  he 
slapped  her  full  in  her  face;  but  as  he 
was  raising  his  hand  again,  as  if  he 
would  strike  her,  she,  almost  mad  with 
passion,  took  up  a  small  dessert  knife 
from  the  table,  and  stabbed  him  right 
in  the  neck,  just  above  the  breastbone. 
Something  that  he  was  going  to  say,  was 
cut  short  in  his  throat,  and  he  sat  there, 
with  his  mouth  half  open,  and  a  terrible 
look  in  his  eyes. 

All  the  officers  shouted  in  horror,  ana 
leaped  up  tumultuously ;  but  throwing 
her  chair  between  Lieutenant  Otto's 
legs,  who  fell  down  at  full  length,  she 
ran  to  the  window,  opened  it  before  they 
could  seize  her,  and  jumped  out  into  the 
night  and  pouring  rain. 

In  two  minutes.  Mademoiselle  Fi6 
was  dead.  Fritz  and  Otto  drew  their 
swords  and  wanted  to  kill  the  women 
who  threw  themselves  at  their  feet  and 
clung  to  their  knees.  With  some  diffi- 
culty the  major  stopped  the  slaughter, 
and  had  the  four  terrified  girls  locked 
up  in  a  room  under  the  care  of  twG 
soldiers.  Then  he  organized  the  pur- 
suit of  the  fugitive,  as  carefully  as  il 
he  were  about  to  engage  in  a  skirmish, 
feeling  quite  sure  that  she  would  be 
caught. 

The  table,  which  had  been  cleared  Im- 
mediately, now  served  as  a  bed  on  which 
to  lay  Fifi  out,  and  the  four  officers  made 
for  the  window,  rigid  and  sobered,  with 
the  stern  faces  of  soldiers  on  duty,  and 
tried   to  pierce   through   the   darknesj 


MONSIEUR  PARENT 


83 


of  the  night,  amid  the  steady  torrent  of 
rain.  Suddenly,  a  shot  was  heard,  and 
then  another,  a  long  way  off;  and  for 
four  hours  they  heard,  from  time  to 
time,  near  or  distant  reports  and  rally- 
ing cries,  strange  words  uttered  as  a  call, 
in  guttural  voices. 

In  the  morning  they  all  returned. 
Two  soldiers  had  been  killed  and  three 
ot  hers  wounded  by  their  comrades  in  the 
ardor  of  that  chase,  and  in  the  confusion 
of  such  a  nocturnal  pursuit,  but  they 
ha  1  not  caught  Rachel. 

Then  the  inhabitants  of  the  district 
were  terrorized,  the  houses  were  turned 
topsy-turvy,  the  country  was  scoured 
and  beaten  up,  over  and  over  again, 
but  the  Jewess  did  not  seem  to  have 
left  a  single  trace  of  her  passage  behind 
her. 

When  the  general  was  told  of  it,  he 
gave  orders  to  hush  up  the  affair,  so  as 
not  to  set  a  bad  example  to  the  army, 
but  he  severely  censured  the  comman- 
dant, who  in  turn  punished  his  inferiors. 
The  general  had  said:  "One  does  not 
go  to  war  in  order  to  amuse  oneself, 
and  to  caress  prostitutes."  And  Graf 
von  Farlsberg,  in  his  exasperation,  made 
up  his  mind  to  have  his  revenge  on  the 
district,  but  as  he  required  a  pretext  for 
showing  severity,  he  sent  for  the  priest, 
and  ordered  him  to  have  the  bell  tolled 
at  the  funeral  of  Count  von  Eyrick. 

Contrary  to  all  expectation,  the  priest 
showed  himself  humble  and  most   re- 


spectful, and  when  Mademoiselle  Fifi's 
body  left  the  Chateau  d'Urville  on  its 
way  to  the  cemetery,  carried  by  soldiers, 
preceded,  surrounded,  and  followed  by 
soldiers,  who  marched  with  loaded  rifles, 
for  the  first  time  the  bell  sounded  its 
funereal  knell  in  a  lively  manner,  as  ii 
a  friendly  hand  were  caressing  it.  At 
night  it  sounded  again,  and  the  next 
day,  and  every  day;  it  rang  as  much  as 
anyone  could  desire.  Sometimes  even, 
it  would  start  at  night,  and  sound  gently 
through  the  darkness,  seized  by  strange 
joy,  awakened,  one  could  not  tell  why. 
All  the  peasants  in  the  neighborhood  de« 
clared  that  it  was  bewitched,  and  no- 
body, except  the  priest  and  the  sacristac 
would  now  go  near  the  church  tower, 
and  they  went  because  a  poor  girl  was 
living  there  in  grief  and  solitude,  se- 
cretly nourished  by  those  two  men. 

She  remained  there  until  the  German 
troops  departed,  and  then  one  evening 
the  priest  borrowed  the  baker's  cart, 
and  himself  drove  his  prisoner  to  Rouen. 
When  they  got  there,  he  embraced  her, 
and  she  quickly  went  back  on  foot  tc 
the  establishment  from  which  she  had 
come,  where  the  proprietress,  who 
thought  that  she  was  dead,  was  very 
glad  to  see  her. 

A  short  time  afterward,  a  patriot 
who  had  no  prejudices,  who  liked  her 
because  of  her  bold  deed,  and  who  after- 
ward loved  her  for  herself,  married  her 
and  made  a  lady  of  her. 


Monsieur  Parent 


Little  George  was  piling  hills  of  sand 
in  one  of  the  walks.  He  scooped  the 
sand  up  with  both  his  hands,  made  it 


into  a  pyramid,  and  then  put  a  chestnut 
leaf  on  the  top,  and  his  father,  sitting  on 
an  iron  chair,  was  looking  at  him  with 


84 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


concentrated  and  affectionate  attention, 
seeing  nobody  else  in  the  small  public 
garden,  which  was  full  of  people.  All 
along  the  circular  road  other  children 
were  busy  in  the  same  manner,  or  were 
indulging  in  other  childish  games,  while 
nursemaids  were  strolling  two  and  two, 
with  their  bright  cap-ribbons  floating 
behind  them,  and  carrying  something 
wrapped  up  in  lace,  in  their  arms.  Here 
and  there  little  girlf  in  short  petticoats 
and  bare  legs  were  talking  seriously  to- 
gether, while  resting  from  trundling  their 
hoops. 

The  sun  was  just  disappearing  behind 
the  roofs  of  the  Rue  Saint-Lazare,  but 
still  shed  its  rays  obliquely  on  that  little 
overdressed  crowd.  The  chestnut  trees 
were  lighted  up  with  its  yellow  rays, 
and  the  three  fountains  before  the  lofty 
porch  of  the  church  shone  like  molten 
silver. 

Monsieur  Parent  looked  at  his  boy  sit- 
ting there  in  the  dusk;  he  followed  his 
slightest  movements  with  affection  in  his 
glance;  but  accidentally  looking  up  at 
the  church  clock,  he  saw  that  he  was 
five  minutes  late,  so  he  got  up,  took  the 
child  by  the  arm  and  shook  his  sand- 
covered  dress,  wiped  his  hands  and  led 
him  in  the  direction  of  the  Rue  Blanche. 
He  walked  quickly,  so  as  not  to  get  in 
after  his  wife,  but  as  the  child  could  not 
keep  up  the  pace,  lie  took  him  up  and 
carried  him,  though  it  made  him  pant 
when  he  had  to  walk  up  the  steep  street, 
parent  was  a  man  of  forty,  turning  gray 
already,  rather  stout.  He  had  married, 
a  few  years  previously,  a  young  womnn 
whom  he  dearly  loved,  but  who  now 
treated  him  with  the  severity  and  au- 
thority of  an  all-powerful  despot.  Sue 
found    fault   witJi   him   continually   for 


everything  that  he  did  or  did  not  do, 
reproached  him  bitterly  for  his  slightest 
acts,  his  habits,  his  simple  pleasures, 
his  tastes,  his  movements  and  walk,  and 
for  having  a  round  stomach  and  a  placid 
voice. 

He  still  loved  her,  however,  but  above 
all  he  loved  the  boy  she  had  borne 
him,  and  George,  who  was  now  tnree, 
had  become  the  greatest  joy,  in  fact  the 
preoccupation,  of  his  heart.  He  himself 
had  a  modest  private  fortune,  and  lived 
without  doing  anything  on  his  t'Venty 
thousand  francs*  a  year,  and  his  wife, 
who  had  been  quite  portionless,  was 
constantly  angry  at  her  husband's  in- 
activity. 

At  last  he  reached  his  Louse,  put  down 
the  child,  wiped  his  forehead  and  walked 
upstairs.  When  he  got  to  th3  second 
floor,  he  rang.  An  old  servant  who  had 
brought  him  up,  one  of  those  mistress- 
servants  who  are  the  tyrants  of  families, 
opened  the  door  to  him,  and  he  askec'; 
her  anxiously:  "Has  Madame  come 
in  yet?" 

The  servant  shrugged  her  shoulders: 
**When  have  you  ever  known  Madame 
to  come  home  at  half  past  six,  Mon* 
sieur?" 

And  he  replied  with  some  embarrass- 
ment: "Very  well;  all  the  better;  it 
will  give  me  time  to  change  my  things, 
for  I  am  very  hot." 

The  servant  looked  at  him  with  angry 
and  contemptuous  pity,  and  grumbled: 
"Oh!  I  can  see  that  well  enough,  you 
are  covered  with  perspiration,  Monsieur. 
I  suppose  you  walked  quickly  and  ear- 
ned the  child,  and  only  to  have  to  wait 
until  half  past  seven,  perhaps,  for  Ma- 

*About  $4000. 


MONSIEUR  PARENT 


bi 


dame,  I  have  made  up  my  mind  not  to 
have  it  ready  at  the  time,  but  shall  get 
it  lor  eight  o  clock,  and  if  you  have  to 
wait,  I  cannot  help  it;  roast  meat  ought 
not  to  hz  burnt!" 

Monsieur  Parent,  however,  pretended 
not  to  hear,  and  only  said:  "All  right! 
all  right.  You  must  wash  George's 
hands,  for  h2  has  been  making  sand 
pits.  I  will  go  and  change  my  clothes; 
tell  the  maid  to  give  the  child  a  good 
washing." 

And  he  went  into  h's  own  room,  end 
as  soon  as  he  got  in  ha  locked  tho  door, 
JO  as  to  be  alone,  quite  alone.  He  was 
JO  used  now  to  being  abused  and  badly 
treat;rd,  that  he  never  thought  himself 
safe,  except  when  he  was  locked  in.  He 
no  longer  ventured  even  to  think,  re- 
flect and  reason  with  himself  unless  he 
had  secured  himself  against  her  looks 
and  insinuations,  by  locking  himself  in. 
Having  thrown  himself  into  a  chair,  in 
order  to  rest  for  a  few  minutes  before 
he  put  on  clean  linen,  he  remembered 
that  Julie  was  beginning  to  be  a  fresh 
danger  in  the  house.  She  hated  his  wife 
— that  was  quite  plain;  but  she  hated 
still  more  his  friend  Paul  Limousin,  who 
had  continued  to  be  the  familiar  and  in- 
timate friend  of  the  house,  after  havhig 
been  the  inseparable  companion  of  his 
bachelor  days,  which  is  very  rare.  It 
was  Limousin  who  acted  as  a  buffer  be- 
tween his  wife  and  himself,  and  who 
defended  him  ardently,  and  even  severe- 
ly, against  her  undeserved  reproaches, 
against  cryirg  scenes,  and  against  all 
the  daily  miseries  of  his  existence. 

But  now  for  six  months,  Julie  had 
constantly  been  saying  things  against 
her  mistress.  She  would  repeat  twenty 
times  a  day:    "If  I  were  you,  Monsieur, 


I  should  not  allow  myself  to  be  led  by 
the  nose  like  that.  Well,  well!  But 
there  —  everyone  according  to  his  na- 
ture." And  one  day,  she  had  even  ven- 
tured  to  be  insolent  to  Hcnriette,  who, 
however,  merely  said  to  her  husband, 
at  night:  "You  know,  the  next  time 
she  speaks  to  me  like  that,  I  shall  tun 
her  out  of  doors."  But  she,  who  feared 
nothing,  seemed  to  be  afraid  of  the  old 
servant,  and  Parent  attributed  her  mild- 
ness to  her  consideration  fcr  the  old 
domestic  who  had  brought  him  up,  and 
who  had  closed  his  mother's  eyes.  Now, 
hov/ever,  Henriette's  patience  was  ex- 
hausted, matters  could  not  go  on  like 
that  much  longer,  and  he  was  fright- 
ened at  the  idea  of  what  was  going  to 
happen.  What  could  he  do?  To  get 
rid  of  Julie  seemed  to  him  to  be  such 
a  formidable  undertaking,  that  he  hardly 
ventured  to  think  of  it;  but  it  was  just 
as  impossible  to  uphold  h:r  against  his 
wife,  and  before  another  month  could 
pass,  the  situation  between  the  two 
would  become  unbearable.  He  re- 
mained sitting  there,  wiith  his  arms 
hanging  down,  vaguely  trying  to  dis- 
covei*  some  means  to  set  matters 
straight,  but  without  success,  and  he 
said  to  himself:  "It  is  lucky  that  I 
have  George;  without  him  I  ihould  be 
very  miserable." 

Then  he  thought  he  v;ould  consult 
Limousin,  but  the  recollection  of  the 
hr.trcd  that  existed  between  his  friend 
and  the  servant  made  him  fear  lest  the 
former  should  advise  him  to  turn  her 
away,  and  again  he  was  lost  in  doubt 
and  sad  uncertainty.  Just  then  the 
clock  struck  seven,  and  he  started  up. 
Seven  o'clock,  and  he  had  rot  even 
changed  his  clothes !    Then,  nervous  and 


86 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


breathless,  he  undressed,  put  on  a  clean 
shirt,  and  hastily  finished  his  toilette,  as 
if  he  had  been  expected  in  the  next 
room  for  some  event  of  extreme  impor- 
tance; then  he  went  into  the  drawing- 
room,  happy  at  having  nothing  to  fear. 
He  glanced  at  the  newspaper,  went  and 
looked  out  of  the  window,  and  then  sat 
down  on  a  sofa  again.  The  door  opened, 
and  the  boy  came  in,  washed,  brushed, 
and  smiling,  and  Parent  took  him  up  in 
his  arms  and  kissed  him  passionately; 
then  he  tossed  him  into  Lhe  air,  and  held 
him  up  to  the  ceiling,  but  soon  sat  down 
again,  as  he  was  tired  with  all  his  ef- 
forts, and  taking  George  on  to  his  knee, 
he  made  him  *'ride  a  cock-horse."  The 
child  laughed  and  clapped  his  hands,  and 
shouted  with  pleasure,  as  his  father  did, 
laughing  until  his  big  stomach  shook,  for 
it  amused  him  almost  more  ihan  it  did 
the  child. 

Parent  loved  the  boy  with  all  the  heart 
of  a  weak,  resigned,  ill-used  man.  He 
loved  with  mad  bursts  of  affection,  with 
caresses  and  with  all  the  bashful  ten- 
derness which  was  hidden  in  him,  and 
which  had  never  found  an  outlet,  even 
at  the  early  period  of  his  married  life, 
for  his  wife  had  always  shown  herself 
cold  and  reserved.  Just  then,  how- 
ever, Julie  came  to  the  door,  with  a  pale 
face  and  glistening  eyes,  and  said  in  a 
voice  which  trembled  with  exasperation: 
*'It  is  half  past  seven,  Monsieur." 
Parent  gave  an  uneasy  and  resigned  look 
at  the  clock  and  replied:  ''Yes,  it  cer- 
tainly is  half  past  seven." 

"Well,  my  dinner  is  quite  ready, 
now." 

Seeing  the  storm  which  was  coming, 
he  tried  to  turn  it  aside.    "But  did  you 


not  tell  me  when  I  came  in  that  it 
would  not  be  ready  before  eight?" 

"Eight!  what  are  you  thinking  about? 
You  surely  do  not  mean  to  let  the  child 
dine  at  eight  o'clock?  It  would  ruin  his 
stomach.  Just  suppose  that  he  only  had 
his  mother  to  look  after  him!  She 
cares  a  great  deal  about  her  child.  Oh! 
yes,  we  will  speak  about  her;  she  is  a 
mother.  What  a  pity  it  is  that  there 
should  be  any  mothers  like  her!" 

Parent  thought  it  was  time  to  cut 
short  a  threatened  scene,  and  so  he 
said:  "J^he,  I  will  not  allow  you  to 
speak  like  that  of  your  mistress.  You 
understand  me,  do  you  not?  Do  not 
forget  it  for  the  future." 

The  old  servant,  who  was  nearly 
choked  with  surprise,  turned  round  and 
went  out,  slammJng  the  door  so  violently 
after  her,  that  the  lusters  on  the  chan- 
deher  rattled,  and  for  some  seconds  it 
sounded  as  if  a  number  of  little  in- 
visible bells  were  ringing  in  the  draw- 
ing-room. 

George^  who  was  surprised  at  first, 
began  to  clap  his  hands  merrily,  and 
blowing  out  his  cheeks,  he  gave  a  great 
boom  with  all  the  strength  of  his  lungs, 
to  imitate  the  noise  of  the  door  bang- 
ing. Then  his  father  began  telling  him 
stories,  but  his  mind  was  so  preoccupied 
that  he  continually  lost  the  thread  of 
his  story,  and  the  child,  who  could  not 
understand  him,  opened  his  eyes  wide, 
in  astonishment. 

Parent  never  took  his  eyes  off  the 
clock;  he  thought  he  could  see  the 
hands  move,  and  he  would  have  liked 
to  have  stopped  them  until  his  wife's 
return.  He  was  not  vexed  with  her  for 
being  late,  but  he  was  frightened,  fright- 
ened of  her  and  of  Julie,  frightened  at 


MONSIEUR  PARENT 


87 


the  thought  of  all  that  might  happen. 
Ten  minutes  more  would  sufi&ce  to  bring 
about  an  irreparable  catastrophe,  words 
and  acts  of  violence  that  he  did  not  dare 
to  picture  to  himself.  The  mere  idea 
of  a  quarrel,  of  loud  voices,  of  insults 
flying  through  the  air  like  bullets,  of 
two  women  standing  face  to  face,  look- 
ing at  each  other  and  flinging  abuse  at 
each  other,  made  his  heart  beat,  and  his 
tongue  feel  as  parched  as  if  he  had 
been  walking  in  the  sun.  H2  felt  as  limp 
as  a  rag,  so  limp  that  he  no  longer  had 
the  strength  to  lift  up  the  child  and 
dance  him  on  his  knee. 

Eight  o'clock  struck,  the  door  opened 
once  more  and  Julie  came  in  again. 
She  had  lost  her  look  of  exasperation, 
but  now  she  put  on  an  air  of  cold  and 
determined  resolution,  which  was  still 
more  formidable. 

"Monsieur,"  she  said,  "I  served  your 
mother  until  the  day  cf  her  death,  and 
I  have  attended  to  you  from  your  birth 
until  now,  and  I  think  it  may  be  said 
that  I  am  devoted  to  the  family." 

She  v^^aited  for  a  reply,  and  Parent 
stammered : 

Why  yes,  certainly,  my  good  Julie." 

She  continued:  "You  know  quite 
Well  that  I  have  never  done  anything  for 
the  sake  of  money,  but  always  for  your 
sake;  that  I  have  never  deceived  you 
nor  lied  to  you,  that  you  have  never 
had  to  find  fault  with  me." 

"Certainly,  my  good  Julie." 

"Very  well  then.  Monsieur,  it  can- 
not go  on  any  longer  like  this.  I  have 
said  nothing,  and  left  you  in  your  igno- 
rance, out  of  respect  and  liking  for  you, 
but  it  is  too  much,  and  everyone  in  the 
neighborhood  is  laughing  at  you.  Every- 
body knows  about  it,  and  so  I  must  tell 


you  also,  although  I  do  not  like  to  re- 
peat it.  The  reason  why  Madame  comes 
in  at  any  time  she  chooses  is  that  she 
is  doing  abominable  things." 

He  seemed  stupefied,  unable  to  un- 
derstand, and  could  only  stammer  out: 
'Hold  your  tongue,  you  know  I  have 
forbidden  you — "  But  she  interrupted 
him  with  irresistible  resolution. 

"No,  Monsieur,  I  must  tell  you 
everything,  now.  For  a  long  time  Ma- 
dame has  been  doing  wrong  with  Mon- 
sieur Limousin,  I  have  seen  them  kiss 
scores  of  times  bohind  the  doors.  Ah! 
you  may  be  sure  that  if  Monsieur  Li- 
mousin had  been  rich,  Madame  would 
never  have  married  Monsieur  Parent. 
If  yod  remember  how  the  marriage 
was  brought  about,  you  would  under- 
stand the  matter  from  beginning  to 
end." 

Parent  had  risen,  and  stammered  out, 
deadly  pale:  "Hold  your  tongue — ^hold 
your  tongue  or—" 

She  went  on,  however:  "No,  I  mean 
to  tell  you  everything.  She  married 
you  from  interest,  and  she  deceived  you 
from  the  very  first  day.  It  was  all  set- 
tled between  them  beforehand.  You 
need  only  reflect  for  a  few  moments  to 
understand  it,  and  then,  she  was  not 
satisfied  with  having  married  you,  as 
she  did  not  love  you,  she  has  made  your 
life  miserable,  so  miserable  that  it  has 
almost  broken  my  heart  when  I  have 
seeii  it — " 

He  walked  up  and  down  the  room 
with  his  hands  clenched,  repeating: 
"Hold  your  tongue — ^hold  your  tongue 
— "  for  he  could  find  nothing  else  to 
say;  the  old  servant,  however,  would 
not  yield ;  she  seemed  resolved  on  every- 
thing,   but    George   who   had   been    at 


S8 


WORKS  OF  GUV  DE  MAUPaSSANT 


first  astonished,  and  then  frightened  at 
those  angry  voices,  began  to  utter  shrill 
screams.  He  hid  behind  his  father, 
and  roared,  with  his  lace  puckered  up 
and  his  mouth  open. 

Kis  son's  screams  exasperated  Parent, 
and  filled  him  with  rage  and  courage. 
He  rushed  at  Julie  with  both  arms 
raised,  ready  to  strike  her,  and  exclaim- 
ing: "Ah!  you  wretch!  you  will  send 
the  child  out  of  his  senses."  He  was 
almost  touching  her,  when  she  said: 

"Monsieur,  you  may  beat  me  if  you 
like,  me  who  reared  you,  but  that  will 
not  prevent  your  wife  irom  deceiving 
you,  or  alter  the  fact  that  your  child 
Is  not  yours!" 

He  stopped  suddenly,  and  let  his 
arms  fall,  and  he  remained  standing  op- 
jX)site  to  her,  so  everwhelmed  that  he 
could  understand  nothing  more,  and  she 
added:  "You  need  only  look  at  the 
child  to  know  who  is  its  father!  He  is 
the  very  image  of  Monsieur  Limousin, 
you  need  only  look  at  his  eyes  and  tore- 
head,  why,  a  blind  man  could  not  be 
mistaken  in  him." 

But  he  had  taken  her  by  the  shoul- 
ders, and  was  now  shaking  her  with  all 
his  might,  while  he  ejaculated:  "Viper! 
viper!  Go  out  the  room,  viper!  Go 
out,  or  I  shall  kill  you!  Go  out!  Go 
out!" 

And  with  a  desperate  effort  he  threw 
her  into  the  next  room.  She  fell  on 
to  the  table  which  was  laid  for  dinner, 
breaking  the  glasses.  Then,  getting  up, 
she  put  it  between  her  master  and  her- 
self, and  v/hile  he  was  pursuing  her, 
in  order  to  take  hold  of  her  again,  she 
flung  terrible  words  at  him :  "You  need 
only  go  out  this  evening  after  dinner, 
and  come  in  again  immediately,  and  you 


will  see — ^you  will  see  whether  I  have 
been  lying!  Just  try  it — and  you  will 
see."  She  had  reached  the  kitchen  door 
and  escaped,  but  he  ran  after  her,  up 
the  backstairs  to  her  bedroom  into 
which  she  had  locked  herself,  and 
knocking  at  the  door,  he  said:  "You 
will  leave  my  house  this  very  instant." 
"You  may  be  certain  of  that.  Mon- 
sieur," was  her  reply.  "In  an  hour's 
time  T  shall  not  be  here  any  longer." 

He  then  went  slowly  downstairs 
again,  holding  on  to  the  banister,  so  as 
not  to  fall,  and  went  back  to  the  draw- 
ing-room, where  little  George  was  sit- 
ting on  the  floor,  crying;  he  fell  into  a 
chair,  and  looked  at  the  child  with  dull 
eyes.  He  understood  nothing,  he  knew 
nothing  more,  he  felt  dr.zed,  stupefied, 
mad,  as  if  he  had  just  frJlcn  on  his  head, 
and  he  scarcely  even  remembered  the 
dreadful  things  the  servant  had  told  him. 
Then,  by  degrees  his  reason  grew  clearer, 
like  muddy  v/ater  settling,  and  the 
abominable  revelation  began  to  work  io 
his  heart. 

Julie  had  spoken  so  clearly,  with  so 
much  force,  assurance,  and  sincerity, 
that  he  did  not  doubt  her  good  faith, 
but  he  persisted  in  not  believing  her 
penetration.  She  might  have  been  de- 
ceived, blinded  by  her  devotion  to  him, 
carried  away  by  unconscious  hatred 
for  Henriette.  However,  in  measure  as 
he  tried  to  reassure  and  to  convince 
himself,  a  thousand  small  facts  recurred 
to  his  recollection,  his  wife's  words, 
Limousin's  looks,  a  number  of  unob- 
served, almost  unseen  trifles,  her  going 
out  late,  their  simultaneous  absence,  and 
oven  some  almost  insignificant,  but 
strange  gestures,  which  he  could  not  un- 
derstand, now  assumed  in  ex*:reme  ira- 


MONSIEUR  PARENT 


&(> 


portance  for  him  and  established  a  con- 
nivance between  them.  Everything 
that  had  happened  since  his  engagement, 
surged  through  his  over-excited  brain, 
in  his  misery,  and  he  doggedly  went 
through  his  five  years  of  married  life, 
trying  to  recollect  every  detail  month 
by  month,  day  by  day,  and  every  dis- 
quieting circumstance  that  he  remem- 
bered stung  him  to  the  quick  like  a 
wasp's  sting. 

He  was  not  thinking  of  George  any 
more,  who  was  quiet  now  and  on  the 
carpet,  but  seeing  that  no  notice  was 
being  taken  of  him,  the  boy  began  to 
cry.  Then  his  father  ran  up  to  him, 
took  him  into  his  arms,  and  covered 
him  Tvlth  kisses.  His  child  remained  to 
him  at  any  rate!  What  did  the  rest 
m::ttcr?  He  held  him  in  his  arms  and 
pressed  his  lips  on  to  his  light  hair,  and 
relieved  and  composed,  he  whispered: 
"George, — my  little  George, — my  dear 
little  George!"  But  he  suddenly  re- 
membered what  Julie  had  said!  Yes! 
she  had  said  that  he  v;ns  Limousin's 
child.  Oh!  It  could  not  be  possible, 
surely!  He  could  not  believe  it,  could 
not  doubt,  even  for  a  moment,  that 
George  was  his  own  child.  It  was  one 
of  those  low  scandals  which  spring 
from  servants'  brains !  And  he  repeated : 
"George — my  dear  little  George."  The 
youngster  was  quiet  again,  now  that  his 
father  was  fondling  him. 

Parent  felt  the  warmth  of  the  little 
chest  penetrate  to  his  through  their 
clothes,  and  it  filled  him  with  love,  cour- 
age, and  happiness;  that  gentle  heat 
soothed  him,  fortified  him,  and  saved 
him.  Then  he  put  the  small,  curly  head 
away  from  him  a  little  and  looked  at  it 
affectionately^  still  repeating:    "George! 


Oh!  my  little  George!"  But  suddenly 
he  thought:  "Suppose  he  were  to  re- 
semble Limousin,  after  all!" 

There  was  something  strange  work- 
ing within  him,  a  fierce  feeling,  a  poig- 
nant and  violent  sensation  of  cold  in 
his  whole  body,  in  all  his  limbs,  as  if  his 
bones  had  suddenly  been  turned  to  ice. 
Oh!  if  the  child  were  to  resemble 
Limousin — and  he  continued  to  look  at 
George,  who  was  laughing  now.  He 
looked  at  him  wuth  haggard,  troubled 
eyes,  and  tried  to  discover  whether 
there  was  any  likeness  in  his  forehead, 
in  his  nose,  mouth,  or  cheeks.  His 
thoughts  v/andered  like  they  do  when  a 
person  is  roing  mad  and  his  child's  face 
changed  in  his  eyes,  and  assumed  a 
strange  look,  and  unlikely  resemblances, 

Julie  had  said:  "A  blind  man  could 
not  be  mistaken  in  him."  There  must, 
therefore,  be  something  striking,  an  un- 
deniable likeness!  But  v/hat?  The 
forehead?  Yes,  perhaps;  Limousin's 
forehead,  hov/ever,  v/as  narrower.  The 
mouth,  then?  But  Limousin  wore  a 
beard,  and  how  could  anyone  verify  the 
likeness  between  the  plump  chin  of  the 
child,  and  the  hairy  chin  of  that  man? 

Parent  thought:  "I  cannot  see  any- 
thing now,  I  am  too  much  upset;  I 
could  not  recognize  anything  at  pres- 
ent. I  must  v/ait;  I  must  look  at  him 
well  to-morrow  morning,  when  I  am 
getting  up."  And  immediately  after- 
ward, he  said  to  himself:  "But  if  he 
is  like  me,  I  shall  be  saved!  saved!" 
And  he  crossed  the  drawing-room  in  two 
strides,  to  examine  the  child's  face  by 
the  side  of  his  own  in  the  looking-glass. 
He  had  George  on  his  arm  so  that  their 
faces  might  be  close  together,  and  he 
spoke  out  loud   almost  without  know 


90 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ing.  "Yes — we  have  the  same  nose — 
the  same  nose  perhaps,  but  that  is  not 
sure — and  the  same  look.  But  no,  he 
has  blue  eyes.  Then — good  heavens! 
I  shall  go  mad.  I  cannot  see  anything 
more — I  am  going  mad!" 

He  went  away  from  the  glass,  to  the 
other  end  of  the  drawing-room,  and  put- 
ting the  child  into  an  easy-chair,  he 
fell  into  another  and  began  to  cry.  He 
sobbed  so  violently  that  George,  who 
was  frightened  at  hearing  him,  imme- 
diately began  to  scream.  The  hall  bell 
rang,  and  Parent  gave  a  bound  as  if  a 
bullet  had  gone  through  him. 

"There  she  is,"  he  said.  "What  shall 
I  do?"  And  he  ran  and  locked  himself 
up  in  his  room,  so  at  any  rate  to  have 
time  to  bathe  his  eyes.  But  in  a  few 
moments  another  ring  at  the  bell  made 
him  jump  again,  and  then  he  remem- 
bered that  Julie  had  left  without  the 
housemaid  knowing  it,  and  so  nobody 
would  go  to  open  the  door.  What  was 
he  to  do?  He  went  himself,  and  sud- 
denly he  felt  brave,  resolute,  ready  for 
dissimulation  and  the  struggle.  The 
terrible  blow  had  matured  him  in  a  few 
moments,  and  then  he  wished  to  know 
the  truth,  he  wished  it  with  the  rage  of 
a  timid  man,  with  the  tenacity  of  an 
easy-going  man  who  has  been  exasper- 
ated. 

But  nevertheless  he  trembled!  Was 
it  fear?  Yes.  Perhaps  he  was  still 
frightened  of  her?  Does  one  know  how 
much  excited  cowardice  there  often  is 
in  boldness?  He  went  to  the  door  with 
furtive  steps,  and  stopped  to  listen;  his 
heart  beat  furiously,  and  he  heard  noth- 
ing but  the  noise  of  that  dull  throbbing 
in  his  chest,  and  of  George's  shrill 
voice,  who  was  still  crying  in  the  draw- 


ing-room. Suddenly,  however,  the  noise 
of  the  bell  over  his  head  startled  him 
like  an  explosion;  then  he  seized  the 
lock,  turned  the  key,  and,  opening  the 
door,  saw  his  wife  and  Limousin  stand- 
ing before  him  on  the  steps. 

With  an  air  of  astonishment,  which 
also  betrayed  a  little  irration  she  said: 
"So  you  open  the  door  now?  Where 
is  Julie?"  His  throat  felt  tight  and 
his  breathing  was  labored,  and  he  tried 
to  reply  without  being  able  to  utter  a 
word,  so  she  continued: 

"Are  you  dumb?  I  asked  you  where 
Julie  is?" 

And  then  he  managed  to  say:  "She 
— she — has — gone." 

Whereupon  his  wife  began  to  get 
angry.  "What  do  you  mean  by  gone. 
Where  has  she  gone?    Why?" 

By  degrees  he  regained  his  coolness, 
and  he  felt  rising  in  him  an  immense 
hatred  for  that  insolent  woman  who  was 
standing  before  him.  "Yes,  she  has 
gone  altogether.     I  sent  her  away." 

"You  have  sent  away  Julie?  Why^ 
you  must  be  mad." 

"Yes,  I  sent  her  away  because  she 
was  insolent — and  because,  because  she 
was  ill-using  the  child." 

"Julie?" 

"Yes,  Julie." 

"What  was  she  insolent  about?" 

"About  you." 

"About  me?" 

"Yes,  because  the  dinner  was  burnt 
and  you  did  not  come  in." 

"And  she  said?" 

"She  said  offensive  things  about  you, 
which  I  ought  not — ^which  I  could  not 
listen  to." 

"What  did  she  say?" 

"It  is  no  good  repeating  them." 


MONSIEUR  PARENT 


91 


*^  want  to  hear  them." 

"She  said  it  was  unfortunate  for  a 
man  like  me  to  be  married  to  a  woman 
like  you,  unpunctual,  careless,  disor- 
derly, a  bad  mother,  and  a  bad  wife." 

The  young  woman  had  gone  into  the 
anteroom  followed  by  Limousin,  who 
did  not  say  a  word  at  this  unexpected 
position  of  things.  She  shut  the  door 
quickly,  threw  her  cloak  on  to  a  chair, 
and  going  straight  up  to  her  husband, 
she  stammered  out: 

"You  say? — you  say? — that  I  am — ?" 

He  was  very  pale  and  calm  and  re- 
plied : 

"I  say  nothing,  my  dear.  I  am  sim- 
ply repeating  what  Julie  said  to  me,  as 
you  wanted  to  know  what  it  was,  and 
I  wish  you  to  remark  that  I  turned  her 
off  just  on  account  of  what  she  said." 

She  trembled  with  a  violent  longing 
to  tear  out  his  beard  and  scratch  his 
face.  In  his  voice  and  manner  she  felt 
that  he  was  asserting  his  position  as 
master,  although  she  had  nothing  to 
say  by  way  of  reply,  and  she  tried  to 
assume  the  offensive,  by  saying  some- 
thing unpleasant: 

"I  suppose  you  have  had  dinner?" 
she  asked. 

"No,  I  waited  for  you." 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders  impa- 
tiently. "It  is  very  stupid  of  you  to 
wait  after  half  past  seven,"  she  said. 
**You  might  have  guessed  that  I  was 
detained,  that  I  had  a  good  many  things 
to  do,  visits  and  shopping." 

And  then,  suddenly,  she  felt  that  she 
wanted  to  explain  how  she  had  spent 
her  time,  and  she  told  him  in  abrupt, 
haughty  words,  that  having  to  buy  some 
furniture  in  a  shop /a  long  distance  off, 
very  far  off,  in  the  Rue  de  Rennes,  she 


had  met  Limousin  at  past  seven  o'clock 
on  the  Boulevard  Saint-Germain,  and 
that  then  she  had  gone  with  him  to  have 
something  to  eat  in  a  restaurant,  as  she 
did  not  like  to  go  to  one  by  herself,  al- 
though she  was  faint  with  hunger.  That 
was  how  she  had  dinner,  with  Limousin, 
if  it  could  be  called  dining,  for  they 
had  only  had  some  soup  and  half  a 
fowl,  as  they  were  in  a  great  hurry  to 
get  back,  and  Parent  replied  simply: 

"Well,  you  were  quite  right.  I  am 
not  finding  fault  with  you." 

Then  Limousin,  who  had  not  spoken 
till  then,  and  who  had  been  half  hidden 
behind  Henriette,  came  forward,  and 
put  out  his  hand,  saying:  "Are  you 
very  weU?" 

Parent  took  his  hand,  and  shaking  it 
gently,  replied:     "Yes,  I  am  very  well." 

But  the  young  woman  had  felt  a  re- 
proach in  her  husband's  last  words: 
"Finding  fault!  Why  do  you  speak  of 
finding  fault?  One  mighc  think  that 
you   meant   to   imply   something." 

"Not  at  all,"  he  replied,  by  way  of 
excuse.  "I  simply  meant,  that  I  was 
not  at  all  anxious  although  you  were 
late,  and  that  I  did  not  find  fault  with 
you  for  it."  She,  however,  took  ih6 
high  hand,  and  tried  to  find  a  pretext 
for  a  quarrel. 

"Although  I  was  late?  One  might 
really  think  that  it  was  one  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  and  that  I  spent  my  nights 
away  from  home." 

"Certainly  not,  my  dear.  I  said  late, 
because  I  could  find  no  other  word. 
You  said  you  should  be  back  at  half 
past  six,  and  you  returned  at  half  past 
eight.  That  was  surely  being  late!  I 
understand  it  perfectly  well.    I  am  not 


P2 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


at  all  surprised,  even.  But — but — I 
can  hardly  use  any  other  word." 

"But  you  pronounce  them,  as  if  I  had 
been  cut  all  night." 

"Oh!  no;  oh!  no!" 

She  saw  that  he  would  yield  on  every 
point,  and  she  was  going  into  her  own 
room,  when  at  last  she  noticed  that 
George  was  screaming,  and  then  she 
asked,  with  some  feeling:  "Whatever 
is  the  matter  with  the  child?" 

"I  told  you,  that  Julie  had  been  rather 
unkind  to  him." 

"What  has  the  wretch  been  doing  to 
him?" 

"Oh!  Nothing  much.  She  gave  him 
a  push,  and  he  fell  down." 

She  wanted  to  see  her  child,  and 
ran  into  the  dining-room,  but  stopped 
short  at  the  si:^ht  of  the  table  covered 
mih  spilt  wine,  with  broken  decanters 
and  glasses  ana  overturned  saltcellars. 
"Who  did  all  that  mischief?"  she  asked. 

"It  was  Julie  who — " 

But  she  interrupted  him  furiously: 
"That  is  too  much,  really;  Julie  speaks 
of  me  as  if  I  were  a  shameless  woman, 
beats  my  child,  breaks  my  plates  and 
dishes,  turns  my  house  upside  down,  and 
it  appears  that  you  think  it  all  quite 
natural." 

"Certainly  not,  as  I  have  got  rid  of 
her." 

"Really! — you  have  got  rid  of  her! 
But  you  ought  to  have  given  her  in 
charge.  In  such  cases,  one  ought  to 
call  in  the  Commissary  of  Police!" 

"But,  my  dear — I  really  could  not — 
there  was  no  reason.  It  would  have 
been  very  difficult.'* 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders,  disdain- 
fully: "There,  you  will  never  be  any- 
thing but  a  poor,  wretched  fellow,  a  man 


without  a  will,  without  any  firmness  nt 
energy.  Ah!  she  must  have  said  some 
nice  things  to  you,  your  Julie,  to  make 
you  turn  her  off  like  that.  I  should  like 
to  have  been  here  for  a  minute,  only 
for  a  minute."  Then  she  opened  the 
drawing-room  door  and  ran  to  George, 
took  him  into  h^r  arms  and  kissed  him, 
and  said:  "Georgie,  what  is  it,  my 
darling,  my  pretty  one,  my  treasure?" 
But  as  she  w^as  fondling  him  he  did  not 
speak,  and  she  repeated:  "What  is  the 
matter  with  you?"  And  he,  having 
seen  with  his  child's  eyes  that  something 
was  wrong,  replied  "Julie  beat  papa." 

Henriette  turned  toward  her  hus- 
band, in  stupefacticn  at  first,  but  then 
r.n  irresistible  desire  to  laugh  shone  in 
her  eyes,  passed  like  a  slight  shiver  over 
her  delicate  cheeks,  made  her  upper  lip 
curl  and  her  nostrils  dilate,  -^.nd  at  last  a 
clear,  bright  burst  of  mirth  came  from 
her  lips,  a  torrent  of  gaiety  which  was 
lively  and  sonorous  as  the  song  of  a 
bird.  With  littb  mischievous  exclama- 
tions which  issued  from  between  her 
white  teeth,  and  hurt  Parent  as  much  as 
a  bite  would  have  done  she  laughed: 
"Ha ! — ^ha ! — ha ! — ha  !  she  beat — she 
beat — my  husband  —  ha!  —  ha!  —  ha! 
How  funnv!  Do  you  hear,  Limousin? 
Julie  has  beaten — has  beaten — my — hus- 
band. Oh!  dear — oh!  dear — how  very 
funny!" 

But  Parent  protested:  "No — no — it 
is  not  true,  it  is  not  true.  It  was  I,  on 
the  contrary^  who  threw  her  into  the 
dining-room  so  violently  that  she 
knocked  the  table  over.  The  child  did 
not  see  clearly,  I  beat  her!" 

"Here,  my  darling,"  Henriette  said  to 
her  boy;  "did  Julie  beat  papa?" 

'Tes.  it  was  Julie,"  he  replied.     But 


MONSIEUR  PARENT 


iien,  suddenly  turning  to  another  idea, 
she  said.  'But  the  child  has  had  no 
dinner?  You  have  had  nothing  to  eat» 
my  pet?" 

"No,  mamma." 

Then  she  again  turned  furiously  on  to 
her  husband :  "Why,  you  must  be  mad, 
utterly  mad!  It  is  half  past  eight,  and 
George  has  had  no  dinner!" 

He  excused  himself  as  best  he  could, 
for  he  had  nearly  lost  his  wits  by  the 
overwhelming  scene  and  the  explanation, 
and  felt  crushed  by  this  ruin  of  his  life. 

"But,  my  dear,  we  were  waiting  for 
3^ou,  as  I  did  not  wish  to  dine  without 
you.  As  you  come  home  late  every  day, 
J  expected  you  every  moment." 

She  threw  her  bonnet,  which  she  had 
kept  on  till  then,  into  an  easy-chair, 
and  in  an  an-^ry  voice  she  said:  "It  is 
teaily  intolerable  to  have  to  do  with 
people  who  can  understand  nothing,  who 
:an  divine  nothing,  and  do  nothing  by 
:hemselves.  So  I  suppose,  if  i  were  to 
come  in  at  twelve  o'clock  at  night,  the 
child  would  have  had  nothing  to  eat? 
/ust  as  if  you  could  not  have  under- 
wood that,  as  it  was  after  half  past 
ieven,  I  was  prevented  from  coming 
home,  that  I  had  met  with  some 
hindrance!" 

Parent  trembled,  for  he  felt  that  his 
anger  was  getting  the  upper  hand,  but 
Limousin  interposed  and  turning  toward 
the  young  woman,  he  said:  "My  dear 
friend,  you  are  altogether  unjust.  Parent 
could  not  guess  that  you  would  come 
here  so  late,  as  you  never  do  so,  and 
then,  how  could  you  expect  him  to  get 
over  the  difficulty  all  by  hunself,  after 
having  sent  away  Julie?" 

But  Henriette  was  very  angry  and 
replied:     "Well,  at  any  rate,  he  Tou^f 


get  over  the  difficulty  nmxaelt,  for  I  will 
not  help  him.  Let  him  settle  it!"  And 
she  went  into  her  own  room,  quite  for- 
getting that  her  child  had  not  had  any- 
thing to  eat. 

Then  Limousin  immediately  set  to 
work  to  help  his  frieiid.  He  picked  up 
the  broken  glasses  which  strewed  the 
table,  and  took  them  out;  he  replaced 
the  plates  and  knives  and  forks  and  put 
the  child  into  his  high  cnair,  while 
Parent  went  to  look  for  the  lady's  maid 
to  wait  at  table.  She  came  in,  in  great 
astonishment,  as  she  had  heard  nothing 
in  George's  room,  where  she  had  been 
working.  She  soon,  however,  brought  in 
the  soup,  a  burnt  leg  of  mutton,  and 
mashed  potatoes. 

Parent  sat  by  the  side  of  the  child, 
very  much  upset  and  distressed  at  al> 
that  had  happened.  He  gave  the  boy 
his  dinner,  and  endeavored  to  eat  some* 
thmg  himself,  but  iie  could  only  swal- 
low with  an  effort,  as  if  his  throat  had 
been  paralyzed.  By  degrees  he  was 
seized  by  an  insane  desire  to  look  at 
Limousin,  who  was  sitting  opposite  to 
him  and  making  bread  pellets,  to  see 
whether  George  was  like  him.  He  did 
not  v*inture  to  raise  his  eyes  for  some 
time;  at  last,  however,  he  made  up  his 
mind  to  do  so,  and  gave  a  quick,  sharp 
look  at  the  face  which  he  knew  so  well. 
He  almost  fancied  that  he  had  never 
looked  at  it  carefully,  since  it  looked  so 
different  to  what  he  had  anticipated. 
From  time  to  time  he  scanned  him,  try- 
ing to  find  a  likeness  in  the  smallest 
lines  of  his  face,  in  the  slightest  fea- 
tures, and  then  he  looked  at  his  SOD^ 
under  the  pretext  of  feeding  him. 

Two  words  were  sounding  in  his  ears; 
"His   father!   his    father!   his   fatherl" 


94 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


They  buzzed  in  his  temples  at  every  beat 
of  his  heart.  Yes,  that  man,  that  tran- 
quil man  who  was  sitting  on  the  other 
side  of  the  table  was,  perhaps,  the 
father  of  his  son,  of  George,  of  his 
little  George.  Parent  left  off  eating; 
he  could  not  manage  any  more;  a  ter- 
rible pain,  one  of  those  attacks  of  pain 
which  make  men  scream,  roll  on  the 
ground,  and  bite  the  furniture,  was  tear- 
ing at  his  entrails,  and  he  felt  inclined 
to  take  a  knife  and  plunge  it  into  his 
stomach.  It  would  ease  him  and  save 
him,  and  all  would  be  over. 

For  how  could  he  live  now?  Could 
he  get  up  in  the  morning,  join  in  the 
meals,  go  out  into  the  stree'^s,  go  to  bed 
at  night  and  sleep  with  that  idea  dom- 
inating him:  "Limousin  is  licde 
George's  father!"  No,  he  would  not 
have  the  strength  to  walk  a  step,  to 
dress  himself,  to  think  of  anything,  to 
speak  to  anybody!  Every  day,  every 
hour,  every  moment,  he  would  be  trying 
to  know,  to  guess,  to  discover  this  ter- 
rible secret.  And  the  little  boy — ^his 
dear  little  boy — he  could  not  look  at 
him  any  more  without  enduring  the  ter- 
rible pains  of  that  doubt,  of  being  tor- 
tured by  it  to  the  very  marrow  of  his 
bones.  He  would  be  obliged  to  live 
there,  to  remain  in  that  house,  near  a 
child  whom  he  might  love  and  yet  hate ! 
Yes,  he  should  certainly  end  by  hating 
him.  What  torture!  Oh!  If  he  were 
sure  that  Limousin  was  George's  father, 
he  might,  perhaps,  grow  calm,  become 
accustomed  to  his  misfortune  and  his 
pain;  but  ignorance  was  intolerable. 

Not  to  know — to  be  always  trying  to 
find  out,  to  be  continually  suffering,  to 
kiss  the  child  every  moment,  another 
raaa's  child,  to  take  him  out  for  walks. 


to  carry  him,  to  caress  him,  to  love  him, 
and  to  think  continually:  "Perhaps  hb 
is  not  my  child?"  Wouldn't  it  be  bet- 
ter not  to  see  him,  to  abandon  him, — to 
lose  him  in  the  streets,  or  to  go  away, 
far  away,  himself,  so  far  away  that  he 
should  never  hear  anything  more  spoken 
about,  never! 

He  started  when  he  heard  the  door 
open.  His  wife  came.  "I  am  hungry,'* 
she  said;  "are  not  you  also,  Limousin?" 

He  hesitated  a  little,  and  then  said: 
"Yes,  I  am,  upon  my  word."  And  she 
had  the  leg  of  mutton  brought  in  again, 
while  Parent  asked  himself:  "Have  they 
had  dinner?  Or  are  they  late  because 
they  have  had  a  lover's  meeting?" 

They  both  ate  with  a  very  good  appe- 
tite. Henriette  was  very  calm,  but 
laughed  and  joked,  and  her  husband 
watched  her  furtively.  She  had  on  a 
pink  dressing  gown  trimmed  with  white 
lace,  and  her  fair  head,  her  white  neck, 
and  her  plump  hands  stood  out  from 
that  coquettish  and  perfumed  dress,  as 
from  a  seashell  edged  with  foam.  Wha-: 
had  she  been  doing  all  day  with  tha*. 
man?  Parent  could  see  them  kissing, 
and  stammering  out  words  of  ardent 
love!  How  was  it  that  he  could  not 
manage  to  know  everything,  to  guess  the 
whole  truth,  by  looking  at  them,  sitting 
side  by  side,  opposite  to  him? 

What  fun  they  must  be  making  of 
him,  if  he  had  been  their  dupe  since 
the  first  day?  Was  it  possible  to  make 
a  fool  of  a  man,  of  a  worthy  man,  be- 
cause his  father  had  left  him  a  little 
money?  Why  could  one  not  see  these 
things  in  people's  souls?  How  was  it 
that  nothing  revealed  to  upright  souls 
the  deceit  of  infijmous  hearts?  How 
was  it  that  voices  had  the  same  sound 


MONSIEUR  PARENT 


^5 


for  adoring  as  for  lying — why  was  a 
false,  deceptive  look  the  same  as  a  sin- 
cere one?  And  he  watched  them,  wait- 
ing to  catch  a  gesture,  a  word,  an  in- 
tonation. Then  suddenly  he  thought: 
"I  will  surprise  them  this  evening,"  and 
he  said :  "My  dear,  as  I  have  dismissed 
Julie,  I  will  see  about  getting  another 
this  very  day,  and  I  shall  go  out  im- 
mediately to  procure  one  by  to-morrow 
morning,  so  I  may  not  be  in  until  late." 

"Very  well,"  she  replied;  "go,  I  shall 
not  stir  from  here.  Limousin  will  keep 
me  company.  We  will  wait  for  you." 
And  then,  turning  to  the  maid,  she  said: 
"You  had  better  put  George  to  bed,  and 
then  you  can  clear  away  and  go  up  to 
your  own  room." 

Parent  had  got  up;  he  was  unsteady 
on  his  legs,  dazed  and  giddy,  and  say- 
mg:  "I  shall  see  you  again  later  on/' 
he  went  out,  holding  on  to  the  wall,  for 
the  floor  seemed  to  roll,  like  a  ship. 
George  had  been  carried  out  by  his 
nurse,  while  Henriette  and  Limousin 
spent  into  the  drawing-room. 

As  soon  as  the  door  was  shut,  he 
said:  "You  must  be  mad,  surely,  to 
torment  your  husband  as  you  do."  She 
immediately  turned  on  him:  "Ah!  Do 
you  know  that  I  think  the  habit  you 
have  got  into  lately,  of  looking  upon 
Parent  as  a  martyr,  is  very  unpleasant." 

Limousin  threw  himself  into  an  easy- 
chair,  and  crossed  his  legs:  "I  am  not 
setting  him  up  as  a  martyr  in  the  least, 
but  I  think  that,  situated  as  we  are,  it 
is  ridiculous  to  defy  this  man  as  you  do, 
from  morning  till  night." 

She  took  a  cigarette  from  the  mantel- 
piece, lighted  it,  and  replied:  "But  I 
do  not  defy  him,  auite  the  contrary; 


only,  he  irritates  me  by  his  stupidity, 
and  I  treat  him  as  he  deserves." 

Limousin  continued  impatiently: 
"What  you  are  doing  is  very  ^'oolish! 
However,  all  women  are  alike.  Look 
here:  Parent  is  an  excellent,  kind  fel- 
low, stupidly  confiding  and  good,  who 
never  interferes  with  us,  who  does  not 
suspect  us  for  a  moment,  who  leaves  us 
quite  free  and  undisturbed,  whenever  we 
like,  and  you  do  all  you  can  to  put  hiro 
into  a  rage  and  to  spoil  our  life." 

She  turned  to  him:  "I  say,  you 
worry  me.  You  are  a  coward,  like  all 
other  men  are!  You  are  frightened  of 
that  poor  creature!"  He  immediately 
jumped  up,  and  said,  furiously:  "I 
should  like  to  know  what  he  does,  and 
why  you  are  so  set  against  him?  Does 
he  make  you  unhappy?  Does  he  beat 
you?  Does  he  deceive  you  and  go  with 
another  woman?  No,  it  is  really  too 
bad  to  make  him  suffer,  merely  because 
he  is  too  kind,  and  to  hat^  him,  merely 
because  you  are  unfaithful  to  him." 

She  went  up  to  Limousin,  and  looking 
him  full  in  the  face,  she  said:  "And 
you  reproach  me  with  deceiving  him? 
You?  You?  What  a  filthy  heart  you 
must  have?" 

He  felt  rather  ashamed,  and  tried  to 
defend  himself:  "I  am  not  reproaching 
you,  my  dear,  I  am  only  asking  you  to 
treat  your  husband  gently,  because  we 
both  of  us  require  him  to  trust  us.  I 
think  that  you  ought  to  see  that." 

They  were  close  together — ^he,  tall, 
dark,  with  long  whiskers,  and  the  rather 
vulgar  manners  of  a  good-looking  man, 
who  is  very  well  satisfied  with  himself; 
she,  small,  fair,  and  pink,  a  little  Pari- 
sian, half  shopkeeper,  half  one  of  those 
girls  of  easy  virtue,  born  in  a  shop 


96 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


brought  up  at  its  door  to  entice  custom- 
ers by  her  looks,  and  married,  acci- 
dentally, in  consequence,  to  a  simple, 
unsophisticated  man,  who  saw  her  out- 
side the  door  every  morning  when  he 
went  out,  and  every  evening  when  he 
came  home. 

"But  do  you  not  understand,  you 
great  booby,"  she  said,  "that  I  hate  him 
just  because  he  married  me,  because  he 
bought  me,  in  fact,  because  everything 
that  he  says  anc?  does,  everything  tliat 
he  thinks,  reacts  on  m.y  nerves?  He 
exasperates  me  every  moment  by  his 
stupidity,  which  you  call  kindness — ^by 
his  dullness,  which  you  call  his  confi- 
dence, and  then,  above  all,  because  he 
is  my  husband,  instead  of  you!  I  feel 
him  between  us,  although  he  does  not 
interfere  with  us  much.  And  then?  And 
then?  No,  after  all,  it  is  too  idiotic 
of  him  not  to  guess  anything!  I  wish 
he  would  at  any  rate  oz  a  little  jealous. 
There  are  moments  when  I  feel  inclined 
to  sny  10  him,  'Don't  you  see,  you 
stupid  fool,  that  Paul  is  my  lover?'  " 

Limousin  began  to  laujjh:  "Mean- 
while, it  would  b2  a  good  thing  if  you 
were  to  keep  quiet,  and  not  disturb  our 
life." 

"Oh!  I  shall  not  disturb  it,  you  may 
be  sure!  There  is  nothing  to  fear,  with 
such  a  fool.  But  it  is  quite  incompre- 
hensible that  you  cannot  understand 
how  hateful  he  is  to  me,  how  he  irri- 
tates me.  You  always  seem  to  like  him, 
and  you  shake  hands  with  him  cordially. 
Men  are  very  surprising  at  times." 

"One  must  know  how  to  dissimulate, 
my  dear." 

"It  is  no  question  of  dissimulation,  but 
of  feeling.  One  might  think  that,  when 
you  men  deceive  another,  you  liked  him 


all  the  more  on  that  account,  while  we 
women  hate  a  man  from  the  moment 
that  we  have  betrayed  him." 

"I  do  not  see  why  I  should  hate  an 
excellent  fellow,  because  I  love  his  wife." 

"You  do  not  see  it?  You  do  not  see 
it?  You,  all  of  you,  are  wanting  in  that 
fineness  of  feeling!  However,  that  is 
one  of  those  things  which  one  feels,  and 
which  one  cannot  express.  And  then, 
moreover,  one  ought  not.  No,  you 
would  not  understand,  it  is  quitf"  use- 
less! You  men  have  no  delicacy  of 
feeling." 

And  smiling,  with  the  gentle  contempt 
of  a  debauched  woman,  she  put  both  her 
hands  on  to  his  shoulders  and  held  up 
her  lips  to  him,  and  he  stooped  down 
and  clasped  her  closely  in  h's  arms,  and 
their  lips  met.  And  as  they  stood  in 
front  of  the  mirror,  another  couple  ex- 
actly like  them,  embraced  behind  the 
deck. 

They  had  heard  nothing — neither  the 
noise  of  the  key,  nor  the  creaking  of  the 
door,  but  suddenly  Henrietta,  with  a 
loud  cry,  pushed  Limousin  av;ay  with 
both  her  arms,  and  they  saw  Parent 
v;ho  was  looking  at  them,  livid  wilh  rage, 
without  his  shoes  on,  and  his  hat  over 
his  forehead.  He  locked  at  them,  one 
after  the  other,  with  a  quick  glance  of 
i  is  eyes  without  moving  his  head.  He 
j:temed  possessed,  and  then,  without  say- 
ing a  word,  he  threw  himself  on  Limou- 
sin, seized  him  as  if  he  were  going  to 
strangle  him,  and  flung  him  into  the  oi>- 
posite  corner  of  the  room  so  violently, 
that  the  lover  lost  his  balance,  and 
clutching  2t  the  air  with  his  hands 
banged  his  head  against  the  wall. 

But  when  Henriette  saw  that  her  hus 
band  was  going  to  murder  her  lover,  sh 


MONSIEUR  PARENT 


Q7 


threw  herself  on  to  Parent,  seized  him 
by  the  neck,  and  digging  her  ten  deli- 
cate and  rosy  fingers  into  his  neck,  she 
squeezed  him  so  tightly,  with  all  the 
vigor  of  a  desperate  woman,  that  the 
bloDd  spurted  out  under  her  nails,  and 
she  bit  his  shoulder,  as  if  she  wished  to 
tear  it  with  her  teeth.  Parent,  half- 
fitrangled  and  choked,  loosened  his  hold 
on  Limousin  in  order  to  shake  off  his 
wife,  who  was  han2:ing  on  to  his  neck; 
and  putt'ng  his  arms  round  her  waist,  he 
flung  her  also  to  the  other  *jnd  of  the 
drawing-room. 

Then,  as  his  passion  was  short-lived, 
like  that  of  most  good-tempered  men, 
and  as  his  strength  was  soon  exhausted, 
he  remained  standing  between  the  two, 
panting,  worn  out,  not  knowing  what  to 
do  next.  His  brute  fury  had  expended 
itself  in  that  effort,  like  the  froth  of  a 
bottle  of  champagne,  and  his  unwonted 
energy  ended  in  a  want  of  breath.  As 
soon  as  he  could  speak,  however,  he 
said:  "Go  away — both  of  you — imme- 
diately— go  away!" 

Limousin  remained  motionless  in  his 
corner,  against  the  wall,  too  startled  to 
understand  anything  as  yet,  too  fright- 
ened to  move  a  finger;  while  Henriette, 
with  her  hands  resting  on  a  small,  round 
table,  her  head  bent  forward,  with  her 
hair  hanging  down,  th^^  bodice  of  her 
dress  unfastened  and  bosom  bare,  waited 
like  a  wild  animal  which  is  about  to 
spring.  Parent  went  on,  in  a  stronger 
voice:  **Go  away  immediately.  Get 
out  of  the  house!" 

His  wife,  however,  seeing  that  he  had 
got  over  his  first  exasperation,  grew 
bolder,  drew  he-self  up,  tooK  two  steps 
toward  him,  and  grown  almost  insolent 
already,  she  said:    "Have  you  lost  your 


head?  What  is  the  matter  with  you? 
What  is  the  meaning  of  this  unjustifiable 
violence?"  But  he  turned  toward  her, 
and  raising  his  fist  to  strike  her,  he 
stammered  out:  "Oh!  Oh!  this  is  too 
much — too  much!  I  heard  everything! 
Everything!  Do  you  understand? 
Everything!  you  wretch — you  wretch; 
you  are  two  wretches!  Get  out  of  the 
house — both  of  you!  Immediately — or 
I  shall  kill  you!     Leave  the  house!" 

She  saw  that  it  was  all  over,  and  that 
he  knew  everything,  that  she  could  not 
prove  her  innocence,  and  that  she  must 
comply,  but  all  her  impudence  had  re- 
turned to  her,  and  her  hatred  for  the 
man,  wliich  was  aroused  now,  drove  her 
to  audacity,  making  her  feel  the  need 
of  bravado,  and  of  defying  him.  So 
she  said  in  a  clear  voice:  "Come, 
Limousin,  as  he  is  going  to  turn  me  out. 
of  doors,  I  will  go  to  your  lodgings 
v;ith  you." 

But  Limousin  did  not  move;  and 
Parent,  in  a  fresh  access  of  rage  cried 
out:  "Go,  will  you! — go,  you  wretches! 
— or  else! — or  else!"  and  he  seized  a 
chair  and  whirled  it  over  his  head. 

Then  Henrietta  walked  quickly  across 
the  room,  took  her  lover  by  the  arm, 
dragged  him  from  the  wall,  to  which  he 
appeared  fixed,  and  led  him  toward  the 
door,  saying:  "Do  come,  my  friend. 
You  see  that  the  man  is  mad.  Do 
ccme!" 

As  she  went  out,  she  tuined  round  to 
her  husband,  trying  to  think  of  some- 
thing that  she  could  do,  something  that 
she  could  invent  to  wound  him  to  the 
heart  as  she  left  the  house.  An  idea 
struck  her,  one  of  those  venomous 
deadly  ideas  in  which  all  a  woman's  per- 
fidy  shows   itself,   and   she   said    reso- 


98 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


lutely:  "I  am  going  to  take  my  child 
with  me." 

Parent  was  stupefied  and  stammered: 
"Your — your  child?  You  dare  to  talk 
of  your  child?  You  venture — you  ven- 
ture to  ask  for  your  child — after — 
after —  Oh!  oh!  that  is  too  much!  Go, 
you  horrid  wretch !  Go ! "  She  went  up 
to  him  again,  almost  smiling,  avenged 
already,  and  defying  him,  standing  close 
to  him,  and  face  to  face,  she  said:  "I 
want  my  child,  and  you  have  no  right 
to  keep  him,  because  he  is  not  yours. 
Do  you  understand?  He  is  not  yours — 
he  is  Limousin's." 

And  Parent  cried  out  in  bewilder- 
ment:   "You  lie — you  lie — you  wretch!" 

But  she  continued:  "You  fool!  Every- 
body knows  it,  except  you.  I  tell  you, 
this  is  his  father.  You  need  only  look 
at  him,  to  see  it — " 

Parent  staggerea  back  from  her,  and 
then  he  suddenly  turned  round,  took  a 
candle  and  rushed  into  the  next  room. 
Almost  immediately,  however,  he  re- 
turned, carrying  little  George  wrapped 
up  in  his  bedclothes,  and  the  child,  who 
had  been  suddenly  awakened,  was  cry- 
ing from  fright.  Parent  threw  him  into 
his  wife's  arms,  and  then,  without  saying 
anything  m'^re  he  pushed  her  roughly 
out,  toward  the  stairs,  where  Limousin 
was  waiting,  from  motives  of  prudence. 

Then  he  shut  the  door  again,  double- 
locked  it,  and  bolted  it,  and  he  had 
scarcely  got  into  the  drawing-room, 
when  he  fell  full  length  on  the  floor. 


II. 


Parent  lived  alone,  quite  alone.  Dur- 
ing the  five  weeks  that  followed  their 
separation,  the  feeling  of  surprise  at  his 


new  life  prevented  him  from  thinking 
much.  He  had  resumed  his  bachelor 
life,  his  habits  of  lounging  about,  and 
he  took  his  meals  at  a  restaurant,  as  he 
had  done  formerly.  As  he  had  wished 
to  avoid  any  scandal,  he  made  his  wife 
an  allowance,  which  was  settled  by  their 
lawyers.  By  degrees,  however,  the 
thoughts  of  the  child  began  to  haunt 
him.  Often,  when  he  was  at  home  alone 
at  night,  he  suddenly  thought  he  heard 
George  calling  out  "Papa,"  and  his  heart 
would  begin  to  beat.  One  night  he  got 
up  quickly  and  opened  the  door  to  see 
whether,  by  chance,  the  child  might  have 
returned,  like  dogs  or  pigeons  do.  Why 
should  a  child  have  less  instinct  than  an 
animal? 

After  finding  that  he  was  mistaken,  he 
went  and  sat  down  in  his  armchair  again 
and  thought  of  the  boy.  Finally  he 
thought  of  him  for  hours,  and  whole 
days.  It  was  not  only  a  moral,  but  still 
more  a  physical  obsession,  a  nervous 
longing  to  kiss  him,  to  hold  and  fondle 
him,  to  take  him  on  to  his  knees  and 
dance  him.  He  felt  the  child's  little 
arms  around  his  neck,  the  little  mouth 
pressing  a  kiss  on  his  beard,  the  soft 
hair  tickling  his  cheeks,  and  the  remem- 
brance of  all  those  childish  ways  made 
him  suffer  like  the  desire  for  some  loved 
woman  who  has  run  away.  Twenty  or 
a  hundred  times  a  day  he  asked  himself 
the  question,  whether  he  was  or  was  not 
George's  father,  and  at  night,  especially, 
he  indulged  in  interminable  speculations 
on  the  point,  and  almost  before  he  wa? 
in  bed.  Every  night  he  recommenced 
the  same  series  of  despairing  arguments. 

After  his  wife's  departure,  he  had  at 
first  not  felt  the  slightest  doubt;  cer- 
tainly the  child  v/as  Limousin's,  but  by 


MONSIEUR  PARENT 


9^ 


degrees  he  began  to  waver.  Henriette's 
words  could  not  be  of  any  value.  She 
had  merely  braved  him,  and  tried  to 
drive  him  to  desperation,  and  calmly 
weighing  the  pros  and  cons,  there 
seemed  to  be  every  chance  that  she  had 
hed,  though  perhaps  only  Limousin 
could  tell  the  truth.  But  how  was  he 
to  find  it  out,  how  cculd  he  question 
him  or  persuade  him  to  confess  the  real 
facts? 

Sometimes  Parent  would  get  up  in  the 
middle  of  the  night,  fully  determined  to 
go  and  see  Limousin  and  to  beg  him,  to 
offer  him  anything  he  wanted,  to  put  an 
end  to  this  intolerable  misery.  Then  he 
would  go  back  icy  bed  in  despair,  reflect- 
ing that  her  lo'^er  would,  no  doubt,  also 
lie!  He  wouM  in  fact  be  sure  to  lie,  in 
order  to  a^oid  losing  the  child,  if  he 
were  really  his  father.  What  could  he, 
Parent,  do  then?    Absolutely  nothing! 

And  he  began  to  feel  sorry  that  he 
had  thus  suddenly  brought  about  the 
crisis,  that  he  had  not  taken  time  for  re- 
flection, that  he  had  not  waited  and  dis- 
simulated for  a  month  or  two,  so  as  to 
find  out  for  himself.  He  ought  to  have 
pretended  to  suspect  nothing,  and  have 
allowed  them  to  betray  themselves  at 
their  leisure.  It  would  have  been  enough 
for  him,  to  see  the  other  kiss  the  child, 
to  guess  and  to  understand.  A  friend 
does  not  kiss  a  child  as  a  father  does. 
He  should  have  watched  them  behind 
the  doors.  Why  had  he  not  thought  of 
that?  If  Limousin,  when  left  alone  with 
George,  had  not  at  once  taken  him  up, 
clasped  him  in  his  arms  and  kissed  him 
passionately,  if  he  had  looked  on  indif- 
ferently while  he  was  playing,  without 
taking  any  notice  of  him,  no  doubt  or 
hesitation  could  have  been  possible:  in 


that  case  he  would  not  have  been  the 
father,  he  would  not  have  thought  that 
he  was,  would  not  have  felt  that  he  was. 
Thus  Parent  would  have  kept  the  child, 
while  he  got  rid  of  the  mother,  and  he 
would  have  been  happy,  perfectly 
happy. 

He  tossed  about  in  bed,  hot  and  un- 
happy, trying  to  recollect  Limousin's 
ways  with  the  child.  But  he  could  not 
remember  anything  suspicious,  not  a 
gesture,  not  a  look,  neither  word  nor 
caress.  And  then  the  child's  mother 
took  very  little  notice  of  him;  if  she 
had  him  by  her  lover,  she  would,  no 
doubt,  have  loved  him  more. 

They  had,  therefore,  separated  him 
from  his  son,  out  of  vengeance,  from 
cruelty,  to  punish  him  for  having  sur- 
prised them,  and  he  made  up  his  mind 
to  go  the  next  morning  and  obtain  the 
magistrate's  assistance  to  gain  possession 
of  George,  but  almost  as  soon  as  he  had 
formed  that  resolution,  he  felt  assured 
of  the  contrary.  From  the  moment  that 
Limousin  had  been  Henriette's  lover, 
her  adored  lover,  she  would  certainly 
have  given  herself  up  to  him,  from  the 
very  first,  with  that  ardor  of  self-aban- 
donment which  belongs  to  women  who 
love.  The  cold  reserve  which  she  had 
always  shown  in  her  intimate  relations 
with  him,  Parent,  was  surely  also  an 
obstacle  to  her  bearing  him  a  son. 

In  that  case  he  would  be  claiming,  he 
would  take  with  him,  constantly  keep 
and  look  after,  the  child  of  another  man. 
He  would  not  be  able  to  look  at  him, 
kiss  him,  hear  him  say  "Papa"  without 
being  struck  and  tortured  by  the 
thought,  **He  is  not  my  child."  He  was 
going  to  condemn  himself  to  that  tor- 
ture, and  that  wretched  life  every  mo- 


JOO 


vVORKS  OF  GUV  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ment!     No,  it  would  be  better  to  live 
alone,  to  grow  old  alone,  and  to  die 

alone. 

And  every  day  and  every  night,  these 
dreadful  doubts  and  suiferings,  which 
nothing  could  calm  or  end,  would  recom- 
mence. Especially  did  he  dread  the  dark- 
ness of  the  evening,  the  melancholy  feel- 
ing of  the  twilight.  A  flood  of  sorrow 
would  invade  his  heart,  a  torrent  of  de- 
spair, which  threatened  to  overwhelm 
him  and  drive  him  mad.  He  was  as 
frightened  of  his  own  thoughts  as  men 
are  of  criminals,  and  he  fled  before  them 
as  one  does  from  wild  beasts.  Above 
all  things  he  feared  his  empty,  dark, 
horrible  dwelling,  and  the  deserted 
streets,  in  which,  here  and  there,  a  gas 
lamp  flickers,  where  the  isolated  foot 
passenger  whom  one  hears  in  the  distance 
seems  to  be  a  night-prowler,  and  makes 
one  walk  faster  or  slower,  according  to 
whether  he  is  coming  toward  you  or 
following  you. 

And  in  spite  of  himself,  and  by  in- 
stinct, Parent  went  in  the  direction  of 
the  broad,  well-lighted,  populous  streets. 
The  Hght  and  the  crowd  attracted  him, 
occupied  him  mind  and  distracted  his 
thoughts,  and  when  he  was  tired  walk- 
ing aimlessly  about  among  the  moving 
crowd,  when  he  saw  the  foot  passengers 
becoming  more  scarce,  and  the  pave- 
ments less  crowded,  the  fear  of  solitude 
and  silence  drove  him  into  some  large 
caje  full  of  drinkers  and  of  light.  He 
went  there  as  a  fly  comes  to  a  candle; 
he  used  to  si:  down  at  one  of  the  little 
round  tables  and  ask  for  a  hock*  which 
he  used  to  drink  slowly,  feeling  uneasy 
every  time  that  a  customer  got  up  to 
go.  He  would  have  liked  to  take  him 
by  the  arm.  hold  him  back  and  bee  him 


to  stay  a  little  longer,  so  much  did  lie 
dread  the  time  when  the  waiter  would 
come  up  to  him  and  say  angrily:  "Come, 
Monsieur,  it  is  closing  time!' 

Every  evening  he  would  stop  till  the 
very  last.  He  saw  them  carry  in  the 
tables,  turn  out  the  gas  jets  one  by  one, 
except  his  and  that  at  the  counter.  He 
looked  unhappily  at  the  cashier  counting 
the  money  and  locking  it  up  in  the 
drawer,  and  then  he  Vv^ent,  being  usually 
pushed  out  by  the  waiters,  who  mur- 
mured: "Another  one  who  has  too 
much!  One  would  think  he  had  no 
place  to  sleep  in." 

And  each  night  as  soon  as  he  was 
alone  in  the  dark  street,  he  began  to 
think  of  George  again,  and  to  rack  hi? 
brains  in  trying  to  discover  whether  or 
not  he  was  this  child's  father. 

He  thus  got  into  the  habit  of  going  to 
the  beer  houses,  where  the  continual 
elbowing  of  the  drinkers  brings  you  in 

contact  with  a  familiar  and  silent  public, 
where  the  clouds  of  tobacco  smoke  lull 
disquietude,  while  the  heavy  beer  dulls 
the  mind  and  calms  the  heart.  He  al- 
most lived  there.  He  was  scarcely  up, 
before  he  went  there  to  find  people  to 
occupy  his  looks  and  his  thoughts,  and 
soon,  as  he  became  too  listless  to  move, 
he  took  his  meals  there.  About  twelve 
o'clock  he  used  to  rap  on  the  marble 
table,  and  the  waiter  would  quickly 
bring  a  plate,  a  glass,  a  table  napkin, 
and  his  lunch,  when  he  had  ordered  it 
When  he  had  finished,  he  would  slowly 
drink  his  cup  of  black  coffee,  with  his 
eyes  fixed  on  the  decanter  of  brandy, 
which  would  soon  procure  him  an  hour 
or  two  of  forgetfulness.    First  of  all  he 


*Glass  of  Bavarian  beer. 


MONSIEUR  PARENT 


101 


would  dip  his  lips  into  the  cognac,  as  if 
Lo  get  the  flavor  of  it  with  the  tip  of 
his  tongue.  Then  he  would  throw  his 
head  back  and  pour  it  into  his  mouth, 
drop  by  drop,  and  turn  the  strong  liquor 
over  on  his  palate,  his  gums,  and  the 
mucous  membrane  of  his  cheeks;  then 
he  would  swallow  it  slowly,  to  feel  it 
going  down  his  throat,  and  into  his 
Stomach. 

Thus,  alter  every  meal,  he,  during 
more  than  an  hour,  sipped  three  or  four 
small  ghsses  of  brandy  which  stupefied 
him  by  degrees;  then,  having  drunk  it, 
be  used  to  raise  himself  up  on  the  seat 
covered  with  red  velvet,  pull  his  trou- 
sers up,  and  his  waistcoat  down,  so  as  to 
cover  the  linen  which  appeared  between 
the  tv/o,  draw  down  his  shirt  cuffs  and 
take  up  the  newspapers  again,  which  he 
had  already  read  in  the  morning,  and 
read  them  all  throu^^h  again,  from  begin- 
ning to  end.  Between  four  and  five 
o'clock  he  would  go  for  a  walk  on  the 
boulevards,  to  get  a  little  fresh  air,  as  he 
used  to  say,  and  then  come  back  to  the 
seat  which  had  been  reserved  for  him, 
and  ask  for  his  absinthe.  He  used  to 
talk  to  the  regular  customers,  whose  ac- 
quaintance he  had  made.  They  dis- 
cussed the  news  of  the  day,  and  political 
events,  and  that  carried  him  on  till  din- 
ner-time, and  he  spent  the  evening  as 
he  had  the  afternoon,  until  it  was  time 
to  close. 

It  was  a  terrible  moment  for  him, 
when  he  was  obliged  to  go  out  into  the 
dark,  and  into  the  empty  room  full  of 
dreadful  recollections,  of  horrible 
thoughts,  and  of  mental  agony.  He  no 
longer  saw  any  of  his  old  friends,  none 
of  his  relations,  nobody  who  might  re- 
mind hiiTi  oi"  tis  i>ast  life.    Put  as  his 


apartments  were  a  hell  to  him,  he  took  a 
room  in  a  large  hotel,  a  good  room  on 
the  ground  floor,  so  as  to  see  the 
passers-by.  He  was  no  longer  alone  in 
that  great  building;  he  felt  people 
swarming  round  him,  he  heard  voices  in 
the  adjoining  rooms,  and  when  his  for- 
mer sufferings  revived  at  the  sl^rht  of  his 
bed  which  was  turned  back,  and  of  his 
solitary  fireplace,  he  went  out  into  the 
wide  passages  and  walked  up  and  down 
them  like  a  sentinel,  before  all  the 
closed  doors,  and  looked  sadly  at  the 
choes  standing  in  couples  outside  each, 
v/omen's  little  boots  by  the  side  of  men's 
thick  ones,  and  he  thought  that  no  doubt 
all  these  people  were  happy,  and  were 
sleeping  sweetly  side  by  side  or  in  each 
other's  arms,  in  their  warm  beds. 

Five  years  passed  thus ;  five  miserable 
years  with  no  other  events  except  from 
time  to  time  a  passing  love  affair.  But 
one  day  when  he  was  taking  his  usual 
walk  between  the  Madeleine  and  the  Rue 
Drouot,  he  suddenly  saw  a  lady,  whose 
bearing  struck  him.  A  tall  gentlemai. 
and  a  child  were  with  her,  and  all  three 
were  v;alking  in  front  of  him.  He  asK^d 
himself  v/here  he  had  seen  them  beff  re, 
when  suddenly  he  recognized  a  mr>ve- 
ment  of  her  hand;  it  was  his  wife,  his 
wife  with  Limousin  and  his  chile.,  his 
little  George. 

His  heart  beat  as  if  it  would  si^ftocate 
him,  but  he  did  not  stop,  for  he  wished 
to  see  them  and  he  followed  them. 
They  looked  like  a  family  of  /.he  better 
middle  class.  Henriette  was  leaning  on 
Paul's  a'm  and  speaking  to  him  in  a  low 
voice  and  looking  at  him  'sideways  oc« 
casionally.  Parent  saw  her  side  face, 
and  recognized  its  gracefv.i  outlines,  the 
movements  of  her  lips,  her  smile,  and 


102 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


her  caressing  looks,  but  the  child  chiefly 
took  up  his  attention.  How  tall  and 
strong  he  was!  Parent  could  not  see 
his  face,  but  only  his  long,  fair  curls. 
That  tall  boy  with  bare  legs,  who  was 
walking  by  his  mother's  side  like  a  little 
man,  was  George. 

He  saw  them  suddenly  all  three,  as 
they  stopped  in  front  of  a  shop.  Limou- 
sin had  grown  very  gray,  had  aged,  and 
was  thmner;  his  wife,  on  the  contrary, 
was  as  young  looking  as  ever,  and  had 
grown  stouter;  George  he  would  not 
have  recognized,  he  was  so  different  to 
what  he  had  been  formerly. 

They  went  on  again,  and  Parent  fol- 
lowed them,  then  walked  on  quickly, 
passed  them  and  then  turned  round,  so 
as  to  meet  them  face  to  face.  As  he 
passed  the  chiia  he  felt  a  mad 'longing 
to  take  him  into  his  arms  and  run  off 
with  him,  and  he  knocked  against  him, 
accidentally  as  it  were.  The  boy  turned 
round  and  looked  at  the  clumsy  man 
angrily,  and  Parent  went  off  hastily, 
struck  and  hurt  by  the  look.  He  slunk 
off  Kke  a  thief,  seized  by  a  horrible  fear 
lest  he  should  have  been  seen  and  recog- 
nized by  his  wife  and  her  lover,  and 
he  went  to  his  cafe  without  stopping, 
fell  breathless  into  his  chair,  and  that 
evening  he  drank  three  absinthes. 

For  four  months  he  felt  the  pain  of 
that  meeting  in  his  heart.  Every  night 
he  saw  the  three  again,  happy  and  tran- 
quil, father,  mother,  and  child  walking 
on  the  boulevard  before  going  in  to 
dinner,  and  that  new  vision  effaced  the 
old  one.  It  was  another  matter,  another 
hallucination,  now,  and  also  a  fresh 
pain.  Little  George,  his  little  George, 
the  child  he  had  so  much  loved  and  so 
often  kissed  formerly,  disappeared  in  the 


far  distance  and  he  saw  a  new  one,  like 
a  brother  of  the  first,  a  little  boy  jk.. 
bare  legs,  who  did  not  know  him!  He 
suffered  terribly  at  that  thought.  The 
child's  love  was  dead;  there  was  no 
bond  between  them ;  the  child  would  not 
have  held  out  his  arms  when  he  saw 
him.  He  had  even  looked  at  him 
angrily. 

Then  by  degrees  he  grew  calmer,  his 
mental  torture  diminished,  the  image 
that  had  appeared  to  his  eyes  and 
which  haunted  his  nights  became  more 
indistinct  and  less  frequent.  He  began 
once  more  to  live  like  everybody  else, 
like  all  those  idle  people  who  drink  beer 
off  marble-topped  tables  and  wear  out 
the  seats  of  their  trousers  on  the  thread* 
bare  velvet  of  the  couches. 

He  grew  old  amid  the  smoke  from 
pipes,  lost  his  hair  under  the  gas  lights, 
looked  upon  his  weekly  bath,  on  his 
fortnightly  visit  to  the  barber's  to  have 
his  hair  cut,  and  on  the  purchase  of  a 
new  coat  or  hat,  as  an  event.  When  he 
got  to  his  caje  after  buying  a  new  hat 
he  used  to  look  at  himself  in  the  glass 
for  a  long  time  before  sitting  down,  and 
would  take  it  off  and  put  it  on  again 
several  times  following,  and  at  last  ask 
his  friend,  the  lady  at  the  bar,  who 
watched  him  with  interest,  whether  she 
thought  it  suited  him. 

Two  or  three  times  a  year  he  went  to 
the  theater,  and  in  the  summer  he 
sometimes  spent  his  evenings  at  one  of 
the  open  air  concerts  in  the  Champs- 
Elysees.  He  brought  back  from  them 
some  airs  which  ran  in  his  head  foi 
several  weeks,  and  which  he  even  hum- 
med, beating  time  with  his  foot,  while 
he  was  drinking  his  beer,  and  so  the 
years  followed  each  other,  slow,  mono- 


MONSIEUR  PARENT 


105 


tonous,    and  long,   because    they   were 
quite  uneventful. 

He  did  not  feel  them  glide  past  him. 
He  went  on  toward  death  without  fear 
or  agitation,  sitting  at  a  table  in  a  caj^, 
and  only  the  great  glass  against  which 
he  rested  his  head,  which  was  every  day 
becoming  balder,  reflected  the  ravages 
of  time,  which  flies  and  devours  men, 
poor  men. 

He  only  very  rarely  now  thought  of 
the  terrible  drama  which  had  wrecked 
his  life,  for  twenty  years  had  passed 
since  that  torrible  evening,  but  the  life 
he  had  led  since  then  had  worn  him  out, 
and  the  landlord  of  his  caje  would  often 
say  to  him:  "You  ought  to  pull  your- 
self together  a  little.  Monsieur  Parent; 
you  should  get  some  fresh  air  and  go 
into  the  country!  I  assure  you  that  you 
have  changed  very  much  within  the  last 
few  months."  And  when  his  customer 
had  gone  out,  he  used  to  say  to  the  bar- 
maid: "That  poor  Monsieur  Parent  is 
booked  for  another  world;  it  is  no  good 
never  to  go  out  of  Paris.  Advise  Mm  to 
go  out  of  town  for  a  day  occasionally, 
he  has  confidence  in  you.  It  is  nice 
weather,  and  will  do  him  good."  And 
she,  full  of  pity  and  good-will  for  such 
a  regular  customer,  said  to  Parent  every 
day:  "Come,  Monsieur,  make  up  your 
mind  to  get  a  little  fresh  air,  it  is  so 
charming  in  the  country  when  the 
weather  is  fine.  Oh!  if  I  could,  I  would 
spend  my  life  there.'* 

And  she  told  him  her  dreams,  the 
simple  and  poetical  dreams  of  all  the 
poor  girls  who  are  shut  up  from  one 
year's  end  to  the  other  in  a  shop  and 
who  see  the  noisy  life  of  the  streets  go 
by  while  they  think  of  the  calm  and 
pleasant  life  in  the  country,  under  the 


bright  sun  shining  on  the  meadows,  of 
deep  woods  and  clear  rivers,  of  cows 
lying  in  the  grass  and  of  all  the  differ- 
ent flowers,  blue,  red,  yellow,  purple^ 
lilac,  pink,  and  white,  which  are  so 
pretty,  so  fresh,  so  sweet,  all  the  wild 
flowers  which  one  picks  as  one  walks. 

She  liked  to  speak  to  him  frequently 
of  her  continual,  unrealized  and  unreal- 
izable longing,  and  he,  an  old  man  with- 
out hope,  was  fond  of  listening  to  her^ 
and  used  to  go  and  sit  near  the  counter 
to  talk  to  Mademoiselle  Zoe  and  to  dis- 
cuss the  country  with  her.  Then,  by 
degrees  he  was  seized  by  a  vague  desire 
to  go  just  once  and  see  whether  it  was 
really  so  pleasant  there,  as  she  said, 
outside  the  walls  of  the  great  city,  and 
so  one  morning  he  said  to  her:  "Do 
you  know  where  one  can  get  a  good 
lunch  in  the  neighborhood  of  Paris?" 

"Go  to  the  'Terrace'  at  Saint-Ger- 
main," 

He  had  been  there  formerly,  just  afteif 
he  had  got  engaged,  and  so  he  made  up 
his  mind  to  go  there  again,  and  he  chose 
a  Sunday,  without  any  special  reason, 
but  merely  because  people  generally  do 
go  out  on  Sundays,  even  when  they  have 
nothing  to  do  all  the  week.  So  one  Sun- 
day morning  he  went  to  Saint-Germain. 
It  was  at  the  beginning  of  July,  on  a 
very  bright  and  hot  day.  Sitting  by  the 
door  of  the  railway-carriage,  he  watched 
the  trees  and  the  strangely  built  little 
bouses  in  the  outskirts  of  Paris  fly  past- 
He  felt  low-spirited,  and  vexed  at  hav- 
ing yielded  to  that  new  longing,  and  at 
having  broken  through  his  usual  habits. 
The  view,  which  was  continually  chang- 
ing, and  always  the  same,  wearied  him. 
He  was  thirsty;  he  would  have  liked  to 
get  out  at  every  station  and  sit  down 


104 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


in  the  cajt  which  he  saw  outside  and 
drink  a  bock  or  two,  and  then  take  the 
first  train  back  to  Paris.  And  then,  the 
journey  seemed  very  long  to  him.  He 
used  to  remain  sitting  for  whole  days, 
as  long  as  ha  had  the  same  motionless 
objects  before  his  eyes,  but  he  found 
it  very  trying  and  fatiguing  to  remain 
sitting  while  he  was  being  whirled  along, 
and  to  see  the  v/hole  country  fly  by, 
while  he  himself  was  motionless. 

However,  he  found  the  Seine  interest- 
ing, every  time  he  crossed  it.  Under  the 
bridge  at  Chatou  he  saw  some  skiffs  go- 
ing at  great  pace  under  the  vigorous 
strokes  cf  the  bare -armed  oarsmen,  and 
he  thought:  'There  are  some  fellows 
who  are  certainly  enjoying  themselves!'* 
And  then  the  train  entered  the  tunnel 
just  before  you  get  to  the  station  at 
Saint-Germain,  and  soon  stopped  at  the 
arrival  platform,  where  Parent  got  out, 
and  v/alked  slowly,  for  he  already  felt 
tired,  toward  the  Terrace,  with  his  hands 
behind  his  back,  and  when  he  got  to  the 
iron  balustrade,  he  stopped  to  look  at 
the  d:st:int  horizon. 

The  vast  plain  spread  out  before  him 
like  the  sea,  green,  and  studded  with 
large  villages,  almost  as  populous  as 
towns.  White  roads  crossed  it,  and  it 
was  well  wooded  in  places ;  the  ponds  at 
Vesinet  glistened  like  plates  of  silver, 
and  the  distant  ridges  of  Sannois  and 
Argenteuil  were  covered  with  light,  blu- 
ish mist,  so  that  they  could  scarcely  be 
distinguished.  The  sun  bathed  the 
whole  landscape  in  its  full  warm  light, 
and  the  Seine,  which  twined  like  an  end- 
less serpent  through  the  plain,  flowed 
round  the  villages  and  along  the  slopes. 
parent  inhaled  the  warm  breeze  which 
seemed  to  make  his  heart  young  again. 


to  enliven  his  spirits,  and  to  vivify  his 
blood,  and  said  to  himself:  "It  is  very 
nice  here." 

Then  he  went  on  a  few  steps,  and 
stopped  again  to  look  about  him,  and 
the  utter  misery  of  his  existence  seemed 
to  be  brought  out  into  full  relief  by  the 
intense  light  which  inundated  the  coun- 
try. He  saw  his  twenty  years  of  taje- 
life,  dull,  ro.onotonous,  heart-breaking 
He  might  have  traveled  like  others  did, 
have  gone  among  foreigners,  to  unknown 
countries  beyond  the  sea,  have  interested 
himself  somewhat  in  everything  which 
other  men  are  passionately  devoted  to, 
in  arts  and  sciences,  he  might  have  en- 
joyed life  in  a  thousand  forms,  that 
mysterious  Hfe  which  i-  either  charm.- 
ing  or  painful,  constantly  changing,  al- 
ways inexplicable  and  strange. 

Now,  however,  it  was  too  late.  He 
would  go  on  drinking  hock  after  bock 
until  he  died,  without  any  family,  with- 
out friends,  without  hope,  without  any 
curiosity  about  anything,  and  he  was 
seized  with  a  feeling  of  misery  and  a 
wish  to  run  away,  to  hide  himself  in 
Paris,  in  his  ca]e  and  his  bcf uddlement ! 
All  the  thoughts,  all  the  dreams,  all  the 
desires  which  are  dormant  in  the  sloth 
of  the  stagnating  hearts,  had  ireawak- 
ened,  brought  to  life  by  those  rays  of 
sunlight  on  the  plain. 

He  felt  that  if  he  were  to  remain  there 
any  longer,  he  should  lose  his  head,  and 
so  he  made  haste  to  get  to  the  PaviHon 
Henri  IV.  for  lunch,  to  try  and  forget 
his  troubles  under  the  influence  of  wine 
and  alcohol,  and  at  any  rate  to  have 
some  one  to  speak  to. 

He  took  a  small  table  in  one  of  the 
arbors,  from  which  one  can  see  all  the 
surrounding  country,  ordered  his  lunch 


MONSIEUR  PARENT 


105 


and  asked  to  be  served  at  once.  Then 
some  more  people  arrived  and  sat  down 
at  tables  near  him  and  he  felt  more 
comfortable;  he  was  no  longer  alone. 
Three  persons  were  lunching  near  him, 
and  he  looked  at  them  two  or  three 
times  without  seeing  them  clearly,  as 
one  looks  at  total  strangers.  "Rut  sud- 
denly a  woman's  voice  sent  a  shiver 
through  him  which  seemed  to  penetrate 
to  his  very  marrow.  ''George,"  it  bad 
said,  '*will  you  carve  the  chicken?"  An- 
other voice  repHed :     '*Yes,  mamma." 

Parent  looked  '*p,  and  he  understood, 
he  guessed  immediately  v\rho  those  peo- 
ple were!  He  should  certainly  not  have 
known  them  again.  His  wife  had  grown 
quite  white  and  very  stout,  an  old,  seri- 
ous, respectable  lady,  and  she  held  her 
head  forward  as  she  ate,  for  fear  of 
spotting  her  dresc,  although  she  had  a 
table  napkin  tucked  under  her  chin. 
George  had  become  a  man;  he  had  a 
slight  beard,  that  unequal  and  almost 
colorless  beard  which  fringes  the  cheeks 
of  youths.  He  wore  a  high  hat,  a  white 
waistcoat,  and  a  monocle — because  it 
looked  dandified,  no  doubt.  Parent 
looked  at  him  in  astonishment!  Was 
that  George,  his  son?  No,  he  did  not 
know  that  young  man;  there  could  be 
nothing  in  common  between  them.  Lim- 
ousin had  his  back  to  him,  and  v/as  eat- 
ing, with  his  shoulders  rather  bent. 

Well,  all  three  of  them  seemed  happy 
and  satisfied;  they  came  and  dined  in 
the  country,  at  well-known  restaurants. 
They  had  had  a  calm  and  pleasant  exis- 
tence, a  family  existence  in  a  warm  and 
comfortable  house,  filled  with  all  those 
trifles  which  make  life  agreeable,  with 
affection,  with  all  those  tender  words 
«vhich  people  exchange  continually  when 


they  love  each  other.  They  had  lived 
thus,  thanks  to  him,  Parent,  on  his 
money,  after  having  deceived  him, 
robbed  him,  ruined  him!  They  had  con- 
demned him,  the  innocent,  the  simple- 
minded,  the  jovial  man  to  all  the  miser- 
ies of  solitude,  to  that  abominable  life 
which  he  had  led  between  the  pavement 
and  the  counter,  to  every  moral  torture 
and  every  physical  misery!  They  had 
made  him  a  useless  being,  who  was  lost 
and  wretched  among  other  people,  a 
poor  old  man  without  any  Dleasures,  or 
anything  to  look  forward  to,  and  who 
hoped  for  nothing  from  anyone.  For 
him,  the  world  was  empty,  because  he 
loved  nothing  in  the  world.  He  might 
go  among  other  nations  or  go  about  the 
streets,  go  into  all  the  houses  in  Paris, 
open  every  room,  but  he  would  net  find 
the  beloved  face,  the  face  of  wife  or 
child,  that  he  was  in  search  of,  which 
smiles  when  it  sees  you,  behind  any 
door.  And  that  idea  worked  upon  him 
more  than  any  other,  thi  idea  of  a  door 
which  one  opens,  to  see  and  to  embrace 
somebody  behind  it. 

And  that  was  the  fault  of  those  three 
wretches!  the  fault  of  that  worthless 
woman,  of  thai  infamous  friend,  and  of 
that  tall,  light-haired  lad  who  put  on 
insolent  airs.  Now,  he  felt  as  angry 
with  the  child  as  he  did  with  the  other 
two!  Was  he  not  Limousin's  son? 
Would  Limousin  heve  kept  him  and 
loved  him,  otherw'sc?  Would  not 
Limousin  very  quickly  have  got  rid  of 
the  mother  and  of  the  child  if  he  had 
not  felt  sure  that  it  was  his,  certainly 
his?  Does  anybody  bring  up  other  peo- 
ple's children?  And  now  they  were 
there,  quite  close  to  him,  those  three 
who  had  made  him  suffer  so  much. 


106 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Parent  looked  at  them,  irritated  and 
excited  at  the  recollection  of  all  his 
sufferings  and  of  his  despair,  and  was 
especially  exasperated  at  their  placid  and 
satisfied  looks.  He  felt  inclinec  to  kill 
them,  to  throw  nis  siphon  of  Seltzer 
water  at  them,  to  split  open  Limousin's 
head,  which  he  every  moment  bent  over 
his  plate  and  raised  up  again  immedi- 
ately. And  they  continued  to  live  like 
that,  without  cares  or  anxiety  of  any 
kind.  No!  no!  That  was  really  too 
much,  after  all !  He  would  avenge  him- 
self, he  would  have  his  revenge  now,  on 
the  spot,  as  he  had  them  under  his  hand. 
But  how?  He  tried  to  think  of  some 
means,  he  pictured  such  dreadful  things 
as  one  reads  of  in  the  newspapers  occa- 
sionally, but  could  not  hit  on  anything 
practical.  And  he  went  on  drinking  to 
excite  himself,  to  give  himself  courage 
not  to  allow  such  an  occasion  to  escape 
him,  as  he  should  certainly  not  meet 
with  it  again. 

Suddenly  an  idea  struck  him,  a  ter- 
rible idea,  and  he  left  off  drinking  to 
mature  it.  A  smile  rose  to  his  lips,  and 
he  murmured:  "I  have  got  them,  I  have 
got  them.    We  will  see;  we  will  see." 

A  waiter  asked  him:  "What  would 
you  like  now.  Monsieur?" 

"Nothing.  Coffee  and  cognac.  The 
best."  And  he  looked  at  them,  as  he 
sipped  his  brandy.  There  were  too 
many  people  in  the  restaurant  for  what 
he  wanted  to  do,  so  he  would  wait  and 
follow  them,  for  they  would  be  sure  to 
walk  on  the  terrace  or  in  the  forest. 
When  they  had  got  a  little  distance  off, 
he  would  join  them,  and  then  he  would 
have  his  revenge,  yes,  he  would  have  his 
revenge !  It  was  certainly  not  too  soon, 
after    twenty-three    years   of   suffering. 


Ah!     They  little  guessed  what  was  to 
happen  to  them. 

They  finished  their  luncheon  slowly, 
and  they  talked  in  perfect  security. 
Parent  could  not  hear  what  they  were 
saying,  but  he  saw  their  calm  move- 
ments, and  his  wife's  face,  especially,,  ex- 
asperated him.  She  had  assumed  a 
haughty  air,  the  air  of  a  stout,  devout 
woman,  of  an  irreproachably  devout 
woman,  sheathed  in  principles,  iron-clad 
in  virtue.  Then  they  paid  the  bill  and 
got  up.  and  then  he  saw  Limousin.  He 
might  have  been  taken  for  a  retired 
diplomatist,  for  he  looked  a  man  of 
great  importance  with  his  soft,  white 
whiskers,  the  tips  of  which  fell  on  to  the 
facings  of  his  coat. 

They  went  out.  George  was  smoking 
a  cigar  and  had  his  hat  on  one  side, 
and  Pa^*ent  followed  them.  First  of  all 
they  went  up  and  down  the  terrace,  and 
calmly  admired  the  landscape,  like  peo- 
ple who  have  well  satisfied  their  hunger, 
and  then  they  went  into  the  forest,  and 
Parent  rubbed  his  hands  and  followed 
them  at  a  distance,  hiding  himself,  so  as 
not  to  excite  their  suspicion  too  soon. 
They  walked  slowly^  enjoying  the  fresh 
green  foliage,  and  the  warm  air.  Hen- 
riette  was  holding  Limousin's  arm  and 
walked  upright  at  his  side,  like  a  wife 
who  is  contented,  and  proud  of  herself. 
George  was  cutting  off  the  leaves  with 
his  stick,  and  occasionally  jumped  over 
the  ditches  by  the  roadside,  like  a  fiery 
young  horse  ready  to  gallop  off  through 
the  trees. 

Parent  came  up  to  them  by  degrees, 
panting  rather  from  excitement  and 
fatigue,  for  he  never  walked  now.  He 
soon  came  up  to  them,  but  he  was  seized 
by   fear,   an   inexplicable   fear,   and  he 


MONSIEUR  PARENT 


107 


passed  them,  so  as  to  turn  round  and 
aieet  them  face  to  face.  He  walked  on, 
his  heart  beating,  tor  he  knew  that  they 
were  just  behind  him  now,  and  he  said 
to  himself:  "Come,  now  is  the  time. 
Courage!  courage!  Now  is  the  mo- 
ment!" 

He  turned  around.  They  were  all 
three  sitting  on  the  grass,  at  the  foot  of 
a  huge  tree,  and  were  still  talking.  He 
made  up  his  mind,  and  came  back 
rapidly,  and  then  stopping  in  front  of 
them  in  the  middle  of  the  road,  he  said 
abruptly,  in  a  voice  broken  by  emotion: 
"It  is  I!  Here  I  am!  I  suppose  you 
did  not  expect  me?"  They  all  three 
looked  at  him  carefully,  for  they  thought 
that  he  was  mad,  and  he  continued: 
"One  might  think  that  you  did  not  know 
me  again.  Just  look  at  me!  I  am 
Parent,  Henri  Parent.  You  did  not  ex- 
pect me,  eh?  You  thought  it  was  all 
over,  and  that  you  would  never  see  me 
again.  Ah!  But  here  I  am  once  more, 
you  see,  and  now  we  will  have  an  ex- 
planation." 

Henriette  was  terrified  and  hid  her 
face  in  her  hands,  murmuring:  "Oh! 
Good  Heavens!"  And  seeing  this 
stranger  who  seemed  to  be  threatening 
his  mother,  George  sprang  up,  ready  to 
seize  him  by  the  collar,  while  Limousin, 
who  was  thunderstruck,  looked  at  this 
specter  in  horror,  who,  after  panting  for 
a  few  moments,  continued:  "So  now 
we  will  have  an  explanation;  the  proper 
moment  for  it  has  come!  Ah!  you  de- 
ceived me,  you  condemned  me  to  the 
life  of  a  convict,  and  you  thought  that  I 
should  never  catch  you!" 

But  the  young  man  took  him  by  the 
shoulders  and  pushed  him  back:  "Are 
you  mad?"  he  asked.     "What  do  you 


want?  Go  on  your  way  immediately,  or 
I  shall  give  you  a  thrashing!"  But 
Parent  replied:  "What  do  I  want?  I 
want  to  tell  you  who  these  people  are." 
George,  however,  was  in  a  rage  and 
shook  him;  was  even  going  to  strike 
him,  but  the  other  said:  "Just  let  me 
go.  I  am  your  father.  There,  look 
whether  they  recognize  me  now,  the 
wretches!"  And  the  alarmed  young 
man  removed  his  hands,  and  turned  to 
his  mother,  while  Parent,  as  soon  as  he 
was  released,  went  toward  her. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "tell  him  who  I  am, 
you!  Tell  him  that  .ny  name  is  Henri 
Parent;  that  I  am  his  father  because 
his  name  is  George  Parent ;  because  you 
are  my  wife,  because  you  are  all  three 
living  on  my  money,  on  the  allowance 
of  ten  thousand  francs*  which  I  have 
made  you,  since  I  drove  you  out  of  my 
house.  Will  you  tell  him  also  why  I 
drove  you  out?  Because  I  surprised 
you  with  this  beggar,  this  wretch,  your 
lover!  Tell  him  what  I  was,  an  honor- 
able man,  whom  you  married  for  my 
money,  and  v/hom  you  deceived  from 
the  very  first  day.  Tell  him  who  you 
are,  and  who  I  am." 

He  stammered  and  panted  for  breath, 
in  his  rage,  and  the  woman  exclaimed  in 
heartrending  voice:  "Paul,  Paul,  stop 
him ;  make  him  be  quiet ;  do  not  let  him 
say  this  before  my  son!" 

Limousin  had  also  got  up,  and  he  said 
in  a  quite  low  voice:  "Hold  your 
tongue!  Do  understand  what  you  are 
doing!" 

But  Parent  continued  furiously:  "I 
quite  know  what  I  am  doing,  and  that 
is  not  all.     There  is  one  thing  that  I 

*About  $2000. 


loa 


.  ORKb  Ut  GUY  DE  IvIAUPASSANT 


will  know,  something  that  has  tormented 
me  for  twenty  years." 

And  then  turning  to  George,  who  was 
leaning  against  a  tree  in  consternation, 
he  said;  "Listen  to  me.  When  she  leil 
my  house,  she  thought  it  was  not  enough 
to  have  deceived  me,  but  she  also 
wanted  to  drive  me  to  despair.  You 
were  my  only  consolation,  and  she  took 
you  with  her,  swearing  that  I  was  not 
your  fr.ther,  but  that  he  was  your 
father!  Was  she  lying!  I  do  not  know, 
and  I  have  been  asking  myself  the  ques- 
tion for  the  last  twenty  years." 

He  went  close  up  to  her,  tragic  and 
cerrible,  and  pulling  away  her  hands 
with  which  she  had  coverei  her  face  he 
continued:  "Well,  I  call  upon  you  now 
CO  tell  me  which  of  us  two  is  the  father 
of  this  young  man;  he  or  I,  your  hus- 
band or  your  lover.  Come!  Come!  tell 
us."  Limousin  rushed  at  him,  but 
Parent  pushed  him  back,  and  sneering 
in  his  fury  he  said :  "Ah !  you  are  brave 
now!  You  are  braver  than  you  were 
the  day  you  ran  out  of  doors  because  I 
was  going  to  half  murder  you.  Very 
well!  If  she  will  not  reply,  tell  rne 
yourself.  You  ought  to  know  as  well  as 
she.  Tell  me,  are  you  this  young  fel- 
low's father?  Come!  Come!  Tell 
me!" 

Then  he  turned  to  his  wife  again:  "If 
you  will  not  tell  me,  at  any  rate  tell 
your  son.  He  is  a  man,  now,  and  he 
has  the  right  to  know  who  is  his  father. 
I  do  not  know,  and  I  never  did  know, 
never,  never!  I  canot  tell  you,  my 
boy."  He  seemed  io  be  losing  his  senses, 
his  voice  grew  shrill  and  he  worked  his 
arms  about  as  if  he  had  an  epileptic  at- 
tack. "Come!  Give  me  an  answer. 
She  does  not  know.    I  will  make  a  bet 


that  she  does  not  know.  No — she  doefc 
not  knuw,  by  Jove!  She  used  to  go  to 
bed  with  both  of  us !  Ha !  ha !  ha !  No- 
body knows — nobody.  How  can  one 
know  such  things?  You  will  not  know 
either,  my  boy,  you  will  not  know  any 
more  than  I  do — never.  Look  here. 
Ask  her — you  will  fmd  that  she  does  not 
know.  I  do  not  know  either.  You  can 
choose — yes,  you  can  choose — him  or 
me.  Choose.  Good  evening.  It  is  ill 
over.  If  she  makes  up  her  mind  to  tell 
you,  come  and  let  me  know,  will  you,  I 
am  living  at  the  Hotel  des  Continents. 
I  should  be  glad  to  know.  Good  even- 
ing; I  hope  you  will  enjoy  yourselves 
very  much." 

And  he  went  away  gesticulating  and 
talking  to  himself  under  the  tall  trees, 
into  the  empty,  cool  air,  which  was  full 
of  the  smell  of  the  sap.  He  did  not 
turn  round  to  look  at  them,  but  went 
straight  on,  walking  under  the  stimulus 
of  his  rage,  under  a  storm  of  passion, 
with  that  one  fixed  idea  in  his  mind,  and 
presently  he  found  himself  outside  the 
station.  A  train  was  rbout  to  start  and 
he  got  in.  During  the  jou-ney,  his  anger 
calmed  down,  he  regained  his  senses  and 
returned  to  Paris,  astonished  at  his  own 
boldness,  and  feeling  as  full  of  aches 
ard  fatigue,  as  if  he  had  broken  some 
bones,  but  nevertheless  he  went  to  have 
a  bock  af  h*s  cafe. 

When  she  saw  him  come  in,  Made- 
moiselle Zoe  was  surprised  and  said: 
"What!  back  already?    Are  you  tired?" 

"I  am  tired — ^very  tired.  You  know, 
when  one  is  net  used  to  going  out — but 
I  have  done  with  it.  I  shall  not  go  into 
the  country  again.  I  had  better  have 
stopped  here.  For  the  future,  I  shall 
not  stir  out  again." 


USELESS  BEAUTY  lo 

But  sne  could  not  persuade  him  to  tell  it,  and  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  he 
her  about  his  little  excursion,  although  got  thoroughly  drunk  that  night,  and 
she  wanted  very  much  to  hear  all  about      had  to  be  carried  home. 


Useless  Beauty 


A  VERY  elegant  victoria,  with  two 
beautiful  blacK.  nurses,  was  drawn  up  in 
front  of  the  mansion.  It  was  a  day  in 
the  latter  end  of  June,  about  half  past 
five  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  sun  shone 
warm  and  bright  into  the  large  court- 
yard. 

The  Countess  de  Mascaret  came  down 
just  as  her  husband,  who  was  coming 
home,  appeared  in  the  carriage  entrance. 
He  stopped  for  a  few  moments  to  look 
at  his  wife  and  grew  rather  pale.  She 
was  ver}''  beautiful,  graceful,  and  distin- 
guished looking,  with  her  long  oval  face, 
her  complexion  hke  gilt  ivory,  her  large 
gray  eyes,  and  her  black  hair;  and  she 
got  into  her  carriage  without  looking  at 
him,  without  even  seeming  to  have  no- 
ticed him,  with  such  a  particularly  high- 
bred air,  that  the  furious  jealousy  by 
which  he  had  been  devoured  for  so  long 
again  gnawed  at  his  heart.  He  went  up 
to  her  and  said:  "You  are  going  for  a 
drive?" 

She  merely  replied  disdainfully: 
"You  see  I  am!" 

"In  the  Bois  de  Boulogne?" 

"Most  probably." 

"May  1  come  with  you?" 

"The  carriage  belongs  to  you." 

Without  being  surprised  at  the  tone 
of  voice  in  which  she  answered  him,  he 
got  in  and  sat  down  by  his  wife's  side, 
and  said:     "Bois  de  Boulogne."     The 


footman  jumped  up  by  the  coachman's 
side,  and  the  horses  as  usual  pawed  the 
ground  and  shook  their  heads  until  they 
were  in  the  street.  Husband  and  wife 
sat  side  by  side,  without  speaking.  Ha 
v/as  thinking  how  to  begin  a  conversa- 
tion, but  she  maintained  such  an  ob- 
stin:itely  hard  look,  that  he  did  not  ven- 
ture to  make  the  attempt.  At  last, 
hov;evcr,  he  cunningly,  accidentally  as  it 
were,  touched  the  Countess's  gloved 
hand  with  his  own,  but  she  drew  her 
arm  away,  with  a  movement  which  was 
so  expressive  of  disgust,  that  he  re- 
mained thoughtful,  in  spite  of  his  usual 
authoritative  and  despotic  character. 
"Gabrielle!"  said  he  at  last. 

"What  do  you  want?" 

*'J  think  you  are  looking  adorable." 

She  did  not  reply,  but  vemained  lying 
back  in  che  carriage,  looking  like  an 
irritated  queen.  By  that  time  they  were 
driving  up  the  Champs-Elysees,  toward 
the  Arc  de  Triomphe.  That  immense 
monument,  at  the  end  of  the  long  ave> 
nue,  raised  its  colossal  arch  against  the 
red  sky,  and  the  sun  seemed  to  be  sink- 
ing on  to  it,  showering  fiery  dust  on  it 
from  the  sky. 

The  stream  of  carriages,  with  the  sun 
reflecting  from  the  bright,  plated  harness 
and  the  shining  lamps,  were  like  a 
double  current  flowing,  one  toward  the 
town  and  one  toward  the  wood,  and  the 


110 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Count  de  Mascaret  continued:  "My 
dear  Gabrielle!" 

Then,  unable  to  bear  it  any  longer, 
she  replied  in  an  exasperated  voice: 
"Oh!  do  leave  me  in  peace,  pray!  I 
am  not  even  at  liberty  to  have  my  car- 
riage to  myself,  now."  He,  however, 
pretended  not  to  hear  her,  and  con- 
tinued: "You  have  never  looked  so 
pretty  as  you  do  to-day." 

Her  patience  was  decidedly  at  an  end, 
and  she  replied  with  irrepressible 
anger:  "You  are  wrong  to  notice  it, 
for  I  swear  to  you  that  I  will  never 
have  anything  to  do  with  you  in  that 
way  again."  He  was  stupefied  and  agi- 
tated, and  his  violent  nature  gaining  the 
upper  hand,  he  exclaimed:  "What  do 
you  mean  by  that?"  in  such  a  manner 
as  revealed  rather  the  brutal  master  than 
the  anxorous  man.  But  she  replied  in  a 
low  voice,  so  that  the  servants  might 
not  hear,  amid  the  deafening  noise  of 
the  wheels: 

"Ah!  What  do  I  mean  by  that? 
What  do  I  mean  by  that?  Now  I 
recognize  you  again!  Do  you  want  me 
to  tell  everything?'* 

"Yes." 

"Everything  that  has  been  on  my 
heart,  since  I  have  been  the  victim  of 
your  terrible  selfishness?" 

He  had  grown  red  with  surprise  and 
anger,  and  he  growled  between  his  closed 
teeth:     "Yes,  tell  me  everything." 

He  was  a  tall,  broad-shouldered  man, 
with  a  big,  red  beard,  a  handsome  man, 
a  nobleman,  a  man  of  the  world,  who 
passed  as  a  perfect  husband  and  an  ex- 
cellent father,  and  now  for  the  first  time 
since  they  had  started  she  turned  toward 
him,  and  looked  him  full  in  the  face: 
"Ah!    You  will  hear  some  disagreeable 


things,  but  you  must  know  that  I  am 
prepared  for  everything,  that  I  fear 
nothing,  and  you  less  than  anyone,  to- 
day." 

He  also  was  looking  into  her  eyes, 
and  already  was  shaking  with  passion; 
then  he  said  in  a  low  voice:  "You  are 
mad." 

"No,  but  i  will  no  longer  be  the  vic- 
tim of  the  hateful  penalty  of  maternity, 
which  you  have  inflicted  on  me  for 
eleven  years!  I  wish  to  live  like  a 
woman  of  the  world,  as  I  have  the  right 
to  do,  as  all  women  have  the  right  to 
do." 

He  suddenly  grew  pale  again,  and 
stammered:    "I  do  not  understand  you." 

"Oh!  yes;  you  understand  me  well 
enough.  It  is  now  three  months  since  I 
had  my  last  child,  and  as  I  am  still 
very  beautiful,  and  as,  in  spite  of  all 
your  efforts  you  cannot  spoil  my  figure, 
as  you  just  now  perceived,  when  you 
saw  me  on  the  outside  flight  of  steps, 
you  think  it  is  time  that  I  should  be- 
come enceinte  again." 

"But  you  are  talking  nonsense!" 

"No,  I  am  not;  I  am  thirty,  and  I 
have  had  seven  children,  and  we  have 
been  married  eleven  years,  and  you  hope 
that  this  will  go  on  for  ten  years  longer, 
after  which  you  will  leave  off  being 
jealous." 

He  seized  her  arm  and  squeezed  it, 
saying:  "I  will  not  allow  you  to  talk 
to  me  like  that,  for  long." 

"And  I  shall  talk  to  you  till  the  end, 
until  I  have  finished  all  I  have  to  say  to 
you,  and  if  you  try  to  prevent  me,  I 
shall  raise  my  voice  so  that  the  two 
servants,  who  are  on  the  box,  may  hear. 
I  only  allowed  you  to  come  with  me  for 
that  obiect,  for  I  have  these  witnesses, 


USELESS  BEAUTY 


111 


who  will  oblige  you  to  listen  to  me,  and 
to  contain  yourseil;  so  now,  pay  atten- 
tion to  what  I  say.  I  have  always  felt 
an  antipathy  for  you,  and  I  have  always 
let  you  see  it,  for  I  have  never  lied. 
Monsieur.  You  married  me  in  spite  of 
myself;  you  forced  my  parents,  who 
were  in  embarrassed  circumstances,  to 
give  me  to  you,  because  you  were  rich, 
and  they  obliged  me  to  marry  you,  in 
spite  of  my  tears. 

"So  you  bought  me,  and  as  soon  as  I 
was  in  your  oower,  as  soon  as  I  had  be- 
come your  companion,  ready  to  attach 
myself  to  you,  to  forget  your  coercive 
and  threatening  proceedings,  in  order 
that  I  might  only  remember  that  I  ought 
to  be  a  devoted  wife  and  to  love  you  as 
much  as  it  might  be  possible  for  me  to 
love  you,  you  became  jealous — ^you — as 
no  man  has  ever  been  before,  with  the 
base,  ignoble  jealousy  of  a  spy,  which 
was  as  degrading  for  you  as  it  was  for 
me.  I  had  not  been  married  eight 
months,  when  you  suspected  me  of  every 
perfidiousness,  and  you  even  told  me  so. 
What  a  disgrace !  And  as  you  could  not 
prevent  me  from  being  beautiful,  and 
from  pleasing  people,  from  being  called 
in  drawing-rooms,  and  also  in  the  news- 
papers, one  of  the  most  beautiful  women 
in  Paris,  you  tried  everything  you  could 
think  of  to  keep  admirers  from  me,  and 
you  hit  upon  the  abominable  idea  of 
making  me  spend  my  life  in  a  constant 
state  of  motherhood,  until  the  time  when 
I  should  disgust  every  man.  Oh !  do  not 
deny  it!  I  did  not  understand  it  for 
some  time,  but  then  I  guessed  it.  You 
even  boasted  about  it  to  your  sister,  who 
told  me  of  it,  for  she  is  fond  of  me  and 
was  disgusted  at  your  boorish  coarseness. 

"Ah!    Remember  our  struggles,  doors 


smashed  in,  and  locks  forced!  For 
eleven  years  you  have  condemned  me  to 
the  existence  of  a  brood  mare.  Then  as 
soon  as  I  was  pregnant,  you  grew  dis- 
gusted with  me,  and  I  saw  nothing  of 
you  for  months,  and  I  was  sent  into  the 
country,  to  the  family  mansion,  among 
fields  and  meadows,  to  bring  forth  my 
child.  And  when  I  reappeared,  fresh, 
pretty,  and  indestructible,  still  seduc- 
tive and  constantly  surrounded  by  ad- 
mirers, hoping  that  at  last  I  should  live 
a  little  like  a  young  rich  woman  who 
belongs  to  society,  you  were  seized  by 
jealousy  again,  and  you  recommenced  to 
persecute  me  with  that  infamous  and 
hateful  desire  from  which  you  are  suf- 
fering at  this  moment,  by  my  side.  And 
it  is  not  the  desire  of  possessing  me — • 
for  I  should  never  have  refused  myself 
to  you — but  it  is  the  wish  to  make  me 
unsightly. 

"Beside  this,  that  abominable  and 
mysterious  circumstance  took  place, 
which  I  was  a  long  time  in  penetrating 
(but  I  grew  acute  by  dint  of  watching 
your  thoughts  and  actions).  You  at- 
tached yourself  to  your  children  with 
all  the  security  which  they  gave  you 
while  I  bore  them  in  my  womb.  You 
felt  affection  for  them,  with  all  your 
aversion  for  me,  and  in  spite  of  your 
ignoble  fears,  which  were  momentarily 
allayed  by  your  pleasure  in  seeing  me  a 
mother. 

''Oh!  how  often  have  I  noticed  that 
joy  in  you !  I  have  seen  it  in  your  eyes 
and  guessed  it.  You  loved  your  chil- 
dren as  victories,  and  not  because  they 
were  of  your  own  blood.  They  were 
victories  over  me,  over  my  youth,  over 
my  beauty,  over  my  charms,  over  the 
compliments  which  were  paid  me,  and 


112 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


over  those  who  whispered  round  me, 
without  paying  them  to  me.  And  you 
are  proud  of  them,  you  make  a  parade 
of  them,  you  take  them  out  for  drives 
in  your  coach  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne, 
and  you  give  them  donkey  rides  at 
Montmorency.  You  take  them  to 
theatrical  matinees  so  that  you  may  be 
seen  in  the  midst  of  them,  and  that 
people  may  say:  'What  a  kind  father!' 
and  that  it  may  be  repeated." 

He  had  seized  her  wrist  with  savage 
brutality,  and  squeezed  it  so  violently 
that  she  was  quiet,  though  she  nearly 
cried  out  with  the  pain.  Then  he  said 
to  her  in  a  v.hisper: 

"I  love  my  children,  do  you  heai? 
What  you  have  just  told  me  is  disgrace- 
ful in  a  mother.  But  you  belong  to  me ; 
I  am  master — your  master.  I  can  exact 
from  you  what  I  like  and  when  I  like — 
and  I  hdve  the  law  on  my  side." 

He  was  trying  to  crush  her  fingers  in 
the  strong  grip  of  his  large,  muscular 
hand,  and  3he,  livid  with  pain,  tried  in 
vain  to  free  them  from  that  vise  which 
was  crushing  +.hem ;  the  agony  made  her 
pant,  ahd  the  tcirs  came  into  her  eyes. 
'You  £ce  that  I  am  the  master,  and  the 
stronger,"  he  said.  And  when  he  some- 
what loosened  his  grip,  she  asked  him: 
"Do  you  think  that  I  am  a  religious 
woman?" 

He  was  surprised  and  stammered: 
"Yes." 

"Do  you  think  that  I  could  lie,  if  I 
swore  to  the  truth  of  anything  to  you, 
before  an  altar  on  which  Christ's  body 
is?" 

"No." 

"Will  you  go  with  me  to  some 
church?" 

"What  for?" 


"You  shall  see.  Will  you?'* 
"If  you  absolutely  wish  it,  yes." 
She  raised  her  voice  and  said: 
"Philip!"  And  the  coachman,  bend- 
ing down  a  little,  without  taking  his 
eyes  from  his  horses,  seemed  to  turn 
his  ear  alone  toward  his  mistress,  who 
said:  "Drive  to  St.  Philip-du-Roule's." 
And  the  victoria,  which  had  reached  the 
entrance  of  the  Boise  d3  Boulogne,  re- 
turned to  Paris. 

Husband  and  wife  did  not  exchange  a 
word  during  the  drive.  When  the  car- 
riage stopped  before  the  church,  Ma- 
dame de  Mascaret  jumped  out,  and  en- 
tered it,  followed  by  the  Count,  a  few 
yards  behind  her.  She  went,  without 
stopping,  as  far  as  the  choir-screen,  and 
falling  on  her  knees  at  a  chair,  she 
buried  her  face  in  her  hands.  She 
prayed  for  a  long  time,  and  he,  stand- 
ing behind  her,  could  see  that  she  was 
crying.  She  v/ept  noisplessly^  like 
women  do  weep  when  they  are  in  great 
and  poignant  grief.  There  was  a  kind 
of  undulation  in  her  body,  which  ended 
in  a  little  sob,  hidden  and  stifled  by  her 
fingers. 

But  Count  de  Mascaret  thought  that 
the  situation  was  long  drawn  out,  and 
he  touched  her  on  the  shoulder.  That 
contact  recalled  her  to  herself,  as  if 
she  had  been  ourned,  and  getting  up, 
she  looked  straight  into  his  eyes. 

"This  is  what  I  have  to  say  to  you. 
I  am  afraid  of  nothing,  whatever  you 
may  do  to  me.  You  may  kill  me  if  you 
like.  One  of  your  children  is  not  yours, 
and  one  only;  that  I  swear  to  you  be- 
fore God,  who  hears  me  here.  That  is 
the  only  revenge  which  was  possible  for 
me,  in  return  for  all  your  abominable 
male  tyrannies,  in  return  for  the  penal 


USLLLSS  BEAUTY 


113 


scivitude  of  ch'ldbearing  to  which  you 
have  condemned  me.  Who  was  my 
lover?  That  you  will  never  know!  You 
may  suspect  everyone,  but  you  will 
never  find  out.  I  gave  ]-iyself  up  to 
him,  without  love  and  without  pleasure, 
only  for  the  sake  of  betraying  you,  and 
he  made  me  a  mother.  Which  is  his 
child?  That  also  you  will  never  know. 
I  have  seven;  try  and  find  ou!.!  I  in- 
tended to  tell  yuu  this  later,  for  one 
cannot  completely  avenge  oneself  on  a 
man  by  deceiving  him,  unless  he  knows 
it.  You  have  driven  me  to  confess  it 
to-day;  now  I  h::ve  finished." 

She  hurried  through  the  church,  to- 
ward the  open  door,  expecting  to  hear 
behind  her  the  quick  steps  of  her  hus- 
band whom  she  had  defied,  and  to  be 
knocked  to  the  ground  by  a  blow  of  his 
fist,  but  she  heard  nothing,  and  reached 
her  carriage.  She  jumped  into  it  at  a 
bound,  overwhelmed  with  anguish,  and 
breathless  with  fear;  she  called  out  to 
the  coachman,  "Home!"  and  the  horses 
set  off  at  a  quick  trot. 

11. 

Th-e  Countess  de  Mascaret  was  wait- 
ing in  her  room  for  dinner  time,  like  a 
criminal  sentenced  to  death  av/aits  the 
hour  of  his  execution.  What  was  he  go- 
ing to  do?  Had  he  come  home? 
Despotic,  passionate,  ready  for  any  vio- 
lence as  ne  was,  what  was  he  meditating, 
what  had  he  made  up  his  mind  to  do? 
There  was  no  sound  in  the  house,  and 
every  moment  she  locked  at  the  clock. 
Her  maid  had  come  and  dressed  her  for 
the  evening,  and  had  then  hft  the  room 
again.  Eifrht  o'clock  struck;  almost  at 
the  same  moment  there  were  two  knocks 
at  the  door,  and  the  butler  came  in  and 


told     her     that     dinner     was     ready. 

"Has  the  Count  come  in?" 

"Yes,  Madame  la  Comtesse;  be  is  iu 
the  dining-room." 

For  a  nioment  she  felt  inclined  to  arm 
herself  with  a  small  revolver,  which  she 
had  bought  some  weeks  before,  fore- 
seeing the  tragedy  which  was  being  re- 
hearsed in  her  heart.  But  she  remem- 
bered that  all  the  children  would  be 
there,  and  she  took  nothing  except  a 
smelling-bottle.  He  rose  somewhat 
ceremoniously  from  his  chair.  They  ex- 
changed a  slight  bow,  and  sat  down. 
The  three  boys,  wiuh  their  tutor,  Abbe 
Martin,  were  on  her  ri^ht,  and  the  three 
girls,  with  Miss  Smith,  their  English 
governess,  were  on  her  left.  The  young- 
est child,  who  was  only  three  months 
old,  lemained  upstairs  with  his  nurse. 

The  Abbe  said  grace,  as  was  us'ial 
when  there  was  no  company,  for  the 
children  did  not  come  down  to  dinner 
when  there  were  guests  present;  then 
they  began  dinner.  The  Countess,  suf- 
fering from  emotion  which  she  had  not 
at  all  calculated  upon,  remained  with 
her  eyes  cast  down,  while  the  Count 
scrutinized,  now  the  three  boys,  and 
now  the  three  girls  with  uncertain,  un- 
happy looks,  which  traveled  from  one 
to  the  other.  Suddenly,  pushing  his 
wineglass  from  him,  it  broke,  and  the 
wine  was  soilt  on  the  table-cloth,  and 
at  the  slight  noise  caused  by  this  little 
accident,  the  Countess  started  up  from 
her  chair,  and  for  {he  first  time  they 
looked  at  each  other.  Then,  almost 
every  moment,  in  spite  of  themselves,  in 
spite  of  the  irritation  of  their  nerves 
caused  by  every  glance,  they  did  not 
cease  to  exchange  looks,  *apid  as  pistol 
shots- 


UA 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


The  Abbe,  who  felt  that  there  was 
some  cause  for  embarrassment  which  he 
could  not  divine,  tried  to  get  up  a  con- 
versation, and  started  various  subjecib, 
but  his  useless  efforts  gave  rise  to  no 
ideas  and  did  not  bring  out  a  word.  The 
Countess,  with  feminine  tact  and  obey- 
ing the  instincts  of  a  woman  of  the 
world,  tried  to  answer  him  two  or  three 
times,  but  in  vain.  She  could  not  find 
words,  in  the  perplexity  of  her  mind, 
and  her  own  voice  almost  frightened 
her  in  the  silence  of  the  large  room, 
where  nothing  else  was  heard  except 
the  slight  sound  of  plates  and  knives 
and  forks. 

Suddenly,  her  husband  said  to  her, 
bending  forward:  "Here,  amid  your 
children,  will  you  swear  to  me  that  what 
you  told  me  just  now  is  true?" 

The  hatred  \i'hich  was  fermenting  in 
her  veins  suddenly  roused  her,  and  re- 
plying to  that  question  with  the  same 
firmness  with  which  she  had  replied  to 
his  looks,  she  raised  both  her  hands,  the 
right  pointing  toward  the  boys  and  the 
left  toward  the  girls,  and  said  in  a 
firm,  resolute  voice,  and  without  any 
hesitation:  "On  the  heads  of  my  chil- 
dren, I  swear  that  I  have  told  you  the 
truth." 

He  got  up  and  throwing  his  tabb 
napkin  on  to  the  table  with  an  exasper- 
ated movement,  turned  round  and  flung 
his  chair  against  the  wall.  Then  he 
went  out  without  another  word,  while 
she,  uttering  a  deep  sigh,  as  if  after  a 
first  victory,  went  on  in  a  calm  voice: 
"You  must  not  pay  any  attention  to 
what  your  father  has  just  said,  m}^ 
darlings;  he  was  very  much  upset  a 
short  time  ago,  but  he  will  be  all  right 
again,  in  a  few  days  " 


Then  she  talked  with  the  Abbe  and 
with  Miss  Smith,  and  had  tender,  prett} 
words  for  all  her  children;  those  sweet 
spoiling  mother's  ways  which  unlock 
little  hearts. 

When  dinner  was  over,  she  went  into 
the  drawing-room  with  all  her  little  fol- 
lowing. She  made  the  elder  ones  chat- 
ter, and  when  their  bedtime  came  she 
kissed  them  for  a  long  time,  and  then 
went  alone  into  her  room. 

She  waited,  for  she  had  no  doubt  that 
he  would  come,  and  she  made  up  her 
mind  then,  as  her  children  were  not 
with  her,  to  defend  her  human  flesh,  as 
she  defended  her  life  as  a  woman  of  the 
world;  and  in  the  pocket  of  her  dress 
she  put  the  little  loaded  revolver  which 
she  had  bought  a  few  weeks  before. 
The  hours  went  by,  the  hours  struck, 
and  every  sound  was  hushed  in  the 
house.  Only  cabs  continued  to  rumble 
through  the  streets,  but  their  noise  was 
only  heard  vaguely  through  the  shut- 
tered and  curtained  windows. 

She  waited,  energetic  and  nervous, 
without  any  fear  of  him  nov/.  ready  for 
anything,  and  almost  triumphant,  lor 
she  had  found  means  of  torturing  him 
continually,  during  every  moment  of  his 
life. 

But  the  first  gleams  of  dawn  came  in 
through  the  fringe  at  the  bottom  of  her 
curtains,  v/ithout  his  having  come  into 
her  room,  and  then  she  avv^oKe  to  the 
fact,  much  to  her  surprise,  that  he  was 
not  coming.  Having  locked  and  bolted 
her  door,  for  greater  security,  she  went 
to  bed  at  last,  and  remained  there,  with 
her  eyes  open,  thinking,  and  barely  un- 
derstanding it  all,  without  being  able^ 
to  guess  what  he  was  goirg  to  do. 

When  her  maid  brought  her  tea,  she 


USELESS    BEAUTY 


lis 


at  the  same  time  gave  her  a  letter  from 
her  husband.  He  told  her  that  he  was 
going  to  undertake  a  longish  journey, 
and  in  a  postscript  he  added  ihiit  his 
lawyer  would  provide  her  with  such 
money  as  she  might  require  for  her  ex- 
penses. 

III. 

It  was  at  the  opera,  between  two  of 
the  acts  in  "Robert  the  Devil."  In  the 
stalls,  the  men  were  standing  up,  with 
their  hats  on,  their  waistcoats  cut  very 
low  so  as  to  show  a  large  amount  of 
white  shirt  front,  in  which  the  gold  and 
precious  stones  of  their  studs  glistened. 
They  were  looking  at  the  boxes  crowded 
with  ladies  in  low  dresses,  covered  with 
diamonds  and  pearls,  women  who 
seemed  to  expand  like  flowers  in  that 
illuminated  hothouse,  where  the  beauty 
of  their  faces  and  the  whiteness  of  their 
shoulders  seemed  to  bloom  for  inspec- 
tion, in  the  midst  of  the  music  and  of 
human  voices. 

Two  friends,  with  their  backs  to  the 
orchestra,  were  scanning  those  parterres 
of  elegance,  that  exhibition  of  real  or 
false  charms,  of  jewels,  of  luxury,  and 
of  pretension  which  showed  itself  off 
all  round  the  Grand  Theater.  One  of 
them,  Roger  de  Salnis,  said  to  his  com- 
panion, Bernard  Grandin:  "Just  look 
*30w  beautiful  Countess  de  Mascaret 
itill  is." 

Then  the  elder,  in  turn,  looked 
through  his  opera  glasses  at  a  tall  lady 
in  a  box  opposite,  who  appeared  to  be 
still  very  young,  and  whose  strikir.g 
beauty  seemed  to  appeal  to  men's  eyes 
In  every  corner  of  the  house.  Her  pale 
complexion,  of  an  ivory  tint,  gave  her 
the  appearance  of   a   statue,    while   a 


small,  diamond  coronet  glistened  on  her 
black  hair  like  a  cluster  of  stars. 

When  he  had  looked  at  her  for  some 
time,  Bernard  Grandin  replied  with  a 
jocular  accent  of  sincere  conviction: 
"You  may  well  call  her  beautiful!" 

"How  old  do  you  think  she  is?" 

"Wait  a  moment.  I  can  tell  you  ex- 
actly, for  I  have  known  her  since  she  was 
a  child,  and  I  saw  her  make  her  debut 
into  society  when  she  was  quite  a  girl. 
She  is — she  is — thirty — thirty-six," 

"Impossible!" 

"I  am  sure  of  it." 

"She  looks  twenty-five." 

"She  has  had  seven  children." 

"It  is  incredible." 

"And  what  is  more,  they  are  all  seven 
alive,  as  she  is  a  very  good  mother.  I 
go  to  the  house,  which  is  a  very  quiet 
and  pleasant  one,  occasionally,  and  she 
presents  the  phenomenon  of  the  family 
in  the  midst  of  the  world." 

"How  very  strange!  And  have  there 
never  been  any  reports  about  her?" 

"Never." 

"But  what  about  her  husbarid?  He  la 
pecuHar,  is  he  not?" 

"Yes  and  no.  Very  likely  there  ha  a 
been  a  Httle  drama  between  them,  one 
of  those  little  domestic  dramas  which 
one  suspects,  which  one  never  finds  out 
exactly,  but  which  one  guesses  pretty 
nearly." 

"What  is  it?" 

"I  do  not  know  anyrldng  about  it, 
Mascaret  leads  a  very  fast  life  now, 
after  having  been  a  model  husband. 
As  long  as  he  remained  a  good  spouse, 
he  had  a  shocking  temper  and  was 
crabbed  and  easily  took  offense,  but 
since  he  has  been  leading  his  pr'jsent, 
rackety  life,  he  has  become  quite  in- 


116 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


different;  but  one  would  guess  that  he 
has  some  troable,  a  worm  gnawing  some- 
where, for  he  has  aged  very  much." 

Thereupon  the  two  friends  talked 
philosophically  for  some  minutes  about 
the  secret,  unknowable  troubles,  which 
diJerences  of  character  or  perhaps  phys- 
ical antipathies,  which  were  not  per- 
ceived at  first,  give  rise  to  in  famihes. 
Then  Roger  de  Salnis,  who  was  still 
looking  at  Madame  de  Mascar<;t  through 
his  opera-glasses,  said. 

"It  is  almost  incredible  that  that 
woman  has  had  seven  children!" 

"Yes  in  eleven  years;  after  which, 
when  she  was  thirty,  she  put  a  stop  to 
her  period  of  production  in  oider  to 
enter  into  the  brilliant  period  of  en- 
tertaining, which  does  not  seem  near 
coming  to  an  end." 

"Poor  women!" 

"Why  do  you  pity  them?" 

"Why?  Ah!  my  dear  fellow,  just 
consider!  Eleven  years  of  maternity, 
for  such  a  woman!  What  a  hell'  All 
her  youth,  all  her  beauty,  every  hope  of 
success,  everv  poetical  ideal  of  a  bright 
life,  sacrificed  to  that  abominable  law 
of  reproduction  which  turns  the  normal 
woman  into  a  mere  machine  for  ma- 
ternity." 

"Whai  would  you  have?  It  is  only 
nature!" 

"Yes,  but  I  say  that  Nature  is  our 
enemy,  that  we  must  always  fight 
against  Nature,  for  she  is  continually 
bringing  us  back  to  an  animal  state. 
You  may  be  :;ure  that  God  has  not 
put  anything  on  this  earth  that  is  clean, 
pretty,  elegant,  or  accessory  to  our 
ideal,  but  the  human  brain  has  done  it. 
It  is  we  who  have  introduced  a  little 
grace,    beautv.    unknown    charm,    and 


mystery  into  creation  by  singing  about; 
it,  interpreting  it,  by  admiring  it  as 
poets,  idealising  it  as  artists,  and  by 
explaining  it  as  learned  men  who  make 
mistakes,  who  find  ingenious  reasons, 
some  grace  and  beauty,  some  unknown 
charm  and  mystery  in  the  various 
phenomena  of  nature. 

"God  only  created  coarse  beings,  full 
of  the  germs  of  disease,  and  who,  after 
a  few  years  of  bestial  enjoyment,  grow 
old  and  infirm,  with  all  the  ugliness 
and  all  the  want  of  power  of  human 
decreptitude.  He  only  seems  to  have 
made  them  in  order  that  they  may  re- 
produce their  species  in  a  repulsive  man- 
ner, and  then  d.e  like  ephemeral  in- 
sects. I  said,  reproduce  their  species  in 
a  repulsiie  manner,  and  I  adhere  to 
that  expression.  What  is  there  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  more  ignoble  and  more 
repugnant  than  that  ridiculous  act  of 
the  reproduction  of  living  beings,  against; 
which  all  deHcate  minds  always  have  re- 
volted, and  always  will  revolt?  Since' 
all  the  organs  which  have  been  invented 
by  this  economical  and  malicions 
Creator  serve  two  purposes,  why  did  he 
not  choose  those  that  were  unsullied,  in 
order  to  intrust  them  with  that  sacred 
mission,  which  is  the  noblest  and  the 
most  exalted  of  all  human  functions? 
The  mouth  which  nourishes  the  body  by 
means  of  material  food,  also  diffuses  J 
rbroad  speech  and  thought.  'Our  flesh 
revives  itself  by  means  of  itself,  and  at 
the  same  time,  ideas  are  communicated 
by  it.  The  sense  of  smell,  which  gives 
the  vital  air  to  the  lungs,  imparts  aD 
the  perfumes  of  the  world  to  the  brain: 
the  smell  of  flowers,  of  woods,  of  trees, 
of  the  sea.  The  ear,  which  enables  us 
to    communicate   with    our    fellowmea 


USELESS  BEAUTY 


117 


has  also  allowed  us  to  invent  music,  to 
create  dreams,  happiness,  the  infinite, 
and  even  physical  pleasure,  by  means  of 
sounds ! 

"But  one  might  say  that  the  Creator 
wished  to  prohibit  man  from  ever  en- 
nobling and  idealizing  his  commerce 
with  women.  Nevertheless,  man  has 
found  love,  which  is  not  a  bad  reply  to 
that  sly  Deity,  and  he  has  ornamented 
it  so  much  with  literary  poetry,  that 
woman  often  forgets  the  contact  she  is 
obliged  to  submit  to.  Those  among  us 
who  are  powerless  to  deceive  themselves 
have  invented  vice  and  refined  de- 
bauchery, which  is  another  way  of  laugh- 
mg  at  God,  and  of  paying  homage,  im- 
modest homage,  to  beauty. 

"But  the  normal  man  makes  chil- 
dren; just  a  beast  that  is  coupled  with 
another  by  law. 

"Look  at  that  woman!  Is  it  not 
abominable  to  think  that  such  a  jeweJ, 
such  a  pearl,  born  to  be  beautiful,  ad- 
mired, feted,  and  adored,  has  spent 
eleven  years  of  her  life  in  providing 
heirs  for  the  Count  de  Mascaret?" 

Bernard  Grandin  replied  with  a  laugh: 
"There  is  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  all 
that,  but  very  few  people  would  under- 
stand you." 

Salnis  got  more  and  more  animated, 
"Do  you  know  how  I  picture  God  my- 
self?''* he  said.  "As  an  enormous,  crea- 
tive organ  unknown  to  us,  who  scat- 
ters milHons  of  worlds  into  space,  just 
as  one  single  fish  would  deposit  its 
spawn  in  the  sea.  He  creates,  because 
it  is  His  function  as  God  to  do  so,  but 
He  does  not  know  what  He  is  doing, 
and  is  stupidly  prolific  in  His  work,  and 
is  ignorant  of  the  combinations  of  all 
kinds  which  are  produced  by  His  scat- 


tered germs.  Human  thought  is  a  lucky 
little  local,  passing  accident,  which  was 
totally  unforeseen,  and  is  condemned  to 
disappear  with  this  earth,  and  to  recom- 
mence perhaps  here  or  elsewhere,  the 
same  or  different,  with  fresh  combina- 
tions of  eternally  new  beginnings.  We 
owe  it  to  this  slight  accident  which  has 
happened  to  His  intellect,  that  we  are 
very  uncoiiifortable  in  this  world  which 
was  not  made  for  us,  which  had  not 
been  prepared  to  receive  us,  to  lodge 
and  feed  us,  or  to  satisfy  reflecting  be-, 
ings,  and  we  owe  it  to  Him  also  that  we 
have  to  struggle  without  ceasing  against 
what  are  still  called  the  designs  of 
Providence,  when  we  are  really  refined 
and  civilized  beings." 

Grandin,  who  was  listening  to  him 
attentively,  as  he  had  long  known  the 
surprising  outbursts  of  his  fancy,  asked 
him:  "Then  you  believe  that  human 
thought  is  the  spontaneous  product  of 
blind,  divine  parturition?" 

"Naturally.  A  fortuitous  function 
of  the  nerve-centers  of  our  brain,  like 
some  unforeseen  chemical  action  which 
is  due  to  new  mixtures,  and  which  also 
resembles  a  product  of  electricity, 
caused  by  friction  or  the  unexpected 
proximity  of  some  substance,  and  which, 
lastly,  resembles  the  phenomena  caused 
by  the  infinite  and  fruitful  fermenta- 
tions of  living  matter. 

"But,  my  dear  fellow,  the  tnith  of 
this  must  be  evident  to  anyone  who 
looks  about  him.  If  human  thought, 
ordained  by  an  omniscient  Creator,  had 
been  intended  to  be  what  it  has  become, 
altogether  different  from  mechanical 
thoughts  and  resignation,  so  exacting, 
inquiring,  agitated,  tormented,  would  the 
world  which  was  created  to  receive  the 


118 


WO:^KS  OF  GUY  D£  MAUPASSANT 


beings  which  we  now  are  have  been  this 
unpleasant  little  dwelling  place  for  poor 
fools,  this  salad  plot,  this  rocky,  wooded, 
and  sphencal  kitchen  garden  where  your 
improvident  Providence  has  destined  us 
to  hve  naked,  in  caves  or  under  trees, 
nourished  on  the  6esh  of  slaughtered 
animals,  our  brethren,  or  on  raw  veg- 
etables nourished  by  the  sun  and  the 
rain? 

"But  it  is  sufficient  to  reflect  for  a 
\noment,  in  order  to  understand  that 
^.his  world  was  not  made  for  such  crea- 
\ures  as  we  are.  Thought,  which  is  de- 
veloped by  a  miracle  in  the  nerves  of 
the  cells  and  our  brain,  powerless,  igno- 
rant, and  confused  as  it  is,  and  as  it  will 
always  remain,  makes  all  of  us  who  are 
intellectual  beings  eternal  and  wretched 
exiles  on  earth. 

"Look  at  this  earth,  as  God  has  given 
it  to  those  who  inhabit  it.  Is  it  not 
visibly  and  solely  made,  planted  and 
covered  with  forests,  for  the  sake  of 
animals?  What  is  there  for  us?  Noth- 
ing. And  for  them?  Everything.  They 
have  nothing  to  do  but  to  eat,  or  go 
hunting  and  eat  each  other,  according 
to  their  instincts,  for  God  never  fore- 
saw gentleness  and  peaceable  manners; 
He  only  foresaw  the  death  of  creatures 
which  were  bent  on  destroying  and  de- 
vouring each  other.  Are  not  the  quail, 
the  pigeon,  and  the  partridge  the  na- 
tural prey  of  the  hawk?  the  sheep, 
the  stag,  and  the  ox  that  of  the  great 
flesh-eating  animals,  rather  than  meat 
that  has  been  fattened  to  be  served  up 
to  us  with  truffles,  which  have  been  un- 
earthed by  pigs,  for  our  special  benefit? 

"As  to  ourselves,  the  more  civilized, 
intellectual,  and  refined  we  are,  the 
more  we  ought  to  conquer  and  subdue 


that  animal  instinct,  which  represents 
the  will  of  God  in  us.  And  so,  in  or- 
der to  mitigate  our  lot  as  brutes,  we 
have  discovered  and  made  everything, 
beginning  with  houses,  then  exquisite 
food,  sauces,  sweetmeats,  pastry,  drink, 
stuffs,  clothes,  ornaments,  beds,  mat- 
tresses, carriages,  railways,  and  in- 
numerable machines,  besides  arts  and 
sciences,  writing  and  poetry.  Every 
ideal  comes  from  us  as  well  as  the 
amenities  of  life,  in  order  to  make  our 
existence  as  simple  reproducers,  for 
which  divine  Providence  solely  intended 
us,  less  monotonous  and  less  hard. 

"Look  at  this  theater.  Is  there  not 
here  a  human  world  created  by  us,  un- 
foreseen and  unknown  by  Eternal 
destinies,  comprehensible  by  our  minds 
alone,  a  sensual  and  intellectual  distrac- 
tion, which  has  been  invented  solely  by 
and  for  that  discontented  and  restless 
little  animal  that  v/e  are. 

"Look  at  that  wom^an,  Madame  de 
Mascaret.  God  intended  her  to  live  in 
a  cave  naked,  or  wrapped  up  in  the 
skins  of  wild  animals,  but  is  she  not 
better  as  she  is?  But,  speaking  of  her, 
does  anyone  know  why  and  how  her 
brute  of  a  husband,  having  such  a  com- 
panion by  his  side,  and  especially  after 
having  been  boorish  enough  to  make 
her  a  mother  seven  times,  has  suddenly 
left  her,  to  run  after  bad  women?" 

Grandin  replied:  "Oh!  my  dear  fel- 
low, this  is  probably  the  only  reason. 
He  found  that  always  living  with  her 
v;as  becoming  too  expensive  in  the  end, 
and  from  reasons  of  domestic  economy, 
he  has  arrived  at  the  same  principles 
which  you  lay  down  as  a  philosopher." 

Just   then  the   curtain  rose   for  the 


USELESS  BEAUTY 


il) 


third  act,  and  they  turned  round,  took 
off  their  hats,  and  sat  down. 

IV. 

The  Count  and  Countess  Mascaret 
were  sitting  side  by  side  in  the  carriage 
which  was  taking  them  home  from  the 
opera,  without  speaking.  But  suddenly 
the  husband  said  to  his  wife:  "Ga- 
brielle!" 

"What  do  you  want?" 

"Don't  you  think  that  this  has  lasted 
long  enough?" 

"What?^' 

"The  horrible  punishment  to  which 
you  have  condemned  me  for  the  last 
six  years." 

"What  do  you  want?  I  cannot  help 
it." 

"Then  tell  me  which  of  them  it  is?" 

"Never." 

"Think  that  I  can  no  longer  see  my 
children  or  feel  them  round  me,  with- 
out having  my  heart  burdened  v;ith  this 
doubt.  Tell  me  which  of  them  it  is, 
and  I  swear  that  I  will  forgive  you,  and 
treat  it  like  the  others." 

"I  have  not  the  right  to." 

"You  do  not  see  that  i  can  no  longer 
endure  this  life,  this  thought  which  is 
wearing  me  out,  or  this  question  which 
I  am  constantly  asking  myself,  this  ques- 
tion which  tortures  me  each  time  I  look 
at  them.    It  is  driving  me  mad." 

"Then  you  have  suffered  a  great 
deal?"  she  said. 

"Terribly.  Should  I,  without  that, 
have  accepted  the  horror  of  li^dng  by 
your  side,  and  the  still  greater  horror  of 
feeling  and  knowing  that  there  is  one 
among  them  whom  I  cannot  recognize, 
and  who  prevents  me  from  loving  the 
others?" 


She  repeated:  "Then  you  have  really 
suffered  very  much?"  And  he  replied  in 
a  constrained  and  sorrowful  voice: 

"Yes,  for  do  I  rot  tell  you  every  day 
that  it  is  intolerable  torture  to  me? 
Should  I  have  remained  in  that  house, 
near  you  and  them,  if  I  did  not  love 
them  Oh!  You  have  behaved  abomi- 
nably toward  me.  All  the  affection  of 
my  heart  I  have  bestowed  upcn  my 
children,  and  that  you  know.  I  am  for 
them  a  father  of  the  olden  time,  as  I 
was  for  you  a  husDand  of  one  of  the 
families  of  old,  for  by  instinct  I  have 
remained  a  natural  man,  a  man  of  for- 
mer days.  Yes,  I  will  confess  it,  you 
have  made  me  terribly  jealous,  because 
you  are  a  woman  of  another  race,  of 
another  soul,  with  other  requirements. 
Oh!  I  shall  never  forget  the  things  that 
you  told  me,  but  from  that  day,  1 
troubled  myself  no  more  about  you.  I 
did  not  kill  you,  because  then  I  should 
have  had  no  means  on  earth  of  ever  dis- 
covering which  of  our — of  your  children 
is  not  mine.  I  have  waited,  but  I  have 
suffered  more  than  you  wo^ild  believe, 
for  I  can  no  longer  venture  to  love  them, 
except,  perhaps,  the  two  eldest;  I  no 
longer  venture  to  look  at  them,  to  call 
them  to  me,  to  kiss  them;  I  cannot 
take  them  on  to  my  knee  without  asking 
myself:  'Can  it  be  this  one?'  I  have 
been  correct  in  my  behavior  toward  you 
for  six  years,  and  even  kind  and  com- 
plaisant; tell  me  the  truth,  and  I  swear 
that  I  will  do  nothing  unkind." 

He  thought,  in  spite  of  the  darkness 
of  the  carriage,  that  he  could  perceive 
that  she  was  moved,  and  feeling  certain 
that  she  was  going  to  speak  at  last,  he 
said:  "I  beg  you,  I  beseech  you  to  tell 
me." 


120 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  TvIAUPASSANT 


"I  have  been  more  guilty  than  you 
think  perhaps,"  she  replied;  "but  I 
could  no  longer  endure  that  life  of  con- 
tinual pregnancy,  and  I  had  only  one 
means  of  driving  you  from  my  bed.  I 
lied  before  God,  and  I  lied,  with  my 
hand  raised  to  my  children's  heads,  for 
I  have  never  wronged  you." 

He  seized  her  arm  in  the  darkness, 
and  squeezing  it  as  he  had  done  on  that 
terrible  day  of  their  drive  in  the  Bois 
de  Boulogne,  he  stammered:  "Is  that 
true?" 

"It  is  true." 

But  he  in  terrible  grief  said  with  a 
groan:  "I  shall  have  fresh  doubts  that 
will  never  end !  When  did  you  lie,  the  last 
time  or  .low?  How  am  I  to  believe  you 
at  present?  How  can  one  believe  a 
woman  after  that?  I  shall  never  again 
know  what  I  am  to  think.  I  would 
rather  you  had  said  to  me:  'It  is 
Jacques,  or,  it  is  Jeanne.' " 

The  carriage  drove  them  into  the 
courtyard  of  their  mansion,  and  when 
it  had  drawn  up  in  front  of  the  steps, 
the  Count  got  down  first  as  usual,  and 
offered  his  wife  his  arm,  to  help  her  up. 
And  then,  as  soon  as  they  had  reached 
the  first  floor  he  said:  "May  I  speak 
to  you  for  a  few  moments  longer?" 

And  she  replied:  "I  am  quite  will- 
ing." 

They  went  into  a  small  drawing-room, 
while  a  footman  in  some  surprise,  lit 
the  wax  candles.  As  soon  as  he  had  left 
the  room  and  they  were  alone,  he  con- 
tinued: "How  am  I  to  know  the  truth? 
I  have  begged  you  a  thousand  times  to 
speak,  but  you  have  remained  dumb, 
impenetrable,  inflexible,  inexorable,  and 
now  to-day,  you  tell  roe  that  you  have 
been  lying.     For  six  years  you  have 


actually  allowed  me  to  believe  such  a 
thing!  No,  you  are  lying  now,  I  do 
not  know  why,  but  out  of  pity  for  me, 
perhaps?" 

She  replied  in  a  sincere  and  convinc- 
ing manner:  "If  I  had  net  done  so,  I 
should  have  had  four  more  children  in 
the  last  six  years!" 

And  he  exclaimed:  "Can  a  mother 
speak  like  that?" 

"Oh!"  she  replied,  "I  do  not  at  all 
feel  that  I  am  the  mother  of  children 
who  have  never  been  born,  it  is  enough 
for  me  to  be  the  mother  of  those  that 
I  have,  and  to  love  them  with  all  my 
heart.  I  am — we  are — women  who  be- 
long to  the  civilized  world,  Monsieur, 
and  we  are  no  longer,  and  we  refuse  to 
be,  mere  females  who  restock  the  earth." 

She  got  up,  but  he  seized  her  hands. 
"Only  one  word,  Gabrielle.  Tell  me 
the  truth!" 

"I  have  just  told  you.  I  have  nsver 
dishonored  you." 

He  looked  her  full  in  the  face,  and 
how  beautiful  she  was,  with  her  gray 
eyes,  like  the  cold  sky.  In  her  dark 
hair  dress,  on  that  opaque  night  of  black 
hair,  there  shone  the  diamond  coronet, 
like  a  cluster  of  stars.  Then  he  sud- 
denly felt,  felt  by  a  kind  of  intuition, 
that  this  grand  creature  was  not  merely 
a  being  destined  to  perpetuate  his  race, 
but  the  strange  and  mysterious  product 
of  all  the  complicated  desires  which 
have  been  accumulating  in  us  for  cen- 
turies but  which  have  been  turned  aside 
from  their  primitive  and  divine  object, 
and  which  have  wandered  after  a  mys- 
tic, imperfectly  seen,  and  intangible 
beauty.  There  are  some  women  like 
that,  women  who  blossom  only  for  our 
dreams,  adorned  with  every  poetical  at* 


AN  AFFAIR  OF  STATE 


I2l 


tribute  of  civilization,  with  that  ideal 
luxury,  coquetry,  and  aesthetic  charm 
which  should  surround  the  living  statue 
who  brightens  our  life. 

Her  husband  remained  standing  be- 
fore her,  stupefied  at  the  tardy  and  ob- 
scure discovery,  confusedly  hitting  on 
the  cause  of  his  former  jealousy,  and 
understanding  it  all .  very  imperfectly. 
At  last  he  said:  "I  believe  you,  for  I 
feel  at  this  moment  that  you  are  not 


lying,  and  formerly,  I  really  thought 
that  you  were." 

She  put  out  her  hand  to  him:  "We 
are  friends  then?" 

He  took  her  hand  and  kissed  it,  and 
replied:  "We  are  friends.  Thank  you, 
Gabrielle." 

Then  he  went  out,  still  looking  at  her, 
and  surprised  that  she  was  still  so  beauti- 
ful, and  feeling  a  strange  emotion  arising 
in  h:m,  which  was,  perhaps,  more  for- 
midnble  than  antique  and  simple  love. 


An  Affair  of  State 


Paris  had  just  heard  of  the  disaster 
of  Sedan.  The  Republic  was  proclaimed. 
All  France  was  panting  from  a  mad- 
ness that  lasted  until  the  time  of  the 
Commonwealth.  Everybody  was  play- 
ing at  soldier  from  one  end  of  the  coun- 
try to  the  other. 

Capmakers  became  colonels,  assum- 
ing the  duties  of  generals;  revolvers 
and  daggers  were  displayed  on  largo 
rotund  bodies,  enveloped  in  red  sashes; 
common  citizens  turned  warriors,  com- 
manding battalions  of  noisy  volunteers, 
and  swearing  like  troopers  to  emphasize 
their  importance. 

The  very  fact  of  bearing  arms  and 
handling  guns  with  a  system  excited  a 
people  who  hitherto  had  only  handled 
scales  and  measuics,  and  made  them 
formidable  to  the  first  comer,  without 
reason.  They  even  executed  a  few  in- 
nocent people  to  prove  that  they  knew 
how  to  kill;  and,  in  roaming  through 
virgin  fields  still  belonging  to  the  Prus- 
sians, tbev  shot  stray  dogs,  cows  chew- 


ing the  cud  in  peace,  or  sick  horses  pur 
out  to  pasture.  Each  believed  himself 
called  upon  to  play  a  great  role  in 
military  affairs.  The  cajes  of  the 
smallest  villages,  full  of  tradesmen  in 
uniform,  resembled  barracks  oi  field 
hospitals. 

Now,  the  town  of  Canneville  did  not 
yet  know  the  exciting  news  of  the  army 
and  the  Capital.  It  had,  however, 
been  greatly  agitated  for  a  month  over 
an  encounter  between  the  rival  political 
parties.  The  mayor.  Viscount  de  Var- 
netot,  a  small,  thin  man,  already  old, 
remained  true  to  the  Empire,  especially 
since  he  saw  rising  up  against  him  a 
powerful  adversary,  in  the  great,  san- 
guine form  of  Doctor  Massarel,  head  of 
the  Republican  party  in  the  district, 
venerable  chief  of  the  Masonic  lodge, 
president  of  the  Society  of  Agriculture 
and  the  Fire  Department,  and  organizer 
of  the  rural  militia  designed  to  save  the 
country. 

In  two  weeks  he  had  induced  sixty- 


122 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


three  men  to  volunteer  in  defense  of 
their  country — married  men,  fathers  of 
families,  prudent  farmers  and  merchants 
of  the  town.  These  he  drilled  every 
morning  in  front  of  the  mayor's  window. 

Whenever  the  mayor  happened  to  ap- 
pear, Commander  Massarel,  covered 
with  pistols,  passing  proudly  up  and 
down  in  front  of  his  troops,  would  make 
them  shout,  "Long  live  our  country  1" 
And  this,  they  noticed,  disturbed  the  lit- 
tle viscount,  who  no  doubt  heard  in  it 
menace  and  defiance,  and  perhaps  some 
odious  recollection  fjf  the  great  Revolu- 
tion. 

On  the  morning  of  the  fifth  of  Sep- 
tember, in  uniform,  his  revolver  on  the 
table,  the  doctor  gave  consultation  to  an 
old  peasant  couple.  The  husband  had 
suffered  with  a  varicose  vein  for  seven 
years,  but  had  waited  until  his  wife  had 
one  too,  so  that  they  might  go  and  hunt 
up  a  physician  together,  guided  by  the 
postman  when  he  should  come  with  the 
newspaper. 

Dr.  Massarel  opened  the  door,  grew 
pale,  straightened  himself  abruptly  and, 
raising  his  arms  to  heaven  in  a  gesture 
of  exaltation,  cried  out  with  all  his 
might,  in  the  face  of  the  amazed  rustics: 

"Long  live  the  Republic!  Long  live 
the  Republic!    Long  live  the  Republic!" 

Then  he  dropped  into  his  armchair 
weak  with  emotion. 

When  the  peasant  explained  that  this 
sickness  commenced  with  a  feeling  as 
if  ants  were  running  up  and  down  in 
his  legs,  the  doctor  exclaimed:  "Hold 
your  peace.  I  have  spent  too  much 
time  with  you  stupid  people.  The  Re- 
public is  proclaimed !  The  Emperor  is  a 
iprisoner!  France  is  saved!  Long  live 
the    ReDublir'"      And     ninnin^    to    the. 


door,  he  bellowed:     "Celeste!     Quick! 
Celeste!" 

The  frightened  maid  hastened  in.  He 
stuttered,  so  rapidly  did  he  try  to  speak: 
'My  boots,  my  sabei — my  cartridge 
box — and — the  Spanish  dagger,  which  is 
on  my  night  table.    Hurry  now!" 

The  obstinate  peasant,  takmg  ad- 
vantage of  the  moment's  silence,  be- 
gan again:  "This  seemed  like  some 
cysts  that  hurt  me  when  I  walked.'* 

The  exasperated  physician  shouted: 
"Hold  your  peace!  For  Heaven's  sake! 
If  you  had  washed  your  feet  oftener,  it 
would  not  have  happened."  Then, 
seizing  him  by  the  neck,  he  hissed  in 
his  face:  "Can  you  not  comprehend 
that  we  are  living  in  a  Republic, 
stupid?" 

But  professional  sentiment  calmt-.' 
him  suddenly,  and  he  let  the  astonished 
old  couple  out  of  the  house,  repeating 
all  the  time: 

"Return  to-morrov/,  return  to-morrow, 
my  friends;  I  have  no  more  time  to- 
day." 

While  equipping  himself  from  head 
to  foot,  he  gave  another  series  of  ur- 
gent orders  to  the  maid: 

"Run  to  Lieutenant  Picard's  and  to 
Sub-lieutenant  Pommel's  and  say  to 
them  that  I  want  them  here  immedi- 
ately. Send  Torcheboeuf  to  me,  too. 
with  his  drum.  Quick,  now!  Quick!" 
And  when  Celeste  was  gone,  he  collected 
his  thoughts  and  prepared  to  surmount 
the  difficulties  of  the  situation. 

The  three  men  arrived  together.  They 
were  in  their  working  clothes.  The 
Commander,  who  had  expected  to  see 
them  in  uniform,  had  a  fit  of  surprise. 

"You  knov/  nothing,  then?  The  Em. 
oeror  has  been  taken  orison  er.     A  Re* 


AN  AFFAIR  OF  STATE 


125 


public  is  proclaimed.  My  position  is 
delicate,  not  to  say  perilous." 

He  reflected  for  some  minutes  before 
the  astonished  faces  of  his  subordinates 
and  then  continued: 

"It  is  necessary  to  act,  not  to  hesi- 
tate. Minutes  now  are  worth  hours  at 
other  times.  Everything  depends  upon 
promptness  of  decision.  You,  Picard, 
go  and  find  the  curate  and  get  him  to 
ring  the  bell  to  bring  the  people  together, 
while  I  £et  ahead  of  them.  You, 
Torcheboeuf,  beat  the  call  to  assemble 
the  milit'a  in  arms,  in  the  square,  from 
even  as  far  as  the  hamlets  of  Gerisaie 
and  Salmare.  You,  Pommel,  put  on 
your  uniform  at  once,  that  is,  the  jacket 
and  cap.  We,  together,  are  going  to 
take  possession  of  the  mairie  and  sum- 
mon M.  de  Varnetot  to  transfer  his 
authority  to  me.    Do  you  understand?" 

"Yes." 

"Act,  then,  and  promptly.  I  will  ac- 
company you  to  your  house,  Pommel, 
aince  we  are  to  work  together." 

Five  minutes  later,  the  Commander 
and  his  subaltern,  armed  to  the  teeth, 
appeared  in  the  square,  just  at  the  mo- 
ment when  the  little  Viscount  de  Var- 
netot, with  hunting  gaiters  on  and  his 
rifle  on  his  shoulder,  appeared  by 
another  street,  walking  rapidly  and  fol- 
lowed by  three  guards  in  green  jackets, 
each  carrying  a  knife  at  his  side  and  a 
gun  over  his  shoulder. 

While  the  doctor  siopped,  half  stupe- 
fied, the  four  men  entered  the  mayor's 
house  and  the  door  closed  behind  them. 

"We  are  forestalled,"  murmured  the 
doctor;  "it  will  be  necessary  now  to  wait 
for  re-enforcements;  nothing  can  be 
done  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour." 

Here    Lieutenant    Picard     appeared: 


"The  curate  refuses  to  obey,"  said  he; 
"he  has  even  shut  himself  up  in  the 
church  with  the  beadle  and  the  porter." 

On  the  other  side  of  the  square,  op- 
posite the  white,  closed  front  of  the 
mairie,  the  church,  mute  and  black, 
showed  its  great  oak  door  with  the 
wrought-iron  trimmings. 

Then,  as  the  puzzled  inhabitants  put 
their  noses  out  of  the  windov/s,  or 
came  out  upon  the  steps  of  their  houses, 
the  rolling  of  a  drum  was  heard,  and 
Torcheboeuf  suddenly  appeared,  beating 
with  fury  the  three  quick  strokes  of  the 
call  to  arms.  Pie  crossed  the  square  with 
disciplined  step,  and  then  disappeared 
on  a  road  leading  to  the  country. 

The  Commander  drew  his  sword,  ad- 
vanced alone  to  the  middle  distance 
between  the  two  buildings  where  the 
enemy  was  barricaded  and,  wavmg  hi.« 
weapon  above  his  head,  roared  at  the 
top  of  his  lungs:  "Long  live  the  Re- 
public! Death  to  traitors!"  Then  he 
fell  back  where  his  oflicers  were.  The 
butcher,  the  baker,  and  the  apothecary, 
feeling  a  little  uncertain,  put  up  their 
shutters  and  closed  their  shops.  The 
grocery  alone  remained  open. 

Meanwhile  the  men  of  the  militia 
were  arriving,  little  by  little,  variously 
clothed,  but  all  wearing  caps,  the  cap 
constituting  the  whole  uniform  of  the 
corps.  They  were  armed  with  their 
old,  rusty  guns,  guns  that  had  hung  on 
chimney-pieces  in  kitchens  for  thirty 
years,  and  looked  quite  like  a  detach- 
ment of  country  soldiers. 

When  there  were  about  thirty  around 
him,  the  Commander  explained  in  a  few 
words,  the  state  of  affairs.  Then,  turn- 
ing toward  his  major,  he  said:  "Now, 
we  must  act." 


124 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


While  the  inhabitants  collected,  talked 
over  and  discussed  the  matter,  the  doc- 
tor quickly  formed  his  plan  of  cam- 
paign : 

"Lieutenant  Picard,  you  advance  to 
the  windows  of  the  mayor's  house  and 
order  M.  de  Varnetot  to  turn  over  the 
townhall  to  me,  in  the  name  of  the 
Republic." 

But  the  lieutenant  was  a  master- 
mason  and  refused. 

"You  are  a  scamp,  you  are.  Trying 
to  make  a  target  of  me!  Those  fel- 
lows in  there  are  good  shots,  you  know 
that.  No,  thanks!  Execute  your  com- 
missions yourself!" 

The  Commander  turned  red:  "I  or- 
der you  to  go  in  the  name  of  discipline," 
said  he. 

"I  am  not  spoiling  my  features  with- 
out knowing  why,"  the  lieutenant  re- 
turned. 

Men  of  influence,  in  a  group  near  by, 
were  heard  laughing.  One  of  them 
called  out:  "You  are  right,  Picard,  it 
is  not  the  proper  time.*'  The  doctor, 
under  his  breath,  muttered :  "Cowards  I" 
And,  placing  his  sword  and  his  revolver 
in  the  hands  of  a  soldier,  he  advanced 
with  measured  step,  his  eye  fixed  on  the 
windows,  as  if  he  expected  to  see  a  gun 
or  a  cannon  pointed  at  him. 

When  he  was  within  a  few  steps  of 
the  building  the  doors  at  the  two  ex- 
tremities, affording  an  entrance  to  two 
schools,  opened,  and  a  flood  of  little 
creatures,  boys  on  one  side,  girls  on  the 
other,  poured  out  and  began  playing 
in  the  open  space,  chattering  around 
the  doctor  like  a  flock  of  birds.  He 
scarcely  knew  what  to  make  of  it. 

As  soon  as  the  last  were  out,  the 
doors  closed.     The  greater  part  of  the 


little  monkeys  finally  scattered,  ana 
then  the  Commander  called  out  in  a 
loud  voice: 

"Monsieur  de  Varnetot?"  A  window 
in  the  first  story  opened  and  M.  de 
Varnetot  appeared. 

The  Commander  began:  "Monsieur, 
you  are  aware  of  the  great  events  which 
have  changed  the  system  of  Govern- 
ment. The  party  you  represent  no 
longer  exists.  The  side  I  represent  now 
comer,  into  power.  Under  these  sad,  but 
decisive  circumstances,  I  come  to  de- 
mand you,  in  the  name  of  the  Republic, 
to  put  in  my  hand  the  authority  vested 
in  you  by  the  out-going  power." 

M.  de  Varnetot  replied:  "Doctor 
Massarel,  I  am  mayor  of  Canneville,  so 
placed  by  the  proper  authorities,  and 
mayor  of  Canneville  I  shall  remain  un- 
til the  title  is  re^'oked  and  replaced  by 
an  order  from  my  superiors.  As  mayor, 
I  am  at  home  in  the  mairie,  and  there  I 
shall  stay.  Furthermore,  just  try  to 
put  me  out."  And  he  closed  the 
window. 

The  Commander  returned  to  his 
troops.  But,  before  explaining  anything, 
measuring  Lieutenant  Picard  from  head 
to  foot,  he  said: 

"You  are  a  numskull,  you  are, — a 
goose,  the  disgrace  of  the  army.  I  shall 
degrade  you." 

The  Lieutenant  replied:  "I'll  attend 
to  that  myself."  And  he  went  over  to 
a  group  of  muttering  civilians. 

Then  the  doctor  hesitated.  Whai 
should  he  do?  Make  an  assault?  Would 
his  men  obey  him?  And  then,  was  he 
surely  in  the  right?  An  idea  burst 
upon  him.  He  ran  to  the  telegraph  of- 
fice, on  the  other  side  of  the  square, 
and    hurriedly    sent    three    dispatches: 


AN  AFFAIR  OF  STATE 


125 


•*To  the  Members  of  the  Republican 
Government,  at  Paris";  "To  the  New 
Repubhcan  Prefect  of  the  Lower  Seine, 
at  Rouen";  "To  the  New  Republican 
Sub-Prefect  of  Dieppe." 

He  exposed  the  situation  fully;  told 
of  the  danger  run  by  the  commonwealth 
from  remaining  in  the  hands  of  the 
monarcbistic  mayor,  offered  his  devout 
services,  asked  for  orders  and  signed  his 
name,  following  it  up  with  all  his  titles. 
Then  he  returned  to  his  army  corps  and, 
drawing  ten  francs  out  of  his  pocket, 
said: 

"Now,  my  friends,  go  and  eat  and 
drink  a  little  something.  Only  leave 
here  a  detachment  of  ten  men,  so  that 
no  one  leaves  the  mayor's  house." 

Ex-Lieutenant  Picard  chatting  with 
the  watch-maker,  overheard  this.  With 
a  sneer  he  remarked:  "Pardon  me,  but 
if  they  go  out,  there  will  be  an  oppor- 
tunity for  you  to  go  in.  Otherwise,  I 
can't  see  how  you  are  to  get  in  there!" 

The  doctor  made  no  reply,  but  went 
away  to  luncheon.  In  the  afternoon,  he 
disposed  of  offices  all  about  town,  hav- 
ing the  air  of  knowing  of  an  impend- 
ing surprise.  Many  times  he  passed  be- 
fore the  doors  of  the  mairie  and  of  the 
church,  wiihout  noticing  anything  sus- 
Dicious;  one  could  have  believea  the 
two  buildings  empty. 

The  butcher,  the  baker,  and  the 
apothecary  reopened  their  shops,  and 
stood  gossiping  on  the  steps.  If  the 
Emperor  had  been  taken  prisoner,  there 
must  be  a  traitor  somewhere.  They 
did  not  feel  sure  of  the  revenue  of  a 
new  Republic. 

Night  came  on.  Toward  nine  o'clock, 
the  doctor  returned  quietly  and  alone 
to    the    mayor's    residence,    persuaded 


that  his  adversary  had  retired.  And,  as 
he  was  trying  to  force  an  entrance  with 
a  few  blows  of  a  pickaxe,  the  loud 
voice  of  a  guard  demanded  suddenly: 
"Who  goes  there?"  Monsieur  Massarel 
beat  a  retreat  at  the  top  of  his  speed. 

Another  day  dawned  without  any 
change  in  the  situation.  The  militia 
in  arms  occupied  the  square.  The  in- 
habitants stood  around  awaiting  the 
solution.  People  from  neighboring  vil* 
lages  came  to  look  on.  Finally,  thf 
doctor,  realizing  that  his  reputation  was 
at  stake,  resolved  to  settle  the  thing  in 
one  way  or  another.  He  had  just  de- 
cided that  it  must  be  something  ener- 
getic, when  the  door  of  the  telegraph 
ofBce  opened  and  the  little  servant  of 
the  directress  appeared,  holding  in  her 
hand  two  papers. 

She  went  directly  to  the  Commander 
and  gave  him  one  of  the  dispatches; 
then,  crossing  the  square,  intimidated 
by  so  many  eyes  fixed  upon  her,  with 
lowered  head  and  mincing  steps,  she 
rapped  gently  at  the  door  of  the  bar- 
ricaded house,  as  if  ignorant  that  a  part 
of  the  army  was  concealed  there. 

The  door  opened  slightly;  thj  hand 
of  a  man  received  the  message,  and  the 
girl  returned,  blushing  and  ready  tu 
weep,  from  bein§;  stared  at. 

The  doctor  demanded,  with  stirring 
voice:  "A  little  silence,  if  you  please." 
And,  after  the  populace  became  quiet^ 
he  continued  proudly: 

"Here  is  a  communication  which  I 
have  received  from  the  Government.* 
And  raising  the  dispatch,  he  read: 

"Old  mayor  deposed.  Advise  vl9 
what  is  niost  necessary.  Instruction? 
later. 

"For  the  Sub-Prefect, 

"Sapin.  Counselor" 


126 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


He  had  triumphed.  His  heart  was 
beating  with  joy.  His  hand  trembled, 
when  Picard,  his  old  subaltern,  cried 
out  to  him  from  a  neighboring  group: 
'That's  all  right;  but  if  the  others  in 
there  won't  go  out,  your  paper  hasn't 
a  leg  to  stand  on."  The  doctor  grew 
a  little  pale.  If  they  would  not  go  out 
— ^in  fact,  he  must  go  ahead  now.  It 
was  not  only  his  right,  but  his  duty. 
And  he  looked  anxiously  at  the  house  of 
the  mayoralty,  hoping  that  he  might  see 
the  door  open  and  his  adversary  show 
himself.  But  the  door  remained  closed. 
What  was  to  be  done?  The  crowd  was 
increasing,  surrounding  the  militia. 
Some  laughed. 

One  thought,  especially,  tortured  the 
doctor.  If  he  should  make  an  assault, 
he  must  march  at  the  head  of  his  men; 
and  as,  with  him  dead,  all  contest  would 
cease,  it  would  be  at  him,  and  at  him 
alone  that  M.  de  Varnetot  and  the  three 
guards  would  aim.  And  their  aim  was 
good,  very  good!  Picard  had  reminded 
him  of  that. 

But  an  idea  shone  in  upon  him,  and 
turning  to  Pommel,  he  said:  "Go, 
quickly,  and  ask  the  apothecary  to  send 
me  a  napkin  and  a  pole." 

The  Lieutenant  hurried  off.  The  doc- 
tor was  going  to  make  a  political  ban- 
ner, a  white  one,  that  would  perhaps,  re- 
joice the  heart  of  that  old  legitimist, 
the  mayor. 

Pommel  returned  with  the  required 
linen  and  a  broom  handle.  With  some 
pieces  of  string,  they  improvised  a 
standard,  which  Massarel  seized  in  both 
hands.  Again,  he  advanced  toward  the 
house  of  mayoralty,  bearing  the  stand- 
ard before  him.    When  in  front  of  the 


door,    he    called    out:      "Monsieur    de 

Varnetot!" 

The  door  opened  suddenly,  and  M.  de 
Varnetot  and  the  three  guards  appeared 
on  the  threshold.  The  doctor  recoiled, 
instinctively.  Then,  he  saluted  his 
enemy  courteously,  and  announced,  al- 
most strangled  by  emotion:  'T  have 
come,  sir,  to  communicate  to  you  the 
instructions   I  have  just  received." 

That  gentleman,  without  any  saluta- 
tion whatever,  replied:  "I  am  going  to 
withdraw,  sir,  but  you  must  understand 
that  it  is  not  because  of  fear,  or  in 
obedience  to  an  odious  government  that 
has  usurped  the  power."  And,  biting  off 
each  word,  he  declared:  "I  do  not  wish 
to  have  the  appearance  of  serving  the 
Republic  for  a  single  day.    That  is  all." 

Massarel,  amazed,  made  no  reply; 
and  M.  de  Varnetot,  walking  off  at  a 
rapid  pace,  disappeared  around  the  cor- 
ner, followed  closely  by  his  escort.  Then 
the  doctor,  slightly  dismayed,  returned 
to  the  crowd.  When  be  was  near 
enough  to  be  heard,  he  cried:  "Flur- 
rah!  Hurrah!  The  Republic  triumphs 
all  along  the  line!" 

But  no  emotion  was  manifested.  The 
doctor  tried  again:  "The  people  are 
free!  You  are  free  and  independent! 
Do  you  understand?    Be  proud  of  it!" 

The  listless  villagers  looked  at  him 
with  eyes  unlit  by  glory.  In  his  tum, 
he  looked  at  them,  indignant  at  their 
indifference,  seeking  for  some  word 
that  could  make  a  grand  impression, 
electrify  this  placid  country  and  malo^ 
good  his  mission.  The  inspiration  came, 
and  turning  to  Pommel,  he  said: 
"Lieutenant,  go  and  get  the  bust  of  the 
ex-Emperor,  which  is  in  the  Council 
Hall,  and  bring  it  to  me  with  a  chair.** 


BABETTE 


127 


And  soon  the  man  reappears,  carry- 
ing on  his  right  shoulder,  Napoleon  III. 
in  plaster,  and  holding  in  his  left  hand 
a  straw-bottomed  chair. 

Massarel  met  him,  took  the  chair, 
placed  It  on  the  ground,  put  the  white 
image  upon  it,  fell  back  a  few  steps  and 
called  out,  in  sonorous  voice: 

''Tyrant!  Tyrant!  Here  do  you  fall! 
Fall  in  the  dust  and  in  the  mire.  An 
expiring  country  groans  under  your  feet. 
Destiny  has  called  you  the  Avenger. 
Defeat  and  shame  cling  to  you.  You 
fall  conquered,  a  prisoner  to  the  Prus- 
sians, and  upon  the  ruins  of  the  crum- 
bling Empire  the  young  and  radiant 
Republic  arises,  picking  up  your  broken 
sword." 

He  awaited  applause.  But  there  was 
no  voice,  no  sound.  The  bewildered 
peasants  remained  silent.  And  the  bust, 
with  its  pointed  mustaches  extending  be- 
yond the  cheeks  on  each  side,  the  bust, 
so  motionless  and  well  groomed  as  to 
be  fit  for  a  hairdresser's  sign,  seemed  to 
be  looking  at  M.  Massarel  with  a 
plaster  smile,  a  smile  ineffaceable  and 
mocking. 

They  remained  thus  face  to  face, 
Napoleon  on  the  chair,  the  doctor  in 
front  of  him  about  three  steps  away. 
Suddenly  the  Commander  grew  angry. 
What  was  to  be  done?  What  was  there 
that  would  move  this  people,  and  bring 
about  a  definite  victory  in  opinion?  His 
band  happened  to  rest  on  his  hip  and  to 


come  in  contact  there  with  the  butt  end 
of  his  revolver,  under  his  red  sash.  No 
inspiration,  no  further  word  would  come. 
But  he  drew  his  pistol,  advanced  two 
steps,  and,  taking  aim,  fired  at  the  late 
monarch.  The  ball  entered  the  fore- 
head, leaving  a  little,  black  hole,  like  a 
spot,  nothing  more.  There  was  no  ef- 
fect. Then  he  fired  a  second  shot,  which 
made  a  second  hole,  then,  a  third;  and 
then,  without  stopping,  he  emptied  his 
revolver.  The  brow  of  Napoleon  dis- 
appeared in  v/hite  powder,  but  the  eyes, 
/he  nose,  and  the  fine  points  of  the 
mustaches  remained  intact.  Then,  ex- 
asperated, the  doctor  over-turned  the 
chair  with  a  blow  of  his  fist  and,  resting 
a  foot  on  the  remainder  of  the  bust  in 
a  position  of  triumph,  he  shouted:  "So 
let  all  tyrants  perish!" 

Still  no  enthusiasm  was  manifest,  and 
as  the  spectators  seemed  to  be  in  a  kind 
of  stupor  from  astonishment,  the  Com- 
mander called  to  the  mihtiamen:  *'You 
may  now  go  to  your  homes."  And  he 
went  toward  his  own  house  with  great 
strides,  as  if  he  were  pursued. 

His  maid,  when  he  appeared,  told  him 
that  some  patients  had  been  waiting  in 
his  office  for  three  hours.  He  hastened 
in.  There  were  the  two  varicose-vein 
patients,  who  had  returned  at  daybreak, 
obstinate  but  patient. 

The  old  man  immediately  began  his 
explanation:  "This  began  by  a  feeling 
like  ants  running  up  and  down  the  legs." 


Babette 


I  WAS  not  very  fond  of  inspecting 
that  asylum  for  old,  infirm  people  offi- 
cially, as  I  was  obliged  to  go  over  it  in 


company  of  the  superintendent,  who 
was  talkative  and  a  statistician.  But 
then  the  grandson  of  the  foundress  ac- 


128 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


companied  us,  and  was  evidently  pleased 
at  that  minute  inspection.  He  was  a 
charming  man,  and  the  owner  of  a  large 
forest,  where  he  had  given  me  permis- 
sion to  shoot,  and  I  \/as  of  course 
obliged  to  pretend  to  be  interested  in 
his  grandmothers  philanthropic  work. 
So  with  a  smile  on  my  lips,  I  endureo 
the  superintendent's  interminable  dis- 
course, punctuating  it  here  and  there,  as 
best  as  J  could  by: 

*'Ah!  really!  Very  strange  indeed!  I 
should  never  have  believed  it!" 

I  was  absolutely  ignora^^  of  the  re- 
mark to  which  i  replied  thus,  for  my 
thoughts  were  lulled  to  repose  by  the 
constant  humming  of  our  loauacious 
guide.  I  was  vaguely  conscious  that  the 
persons  and  things  might  have  appeared 
worthy  of  attention  to  me,  if  I  had  been 
there  alone  as  an  idler,  for  in  tha*-  case, 
I  should  certainly  have  asked  the  super- 
intendent: "What  lii  this  Babette, 
whose  name  appears  so  constantly  in  the 
complaints  of  so  many  of  the  inmates." 

Quite  a  dozen  men  and  women  had 
spoken  to  us  about  her,  now  to  complain 
of  her,  now  to  praise  her;  and  especially 
the  women,  as  soon  as  they  saw  the: 
superintendent,   cried  out: 

"M'sieur,  Babette  has  again  been — " 

"There!  that  will  do,  that  will  do!" 
he  interrupted  them,  his  gentle  voice 
suddenly  becoming  harsh. 

At  other  times  he  would  amicably 
question  some  old  man  with  a  happy 
countenance,  and  say: 

"Well,  my  friend '  I  suppose  you  arc 
very  happy  here?" 

Many  replied  with  fervent  expression.*; 
of  gratitude,  with  which  Babette's  name 
was  frequently  mingled.  When  he  heard 
them  speak  so,  the  superintendent  put 


on  an  ecstatic  air,  iooKed  up  to  Jaeaven 
with  clasped  hands,  and  said,  slowly 
shaking  his  head:  "Ah!  Babette  is  a 
very  precious  woman,  very  precious!" 

Yes,  it  would  certainly  interest  one 
to  know  who  that  creature  was,  hut  not 
under  present  circumstances,  and  sOj 
rather  than  to  undergo  any  more  of  this, 
I  made  up  my  mind  to  remain  in  igno- 
rance of  who  Babette  was,  for  I  could 
pretty  well  guess  what  she  w'/jld  be  like. 
I  pictured  her  to  myself  as  a  flower 
that  had  sprung  up  in  a  corner  of  these 
dull  courtyards,  like  a  ray  of  sun  shin- 
ing through  the  sepulchral  gloom  of 
these  disma^  passages. 

I  pictured  her  so  clearly  to  myself, 
that  I  did  not  even  feel  any  wish  to 
know  her.  Yet  she  was  dear  to  me,  be- 
cause of  the  nappy  expression  Thicb 
they  all  put  on  when  they  spoke  ot  her, 
and  I  was  angry  with  the  old  women 
who  spoke  against  her.  One  thing, 
certainly,  puzzled  me,  and  that  was, 
that  the  superintendent  was  among  those 
who  v,-ent  into  ecstasies  over  her,  and 
this  made  me  strongly  disinclined  to 
question  him  about  her,  though  I  had 
no  other  reason  for  the  feeling. 

But  aU  this  passed  through  ray  mind 
in  rather  a  confused  manner,  without 
my  taking  the  trouble  to  fix  or  to  for- 
mulate any  ideas  or  explanations.  I  con. 
tinued  to  dream  rather  than  to  think 
effectively,  and  it  is  very  probable  that, 
when  my  visit  was  over,  I  should  not 
have  remembered  much  about  it,  not 
even  with  regard  to  Babette,  if  I  had  not 
been  suddenly  awakened  by  the  sight  of 
her  in  the  flesh,  and  been  quite  upset  by 
the  difference  that  there  was  between  my 
fancy  and  the  reality. 

We  had  just   crossed  a   small  baclc 


BABETTE 


\7q 


yard,  and  had  gone  into  a  very  dark 
passage,  when  a  door  suddenly  opened 
at  the  other  end  of  it,  and  an  unexpected 
apparition  appeared.  We  could  indis- 
tinctly see  that  it  was  the  figure  of  a 
woman.  At  the  same  moment,  the  su- 
perintendent called  out  in  a  furious 
voice: 

"Babette!    Babette!" 

He  had  mechanically  quickened  his 
pace,  and  almost  ran.  We  followed  him, 
and  he  quickly  opened  the  door  through 
which  the  apparition  had  vanished.  It 
led  on  to  a  staircase,  and  he  again 
called  out,  but  a  burst  of  stifled  laughter 
was  the  only  reply.  I  looked  over  the 
balustrade,  and  saw  a  woman  down  be- 
low, who  was  looking  at  us  fixedly. 

She  was  an  old  woman — there  could 
be  no  doubt  of  that,  from  her  wrinkled 
face,  and  the  few  straggling  gray  locks 
I  which  appeared  under  her  cap.  But  one 
did  not  think  of  that  vhen  one  saw  her 
eyes,  which  were  wonderfully  youthful, 
in  fact,  one  saw  nothing  but  them.  They 
were  profound  eyes,  of  a  d?ep,  almost 
violet  blue;  the  eyes  of  a  child. 

Suddenly  the  '3uperintcndent  called 
out  to  her:  "You  have  been  with  La 
Frieze  again!" 

T.ie  v)d  wcmnn  did  not  reply,  but 
shook  with  laughter,  as  she  had  done 
just  before;  and  then  she  ran  off,  giv- 
ing the  super intenr lent  a  look,  which 
said  as  plainly  as  words  could  have 
done:  **Do  you  think  I  care  a  fig  for 
you?" 

Those  insulting  words  were  clearly 
written  in' her  face,  and  at  the  same  time 
I  noticed  that  the  old  woman's  eyes  had 
utterly  changed,  for  during  that  short 
moment  of  bravado,  the  childish  eyes 
had  become  the  eyes  of  a  monkey,  of 


some      ferocious,      obstinate      baboon. 

This  time,  in  spite  of  my  dislike  to 
question  him  further,  I  could  not  help 
saying  to  him:  "That  is  Babette,  I 
suppose?" 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  growing  rather  red, 
as  if  he  guessed  that  I  understood  the 
old  woman's  insuliing  looks. 

"Is  she  the  woman  who  is  so  preci- 
ous?" I  added,  with  a  touch  of  irony, 
which  made  him  grow  altogether  crim- 
son. 

"That  is  she,"  he  said,  walkmg  oa 
quickly,  so  as  to  escape  my  further 
questions. 

But  I  was  egged  on  by  curiosity,  and 
I  made  a  direct  appeal  to  our  host's 
complaisance:  "I  should  like  to  see 
this  Frieze,"  I  said.    "Who  is  Frieze?** 

He  turned  round,  and  said:  "Oh I 
nothing,  nothing,  he  is  not  at  all  in* 
teresting.  What  is  the  good  of  seeing 
him?    It  is  not  worth  whilj." 

And  he  ran  downstairs,  two  steps  at 
a  time.  He  who  was  usually  so  minute^ 
and  so  very  ca-eful  to  explain  every- 
thing, was  now  in  a  hurry  to  get  finished* 
and  our  visit  was  cut  short. 

The  next  day  I  had  to  leave  that  part 
of  the  country,  without  hearing  any- 
thing more  about  Babette,  but  I  came 
back  about  four  months  later,  when  the 
shooting  season  began.  I  had  not  for- 
gotten her  during  that  time,  for  nobody 
could  ever  forget  her  eyes,  and  so  I 
v/as  very  glad  to  have  as  my  traveling 
companion,  on  my  three  hours'  diligence 
journey  from  the  station  to  my  friend's 
house,  a  man  who  talked  to  me  about 
her  all  the  time. 

He  W.1S  a  young  magistrate  whom  J. 
had  already  met,  and  who  had  much  ia» 
terested  me  by  his  wit,  by  his  close  ma!V» 


130 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ner  of  observing  things,  by  his  singularly 
reiined  casuistry,  and,  above  all,  by  the 
contrast  between  his  professional  se- 
verity and  his  tolerant  philosophy. 

But  he  never  appeared  so  attractive 
to  me  as  he  did  on  that  day,  when  he 
told  me  the  history  of  the  mysterious 
Babette. 

He  had  inquired  into  it,  and  had  ap- 
plied all  his  facilities  as  an  examining 
magistrate  to  it,  for,  like  me,  his  visit 
to  the  asylum  had  roused  his  curiosity. 
This  is  what  he  had  learned  and  what 
he  told  me. 

When  she  was  ten  years  old,  Babette 
had  been  violated  by  her  own  father, 
and  at  thirteen  had  been  sent  to  the 
house  of  correction  for  vagabondage 
and  debauchery.  From  the  time  she 
was  tv/enty  until  she  was  forty,  she 
had  been  a  servant  in  the  neighborhood, 
frequently  changing  her  situations,  and 
being  nearly  everywhere  her  employer's 
mistress.  She  had  ruined  several  fam- 
ilies ^vithout  getting  any  money  herself, 
and  without  gaining  any  definite  posi- 
tion. A  shopkeeper  had  committed  sui- 
cide on  her  account,  and  a  respectable 
young  fellow  had  turned  thief  and  in- 
cendiary, and  had  finished  at  the  hulks. 

She  had  been  married  tv/ice,  and  had 
twice  been  left  a  widow,  and  for  ten 
years,  until  she  was  fifty,  she  had  been 
the  only  courtesan  in  the  district. 

"She  was  very  pretty,  I  suppose?'* 

"No,  she  never  was  that.  It  seems 
she  was  short,  thin,  with  no  bust  or 
hips,  at  her  best,  I  am  told,  and  no- 
body can  remember  that  she  was  pretty, 
even  when  she  was  young." 
"Then  how  can  you  explain?" 
•How?"    the    magistrate    exclaimed. 


"Well!  what  about  the  eyes?  You 
could  not  have  looked  at  them?" 

"Yes,  yes,  you  are  right,"  I  replied. 
"Those  eyes  explain  many  things,  cer- 
tainly. They  are  the  eyes  of  an  in- 
nocent child." 

"Ah!"  he  exclaimed  again,  enthusi- 
astically, "Cleopatra,  Diana  of  Poitiers^ 
Ninon  de  L'Enchlos,  all  the  queens  of 
love  who  were  adored  when  they  were 
growing  old,  must  have  had  eyes  like 
hers.  A  woman  who  has  such  eyes  can 
never  grow  old.  But  if  Babette  lives 
to  be  a  hundred,  she  will  always  be 
loved  as  she  has  been,  and  as  she  is." 

"As  she  is!    Bah!    By  whom,  pray?" 

"By  all  the  old  men  in  the  asylum, 
by  Jo^t;  by  all  those  who  have  pre- 
served a  fiber  that  can  be  touched,  a  cor- 
ner of  their  heart  that  can  be  inflamed, 
or  the  least  spark  of  desire  left." 

"Do  you  think  so?" 

"I  am  sure  of  it.  And  the  superin- 
tendent loves  her  more  than  any  of 
them." 

"Impossible!" 

"I  v/ould  stake  my  head  on  it." 

*'Well,  after  all  it  is  possible,  arJ 
even  probable;  it  is  even  certain.  I 
now  remember." 

And  I  again  saw  the  insulting,  fero- 
cious, familiar  look  which  she  had  given 
the  superintendent. 

'And  who  is  La  Frieze?*^  I  asked  the 
magistrate  suddenly.  "I  suppose  you 
know  that  also?" 

"He  is  a  retired  butcher,  who  had 
both  his  legs  frozen  in  the  war  of  1870, 
and  of  whom  she  is  very  fond.  No 
doubt  he  is  a  cripple,  with  two  wooden 
legs,  but  still  a  vigorous  man  enough, 
in  spite  of  his  fifty-three  3^ears.  The 
loins  of  a  Hercules,  and  the  face  of  a 


BABETTE 


131 


satyr.      The    superintendent    is    quite 
jealous  of  him!" 

I  thought  the  matter  over  again,  and 
it  seemed  very  probable  to  me.  "Does 
she  love  La  Frieze?^' 

"Yes,  he  is  the  chosen  lover." 

When  we  arrived  at  the  host'3  house  a 
short  time  afterward,  we  were  surprised 
to  find  everybody  in  a  terrible  state  of 
excitement.  A  crime  had  been  com- 
mitted in  the  asylum;  the  gendarmes 
were  there  and  our  host  was  with  them, 
so  we  instantly  joined  them.  La  Frieze 
had  murdered  the  superintendent,  and 
they  gave  us  the  details,  which  were 
horrible.  The  former  butcher  had  hid- 
den behind  a  door,  and  catching  hold  of 
the  other,  had  rolled  on  to  the  ground 
with  him  and  bitten  him  in  the  throat, 
tearing  '^ut  his  carotid  artery,  from 
which  the  blood  spurted  into  the  mur- 
derer's face. 

I  sav/  him,  La  Frieze.  His  fat  face, 
which  had  b^en  badly  washed,  was  still 
blood  stained;  he  had  a  low  forehead, 
square  jaws,  pointed  ears,  iticking  out 
from  his  head,  and  fiat  nostrils,  like  the 
muzzle  of  some  wild  ani  nal;  but  above 
all,  I  saw  Babette. 

She  was  smiling,  and  r  t  that  moment, 
her  eyes  had  not  their  monkey-like  and 
ferocious  expression ;  they  were  pleading 
and  tender,  full  of  the  sweetest  child- 
like candor. 

"You  know,"  my  host  said  to  me  in  a 
low  voice,  "that  the  poor  woman  has 
fallen  into  senile  imbecility,  and  that  is 
the  cause  of  her  looks,  which  are  strange, 


considering  the  terrible  sight   she  has 

seen." 
"Do  you  think  so?"  the  magistrate 

said.    "You  must  remember  that  she  is 

not  yet  sixty,  and  I  do  not  think  that 

it  is  a  case  of  senile  imbecility,  but  that 

she  is  quite  conscious  of  the  ciime  that 

has  been  committed." 

"Then  why  should  she  smile?" 
"Because  she  is  pleased  at  what  she 

has  done." 

"Oh!  no,  you  are  really  too  subtle!" 
The   magistrate    suddenly   turned   to 

Babette,  and,  looking  at  her  steadily,  he 

said: 

"I  suppose  you  know  what  has  hap- 
pened, and  why  this  crime  was  com- 
mitted?" 

She  left  off  smiling,  and  her  pretty, 
childlike  eyes  became  abominable  mon- 
key's eyes  again,  and  then  the  answer 
was  suddenly  to  pull  up  her  petticoats 
and  to  show  us  the  lower  part  of  her 
limbs.  Yes,  the  magistrate  had  been 
quite  right.  That  old  woman  had  been 
a  Cleopatra,  a  Diana,  a  Ninon  de 
I'Enclos,  and  the  rest  of  her  body  had 
remained  like  a  child's  even  more  than 
her  eyes.  We  were  thunderstruck  at 
the  sight. 

"Pigs!  pigs!"  La  Frieze  shouted  to  us, 
"you  also  want  to  have  something  to 
do  with  her!" 

And  I  saw  that  actually  the  magis- 
trate's face  was  pale  and  contracted,  and 
that  his  hands  and  lips  trembled  like 
those  of  a  man  caught  in  the  act  of 
doing  wrong. 


A  Cock  Crowed 


Madame  Bertha  d'Avancelles  had 
up  till  that  time  resisted  all  the  prayers 
of  her  despairing  adorer,  Baron  Joseph 
de  Croissard.  He  had  pursued  her  ar- 
dently in  Paris  during  the  winter,  and 
now  he  was  giving  fetes  and  shooting 
parties  in  her  honor  at  his  chateau  at 
Carville,  in  Normandy. 

Monsieur  d'Avancelles,  her  husband, 
saw  nothing  and  knew  nothing,  as  usual. 
It  was  said  that  he  lived  apart  from 
his  wife  on  account  of  a  physical  weak- 
ness for  which  Madame  d'Avancelles 
would  not  pardon  him.  He  was  a  short, 
stout,  bald  man,  with  short  arms,  legs, 
neck,  nose,  and  very  u^ly,  while  Ma- 
dame d'Avancelles,  on  the  contrary,  was 
a  tall,  da'-k,  and  determined  young 
woman,  who  laughed  in  her  husband's 
face  with  sonorous  peals,  while  he  called 
her  openly  '"Mrs.  Housewife."  She 
looked  at  the  broad  shoulders,  strong 
build,  and  fair  mustaches  of  her  titled 
admirer,  Baron  Joseph  de  Croissard, 
with  a  certain  amount  of  tenderness. 

She  had  not,  however,  granted  him 
anything  as  yet.  The  baron  was  ruin- 
ing himself  for  her,  and  there  was  a 
constant  round  of  feting,  hunting 
parties,  and  new  pleasures,  to  which 
he  invited  the  neighboring  nobility.  All 
day  long  th-i  hounds  gave  tongue  in  the 
woods,  as  they  follov;ed  the  fox  or  the 
wild  boar,  and  eve"y  night  dazzling 
fireworks  mingled  their  burning  plumes 
with  the  stars,  while  the  illuminated 
windows  of  the  drawing-room  cast  long 
rays  of  light  on  to  the  wide  lawns, 
where  shadows  were  moving  to  and  fro. 

It  was  autumn,  the  russet-colored  sea- 
son of  the  year,  and  the  leaves  were 
whi>'ling  about  on  the  grass  like  flights 


of  birds.    One  noticetl  the  smell  of  damp 
earth  in  the  air,  of  the  naked  earth,  like 
one  scents  the  odor  of  the  bare  skin 
when  a  woman's  dress  falls  off  her,  after 
a  ball. 

One  evening,  in  the  previous  spring 
during  an  entertainment,  Madainr 
d'Avancelles  had  said  to  Monsieur  d^ 
Croissard,  who  was  worrying  her  by  his 
importunities:  **If  I  do  Suci'.fimb  co  you, 
my  friend,  it  will  not  be  bcfoie  the  fall 
of  the  leaf.  I  have  too  many  things  to 
do  this  summer  to  have  any  time  for 
it."  He  had  not  forgotten  that  bold  and 
amusing  speech,  and  every  day  he  be- 
came more  pressing,  every  day  he  pushed 
his  approaches  nearer, — to  use  a  military 
phrase, — and  gained  a  hold  on  the  heart 
of  the  fair,  audacious  woman,  who 
seemed  only  to  be  resisting  for  form's 
sake. 

It  was  the  day  before  a  large  wild- 
boar  hunt,  and  in  the  evening  Madame 
Bertha  said  to  the  baron  with  a  laugh: 
"Baron,  if  you  kill  the  brute,  I  shall 
have  something  to  say  to  you.'*  And 
so  at  dawn  he  was  up  and  out,  to  try 
and  discover  where  the  solitary  animal 
had  its  lair.  He  accompanied  his  hunts- 
men, settled  the  places  for  the  relays, 
and  organized  everything  personally  to 
insure  his  triumph.  When  the  horns 
gave  the  signal  for  setting  out,  he  ap- 
peared in  a  closely  fitting  coat  of  scarlet 
and  gold,  with  his  waist  drawn  in  tight, 
his  chest  expanded,  his  eyes  rcdiant,  and 
as  fresh  and  strong  as  if  he  had  just  got 
out  of  bed.  They  set  off;  the  wild  boar 
bolted  through  the  underwood  as  soon 
as  he  was  dislodged,  followed  by  the 
hounds  in  full  cry,  while  the  horses 
set  off  at  a  gallop  through  the  narrow 


132 


A  COCK  CROWEI^ 


153 


lide-cuts  in  the  forest.  The  carriages 
which  followed  the  chase  at  a  distance 
drove  noiselessly  along  the  soft  roads. 

From  mischief,  Madame  d'Avancelles 
kept  the  baron  by  her  side,  lagging  be- 
hind at  a  walk  in  an  interminably  long 
and  straight  drive,  over  which  four  rows 
of  oaks  hung,  so  as  to  form  almost  an 
arch,  while  he,  trembling  with  love  and 
anxiety,  listened  with  one  ear  to  the 
young  woman's  bantering  chatter,  and 
with  the  other  to  the  blast  of  the  horns 
and  to  the  cry  of  the  hounds  as  they 
receded  in  the  distance. 

"So  you  do  net  love  me  ai^y  longer?" 
she  observed. 

"How  can  you  say  such  things?"  he 
replied. 

And  she  continued:  "But  you  seem 
to  be  paying  more  attention  to  the  sport 
than  to  me," 

He  groaned,  and  said:  "Did  you  not 
order  me  to  kill  the  animal  myself?" 

And  she  replied  gravely:  "Of  course 
I  reckon  upon  it.  You  must  kill  it  un- 
der my  eyes." 

Then  he  trembled  iii  his  saddle, 
spurred  his  horse  until  it  reared  and, 
losing  all  patience,  exclaimed:  "But,  by 
Jove,  Madame,  that  is  impossible  if  we 
remain  here." 

Then  she  spoke  tenderly  to  him,  lay- 
ing her  hand  on  his  arm,  or  stroking 
his  horse's  mane,  as  if  from,  abstraction, 
and  said  with  a  laugh:  "But  you  must 
do  it — or  else,  so  much  the  worse  for 
you." 

Just  then  they  turned  to  the  right, 
into  a  narrow  path  which  was  overhung 
by  trees,  and  suddenly,  to  avoid  a 
branch  which  barred  their  wa3',  she 
leaned  toward  him  so  closely,  that  he 
felt  her  hair  tickling  his  neck.     Sud- 


denly hv  threw  his  arms  brutally  round 
her,  and  putting  his  heavily  mustached 
mouth  to  her  forehead,  he  gave  her  a 
furious  kiss. 

At  first  she  did  not  move,  and  re- 
mained motionless  under  that  mad  ca- 
ress; then  she  turned  her  head  with  a 
jerk,  and  either  by  accident  or  design 
her  Kttle  lips  met  his,  under  their  wealth 
of  light  hair,  and  a  moment  afterward, 
either  from  confusion  or  remorse,  she 
struck  her  horse  with  her  riding-whip, 
and  went  off  at  full  gallop,  and  they  rode 
on  I'ke  that  for  some  time,  without  ex- 
changmg  a  look. 

The  noise  of  the  hunt  came  nearer, 
the  thickets  seemed  to  tremble,  and 
suddenly  the  wild  boar  broke  through 
the  bushes,  covered  with  blood,  and 
trying  to  shake  off  the  hounds  who  h?,d 
fastened  on  to  him,  and  the  baron,  utter* 
ing  a  shout  of  triumph  exclaimed: 
"Let  him  who  loves  me  follow  me!'* 
And  he  disappeared  in  the  copse,  as  if 
the  wood  had  swallowed  him  up. 

When  she  reached  an  open  glade  a 
few  minutes  later,  he  was  just  getting 
up,  covered  with  mud,  his  coat  torn, 
and  his  hands  bloody,  while  the  brute 
was  lying  stretched  out  at  full  length, 
with  the  baron's  hunting-knife  driven 
into  its  shoulder  up  to  the  hilt. 

The  quarry  was  cut  at  night  by  torch^ 
light.  It  was  a  warm  and  dull  evening, 
and  the  wan  moon  threw  a  yellow  light 
on  to  the  torches  which  made  the  night 
miity  with  their  resinous  smoke.  The 
hounds  devoured  the  wild  boar's  en^ 
trails,  and  snarled  and  fought  for  them, 
while  the  prickers  and  the  gentlemen, 
standing  in  a  circle  round  the  spoil, 
blew  their  horns  as  loud  as  they  could. 
The   flourish  of  the  hunting-horns   re- 


134 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


sounded  beyond  the  woods  on  that  still 
night  ana  was  repeated  by  the  echoes 
of  the  distant  valleys,  awaking  the  timid 
stags,  rousing  the  yelping  foxes  and  dis- 
turbing the  little  rabbits  in  their  gambols 
at  the  edge  of  the  rides. 

The  frightened  nightbirds  flew  over 
the  eager  pack  of  hounds,  while  the 
women,  who  were  moved  by  all  these 
strangely  picturesque  things,  leaned 
rather  heavily  on  the  men's  arms,  and 
turned  aside  into  the  forest  rides,  before 
the  hounds  had  finished  their  meal. 
Madame  d'Avancelles,  feeling  languid 
after  that  day  of  fatigue  and  tender- 
ness, said  to  the  baron:  "Will  you  take 
a  turn  in  the  park,  my  friend?"  And 
without  reolying,  but  trembling  and 
nervous,  he  went  with  her,  and  imme- 
diately they  kissed  each  othe^.  They 
walked  slowly  under  the  almost  leafless 
trees  through  which  the  moonbeams 
filtered,  and  their  love,  their  desires, 
their  longing  for  a  closer  embrace  be- 
came so  vehement,  that  they  nearly 
yielded  to  it  at  the  foot  of  a  tree. 

The  horns  were  not  sounding  any 
longer,  and  the  tired  hounds  were  sleep- 
ing in  the  kennels.  "Let  us  return," 
the  young  woman  said,  and  they  went 
back. 

When  they  got  to  the  chateau  and  be- 
fore they  went  in,  she  said  in  a  weak 
voice:  "I  am  so  tired  that  I  shall  go 
to  bed,  my  friend."  And  as  he  opened 
his  arms  for  a  last  kiss,  she  ran  away, 
saying  as  a  last  good-bye:  "No — I  am 
going  to  sleep.  Let  him  who  loves  me 
follow  me!" 

An  hour  later,  when  the  whole  silent 
iChateau  seemed  dead,  the  baron  crept 
stealthily  out  of  his  room,  and  went  and 
scratched  at  her  door     As  she  did  not 


reply,  he  tried  to  open  it,  and  found 
that  it  was  not  locked. 

She  was  in  a  reverie,  resting  her  arrnf^ 
against  the  window  ledge.  He  threw 
himself  at  her  knees,  which  he  kissed 
madly,  through  her  dress.  She  said 
nothing,  but  buried  her  delicate  fingers 
caressingly  in  his  hair,  and  suddenly,  as 
if  she  had  formed  some  great  resolution, 
whispered  with  a  daring  look:  "I 
shall  come  back,  wait  for  me."  And 
stretching  out  her  hand,  she  pointed 
with  her  finger  to  an  indistinct  white 
spot  at  the  end  of  the  room;  it  was  her 
bed. 

Then,  with  trembling  hands  and 
scarcely  knowing  what  he  was  doing,  he 
quickly  undressed,  got  into  the  cool 
sheets,  and  stretching  himself  out  com- 
fortably, almost  forgot  his  love  in  the 
pleasure  he  found,  tired  out  as  he  was, 
in  the  contact  of  the  linen.  She  did 
not  return,  however,  no  doubt  finding 
amusement  in  making  him  languish.  He 
closed  his  eyes  with  a  feeling  of  ex- 
quisite comfort,  and  reflected  peaceably 
while  waiting  for  what  he  so  ardently 
longed  for.  But  by  deg:"ees  his  limbs 
grew  languid  and  his  thoughts  became 
indistinct  and  fleeting,  until  his  fatigue 
gained  the  upper  hand  and  he  fell 
asleep. 

He  slept  that  unconquerable,  heavy 
sleep  of  the  worn-out  hunter,  slept 
through  until  daylight.  Then,  as  the 
window  had  remained  half  open,  the 
crowing  of  a  cock  suddenly  woke  him. 
The  baron  opened  his  eyes,  and  feeling 
a  woman's  body  against  his — finding 
himself,  much  to  his  surprise,  in  a 
strange  bed,  and  remembering  nothing 
for  the  moment — he  stammered: 


LILIE  LALA 


135 


"What?  Where  am  I?  What  is  the 
matter?" 

Then  she,  who  had  not  been  asleep  at 
all,  looking  at  this  unkempt  man  with 


haughty    tone   of   voice   in   which   she 
occasionally  spoke  to  her  husband . 

"It  is  nothing;  it  is  only  a  cock  crow- 
ing.   Go  to  sleep  again  Monsieur,  it  has 


red  eyes  and  swollen  lips  replied  in  the     nothing  to  do  with  you,'*' 


Lilie  Lala 


''When  I  saw  her  for  the  first  time," 
Louis  d  Arandcl  said,  with  tha  look  of 
a  man  who  was  dreaming  and  trying  to 
recollect  something,  'I  thought  of  some 
slow  and  yet  passionate  music  that  I 
once  heard,  though  I  do  not  remember 
who  was  the  composer.  It  told  of  a  fair- 
haired  woman,  whose  hair  was  so  silky, 
so  golden,  and  so  vibrating  that  her 
lover  had  it  cut  off  after  her  death,  and 
had  the  strings  of  the  magic  bow  of  a 
violin  made  out  of  it,  which  afterward 
emitted  such  superhuman  complaints 
and  love  melodies,  that  they  made  its 
hearers  love  until  death. 

"In  her  eyes  there  lay  the  mystery  of 
deep  waters;  one  was  lost  in  them, 
drowned  in  them  like  in  fathomless 
depths,  and  at  the  corners  of  her  mouth 
there  lurked  the  despotic  and  merciless 
smile  of  those  women  who  do  not  fear 
that  they  maj^  be  conquered,  who  rule 
over  men  like  cruel  queens,  whose  hearts 
remain  as  virgin  as  those  of  the  strictest 
Carmelite  nuns,  amid  a  flood  of  lewd- 
ness. 

"I  have  seen  her  angelic  head,  the 
bands  of  her  hair  which  looked  like 
plates  of  gold,  her  tall,  gracefull  figure, 
Ijer  white,  slender,  childish  hands,  in 
stained  glass  windows  in  churches.  She 
suggested  pictures  of  the  Annunciation, 


where  the  Archangel  Gabriel  descends 
with  ultramarine  colored  wings,  and 
Mary  is  sitting  at  her  spinning  wheel 
and  spinning,  while  uttering  pious 
prayers,  seemingly  a  tall  sister  to  the 
white  lilies  that  are  growing  beside  her 
and  the  roses. 

"When  she  went  tnrough  the  acacia 
alley,  she  appeared  on  some  first  night 
in  the  stage  box  at  one  of  the  theaters, 
nearly  always  alone,  and  apparently 
feeling  life  a  great  burden,  and  angry 
because  she  could  not  change  the  eternal^ 
dull  round  of  human  enjoyment,  nobody 
would  have  believed  that  she  went  in 
for  a  fast  life — that  in  the  annals  of 
gallantry  she  was  catalogued  under  the 
strange  name  of  "Lilie  Lala,"  and  that 
no  man  could  rub  against  her  without 
being  irretrievably  caught,  and  spend* 
ing  his  last  halfpenny  on  her. 

"But  with  all  that,  Lilie  had  the  voice 
of  a  school-girl,  of  some  little  innocent 
creature  who  still  uses  a  skipping  rope 
and  wears  short  dresses,  and  had  that 
clear,  innocent  laugh  which  reminds  peo- 
ple of  wedding  bells.  Sometimes,  for 
fun,  I  would  kneel  down  before  her,  like 
before  the  statue  of  a  saint,  and  clasp- 
mg  my  hands  as  if  in  prayer,  I  used  to 
say:     ^Sancta  Lilies  ora  pro  nobis!* 

"One  evening,  at  Biarritz,  when  the 


136 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


sky  had  the  dull  glare  of  intense  heat 
and  the  sea  was  of  a  sinister,  inky 
black,  and  was  swelling  and  rolling  in 
enormous  phosphorescent  waves  on  the 
beach  at  Port-Vieux,  Lilie,  who  was 
listless  and  strange,  and  was  nnaking 
holes  in  the  sand  with  the  heels  of  her 
boots,  suddenly  exclaimed  in  one  of 
those  confidences  which  women  some- 
times bestow,  and  for  which  they  are 
sorry  as  soon  as  the  story  is  told: 

"  'Ah !  My  dear  fellow,  I  do  not  de- 
serve to  be  canonized,  and  my  life  is 
rather  a  subject  for  a  drama  than  a 
chapter  from  the  Gospels  or  the  "Golden 
legend. "  As  long  as  I  can  remember 
anything,  I  can  remember  being  wrapped 
in  lace,  being  carried  by  a  woman,  and 
continually  being  fussed  over,  as  are 
children  who  have  been  long  waited  for, 
and  who  are  consequently  spoiled  more 
than  usual. 

"  Those  kisses  were  so  nice,  that  I 
still  seem  to  feel  their  sweetness,  and  I 
shrine  the  remembrance  of  them  in  a  lit- 
tle place  in  my  heart,  as  one  preserves 
some  lucky  talisman  in  a  reliquary.  I 
still  seem  to  remember  an  indistinct 
landscape  lost  in  the  mist,  outlines  of 
trees  which  frightened  me  as  they 
creaked  and  groaned  in  the  wind,  and 
ponds  on  v/hich  swans  were  sailing. 
And  when  I  look  in  the  glass  for  a  long 
time,  merely  for  the  sake  of  seeing  my- 
self, it  seems  to  me  as  if  I  recognize  the 
woman  who  formerly  used  to  kiss  me 
most  frequently,  and  sp-'^ak  to  me  in  a 
more  loving  voice  than  anyone  else  did. 
But  what  happened  afterward? 

"  'Was  I  carried  off,  or  sold  to  some 
strolling  circus  owner  by  a  dishonest 
servant?  I  do  not  know,  I  have  never 
been  able  to  find  out:  but  T  remember 


that  my  whole  childhood  was  spent  in  a 
circus  which  traveled  from  fair  to  fair, 
and  from  place  to  place,  with  files  of 
vans,  processions  of  animals,  and  noisy 
music. 

"  'I  ^N.x6  as  tiny  as  an  insect,  and  they 
taught  me  difficult  tricks,  to  dance  on 
the  tight-rope  and  to  perform  on  the 
slack-rope.  I  was  beaten  as  if  I  had 
been  a  b^'t  of  plaster,  and  more  fre- 
quently  I  had  a  piece  of  dry  bread  to 
gnaw  than  a  slice  of  meat.  But  I  re- 
member that  one  day  I  slipped  under 
one  of  the  vans,  and  stole  a  basin  of 
soup  as  my  share,  which  one  of  the 
clowns  w^as  carefully  making  for  his 
three  learned  dogs. 

"  'I  had  neither  friends  nor  relations; 
I  was  employed  on  the  dirtiest  jobs,  like 
the  lowest  ^table-help,  and  I  was  tat- 
tooed with  bruises  and  scars.  Of  the 
whole  company,  however,  the  one  who 
beat  me  the  most,  who  was  the  least 
sparing  of  his  thumps,  and  who  con- 
tinually made  me  suffer,  as  if  it  gave 
him  pleasure,  was  the  manager  and 
proprietor,  a  kind  of  old,  vicious  brute, 
whom  everybody  feared  like  the  plague, 
a  miser  who  was  continually  complain- 
ing of  the  receipts,  who  hid  away  the 
crown  pieces  in  his  mattress,  invested 
his  money  in  the  funds,  and  cut  down 
the  salaries  of  all,  as  far  as  he  could. 

"  'His  name  was  Rapha  Ginestous. 
Any  other  child  but  myself  would  have 
succumbed  to  such  a  constant  martyr- 
dom, but  I  grew  up,  and  the  more  I 
grew,  the  prettier  and  more  desirable  I 
became,  so  that  when  I  was  fifteen,  men 
were  already  beginning  to  write  love 
letters  to  me,  and  to  throw  bouquets  to 
me  in  the  arena.  I  felt  also  that  all  the 
men  in  the  company  were  watching  me. 


LILIE  LALA 


137 


and  were  coveting  me  as  their  prey; 
that  their  lustful  looks  rested  on  my 
pink  tights,  and  followed  the  graceful 
outlines  of  my  body  when  I  was  posing 
on  the  rope  that  stretched  from  one 
end  of  the  circus  to  the  other,  or  jumped 
through  the  paper  hoops  at  full  gallop. 

"They  were  no  longer  the  came,  and 
spoke  to  me  in  a  totally  different  tone 
of  voice.  They  tried  to  come  into  my 
dressing-room  when  I  was  changing  my 
dress,  and  Rapha  Ginestous  seemed  to 
have  lost  his  head,  and  his  heart 
throbbed  audibly  when  he  came  near 
me.  Yes,  he  haa  vlie  audacity  to  pro- 
pose bargains  to  me  which  covered  my 
cheeks  and  forehead  with  blushes,  and 
which  filled  me  with  disgust  i  and  as  I 
felt  a  fierce  hatred  for  him,  and  detested 
him  with  all  my  soul  and  all  my  strength 
— as  I  wished  to  make  him  suffer  the 
tortures  which  he  had  inflicted  on  me,  a 
hundredfold,  I  used  him  as  the  target  at 
which  I  was  constantly  aiming. 

"  'Instinctively,  I  employed  every 
cunning  perfidy,  every  artful  coquetry, 
every  lie,  every  artifice  that  can  unset 
the  strongest  and  most  sceptical,  and 
place  them  at  our  mercy,  like  submis- 
sive animals.  He  loved  me,  ho  really 
loved  me,  that  lascivious  goat,  who  had 
never  seen  anything  in  a  woman  except 
a  soft  couch,  and  an  instrument  of  con- 
venience and  of  forgetfulness.  He  loved 
ne  like  old  men  do  love,  with  frenzy, 
with  degrading  transports,  and  with  the 
prostration  of  his  will  and  of  his 
strength.  I  held  him  as  in  a  leash,  and 
did  whatever  I  liked  with  him. 

"  'I  was  much  more  manageress  than 
he  was  manager,  and  the  poor  wretch 
wasted  away  in  vain  hopes  and  in  use- 
hss  transports;  he  had  not  even  touched 


the  tips  of  my  fingers,  and  wa ;  reduced 
to  bestowing  his  caresses  on  my  colum^ 
bine  shoes,  my  tights,  and  my  wigs. 
And  I  cared  not  that  for  it,  you  under 
stand!  Not  the  slightest  familiarit> 
did  I  allow,  and  he  began  to  grow  thin 
and  ill,  and  became  idiotic.  And  while 
he  implored  me,  and  promised  to  marry 
me,  with  his  eyes  full  of  tears,  I  shouted 
with  laughter;  I  remindeJ  him  of  how 
he  had  beaten,  abused,  and  humiliated 
me,  aiid  had  often  made  me  wish  for 
death.  And  as  soon  as  he  left  me,  he 
would  swill  bottles  of  gin  and  whiskey, 
r.nd  constantly  got  so  abominably  drunk 
that  he  rolled  under  the  table,  and  all  to 
drown  his  sorrow  and  forget  his  desire. 

"  'He  covered  me  with  jeweb,  and 
tried  everything  he  cculd  tc  tempt  me 
to  become  his  wife.  In  spite  of  my  in- 
experience in  life,  he  consulted  me  with 
regard  to  everything  he  undertook,  and 
one  evening,  after  I  had  stroked  his  face 
with  my  hand,  I  persuaded  him  without 
any  difficulty,  to  make  his  will,  by  which 
he  left  me  all  his  savings,  and  the  circus 
and  everything  belonging  to  it. 

"  *It  was  in  the  middle  of  winter,  neaj 
Moscow;  it  snowed  continually,  and 
one  almost  burnt  oneself  at  the  stove.^ 
in  trying  to  keep  warm.  Rapha  Gines 
tous  had  had  supper  brought  into  the 
largest  van,  which  v;as  his,  after  tht 
performance,  and  for  hours  we  ate  and 
drank.  I  was  very  nice  toward  him,  and 
filled  his  glass  every  moment;  I  even 
sat  on  his  knee  and  kissed  him.  And 
all  his  love,  and  the  fumes  of  the  al- 
cohol of  the  wine,  mounted  to  his  head 
and  gradually  made  him  so  helplessly 
intoxicated,  that  he  fell  from  his  chai: 
inert,  as  if  h^  had  been  struck  by  lig^ht 


us 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ning,  without  opening  his  eyes  or  saying 
a  word. 

"  'The  rest  of  the  troupe  were  asleep, 
the  hghts  were  out  in  all  the  little  win- 
dows, and  not  a  sound  was  to  be  heard, 
whib  the  snow  continued  to  fall  in  large 
flakes.  So  having  put  out  the  petroleum 
lanrp,  I  opened  the  door,  and  taking 
the  drunkard  by  the  feet,  as  if  he  had 
been  a  bale  of  goods,  I  threw  him  out 
into  that  white  shroud. 

"  The  next  morning  the  stiff  and  con- 
vulsed body  of  Rapha  Ginestous  was 
picked  up,  and  as  everybody  knew  his 


inveterate  drinking  habits,  no  one 
thought  of  instituting  an  inquiry,  or  ot 
accusing  me  of  a  crime.  Thus  was  I 
avenged,  and  gained  a  yearly  income  or 
nearly  fifteen  thousand  francs.*  What, 
after  all,  is  the  good  of  being  honest, 
and  of  pardoning  our  enemies,  as  the 
Gospel  bids  us?' 

"And  now,"  Louis  d'Arandel  said  in 
conclusion,  "suppose  we  go  and  have  a 
cocktail  or  two  at  the  Casino,  for  I  do 
not  think  that  I  have  ever  talked  so 
much  in  my  life  before." 


*About  $3000. 


A  Vagabond 


For  more  than  a  month  Randel  had 
been  walking,  seeking  for  work  every- 
where. He  had  left  his  native  place, 
Ville-Avary,  in  the  department  of  La 
Manche,  because  there  was  no  work  to 
be  had.  He  was  a  journeyman  carpen- 
ter, twenty-seven  years  old,  a  steady 
fellow  and  good  workman,  but  for  two 
moniiis,  he,  the  eldest  son,  had  been 
obliged  to  live  on  his  family,  with 
nothing  to  do  but  loaf  in  the  general 
stoppage  of  work.  Bread  was  getting 
acarce  with  them;  the  tv/o  sisters  went 
DUt  as  charwomen,  but  earned  little, 
md  he,  Jacques  Randel,  the  strongest 
of  them  all,  did  nothing  because  he  had 
nothing  to  do,  and  ate  the  others'  bread. 

Then  he  went  and  inquired  at  the 
town-hall,  and  the  mayor's  secretary  told 
him  that  he  would  find  work  at  the 
Labor-Center.  So  he  started,  well  pro- 
vided with  papers  and  certificates,  and 
carrying  another  pair  of  shoes,  a  pair  of 


LFousers,  and  a  shirt  in  a  blue  handker- 
chief at  the  end  of  his  stick. 

He  had  v/aiked  almost  v/ithout  stop- 
ping, day  and  night,  along  interminable 
roads,  in  the  sun  and  rain,  without  ever 
reaching  that  mysterious  rountry  where 
workm.en  find  work.  At  first  he  had  the 
i"'?.ed  idea  that  he  must  only  work  at  his 
own  trade,  but  at  every  carpenter's  shop 
where  he  applied  he  was  told  that  they 
had  just  dismissed  men  on  account  of 
work  being  so  slack,  and  finding  himself 
at  the  end  of  his  resources,  he  made  up 
his  mind  to  undertake  any  job  that  he 
might  come  across  on  the  road.  And 
so  by  turns  he  was  a  navvy,  stableman, 
stone-sawyer;  he  split  wood,  lopped  the 
branches  of  trees,  dug  wells,  mixed  mor- 
tar, tied  up  faggots,  tended  goats  on  a 
mountain,  and  all  for  a  few  pence,  for 
he  only  obtained  two  or  three  days* 
work  occasionally,  by  offering  himseif  at 
a   shamefully   low   price,    in    order   to 


A  VAGABOND 


139 


tempt  the  avarice  of  employers  and 
peasants. 

And  now  for  a  week  he  had  found 
nothing  and  he  had  no  money  left.  He 
was  eating  a  piece  of  bread,  thanks  to 
the  charity  of  some  women  from  whom 
he  had  begged  at  house-doors,  on  the 
road.  It  was  getting  dark,  and  Jacques 
Randel,  jaded,  his  legs  failing  him,  his 
stomach  empty,  and  with  despair  in  his 
heart,  was  walking  barefoot  on  the  grass 
by  the  side  of  the  road,  for  he  was  tak- 
ing care  of  his  last  pair  of  shoes,  the 
other  pair  having  already  ceased  to 
exist  for  a  long  time.  It  was  a  Satur- 
day, toward  the  end  of  autumn.  The 
heavy  gray  clouds  were  being  driven 
rapidly  among  the  trees,  and  one  felt 
that  it  would  rain  soon.  The  country 
was  deserted  at  that  time  of  the  evening, 
and  on  the  eve  of  Sunday.  Here  and 
there  in  the  fields  there  rose  up  stacks 
of  thrashed-out  corn,  like  huge  yellov; 
mushrooms,  and  the  fields  looked  bare, 
as  they  had  already  been  sown  for  the 
next  year. 

Randel  was  hungry,  with  the  hunger 
of  some  wild  animal,  such  a  hunger  as 
drives  wolves  to  attack  men.  Worn  out 
and  weakened  with  fatigue,  he  took 
longer  strides,  so  as  not  to  take  so  many 
steps,  and  with  heavy  head,  the  blood 
throbbing  in  his  temples,  with  red  eyes 
and  dry  mouth,  he  grasped  his  stick 
tightly  in  his  hand,  with  a  longing  to 
strike  the  first  passer-by  whom  he  should 
meet,  and  who  might  be  going  home  to 
supper,  with  all  his  force. 

He  looked  at  the  sides  of  the  road, 
with  the  image  of  potatoes  dug  up  and 
lying  on  the  ground,  before  his  eyes; 
if  he  had  found  any,  he  would  have 
gathered  some  dead  wood,  made  a  fire 


in  the  ditch,  and  have  had  a  capital  sup- 
per off  the  warm,  round  tubers,  which 
he  would  first  of  all  have  held  burn- 
ing hot  in  his  cold  hands.  But  it  was 
too  late  in  the  year  and  he  would  have 
to  gnaw  a  raw  beet-root,  as  he  had  done 
the  day  before,  having  picked  one  up  in 
a  field. 

For  the  last  two  days  he  had  spoken 
aloud  as  he  quickened  his  steps,  under 
the  influence  of  his  thoughts.  He  had 
never  done  much  thinking,  hitherto,  as 
he  had  given  all  his  mind,  all  his  simple 
faculties,  to  his  industrial  requirements 
But  now  fatigue,  and  this  desperate 
search  for  work  which  he  could  not  get, 
refusals  and  rebuffs,  nights  spent  in  the 
open  air  lying  on  the  grass,  long  fasting, 
the  contempt  wh  ch  he  knew  people  with 
a  settled  abode  felt  for  a  vagabond,  the 
question  which  he  was  continually 
asked:  "Why  did  you  not  remain  at 
home?"  distress  at  not  being  able  to  use 
his  strong  arms  which  he  felt  so  full  of 
vigor,  the  recollection  of  his  relations 
who  had  remained  at  home  and  who 
also  had  not  a  half-penny,  filled  him  by 
degrees  with  a  rage  which  was  accumu- 
lating every  day,  every  hour,  every  min- 
ute, and  which  now  escaped  his  lips  in 
spite  of  himself  in  short,  growling  sen- 
tences. 

As  he  stumbled  over  the  stones  which 
rolled  beneath  his  bare  feet,  he  grum- 
bled: "How  wretched!  how  miserable! 
A  set  of  hogs,  to  let  a  man  die  of  hun- 
ger, a  carpenter.  A  set  of  hogs — not 
twopence — not  twopence.  And  now  it 
is  raining — a  set  of  hogs!" 

He  was  indignant  at  the  injustice  of 
fate,  and  cast  the  blame  on  men,  on  all 
men,  because  Nature,  tliat  great,  blind 
mother,  is  unjust,  cruel  and  perfidious, 


140 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  he  repeated  through  his  clenched 
teeth,  *'A  set  of  hogs,"  as  he  looked  at 
the  thin  gray  smoke  which  rose  from 
i.he  roofs,  for  it  was  the  dinner  hour. 
And  without  thinking  about  that  other 
injustice,  which  is  human,  and  which  is 
called  robbery  and  violence,  he  felt  in- 
clined to  Ro  into  one  of  those  houses  to 
murder  the  inhabitants.,  and  to  sit  down 
to  table,  in  their  stead. 

He  said  to  himself:  "I  have  a  right 
to  live,  and  they  are  letting  me  die  of 
hunger — and  yet  I  only  ask  for  work — 
a  set  of  hogs!"  And  the  pain  In  his 
limbs,  the  gnawing  in  his  heart,  rose 
to  his  head  like  terrible  intoxication, 
and  gave  rise  to  this  simple  thought  in 
his  brain:  '1  have  the  right  to  live 
because  I  breathe,  and  because  the  aii 
is  the  common  property  of  everybody, 
and  so  nobody  has  the  right  to  leave 
me  without  bread!" 

A  thick,  fine,  icy  cold  rain  was  com- 
ing down,  and  he  stopped  and  mur- 
mured: "How  miserable!  another 
month  of  walking  before  I  get  home." 
He  was  indeed  returning  home  then; 
for  he  saw  that  he  should  more  easily 
find  work  in  his  native  town  wheve  he 
was  known — and  he  did  not  mind  what 
he  did — than  on  the  highroads,  where 
everybody  suspected  him.  As  the  car- 
pentering business  was  not  going  well 
he  would  turn  day-laborer,  be  a  ma- 
son's hodman,  ditcher,  break  stones  on 
the  road.  If  he  only  earned  tenpence 
a  day,  that  would  at  any  rate  find  him 
something  to  eat. 

He  tied  the  remains  of  his  last  pocket 
handkerchief  round  his  neck  to  pre- 
vent the  cold  water  from  running  down 
his  back  and  chest;  but  he  scon  found 
that  it  was  penetrating  the  thin  material 


of  which  his  clothes  were  made,  and  he 
glanced  round  him  with  the  agonized 
look  of  a  man  who  does  not  know  where 
to  hide  his  body  and  to  rest  his  head, 
aiid  has  no  place  of  shelter  in  che  whole 
world. 

Night  came  on  and  wrapped  the  coun- 
try in  obscurity,  and  in  the  distance,  in 
a  meadow,  he  saw  a  dark  spot  on  the 
grass;  it  was  a  cow,  and  so  he  got  over 
the  ditch  by  the  roadside  and  went  up 
to  her,  without  exactly  knowing  what 
he  was  doing.  When  he  got  close  to 
her,  she  raised  her  great  head  to  him, 
and  he  thought:  *'If  I  only  had  'a  jug, 
I  could  get  a  little  milk."  He  looked 
at  the  cow,  and  the  cow  looked  at  him, 
and  then  suddenly  giving  her  a  violent 
kick  in  the  side,  he  said:     "Get  up!" 

The  animal  got  up  slowly,  letting  her 
heavy  udder  hang  down  below  her;  then 
the  man  lay  down  on  his  back  between 
the  animal's  legs,  and  drank  for  a  long 
time,  squeezing  the  warm  swollen  teats 
which  tasted  of  the  cow-stall,  with  both 
hands,  and  drank  as  long  as  any  milk 
remained  in  that  living  well.  But  the 
icy  rain  began  to  fall  more  heavily,  and 
he  saw  no  place  of  shelter  on  the  whole 
of  that  bare  plain.  He  was  cold,  and 
he  looked  at  a  light  which  was  shining 
among  the  trees,  in  the  window  of  a 
house. 

The  cow  had  Iain  down  again,  heavily, 
and  he  sat  down  by  her  side  and  stroked 
her  head,  grateful  for  the  nourishment 
she  had  give  him.  The  animal's  strong, 
thick  breath,  which  came  out  of  her 
nostrils  like  two  jets  of  steam  in  the  eve- 
ning air,  blew  on  to  the  workman's  face, 
who  said:  "You  are  not  cold,  inside 
there!"  He  put  his  hands  on  to  her 
chest  and  under  her  legs,  to  find  some 


A  VAGABOND 


14i 


warmth  there,  and  then  the  idea  struck 
him  that  he  might  pass  the  night  against 
that  large,  warm  stomach.  So  he  found 
a  comfortable  place  and  laid  his  fore- 
head against  the  great  udder  from  which 
he  had  quenched  his  thirst  just  previ- 
ously, and  then,  as  he  wa?  worn  out  with 
fatigue,  he  fell  asleep  immediately. 

He  w^oke  up,  how-ever,  several  times, 
with  his  back  or  his  stomach  half  frozen, 
according  as  he  put  one  or  the  other  to 
the  animals  flank.  Then  he  turned  over 
to  warm  and  dry  that  part  of  his  body 
which  had  remained  exposed  to  the  night 
air,  and  he  soon  went  soundly  to  sleep 
again. 

The  crowing  of  a  cock  woke  him;  the 
day  was  bredising,  it  was  no  longer  rain- 
ing and  the  sky  was  bright.  Ihe  co.v 
was  resting  with  her  muzzle  on  the 
ground,  and  he  stooped  down,  resting  on 
his  hands,  to  kiss  those  wide  nostrils  cf 
moist  flesh,  and  said:  *' Good-bye,  my 
beauty,  until  next  time.  You  are  a 
niceanimall  Good-bye."  Then  he  put 
on  his  shoes  and  went  off,  and  for  two 
hours  he  walked  straight  on  before  him, 
always  following  the  same  road,  anl 
then  he  felt  so  tirel  that  he  sat  down  on 
the  grass.  It  was  broad  daylight  by 
that  time,  and  the  church  bells  were 
rlnoring;  men  in  blue  blouses,  women  in 
white  caps,  some  on  foot,  some  in  carts, 
began  to  pass  along  the  road,  going  to 
the  neighboring  villages  to  spend  Sun- 
day with  friends  or  relations. 

A  stout  peasant  came  in  sight,  driving 
a  score  of  frightened,  bleating  sheep  in 
front  of  him,  whom  an  active  dog  kept 
together,  so  Randel  got  up  and  raising 
his  cap,  he  said:  "You  do  not  happen 
to  have  any  work  for  a  man  who  is 
dying  of  hunger?"     But  the  other,  giv- 


ing an  angry  look  at  the  vagabond,  re- 
plied: "1  have  no  work  for  fellows 
whom  I  meet  on  the  road." 

And  the  carpenter  went  back  and  sat 
down  by  the  side  of  the  ditch  again. 
He  waited  there  for  a  long  time,  watch- 
ing the  country  people  pass,  and  look- 
ing  for  a  kind,  compassionate  face  be- 
fore he  renewed  his  request,  and  finally 
selected  a  man  in  an  overcoat,  whose 
stomach  was  adorned  with  a  gold  chain. 
"1  have  been  looking  for  work,"  he 
said,  *'for  the  last  two  months  and  can- 
not find  any,  and  I  have  not  a  half- 
penny in  my  pocket." 

But  the  semi-gentleman  replied: 
"You  should  have  read  the  notice  which 
Is  stuck  up  at  the  beginning  of  the  vil- 
laoC-  'Begging  is  prohibited  within 
the  boundaries  of  this  parish.'  Let  me 
tell  you  that  I  am  the  mayor,  and  if  you 
do  not  get  out  of  here  pretty  quickly, 
I  shall  have  you  arrested." 

Randel,  who  was  getting  angry,  re- 
plied: "Have  me  arrested  if  you  like; 
1  should  prefer  it,  for  at  any  rate  I 
should  r>-ct  die  of  hunger."  And  he 
went  back  and  sat  down  by  the  side  of 
his  ditch  again,  and  in  about  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  two  gendarmes  appeared  on 
the  road.  They  were  walking  slowly, 
side  by  side,  well  in  sight,  glittering  in 
the  sun  with  their  shining  hats,  their 
yellow  accouterments  and  their  metal 
buttons,  as  if  to  frighten  evildoers,  and 
to  put  them  to  flight  at  a  distance.  He 
knew  that  they  were  coming  after  him, 
but  he  did  not  move,  for  he  was  seized 
with  a  sudden  desire  to  defy  them,  to 
be  arrested  by  them,  and  to  have  his 
revenge  later. 

They  came  on  without  appearing  to 
have  seen  him,  walking  with  military 


142 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


steps,  heavily,  and  balancing  themselves 
as  if  they  were  doing  the  goose-step; 
and  then  suddenly  as  they  passed  him, 
they  noticed  him  and  stopped,  looking 
at  him  angrily  and  threateningly.  The 
brigadier  came  up  to  him  and  asked: 
"What  are  you  doing  here?" 

"I  am  resting,"  the  man  replied, 
calmly. 

"Where  do  you  come  from?" 

"If  I  had  to  tell  you  all  the  places  I 
have  been  to,  it  would  take  me  more 
than  an  hour." 

"Where  are  you  going  to?" 

"To  Ville-Avary." 

"Where  is  that?" 

"In  La  Manche." 

"Is  that  where  you  belong  to?" 


,  " 


"It  is 

"Why  did  you  leave  it?" 

"To  try  for  work." 

The  brigadier  turned  to  his  gendarme, 
and  said,  in  the  angry  voice  of  a  man 
who  is  exasperated  at  last  by  the  same 
trick:  "They  all  say  that,  these  scamps. 
I  know  all  about  it."  And  then  he  con- 
tinued:    "Have  you  any  papers?" 

"Yes,  I  have  some." 

"Give  them  to  me." 

Randal  took  his  papers  out  of  his 
pocket,  his  certificates,  those  poor,  worn- 
out,  dirty  papers  which  were  falling  to 
pieces,  and  gave  them  to  the  soldier, 
who  spelled  them  through,  hemming  and 
hawing  and  then  having  seen  that  they 
were  all  in  order,  he  gave  them  back  to 
Randel  with  the  dissatisfied  look  of  a 
man  whom  some  one  cleverer  than  him- 
self has  tricked. 

After  a  few  moments  further  reflec- 
tion, he  asked  him:  "Have  you  any 
money  on  you?" 

"No." 


"None  whatever?" 
"None." 

"Not  even  a  sou?" 
"Not  even  a  sou!" 
"How  do  you  live  then?" 
"On  what  people  give  me." 
"Then  you  beg?" 

And  Randel  answered  resolutely,' 
"Yes,  when  I  can." 

Then  the  gendarme  said:  "I  have 
caught  you  on  the  highroad  in  the  act 
of  vagabondage  and  begging,  without 
any  resources  or  trade,  and  so  I  com* 
mand  you  to  come  with  me." 

The  carpenter  got  up  and  said: 
"Wherever  you  please."  And  placing 
himself  between  the  two  soldiers,  even 
before  he  had  received  the  order  to  do 
so,  he  added:  "Come,  lock  me  up: 
that  will  at  any  rate  put  a  roof  over 
my  head  when  it  rains." 

And  they  set  off  toward  the  village, 
whose  red  tiles  could  be  seen  through 
the  leafless  trees,  a  quarter  of  a  league 
off.  Service  was  just  going  to  begin 
when  they  went  through  the  village. 
The  square  was  full  of  people,  who  im- 
mediately formed  two  hedges  to  see  the 
crimind,  who  was  being  followed  by  a 
crowd  of  excited  children,  pass.  Male 
and  female  peasants  looked  at  the  pris- 
oner between  the  two  gendarmes,  with 
hatred  in  their  eyes,  and  a  longing  to 
throw  stones  at  him,  to  tear  his  skin 
with  their  nails,  to  trample  h*m  under 
their  feet.  They  asked  each  other 
whether  he  had  committed  murder  or 
robbery.  The  butcher,  who  was  an  ex- 
Spahi  declared  that  he  was  a  deserter. 
The  tobacconist  thought  that  he  rec- 
ognized him  as  the  man  who  had  that 
very  morning  passed  a  b3d  half -franc 
piece  off  on   him,  and  the   ironmonger 


I 


A  VAGABOND 


143 


¥ 


declared  that  he  was  the  murderer  of 
widow  Malet,  for  whom  the  police  had 
been  looking,  for  six  months. 

In  the  hall  of  the  municipal  council, 
into  which  his  custodians  took  him, 
Randel  saw  the  mayor  again,  sitting  on 
the  magisterial  bench,  with  the  school- 
master by  his  side. 

''Ah!  ah!"  the  magistrate  exclaimed, 
"so  here  you  are  again,  my  fellow.  I 
told  you  I  should  have  you  locked  up. 
Well,  brigadier,  what  is  he  charged 
with?" 

*'He  is  a  vagabond  without  house  or 
home.  Monsieur  le  Maire,  without  any 
resources  or  money,  so  he  says,  who  was 
arrested  in  the  act  of  begging,  but  he  is 
provided  with  good  testimonials,  and  his 
papers  are  all  in  order." 

"Show  me  his  papers,"  the  mayor  said. 
He  took  them,  read  them,  re-read,  re- 
turned them,  and  then  said:  "Search 
him";  they  searched  him,  but  found 
nothing,  and  the  mayor  seemed  per- 
plexed, and  asked  the  workman; 

"What  were  you  doing  on  the  road 
this  morning?" 

"I  was  looking  for  work." 

"Work?     On  the  highroad?" 

"How  do  you  expect  me  to  find  any 
if  I  hide  in  the  woods?" 

They  looked  at  each  other,  with  the 
hatred  of  two  wild  beasts  which  belong 
to  different,  hostile  species,  and  the 
magistrate  continued:  "I  am  going  to 
have  you  set  at  liberty,  but  do  not  be 
brought  up  before  me  again." 

To  which  the  carpenter  replied:  "I 
would  rather  you  locked  me  up;  I  have 
had  enough  running  about  the  country." 

But  the  mae^istrate  replied  severely: 
"Be  silent."  And  then  he  said  to  the 
two  gendarmes:    "You  will  conduct  this 


man  two  hundred  yards  from  the  village, 
and  let  him  continue  his  journey." 

"At  any  rate,  give  me  something  to 
eat,"  the  workman  said;  but  the  other 
grew  indignant:  "It  only  remains  for 
us  to  feed  you!  Ah!  ah!  ah!  that  is 
rather  strong!" 

But  Randel  went  on,  firmly:  "If  you 
let  me  nearly  die  of  hunger  again,  you 
will  force  me  to  commit  a  crime,  and 
then,  so  much  the  worse  for  you  other 
fat  fellows." 

The  mayor  had  risen,  and  he  re- 
peated: "Take  him  away  immediately, 
or  I  shall  end  by  getting  angry." 

The  two  gendarmes  thereupon  seized 
the  carpenter  by  the  arms  and  dragged 
him  out.  He  allowed  them  to  do  it 
without  resistance,  passed  through  the 
village  again,  and  found  himself  on  the 
highroad  once  more;  and  when  the  men 
had  accompanied  him  two  hundred 
yards  beyond  the  village,  the  brigadiei 
said:  "Now  off  with  you,  and  do  not 
let  me  catch  you  about  here  again,  for 
if  I  do,  you  will  know  it." 

Randel  went  off  without  replying,  or 
knowing  where  he  was  going.  He 
walked  on  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  or 
twenty  minutes,  so  stupefied  that  he  no 
longer  thought  of  anything.  But  sud* 
denly,  as  he  v/as  passing  a  small  house, 
where  the  window  was  half  open,  the 
smell  of  the  soup  and  boiled  meat 
stopped  him  suddenly  in  front  of  it, 
and  hunger,  fierce,  devouring,  madden- 
ing hunger  seized  him,  and  almost  drove 
him  against  the  walls  of  the  house,  like 
u  wild  beast. 

He  said  aloud,  in  a  grumbling  voice: 
"In  Heaven's  name  they  must  give  me 
some,  this  time."  And  he  bes:an  to 
knock  af  the  door  vigorously  with  his 


144 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


stick,  and  as  nobody  came  he  knocked 
louder  and  called  out:  "Hallo!  you 
people  in  there,  open  the  door!"  And 
then,  as  nothing  moved,  he  went  up  to 
the  window,  and  pushed  it  open  with  his 
hand,  and  the  close  warm  air  of  the 
kitchen,  full  of  smell  of  hot  soup,  meat, 
and  cabbage  escaped  into  the  cold,  outer 
air,  and  with  a  bound  the  carpenter 
was  in  the  house.  Two  co\^ers  were  laid 
on  the  table;  no  doubt  the  proprietors 
of  the  house,  on  goirg  to  church,  had 
left  their  dinner  on  the  fire,  their  nice, 
Sunday  boiled  beef  and  vegetable  soup, 
while  there  was  a  loaf  of  new  bread  on 
the  chimney-piece,  between  two  bottles 
which  seemed  full. 

Randcl  seized  the  bread  first  of  all, 
and  broke  it  with  as  m'ach  violence  as 
if  he  were  strangling  a  man,  and  then 
he  began  to  eat  it  voraciously,  swaUow- 
ing  great  mouthfuls  quickly.  But  al- 
most immediately  the  smell  of  the  meat 
attracted  him  to  the  fireplace,  and  hav- 
ing taken  off  the  lid  of  the  sauce-pan,  he 
plunged  a  fork  into  it  and  brough  out  a 
large  piece  of  beef,  tied  with  a  string. 
Then  he  tock  more  cabbage,  carrots, 
and  onions  until  his  plate  was  full,  and 
having  put  it  on  the  table,  he  sat  down 
before  it,  cut  the  meat  into  four  pieces, 
and  dined  as  if  he  had  been  at  home. 
When  he  had  eaten  nearly  all  the  meat, 
besides  a  quantity  of  vegetables,  he  felt 
thirsty,  and  took  one  of  the  bottles  off 
the  mantelpiece. 

Scarcely  had  he  poured  the  liquor  into 
his  glass  than  he  saw  it  was  brandv. 
So  much  the  better;  it  was  warmin?:  it 
would  instill  some  fire  into  his  veins, 
and  that  would  be  all  right,  after  be- 
ing so  cold;  and  he  drank  some.  He 
found  it  very  good,   certainly,   fot   he 


had  grown  unaccustomed  to  it,  and  he 
poured  himself  out  another  glassful, 
which  he  drank  at  two  gulps.  And  then^ 
almost  immediately  he  felt  quite  merry 
and  light-hearted  from  the  effect  of  the 
alcohol,  just  as  if  some  great  happiness 
were  flowing  through  his  system. 

He  continued  to  eat,  but  more  slowly, 
dipping  his  bread  into  the  soup.  His 
skin  had  become  burning,  and  especially 
his  forehead,  where  the  veins  were 
throbbing.  But  suddenly  the  church 
bells  began  to  ring.  Mass  was  over, 
and  instinct  rather  than  fear,  the  in- 
stinct of  prudence  which  guides  all  be- 
ings, and  makes  them  clear-sighted  in 
danger,  made  the  carpenter  get  up.  He 
put  the  remains  of  the  loaf  into  one 
I^ocket,  and  the  brandy  bottle  into  the 
other,  and  he  furtively  went  to  the  win- 
dow and  looked  out  i::to  the  road.  It 
was  still  deserted,  so  he  jumped  out  and 
set  off  walking  again,  but  instead  of 
following  the  highroad,  he  ran  across 
the  fields  toward  a  wood  which  he  saw  a 
little  way  off. 

He  felt  alert,  strong,  light-hearted, 
glad  of  what  he  had  done,  and  so  nim- 
ble that  he  sprang  over  the  inclosures 
of  the  fields,  at  a  single  bound,  and  as 
soon  as  he  was  under  the  trees,  he  took 
the  bottle  out  of  his  pocket  again,  and 
began  to  drink  once  more,  swallowing 
it  down  as  he  walked,  and  then  his  ideas 
began  to  get  confused,  his  eyes  grew 
dim,  ard  his  legs  elastic  as  springs,  and 
he  started  singing  the  old  popular  song: 

"Oh !  hov  nice,  how  nice  it  i<=. 
To  pick  the  sweet,  wild  strav/berries." 

He  was  now  walking  on  thick,  damp, 
rool  moss,  and  the  soft  carpet  under  his 
feet  made  him  feel  absurdly  inclined  to 


A  VAGABOND 


146 


turn  head  over  heels,  Hke  he  used  to  do 
as  a  child;  so  he  took  a  run,  turned  a 
somersault,  got  up,  and  began  over 
again.  And  between  each  time,  he  be- 
gan to  sing  again : 

"Oh!  how  nice,  how  nice  it  is, 
To  pick  the  sweet,  wild  strawberries." 

Suddenly  he  found  himself  on  the 
edge  of  a  sunken  road,  and  in  the  road 
he  saw  a  tall  girl,  a  servant  who  was 
returning  to  the  village  with  two  pails 
of  milk.  He  watched,  stooping  down 
and  with  his  eyes  as  bright  as  those  of 
a  dog  who  scents  a  quail,  but  she  saw 
him,  raised  her  head  and  said:  "Was 
that  you  singing  like  that?"  He  did 
not  reply,  however,  but  jumped  down 
into  the  road,  although  it  was  at  least 
six  feet  down,  and  when  she  saw  him 
suddenly  standing  in  front  of  her,  she 
exclaimed:  *'0h!  dear,  how  you  fright- 
ened me!" 

But  he  did  not  hear  her,  for  he  was 
drunk,  he  was  mad,  excited  by  another 
requirement  which  was  more  imperative 
than  hunger,  more  feverish  than  al- 
cohol; by  the  irresistible  fury  of  the 
man  who  has  been  in  want  of  everything 
tor  two  months,  and  who  is  drunk;  who 
is  young,  ardent,  and  inflamed  by  all  the 
appetites  which  nature  has  implanted  in 
the  flesh  of  vigorous  men. 

The  girl  started  back  from  him, 
frightened  at  his  face,  his  eyes,  liis  half- 
open  mouth,  his  outstretched  hands,  but 
he  seized  her  by  the  shoulders,  and  with- 
out a  word  threw  her  down  in  the  road. 

She  let  her  two  pails  fall,  and  they 
rolled  over  noisily,  and  all  the  milk  was 
spilt,  and  then  she  screamed,  but  com- 
prehending that  it  would  be  of  no  use 
to  call  for  help  in  that  lonely  spot,  and 


seeing  that  he  was  not  going  to  make 
an  attempt  on  her  life,  she  yielded  with- 
out much  difficulty,  and  not  very 
angrily  either,  for  he  was  a  strong,  hand- 
some young  fellow,  and  really  not  rough. 

When  she  got  up,  the  thought  of  her 
overturned  pails  suddenly  filled  her  with 
fury,  and  taking  off  one  of  her  wooden 
clogs,  she  threw  it,  in  her  turn,  at  the 
man  to  break  his  head,  since  he  did  not 
pay  her  for  her  milk. 

But  he,  mistaking  the  reason  for  this 
sudden  violent  attack,  somewhat  so- 
bered, and  frightened  at  what  he  had 
done,  ran  off  as  fast  as  he  could  while 
she  threw  stones  at  him,  some  of  which 
hit  him  in  the  back. 

He  ran  for  a  long  time,  very  long,  un- 
til he  felt  more  tired  than  he  had  ever 
been  before.  His  legs  were  so  weak 
that  they  could  scarcely  carry  him;  all 
his  ideas  were  confused,  he  lost  the 
recollection  of  everything,  and  could  no 
longer  think  about  anything;  and  so  he 
sat  dov/n  at  the  foot  of  a  tree,  and  in 
five  minutes  was  fast  asleep.  He  was 
soon  awakened,  however,  by  a  rough 
shake  and,  on  opening  his  eyes  he  saw 
two  cocked  hats  of  polished  leather 
bending  over  him,  and  the  two  gen- 
darmes of  the  morning,  who  were  hold- 
ing him  and  binding  his  arms. 

'T  knew  I  should  catch  you  again,'* 
said  the  brigadier,  jeeringly.  But  Ran- 
del  got  up  without  replying.  The  two 
men  shook  him,  quite  ready  to  ill  treat 
him  if  he  made  a  movement,  for  he  was 
their  prey  now,  he  had  become  a  jail- 
bird, caught  by  hunters  of  criminals 
who  would  not  let  him  go  again. 

"Now,  start!"  the  brigadier  said,  and 
they  set  off.  Tt  was  getting  evening, 
and   the  autumn   twilight  was   settling, 


146 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


heavy  and  dark,  over  the  land,  and  in 
half  an  hour  they  reached  the  village, 
where  every  door  was  open,  for  the  peo- 
ple had  heard  what  had  happened. 
Peasants  and  peasant  women  and  girls, 
excited  with  anger,  as  if  every  man  had 
been  lobbed,  and  every  woman  violated, 
wished  to  see  the  wretch  brought  back, 
so  that  they  mip:ht  overwhelm  him  with 
abuse.  They  hooted  him  from  the  first 
house  in  the  village  until  they  reached 
tne    mansion-house,   where    the   mayor 


was  waiting  for  him.  Eager  to  avenge 
himself  on  this  vagabond  as  soon  as  he 
saw  him,  he  cried: 

"Ah!  my  5ne  fellow!  here  we  are!'* 
And  he  rubbed  his  hands,  more  pleased 
than  he  usually  was,  and  continued:  **I 
said  so.  I  said  so,  the  moment  I  saw 
him  in  the  road."  And  then  with  in- 
creased satisfaction: 

*'0h!  you  blackguard!  Oh!  you  dirty 
blackguard!  You  will  get  your  twenty 
years,  my  fine  fellow!" 


The  Mountebanks 


CoMPARDiN,  the  clever  manager  of 
the  Eden  Reunis  Theater,  as  the  thea- 
ter critics  invariably  called  him,  was 
reckoning  on  a  great  success,  and  had 
invested  his  last  franc  in  the  affair, 
without  thinking  of  the  morrow,  or  of 
the  bad  luck  which  had  b^en  pursuing 
him  so  inexorably  for  months  past.  For 
a  whole  week,  the  walls,  the  kiosks, 
shopfronts,  and  even  the  trees,  had  been 
placarded  with  flaming  posters,  and 
from  one  end  of  Paris  to  the  other  car- 
riages were  to  be  seen  which  were  cov- 
ered with  fancy  sketches  by  Cherct,  rep- 
resenting two  strong,  well-built  men  who 
looked  like  ancient  atMctcs.  The 
younger  of  them,  who  was  standing  with 
his  arms  folded,  had  the  vacant  smile  of 
an  itinerant  mountebank,  and  the  other, 
who  was  dressed  in  what  was  supposed 
to  be  the  costume  of  a  Mexican  trapper, 
h<;ld  a  revolver  in  his  hand.  There  were 
large-type  advertisements  in  all  the  pa- 
pers that  the  Montefiores  would  appear 
without  fail  at  the  Eden  Reunis,  the 
next  Mondav. 


Nothing  else  was  talked  about,  for 
the  puff  and  humbug  attracted  people. 
The  Montefiores,  like  fashionable 
knickknacks,  succeeded  that  whimsical 
jade  Rose  Peche,  who  had  gone  off  the 
preceding  autumn,  between  the  third  and 
fourth  acts  of  the  burlesque,  "Ousca 
Iscar,"  in  order  to  make  a  study  of  love 
in  company  of  a  young  fellow  of  seven- 
teen, who  had  just  entered  the  uni- 
versity. The  novelty  and  difficulty  of 
their  performance  revived  and  agitated 
the  curiosity  of  the  public,  for  there 
seemed  to  be  an  implied  threat  oi 
death,  or,  ct  any  rate,  of  wounds  and  of 
blood  in  it,  and  it  seemed  as  if  they  de- 
fied danger  wilh  absolute  indifference. 
And  that  always  pleases  women ;  it  holds 
them  and  niastcrs  them,  and  they  grow 
pale  with  emotion  and  cruel  enjoyment. 
Consequently,  all  the  seats  In  the  large 
theater  were  let  almost  immediately, 
and  were  soon  taken  for  several  days  in 
advance.  And  stout  Compardin,  losing 
his  glass  of  absinthe  over  a  game  of 
dominoes,  was  in  high  spirits,  seeing  thi 


TI-Ii:  MOUNTEBANKS 


147 


future  through  rosy  glasses,  and  ex- 
claimed in  a  loud  voice:  "I  think  I 
have  turned  up  trumps,  by  George!" 

♦  *****♦ 

The  Countess  Regina  de  Villegby  was 
lying  on  the  sofa  in  her  boudoir,  lan- 
guidly fanning  herself.  She  had  only 
received  three  or  four  intimate  friends 
that  day,  Saint  Mars  Montalvin,  Tom 
Sheffield,  and  her  cousin  Madame  de 
Rhouel,  a  Creole,  who  laughed  as  in- 
cessantly as  a  bird  sings.  It  was  grow- 
ing dusk,  and  the  distant  rumbling  of 
the  carriages  in  the  Avenue  of  the 
Champs-Elysees  sounded  like  some  som- 
nolent rhythm.  There  was  a  delicate 
perfume  of  flowers;  the  lamps  had  not 
been  brought  in  yet,  and  chatting  and 
laughing  filled  the  room  with  a  con- 
fused noise. 

"Would  you  pour  out  the  tea?"  the 
Countess  said,  suddenly,  touching  Saint 
Mars's  fingers,  who  was  beginning  an 
amorous  conversation  in  a  low  voice, 
with  her  fan.  And  while  he  slowly 
filled  the  little  china  cup,  he  continued: 
"Are  the  Montefiores  as  good  as  the 
lying  newspapers  make  out?" 

Then  Tom  Sheffield  and  the  others 
all  joined  in.  They  had  never  setn  any- 
thing like  it,  they  declared;  it  was 
most  exciting,  and  made  one  shiver  un- 
pleasantly, as  when  the  espada  comes  to 
close  quarters  with  the  infuriated  brute 
at  a  bull  fight. 

Countess  Regina  listened  in  silence, 
and  nibbled  the  petals  of  a  tea  rose. 

"How  I  should  like  to  see  them!*' 
giddy  Madame  de  Rhouel  exclaimed. 

"Unfortunately,  cousin,"  the  Count- 
ess said,  in  the  solemn  tones  of  a 
preacher,  "a  respectable  woman  dare  not 
let  herself  be  seen  in  improper  places." 


They  all  agreed  with  her.  Never^Jie- 
bss,  Madame  de  Villegby  was  present 
at  the  Montefiores'  performance,  two 
days  later,  dressed  all  in  black,  and 
wearing  a  thick  veil,  at  the  back  of  a 
stage  box. 

Madame  de  Villegby  was  as  cold  as 
a  steel  buckler.  She  had  married  as 
soon  as  she  left  the  convent  in  which 
she  had  been  educated,  without  any 
affection  or  even  liking  for  her  husband; 
the  most  sceptical  respected  her  as  a 
saint,  and  she  had  a  look  of  virgin 
purity  on  her  calm  face  as  she  went 
down  the  steps  of  the  Madeleine  on 
Sundays,  after  high  mass. 

Countess  Regina  stretched  herself 
nervously,  grew  pale,  and  trembled  like 
the  strings  of  a  violin,  on  which  an 
artist  had  been  playing  some  wild  sym- 
phony. She  inhaled  the  nasty  smell  of 
the  sawdust,  as  if  it  had  been  the  per- 
fume of  a  bouquet  of  unknown  flowers; 
she  clenched  her  hands,  and  gazed 
eagerly  at  the  two  mountebanks,  whom 
the  public  applauded  rapturously  at 
every  feat.  And  contemptuously  and 
haughtily  she  compared  those  two  men, 
who  v;ere  as  vigorous  as  wild  animals 
that  have  grown  up  in  the  open  air, 
with  the  lickety  limbs  that  look  so  awk« 
ward  in  the  dress  of  an  English  groom. 

4i  4(  «  *  ♦  >k  * 

Count  de  Villegby  had  gone  back  to 
the  country,  to  prepare  for  his  election 
as  Councillor-General,  and  the  very  eve- 
ning that  he  started,  Pegina  again  took 
the  stage  box  at  the  Eden  Reunis.  Con- 
sumed by  sensual  ardoi  as  if  by  some 
love  philter,  she  scribbled  a  few  words 
on  a  piece  of  paper — the  eternal  for- 
mula that  women  write  on  such  occa- 
sions. 


148 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"A  carriage  will  be  waiting  for  you 
at  the  stage  door  after  the  performance 
— An  unknown  woman  who  adores  you.'* 

And  then  she  gave  it  to  a  box  opener, 
who  handed  it  to  the  Montefiore  who 
was  the  champion  pistol  shot. 

Oh!  that  interminable  waiting  in  a 
malodorous  cab,  the  overwhelming  emo- 
tion, and  the  nausea  of  disgust,  the  fear, 
the  desire  of  waking  the  coachman  who 
was  nodding  on  the  box,  of  giving  him 
her  address,  and  telHng  him  to  drive 
her  home.  But  she  remained  with  her 
face  against  the  window,  mechanically 
watching  the  dark  passage  illuminated 
by  a  gas  lamp,  at  the  "actors'  entrance," 
through  which  men  were  continually 
hurrying,  who  talked  in  a  loud  voice, 
and  chewed  the  end  of  cigars  which  had 
gone  out.  She  sat  as  if  she  were  glued 
to  the  cushions,  and  tapped  impatiently 
on  the  bottom  of  the  cab  with  her  heels. 

When  the  actor,  who  thought  it  was  a 
joke,  made  his  appearance,  she  could 
hardly  utter  a  word,  for  evil  pleasure  is 
as  intoxicating  as  adulterated  liquor.  So 
face  to  face  with  this  immediate  sur- 
render, and  this  unconstrained  immod- 
esty, he  at  first  thought  that  he  had  to 
do  with  a  street-walker. 

Regina  felt  various  sensations,  and  a 
morbid  pleasure  throughout  her  whole 
person.  She  pressed  close  to  him,  and 
raised  her  veil  to  show  how  young, 
beautiful,  and  desirable  she  was.  They 
did  not  speak  a  word,  like  wrestlers  be- 
fore a  combat.  She  was  eager  to  be 
locked  up  with  him,  to  give  herself  to 
him,  and,  at  last,  to  know  that  moral 
uncleanness,  of  which  she  was,  of  course, 
ignorant  as  a  chaste  wife;  and  when 
they  left  the  room  in  the  hotel  together, 
where  they  had  spent  hours  like  amorous 


deer,  the  man  dragged  himself  along, 
and  almost  groped  his  way  like  a  blindj 
man,  while  Regina  was  smiling,  thoughj 
she  exhibited  the  serene  candor  of  an! 
unsuUied  virgin,  like  she  did  on  Sundays, 
after  mass. 

Then  she  took  the  second.  He  was 
very  sentimental,  and  his  head  was  full 
of  romance.  He  thought  the  unknowrj 
woman,  who  merely  used  him  as  heil 
plaything,  really  loved  him,  and  he  was 
not  satisfied  with  furtive  meetings.  H€ 
questioned  her,  besought  her,  and  the 
Countess  made  fun  of  him.  Then  shq 
chose  the  two  mountebanks  in  turn 
They  did  not  know  it,  for  she  had  for- 
bidden them  ever  to  talk  about  her  to 
each  other,  under  the  penalty  of  nevei| 
seeing  her  again,  and  one  night  tht 
younger  of  them  said  with  humble  ten-j 
derness,  as  he  knelt  at  her  feet:  ' 

*'How  kind  you  are,  to  love  me  anq 
to  want  me!     I  thought  that  such  hap 
piness  only  existed  in  novels,  and  that 
ladies  of  rank  only  made  fun  of  pooi 
strolling  mountebanks,  like  us!" 

Regina  knitted  her  golden  brows. 

**Do  not  be  angry,"  he  continued 
"because  I  followed  you  and  found  oui 
where  you  lived,  and  your  real  name 
and  that  you  are  a  countess,  and  rich^ 
very  rich." 

"You  fool!"  she  exclaimed,  trembling 
with  anger.  "People  make  you  believt 
things,  as  easily  as  they  can  a  child!" 

She  had  had  enough  of  him ;  he  knew 
her  name,  and  might  compromise  her 
The  Count  might  possibly  come  bacli 
from  the  country  before  the  elections 
and  then  the  mountebank  began  to  lov( 
her.  l;he  no  longer  had  any  feeling,  an] 
desire  for  those  two  lovers,  whom  a  fillif 
from  her  rosy  fin£"='rs  could  bend  to  hei 


I 


UGLY 


14<) 


will.  It  was  ti-ne  to  go  on  to  the  next 
chapter,  and  to  seek  for  fresh  pleasures 
elsev'here. 

"I-*.sten  to  me,"  she  said  to  the  cham- 
pion shot,  the  next  night,  "I  would 
rath'JT  not  hide  anything  from  you.  I 
like  your  comrade;  I  have  given  myself 
to  h'm,  and  I  do  not  want  to  have  any- 
thing more  to  do  with  you." 

'My  comrade!"  he  repeated. 

"Well,  what  then?  The  change 
amuses  me!" 

He  uttered  a  furious  cry,  and  rushed 
|iat  Regina  with  clenched  fists.  She 
thought  he  was  going  to  kill  her,  and 
closed  her  eyes,  but  he  had  not  the 
courage  to  hurt  that  delicate  body, 
which  he  had  so  often  covered  with 
caresses,  and  in  despair,  and  hanging  his 
head,  he  said  hoarsely: 

"Very  well,  we  shall  not  meet  again, 
since  it  is  your  wish." 

The  house  at  the  Eden  Reunis  was  as 
full  as  an  overfilled  basket.  The  violins 
were  playing  a  soft  and  delightful  waltz 
of  Gungl's,  which  the  reports  of  a  re- 
volver accentuated. 

The  Montefiores  were  standing  oppo- 
site to  one  another,  as  in  Cheret's  pic- 
'  ture,  and  about  a  dozen  yards  apart.  An 
electric  light  was  thrown  on  the  younger, 
>vho  was  leaning  against  a  large  white 
;arget,  and  very  slowly  the  other  traced 
his  living  outline  with  bullet  after  bullet. 


He  aimed  with  prodigious  skill,  and  the 
black  dots  showed  on  the  cardboard,  and 
marked  the  shape  of  his  body.  The  ap- 
plause drowned  the  orchestra,  and  in- 
creased continually,  when  suddenly  a 
shrill  cry  of  horror  resounded  from  one 
end  of  the  hall  to  the  other.  The  wo- 
men fainted,  the  violins  stopped,  and  the 
spectators  jostled  each  other.  At  the 
ninth  ball,  the  younger  brother  had 
fallen  to  the  ground,  an  inert  mass, 
with  a  gaping  wound  in  his  forehead. 
His  brother  did  not  move,  and  there 
was  a  look  of  madness  on  his  face, 
while  the  Countess  de  Villegby  leaned 
on  the  ledge  of  her  box,  and  fanned 
herself  calmly,  as  implacably  as  any 
cruel  goddess  of  ancient  mythology. 

The  next  day,  between  four  and  five, 
when  she  was  surrounded  by  her  usual 
friends  in  her  little,  warm,  Japanese 
drawing-room,  it  was  strange  to  hear  in 
what  a  languid  and  indifferent  voice  she 
exclaimed : 

"They  say  that  an  accident  happened 
to  one  of  those  famous  clowns,  the 
Monta — the  Monte — what  is  the  name, 
Tom?" 

"The  Montefiores,  Madame!*' 

And  then  they  began  to  talk  about 
Angele  Velours,  who  was  going  to  buy 
the  former  Folies,  at  the  Hotel  Drouot, 
before  marrying  Prince  Storbeck. 


Ugly 


Certainly,  at  this  blessed  epoch  of  everybody  dreams  of  resembling  every- 

^  the  equahty  of  mediocrity,  of  rectangu-  body  else,   so  that  it  has  become  im- 

tlar   abomination,   as   Edgar   Allan   Poe  possible   to    tell    the   President   of    the 

i  says — at    this    delightful    period,    when  Republic  from  a  waiter — in  these  days 


150 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


which  are  the  forerunners  of  that  prom- 
ising, blissful  day,  when  everything  in 
this  world  will  be  of  a  dull,  neutral  uni- 
formity, certainly  at  such  an  epoch,  one 
has  the  right,  or  rather  it  is  one's  duty, 
to  be  ugly. 

Lebeau,  however,  assuredly  exercised 
that  right  with  the  most  cruel  vigor.  He 
fulfilled  that  duty  with  the  fiercest 
heroism,  and  to  make  matters  worse,  the 
mysterious  irony  of  fate  had  caused  hJm 
to  be  born  with  the  name  of  Lebeau, 
while  an  ingenious  god-father,  the  un- 
conscious accomplice  of  the  pranks  of 
destiny,  had  given  him  the  Christian 
name  of  Antinous.* 

Even  among  our  contemporaries,  who 
were  already  on  the  highroad  to  the 
coming  ideal  of  universal  hideousness, 
Antinous  Lebeau  was  remarkable  for  his 
ugliness,  and  one  might  have  said  that 
he  positively  threw  zeal,  too  much  zeal, 
into  the  mat'er,  though  he  was  not 
hideous  like  MTabeau,  who  m?de  people 
exclaim,  "Oh!  the  beautiful  monster  I" 

Alas!  No.  He  was  without  any 
beauty  of  ugliness.  He  was  ugly,  that 
was  all,  nothing  more  nor  less;  in  short, 
he  was  uglily  ugly.  He  was  not  hump- 
backed, nor  knock-kneed,  nor  pot- 
bellied; his  legs  were  not  like  a  pair  of 
tongs,  and  his  arms  were  neither  too  long 
nor  too  short,  and  yet,  there  was  an 
utter  lack  of  uniformity  about  him,  not 
only  in  painters'  eyes,  but  also  in  every- 
body's, for  nobody  could  meet  him  in 
the  street  without  turning  to  look  after 
him,  and  thinking:  "Good  heavens! 
what  an  object." 

His  hair  was  of  no  particular  color;  a 
light  chestnut,  mixed  with  yellow. 
There  was  not  much  of  it;  still,  he  was 
not    absolutely    bald,    but    just    bald 


enough  to  allow  his  butter-colored  pate 
to  show.  Butter-colored?  Hardly! 
The  color  of  margarine  would  be  more 
applicable,  and  such  pale  margarine! 

His  face  was  also  like  margarine,  but 
of  adulterated  margarine,  certainly. 
His  cranium,  the  color  of  unadulterated 
margarine,  looked  almost  like  butter,  in 
comparison. 

There  was  very  little  to  say  about  his 
mouth!  Less  than  little;  the  sum  total 
was — nothing.  It  was  a  chimerical 
mouth. 

But  take  it  that  I  have  said  nothing 
about  him,  and  let  us  replace  this  vain 
description  by  the  useful  formula:  "Im- 
possible to  describe."  But  you  must 
not  forget  that  Antinous  Lebeau  was 
ugly,  that  the  fact  impressed  every* 
body  as  soon  as  they  saw  him,  and  that 
nobody  remembered  ever  having  seen  an 
uglier  person;  and  let  us  add,  as  the 
climax  of  his  misfortune,  that  he  thought 
so  himself. 

From  this  you  will  see  that  he  was 
not  a  fool,  and  not  ill-natured  either; 
but,  of  course,  he  was  unhappy.  An 
unhappy  man  thinks  only  of  his  wretch- 
edness, and  people  take  his  nightcap  for 
a  fool's  cap,  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
goodness  is  only  esteemed  when  it  is 
cheerful.  Consequently,  Antinous  Le- 
beau passed  for  a  fool,  and  an  ill- 
tempered  fool;  he  was  not  even  pitied 
because  he  was  so  ugly ! 
He  had  only  one  pleasure  in  life,  and 


*A  youth  of  extraordinary  beauty, 
pap^e  to  the  Emperor  Hadrian  ( \.  D. 
117-138),  and  the  object  of  his  extrava- 
gant affection.  He  was  drov-ned  in  the 
Nile,  whether  by  accident,  or  in  order  to 
escape  from  the  life  he  wa.«  leading,  \s 
uncertain. 


UGLY 


151 


that  was  to  go  and  roam  about  the 
darkest  streets  on  dark  nights,  and  to 
hear  the  sueet-walkers  say: 

"Come  home  wi.h  me,  you  handsome, 
dark  man!" 

It  was,  alas!  a  furtive  pleasure,  and 
he  knew  that  it  was  not  true.  For,  occa- 
sionally, when  the  woman  was  old  or 
drunk  and  he  profited  by  the  invitation, 
as  soon  as  the  candle  was  lighted  in  the 
garret,  they  no  longer  n?urmured  the 
fallacious  'handsome,  dark  man."  When 
they  saw  him,  the  oU  women  grew  stiU 
older,  and  the  drunken  women  get  sober. 
And  more  than  one,  although  hardened 
against  disgust  and  ready  for  all  risks, 
said  to  him,  in  spite  of  liberal  payment: 

"My  Httle  man,  I  must  say,  you  are 
most  confoundedly  ugly." 

At  last,  however,  he  renounced  even 
that  lamentable  pleasure,  when  he  heard 
the  still  more  lamentable  words  which  a 
wretched  woman  could  not  help  uttering 
when  he  went  home  with  her: 

"Well,  I  must  have  been  very  hungry!" 

Alas!  It  was  he  was  hungry,  unhappy 
man;  hungry  for  something  that  should 
resemble  love,  were  it  ever  so  little;  he 
longed  not  to  l.vc  like  a  pariah  any 
more,  not  to  be  exiled  and  p-oscribed 
by  his  ugliness.  And  the  ugliest,  the 
most  repugnant  woman  v/ould  have  ap- 
peared beautiful  to  him,  if  she  would 
only  not  think  him  ugly,  or,  at  any  rate, 
not  tell  him  so,  and  not  let  him  see  that 
she  felt  horror  at  him  on  that  account. 

The  consequence  was,  that,  when  he 
one  day  met  a  poor,  blear-eyed  creature, 
with  her  f.^ce  covered  with  scabs,  and 
beanng  evident  signs  of  alcoholism,  with 
a  driveling  mouth,  and  ragged  and  filthy 
petticoats,  to  whom  he  ga^e  liberal  alms, 
for  which  she  kissed  his  hand,  he  took 


her  home  with  him,  had  her  cleansed, 
dressed,  and  taken  care  of,  made  her  his 
servant,  and  then  iiis  housekeeper.  Next 
he  raised  her  to  the  rank  of  h.s  mistress, 
and,  finally,  of  course,  he  married  her. 

She  was  almost  as  ugly  as  he  was! 
Almost,  but  certainly  not  quite;  for  she 
was  hideous,  and  her  hideousness  had 
its  charm  and  its  beauty,  no  doubt;  that 
something  by  which  a  woman  can  attract 
a  man.  And  she  had  proved  that  by 
deceiving  him,  and  she  let  him  see  it 
better  still,  by  seducing  anoiher  man. 

That  other  man  was  actually  uglier 
than  he  was. 

He  was  certainly  uglier,  a  collection 
of  every  physical  and  moral  ugliness,  a 
companion  of  beggars  whom  she  had 
picked  up  among  her  former  vagrant 
associates,  a  jail-bird,  a  dealer  in  Httle 
girls,  a  vagabond  covered  with  filth,  with 
legs,  like  a  toads,  with  a  moath  like  a 
lamprey's,  and  a  death's  head,  in  which 
the  nose  had  been  replaced  by  two  holes. 

"And  you  have  wronged  mc  with  a 
wretch  like  that,"  the  poor  cuckold  said. 
'And  in  my  own  house!  and  in  such  a 
manner  that  I  might  catch  you  in  the 
very  act!  And  why,  why,  you  wretch? 
Why,  seeing  that  he  is  uglier  than  I 
am?" 

*0h!  no,"  she  exclaimed.  "You  may 
say  what  you  like,  that  I  am  a  dirty 
slut  and  a  strumpet;  but  do  not  say 
that  he  is  uglier  than  you  are." 

And  the  unhappy  man  stood  there, 
vanquished  and  overcome  by  her  last 
words,  which  she  uttered  without  un- 
derstanding all  the  horror  which  he 
would  feel  at  them. 

"Because,  you  see,  he  has  his  own 
particular  ugliness,  while  you  are  merely 
ugly  like  everybody  else  ^5" 


The  Debt 


"Pst!  Pst!  Come  with  me,  you 
handsome  dark  fellow.  I  am  very  nice, 
as  you  will  see.  Do  com^  up.  At  any 
rate  you  will  be  able  to  warm  yourself, 
for  I  have  a  capital  fire  at  home." 

But  nothing  enticed  the  foot-passen- 
gers, neither  being  called  a  handsome, 
dark  fellow,  which  she  applied  quite  im- 
partially to  old  or  fat  men  also,  nor  the 
promise  of  pleasure  which  was  empha- 
sized by  a  caressing  ogle  and  smile,  nor 
even  the  premise  of  a  good  fire,  which 
was  so  attractive  in  the  bitter  December 
wind.  And  tall  Fanny  continued  her 
■jseless  walk,  and  the  night  advanced 
and  foot-passengers  grew  scarcer.  In 
another  hour  the  streets  would  be  abso- 
lutely deserted;  and  unless  she  could 
manage  to  pick  up  some  belated  drunken 
man,  she  would  be  obHged  to  return 
home  alone. 

And  yet  tall  Fanny  was  a  beautiful 
woman!  With  the  head  of  a  Bacchante, 
and  the  body  of  a  goddess,  in  all  the 
full  splendor  of  her  twenty-three  years, 
she  deserved  something  better  than  this 
miserable  pavement,  where  she  could  not 
even  pick  up  the  five  francs  which  she 
wanted  for  the  requirements  of  the  next 
day.  But  there!  In  this  infernal  Paris, 
in  this  swarming  crowd  of  competitors 
who  all  jostled  each  other,  courtesans, 
like  artists,  did  not  attain  to  eminence 
until  their  later  years.  In  that  they  re- 
sembled precious  stones,  as  the  most 
valuable  of  them  are  those  that  have 
been  set  the  oftenest. 

And  that  was  why  tall  Fanny,  who 
was  later  to  become  one  of  the  richest 
and  most  brilliant  stars  of  Parisian  gal- 
lantry, was  walking  about  the  streets  on 
this   bitter  December   night   without  a 


half -penny  in  her  pocket,  in  spite  of  the 
head  of  a  Bacchante,  and  the  body  of  a 
goddess,  and  in  all  the  full  splendor  of 
aer  twenty-three  years. 

However,  it  was  too  late  now  to  hope 
to  meet  anybody;  there  was  not  a  single 
foot' passenger  about;  the  street  was  de- 
cidedly empty,  dull,  and  lifeless.  Noth- 
ing was  to  be  heard,  except  the  whistling 
of  sudden  gusts  of  wind,  and  nothing 
was  to  be  seen,  except  the  flickering  gas 
lights,  which  looked  like  dying  butter- 
flies. Well!  The  only  thing  was  to  re- 
turn home  alone. 

But  suddenly,  tall  Fanny  saw  a  hu- 
man form  standing  on  the  pavement  at 
the  next  crossing.  It  seemed  to  be  hesi- 
tating and  uncertain  which  way  to  go. 
The  figure,  v/hich  was  very  small  and 
slight,  was  wrapped  in  a  long  cloak, 
which  reached  almost  to  the  ground. 

"Perhaps  he  is  a  hunchback,"  the  gin 
said  to  herself.  "They  like  tall  women!" 
And  she  walked  quickly  toward  him, 
from  habit  already  saying:  *'Pstl  Pst! 
Come  home  with  me,  you  handsome, 
dark  fellow!"  What  luck!  The  man 
did  not  go  away,  but  came  toward 
Fanny,  although  somewhat  timidly, 
while  she  went  to  meet  him,  repeating 
her  wheedling  words,  so  as  to  reassure 
him.  She  went  all  the  quicker,  as  she 
saw  that  he  was  staggering  with  the 
zigzag  walk  of  a  drunken  man,  and  she 
thought  to  herself:  "When  once  they 
sit  down,  there  is  no  possibility  of  get- 
ting these  beggars  up  again,  for  they 
want  to  go  to  sleep  just  where  they  are. 
I  only  hope  I  shall  get  to  him  before  he 
tumbles  down." 

Luckily  she  reached  him  just  in  time 
to  catch  him  in  her  arms,  but  as  soon 


\S2 


THE  DEBT 


153 


as  she  had  done  so,  she  almost  let  him 
fall,  in  her  astonishment.  It  was  neither 
a  drunken  man,  nor  a  hunchback,  but  a 
child  of  twelve  or  thirteen  in  an  over- 
coat, who  was  crying,  and  who  said  in  a 
weak  voice:  'I  beg  your  pardon, 
Madame,  I  beg  your  pardon.  If  you 
only  knew  how  hungry  and  cold  I  am! 
I  beg  your  pardon!    Oh!    I  am  so  cold." 

"Poor  child!"  she  said,  putting  her 
arms  around  him.  and  kissing  him.  And 
she  carried  him  off,  with  a  full,  but 
happy  heart,  and  while  he  continued  to 
sob,  she  said  to  him  mechanically: 
"Don't  be  frightened,  my  little  man. 
You  will  see  how  nice  I  can  be!  And 
then,  you  can  warm  yourself;  I  have  a 
capital  fire." 

But  the  fire  was  out;  the  room,  how- 
ever, was  warm,  and  the  child  said,  as 
soon  as  they  got  in:  "Oh!  How  com- 
fortable it  is  here!  It  is  a  great  deal 
better  than  in  the  streets,  I  can  tell 
you!  And  I  have  been  living  in  the 
streets  for  six  days."  He  began  to  cry 
again,  and  added:  "I  beg  your  pardon, 
Madame.  I  have  eaten  nothing  for  two 
days." 

Tall  Fanny  opened  her  cupboard, 
which  had  glass  doors.  The  middle  shelf 
held  all  her  linen,  and  on  the  upper 
one  there  was  a  box  of  Albert  biscuits,  a 
drop  of  brandy  at  the  bottom  of  a 
bottle,  and  a  few  small  lumps  of  sugar 
in  a  cup.  With  that  and  some  water 
out  of  a  jug,  she  concocted  a  sort  of 
broth,  which  he  swallowed  ravenously, 
and  when  he  had  done,  he  wished  to 
tell  his  story,  which  he  did,  yawning  all 
the  time. 

His  grandfather  (the  only  one  of  his 
relatives  whom  he  had  ever  known), 
who  had  been  a  painter  and  decorator  at 


Soisson,  had  died  about  a  month  before; 
but  before  his  death  he  had  said  to  him : 
"When  I  am  gone,  httle  man,  you 
will  find  a  letter  to  my  brother,  who  is 
in  business  in  Paris,  among  my  papers. 
You  must  take  it  to  him,  and  he  will  be 
certain  to  take  care  of  you.  However, 
in  any  case  you  must  go  to  Paris,  for 
you  have  an  aptitude  for  painting,  and 
only  there  can  you  hope  to  become  an 
artist." 

When  the  old  man  was  dead  (he  died 
in  the  hospital),  the  child  started, 
dressed  in  an  old  coat  of  his  grand- 
father's, and  with  thirty  francs,  which 
was  all  that  the  old  man  had  left  be- 
hind him,  in  his  pocket.  But  when  he 
got  to  Paris,  there  was  nobody  of  the 
name  at  the  address  mentioned  on  the 
letter.  The  dead  man's  brother  had  left 
there  six  months  before;  nobody  knew 
where  he  had  gone  to,  and  so  the  child 
was  alone.  For  a  few  days  he  managed 
to  exist  on  what  he  had  over,  after  pay- 
ing for  his  journey.  After  he  had  spent 
his  last  franc,  he  had  wandered  about 
the  streets,  as  he  had  no  money  with 
which  to  pay  for  a  bed,  buying  his 
bread  by  the  half -penny-worth,  until  for 
the  last  forty-eight  hours  he  had  been 
without  anything,  absolutely  without 
anything. 

He  told  her  all  this  while  he  was  half 
asleep,  amid  sobs  and  yawns,  so  tha\^. 
the  girl  did  not  venture  to  ask  him  any 
more  questions,  in  spite  of  her  curiosity 
but,  on  the  contrary,  cut  him  short,  and 
undressed  him  while  she  listened,  and 
only  interrupted  him  to  kiss  him,  and 
to  say  to  him  "There,  there,  my  poor 
child!  You  shall  tell  me  the  rest  to- 
morrow. You  cannot  go  on  now,  so  go 
to  bed  and  have  a  good  sleep."     And 


154 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


as  soon  as  he  had  finished,  she  put  him 
to  bed,  where  he  immediately  fell  into  a 
profound  sleep.  Then  she  undressed 
herself  quickly  got  into  bed  by  his  side, 
so  that  she  might  keep  him  warm,  and 
went  to  sleep,  crying  to  herself,  without 
exactly  knowing  why. 

The  next  day  they  breakfasted  and 
dined  together  at  a  common  eating- 
nouse,  on  money  that  she  had  borrowed, 
and  when  it  was  dark,  she  said  to  the 
child:  "Wait  for  me  here;  I  will  come 
for  you  at  closing  time."  She  came 
back  sooner,  however,  about  ten  oclock. 
She  had  twelve  francs,  which  she  gave 
him,  telling  him  that  she  had  earned 
them,  and  she  continued,  with  a  laugh: 
"I  feel  that  I  shall  make  some  more.  I 
am  in  luck  this  evening,  and  you  have 
brought  it  me.  Do  not  be  impatient, 
but  have  some  milk-posset  while  you  are 
waiting  for  me." 

She  kissed  him,  and  the  kind  girl  felt 
real  maternal  happiness  as  she  went  out. 
An  hour  later,  however,  she  was  arrested 
by  the  police  for  having  been  found  in  a 
prohibited  place,  and  off  she  went,  food 
for  St.  Lazare.* 

And  the  child,  who  was  turned  out  by 
the  proprietor  at  closing  time,  and  then 
driven  from  the  furnished  lodgings  the 
next  morning,  where  they  told  him  that 
tall  Fanny  was  in  jail,  began  his 
wretched  vagabond  life  in  the  streets 
again,  with  only  the  twelve  francs  to  de- 
pend on. 

Fifteen  years  afterward,  the  news- 
papers announced  one  morning  that  the 
famous  Fanny  Clariet,  the  celebrated 
"horizontal."  whose  caprices  had  caused 
a  revolution  in  hip:h  life,  that  queen  of 
frail  beauties  for  whom  three  men  had 


committed  suicide,  and  so  many  othent 
had  ruined  themselves,  that  incompar* 
Lble  living  statue,  who  had  attracted  all 
Paris  to  the  theater  where  she  imper- 
sonated Venus  in  her  transparent  skin 
tights,  made  of  woven  air  and  a  knitted 
nothing,  had  been  shut  up  in  a  lunatic 
asylum.  She  had  been  seized  suddenly; 
it  was  an  attack  of  general  paralysi*, 
and  as  her  debts  were  enormous,  when 
her  estate  had  been  liquidated,  she 
would  have  to  end  her  days  at  La 
Salpetriere. 

"No,  certainly  not!"  Frangois  Guer- 
land,  the  painter,  said  to  himself,  when 
he  read  the  notice  of  it  in  the  papers. 
"No,  the  great  Fanny  shall  certainly  not 
end  L'ke  that."  For  it  was  certainly  she; 
there  could  be  no  doubt  about  it.  For  a 
long  time  after  she  had  shown  him  that 
act  cf  charity,  which  he  could  never 
forget,  the  child  had  tried  to  see  his 
benefactress  again.  But  Paris  is  a  very 
mysterious  place,  and  he  himself  had 
had  many  adventures  before  he  grew  up 
to  be  a  man,  and,  eventually,  almost 
somebody!  But  he  only  found  her  in 
the  distance;  he  had  recognized  her  at 
the  theater,  on  the  stage,  or  as  she  was 
getting  into  her  carriage,  which  was  fit 
for  a  princess.  And  how  could  he  ap- 
proach her  then?  Could  he  remind  her 
of  the  time  when  her  price  was  five 
francs?  No,  assuredly  not;  and  so  he 
had  followed  her,  thanked  her,  and 
blessed  her,  from  a  distance. 

But  now  the  time  had  come  for  him 
to  pay  his  debt  and  he  paid  it.  Although 
tolerably  well  known  as  a  pointer  with 
a  future  in  store  for  him.  he  was  not 
rich.     But  what  did  that  matter?    He 


*A  nrison  in  Paris. 


A  NORMANDY  JOKE 


155 


mortgaged  that  future  which  people 
prophesied  for  him,  and  gave  himself 
over,  hand  and  foot,  to  a  picture-dealer. 
Then  he  had  the  poor  woman  taken  to 
an  excellent  asylum  where  she  could 
have  not  only  every  care,  but  every 
necessary  comfort  and  even  luxury. 
Alas!  however,  general  paralysis  never 
forgives.  Sometimes  it  releases  its  prey, 
like  the  cruel  cat  releases  the  mouse, 
for  a  brief  moment  only  to  lay  hold  of 
it  again  later,  more  fie-cely  than  ever. 
Fanny  had  that  period  of  abatement  hi 
her  symptoms,  and  one  morning  the 
physician  was  able  to  say  to  the  young 
man:  "You  are  anxious  to  remove  her? 
Very  wJl!  But  you  will  soon  have  to 
bring  her  back,  for  the  cure  is  only  ap- 
parent, and  her  present  state  wii  only 
endure  for  a  month,  at  most,  and  then 
only  if  the  patient  is  kept  free  from 
every  excitement  and  excess!" 

"And  without  that  precaution?" 
Guerland  asked  him. 

"Then,"  the  doctor  replied;  "the  final 
crisis  will  b?  nil  the  rearer;  that  is  all. 
But  whether  it  would  be  nearer  or  more 
remote,  it  will  rot  be  the  less  fatal." 

"You  are  sure  of  that?" 

"Absolutely  su'-e." 

Frangois  Guerland  took  tall  Fanny 
out  of  the  asylum,  installed  her  in 
Splendid  apartments,  and  went  to  live 


with  her  there.  She  had  grown  old. 
bloated,  with  white  hair,  and  sometimes 
wandered  in  her  mind,  and  she  did  not 
recognize  in  him  the  poor  little  lad  on 
whom  she  had  taken  pity  in  the  daya 
cone  by,  nor  did  he  remind  her  Oi  th( 
circumstances.  He  allowed  her  to  be 
lieve  that  she  was  adored  by  a  rich 
young  man,  who  was  passionately  de- 
voted to  her.  He  was  young,  ardent, 
and  caressing.  Never  had  a  mispress 
such  a  lover,  and  for  three  weeks  be- 
fore she  relapsed  into  the  horrors  of 
madness,  which  were  happily  soon  ter- 
minated by  her  death,  she  intoxicated 
herself  with  the  ecstasy  of  his  kisses, 
and  thus  bade  farewell  to  conscient  life 
in  an  apotheosis  of  love. 

*  i|c  He  ♦  *  4c  i» 

The  other  day  at  dessert,  after  an  ar« 
tists'  dinner,  they  were  speaking  of 
Francois  Guerland,  whose  last  picture 
at  the  Salon  had  been  so  deservedly 
praised. 

"Ah!  yes,"  or.e  of  them  said  with  a 
contemptuous  voice  and  look — "That 
handsome  fellow  Guerland!" 

And  another,  accentuating;  the  msinua  • 
tion,  added  boldly:  "Y*^s,  that  is 
exactly  it!  That  handsome,  too  hand- 
some fellow  Guerland,  th^  man  who  al- 
lows himself  to  be  kept  by  women/' 


A  Normandy  Joke 


The  procession  came  in  sight  in  the  came  first,  then  the  relations,  then  the 

hollow  road  which  was  shaded  by  the  invited  guests,  and  lastly   the  poor  oi 

tall  trees  which  grew  on  the  slopes  of  the  neighborhood    while  the  village  ur- 

the   farm.     The   newly-married   couole  chins,  who  hovered  about  the  narrow 


1J6 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


road  like  flies,  ran  in  and  out  of  the 
ranks,  or  climbed  up  the  trees  to  see  it 
better. 

The  bridegroom  was  a  good-looking 
young  fellow,  Jean  Patu,  the  richest 
farmer  in  the  neighborhood.  Above  all 
things,  he  was  an  ardent  sport/iman  who 
seemed  to  lose  all  common  sense  in  or- 
der to  satisfy  that  passion,  who  spent 
large  sums  on  his  dogs,  his  keepers,  his 
ferrets,  and  his  guns.  The  bride,  Rosalie 
Roussel,  had  been  courted  by  all  the 
likely  young  fellows  in  the  district,  for 
they  all  thought  her  prepossessing  and 
they  knew  that  she  would  have  a  good 
dowry,  but  she  had  chosen  Patu — partly, 
perhaps,  because  she  liked  him  better 
than  she  did  the  others,  but  still  more, 
like  a  careful  Normandy  girl,  because 
he  had  more  crown  pieces. 

When  they  went  in  at  the  white  gate- 
way of  the  husband's  farm,  forty  shots 
resounded  without  any  one  seeing  those 
who  fired.  The  shooters  were  hidden  in 
the  ditches,  and  the  noise  seemed  to 
please  the  men,  who  were  sprawling 
about  heavily  in  their  best  clothes,  very 
much.  Patu  left  his  wife,  and  running 
up  to  a  farm  servant  whom  he  perceived 
behind  a  tree,  he  seized  his  gun,  and  fired 
a  shot  himself,  kicking  his  heels  about 
like  a  colt.  Then  they  went  on,  beneath 
the  apple-trees  heavy  with  fruit,  through 
the  high  grass  and  through  the  herd 
of  calves,  who  looked  at  them  with 
their  great  eyes,  got  up  slowly  and  re- 
mained standing  with  their  muzzles 
turned  toward  the  wedding  party. 

The  mec  became  serious  when  they 
came  within  measurable  distance  of  the 
wedding-dinner.  Some  of  them,  the  rich 
ones,  had  on  tall,  shining  silk  hats, 
which   seemed   altogether  ou;    of  place 


there;  others  had  old  head-coverings 
with  a  long  nap,  which  might  have  been 
taken  for  moleskin,  while  the  humbler 
among  them  wore  caps.  All  the  women 
had  on  shawls,  which  they  wore  as  loose 
wraps,  holding  the  ends  daintily  under 
their  arms.  They  were  red,  parti' 
colored,  flaming  shawls,  and  their  bright- 
ness seemed  to  astonish  the  black  fowls 
on  the  dung-heap,  the  ducks  on  the  side 
of  the  pond,  and  the  pigeons  on  the 
thatched  roofs. 

The  extensive  farm-buildings  awaited 
the  party  at  the  end  of  that  archway  of 
apple-trees,  and  a  sort  of  vapor  came 
out  of  open  door  and  windows,  an  al- 
most overwhelming  smell  of  eatables, 
which  permeated  the  vast  building,  issu- 
ing from  its  openings  and  even  from  its 
very  walls.  The  string  of  guests  ex- 
tended through  the  yard;  when  the  fore- 
most of  them  reached  the  house,  they 
broke  the  chain  and  dispersed,  while  be- 
hind they  were  still  coming  in  at  the 
open  gate.  The  ditches  were  now  lined 
with  urchins  and  poor  curious  people. 
The  shots  did  not  cease,  but  came  from 
every  side  at  once,  injecting  a  cloud  of 
smoke,  and  that  powdery  smell  v/hich 
has  the  same  intoxicating  effects  as 
absinthe,  into  the  atmosphere. 

The  women  were  shaking  their  dresses 
outside  the  door  to  get  rid  of  the  dusts 
were  undoing  their  cap  strings  and  fold- 
ing their  shawls  over  their  arms.  Then 
they  went  into  the  house  to  lay  them 
aside  altogether  for  the  time.  The  table 
was  laid  in  the  great  kitchen,  which 
could  hold  a  hundred  persons;  they  sat 
down  to  dinner  at  two  o'clock  and  at 
eight  o'clock  they  were  still  eating;  the 
men,  in  their  shirt  sleeves,  with  their 
waistcoats    unbuttoned,    and    with    red 


A  NORMANDY  JOKE 


io/ 


faces,  were  swallowing  the  food  and 
drink  as  if  they  were  insatiable.  The 
cider  sparkled  merrily,  clear  and  golden 
in  the  large  glasses,  by  the  side  of  the 
dark,  blood-colored  wine,  and  between 
every  dish  they  made  the  trou,  the  Nor- 
mandy trou,  with  a  glass  of  brandy 
which  inflamed  the  body,  and  put  foolish 
notions  into  the  head. 

From  time  to  time,  one  of  the  guests, 
being  as  full  as  a  barrel,  would  go  out 
for  a  few  moments  to  get  a  mouthful  of 
fresh  air,  as  they  said,  and  then  return 
with  redoubled  appetite.  The  farmers' 
wives,  with  scarlet  faces  and  their  cor- 
sets nearly  bursting,  did  not  like  to  fol- 
low their  example,  until  one  of  them, 
feeling  more  uncomfortable  than  the 
others,  went  out.  Then  all  the  rest 
followed  her  example,  and  came  back 
quite  ready  for  any  fun,  and  tiie  rough 
jokes  began  afresh.  Broadsides  of  doubt- 
ful jokes  were  exchanged  across  the 
table,  all  about  the  wedding-night,  until 
the  whole  arsenal  of  peasant  wit  was 
exhausted.  For  the  last  hundred  years, 
the  same  broad  jokes  had  served  for 
similar  occasions,  and  although  every- 
one knew  them,  they  still  hit  the  mark, 
and  made  both  rows  of  guests  roar  with 
laughter. 

At  the  bottom  of  the  table  four  young 
fellov/s,  who  were  neighbors,  were  pre- 
paring some  practical  jokes  for  the 
newly-married  couple,  and  they  seemed 
to  have  got  hold  of  a  good  one,  by  the 
way  they  whispered  and  laughed.  Sud- 
denly, one  of  them  profiting  by  a  mo- 
ment of  silence,  exclaimed:  "The 
poachers  will  have  a  good  time  to-night 
with  this  m.oon!  I  say,  Jean,  you  will 
not  be  looking  at  the  moon,  will  you?" 
The  bridegroom  turned  to  him  quickly 


and  replied:  "Only  let  them  come, 
that's  all!"  But  the  other  young  fel- 
low began  to  laugh,  and  said :  "I  do  not 
think  you  will  neglect  your  duty  for 
them!" 

The  whole  table  was  convulsed  with 
laughter,  so  that  the  glasses  shook,  but 
the  bridegroom  became  furious  at  the 
thought  that  anybody  should  profit  by 
his  wedding  to  come  and  poach  on  his 
land,  and  repeated:  "I  only  say:  just 
let  them  come!" 

Then  there  was  a  flood  of  talk  with 
a  double  meaning  which  made  the  bride 
blush  somewhat,  although  she  was  trem- 
bling with  expectation,  and  when  they 
had  emptied  the  kegs  of  brandy  they  all 
went  to  bed.  The  young  couple  went 
into  their  own  room,  which  was  on  the 
ground  floor,  as  most  rooms  in  farm- 
houses are.  As  it  was  very  warm,  they 
opened  the  windows  and  closed  the 
shutters.  A  small  lamp  in  bad  taste,  a 
present  from  the  bride's  father,  was 
burning  on  the  chest  of  drawers,  and  the 
bed  stood  ready  to  receive  the  young 
people,  who  did  not  stand  upon  all  the 
ceremony  which  is  usual  among  refined 
people. 

The  young  woman  had  already  taken 
off  her  wreath  and  her  dress,  and  was  in 
her  petticoat,  unlacing  her  boots,  while 
Jean  was  finishing  his  cigar,  and  looking 
at  her  out  of  the  corners  of  his  eyes. 
It  was  an  ardent  look,  more  sensual  than 
tender,  for  he  felt  more  desire  than 
love  for  her.  Suddenly  with  a  brusque 
movement,  like  a  man  w^ho  is  going  to 
set  to  work,  he  took  off  his  coat.  She 
had  already  taken  off  her  boots,  and  was 
now  pulling  off  her  stockings;  then  she 
said  to  him:  "Go  and  hide  yourself  be- 
hind the  curtains  while  I  get  into  bed.*' 


158 


WORKS  OF  GJY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


He  seemed  as  if  he  were  going  to  re- 
fuse, but  with  a  cunning  look  went  and 
hid  himself  with  the  exception  of  his 
head.  She  laughed  and  tried  to  cover 
up  his  eyes,  and  they  romped  in  an 
amorous  and  happy  manner,  without 
shame  or  embarrassment.  At  last  he  did 
as  she  asked  him,  ard  in  a  moment  she 
unfastened  her  petticoat  which  slipped 
UowTi  her  legs,  fell  at  her  feet  and  lay  on 
the  floor  in  a  circle.  She  left  it  there, 
stepped  '^ver  it,  iiaked  with  the  excep- 
tion 01  her  floatir.g  chemise,  and  slipped 
into  the  bed.  whose  springs  creaked 
beneath  her  weight.  He  immediately 
wci/  up  to  her,  without  hie  shoes  and  in 
his  trouc'^rs,  and  stopping  ,)ver  his  wife 
sought  her  lips,  which  she  nid  beneath 
the  pillow,  when  a  shot  was  heard  in  the 
distance,  in  the  direction  of  tlie  forest 
01"  Rap''is,  as  he  thought. 

He  raised  himself  anxiously,  and  run- 
ning  to  the  windov;,  with  his  heart  beat- 
ing, he  opened  the  shutters.  Th3  full 
moon  flooded  the  yara  with  yellow  light, 
and  the  silhouettes  of  the  apple-trees 
made  black  shadows  at  his  feet,  while  in 
the  distance  the  fields  gleamed,  covered 
with  the  ripe  corn.  But  ashe  wab  leaning 
out,  listening  to  every  sound  b  the  still 
night,  two  bare  a'-ms  were  put  round  his 
neck,  and  his  wife  whispered,  trying  to 
pull  him  back:  *'Do  leave  them  alone; 
it  has  nothing  to  do  with  you.  Come 
to  bed.*' 

He  turned  round,  put  his  arms  round 
her,  and  drew  her  toward  him,  feeling 
her  warm  skin  through  the  thin  ma- 
terial, and  lifting  her  up  in  his  vigorous 
arms,  he  carried  her  toward  their  couch, 
but  just  as  he  was  laying  her  on  the  bed, 
which  yielded  beneath  her  weight,  they 
heard  another  report,  considerably  nearer 


this  time.  Jean,  giving  way  to  his 
tumultuous  ragD,  swore  aloud:  "Good 
Cod!  Do  you  think  I  shall  not  go  out 
and  see  what  it  is,  because  of  you? 
Wait,  wait  a  few  minutes!"  He  put  on 
his  shoes  again,  took  down  his  gun, 
which  was  always  hanging  within  reach 
upon  the  will,  and,  as  his  wife  threw 
herself  on  her  knees  in  h:r  ter'-or  to  im- 
plore him  not  to  go,  h^  hastily  freed 
himself,  ran  to  the  winaow  and  jumped 
into  the  yard. 

She  waited  one  hour,  two  hours,  until 
daybreak,  but  her  husband  did  not  re- 
turn. Then  she  lost  her  head,  aroused 
the  house,  related  how  angry  Jean  was, 
and  said  that  he  had  gone  after  the 
poachers,  and  immediately  all  the  male 
farm-servants,  even  the  boys,  went  in 
search  of  their  master.  They  found  him 
two  leagues  from  the  farm,  tied  hand 
and  foot,  half  dead  with  rage,  his  gun 
broken,  his  trousers  turned  inside  out, 
three  dead  hares  hanging  round  his  neck, 
and  a  placard  on  his  chest,  with  these 
words : 

"Who  goes  on  the  chase,  loses  his 
plact.'' 

And  later  on  when  he  used  to  tell 
thiS  story  of  his  wedding  night,  he  gen- 
erally added:  "Ah!  As  far  as  a  joke 
w--.iit,  It  was  a  good  joke.  They  caught 
mt  in  a  snare,  as  if  1  had  been  a  rabbit, 
the  dirty  brutes,  and  they  shoved  my 
hea  f  mto  a  bag.  But  if  1  can  only 
catcb  them  some  day,  they  had  better 
look  out  tor  tnemselves!" 

That  IS  how  they  amuse  themselves  in 
Normandy,  on  a  wedding  day. 


The  Father 


\ 


1. 

As  HE  lived  at  Batigndles  and  was  a 
clerk  in  the  Public  Education  Office,  he 
took  the  omnibus  every  morning  to  the 
center  of  Paris,  sitting  opposite  a  girl 
with  whom  he  fell  in  love. 

She  went  tc  ihe  shop  whers  she  was 
employed  at  the  same  time  eve^-y  day. 
She  was  a  lit'Ie  brunette,  one  of  those 
dark  girls  whose  eyes  are  so  dark  that 
they  look  like  spots,  and  whose  com- 
plexion has  a  look  like  ivory.  He  al- 
ways saw  her  coming  at  the  corner  of 
the  same  street.  She  generally  ran  to 
catch  the  heavy  vehicle,  and  would 
spring  upon  the  steps  before  the  horses 
had  quite  stopped.  Then  getting  inside, 
rather  out  of  breath,  and  sitting  down, 
she  would  look  round  her. 

The  first  time  that  he  saw  her, 
Frangois  Tessier  felt  that  her  face 
pleased  him  extremely.  One  sometimes 
meets  a  woman  whom  one  longs  to 
clasp  madly  in  one's  arms  immediately, 
without  even  knowing  her.  That  girl 
answered  to  his  inward  desires,  to  his 
secret  hopes,  to  that  sort  of  ideal  of 
love  which  one  cherishes  in  the  depths 
of  the  heart,  without  knowing  it. 

He  looked  at  her  intently,  in  spite  of 
himself,  and  she  grew  embarrassed  at  his 
looks  and  blushed.  He  saw  it  and  tried 
to  turn  away  his  eyes:  but  he  involun- 
tarijv  fixed  them  upon  her  again  eveiy 
moment,  although  he  tried  to  look  in 
another  direction,  and  in  a  few  days 
they  knew  each  other  without  having 
spoken.  He  gave  up  his  place  to  her 
when  the  omnibus  was  full,  and  got  out- 
side, though  he  was  very  sorry  to  do  it. 
By  this  Lime  she  had  gone  so  far  as  to 


greet  him  with  a  Utile  smile;  and  al- 
though she  always  dropped  her  eyes  un- 
der his  looks,  which  she  felt  were  too 
ardent,  yet  she  did  not  appear  offended 
at  being  looked  at  in  such  a  manner. 

They  ended  by  speaking.  A  kind  of 
rapid  intimacy  had  become  established 
between  them,  a  daily  intimacy  of  half 
an  hour,  which  was  certainly  one  of  the 
most  charming  half  hours  in  his  life  to 
him.  He  thought  of  her  all  the  rest  of 
the  time,  saw  her  continually  during 
the  long  office  hours,  for  he  was  haunted 
and  bewitched  by  that  floating  and  yet 
tenacious  recollection  which  the  image 
of  a  beloved  woman  leaves  in  us,  and  it 
seemed  to  him  chat  the  entire  posses- 
sion of  that  little  person  would  be  mad- 
dening happiness  to  him,  almost  above 
human  realization. 

Every  morning  now  she  shook  hands 
with  him,  and  he  preserved  the  feeling 
of  that  touch,  and  the  recollection  of  the 
gentle  pressure  of  her  little  fingers,  un- 
til the  next  day.  He  almost  fancied  that 
he  preserved  the  imprint  of  it  on  his 
skin,  and  he  anxiously  waited  for  this 
short  omnibus  ride  all  the  rest  of  the 
time,  while  Sundays  seemed  to  him 
heartbreaking  days.  However,  there 
was  no  doubt  that  she  loved  h-m,  for  one 
Sunday  in  spring,  she  promised  to  go 
and  lunch  with  him  at  Maison-Lafitte 
the  next  day. 

n. 

She  was  at  the  railway  station  first, 
which  surprised  him,  but  she  said: 
"Before  going,  I  want  to  speak  to  you. 
We  have  twenty  minutes,  and  that  is 
more  than  I  shall  take  for  what  I  hav« 
to  say," 


159 


160 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


She  trembled  as  she  hung  on  his  arm, 
and  looked  down,  while  her  cheeks  were 
pale,  but  she  continued:  "I  do  not 
want  you  to  be  deceived  in  me,  and  I 
shall  not  go  there  with  you  unless  you 
promise,  unless  you  swear — not  to  do — 
not  to  do  anything  that  is  at  all  im- 
proper— " 

She  had  suddenly  become  as  red  as  a 
poppy,  and  said  no  more.  He  did  not 
know  what  to  reply,  for  he  was  happy 
and  disappointed  at  the  same  time.  At 
the  bottom  of  his  heart,  he  perhaps  pre- 
ferred that  it  should  be  so,  and  yet — 
during  the  night  he  had  indulged  in 
anticipations  that  sent  the  hot  blood 
flowing  through  his  veins.  He  should 
love  her  less,  certainly,  if  he  knew  that 
her  conduct  was  light,  but  then  it  would 
be  so  charming,  so  delicious  for  him! 
And  he  made  all  a  man's  usual  selfish 
calculations  in  love  affairs. 

As  he  did  not  say  anything  she  began 
to  speak  again  in  an  agitated  voice,  and 
with  tears  in  her  eyes:  "If  you  do  not 
promise  to  respect  me  altogether,  I  shall 
return  home." 

And  so  he  squeezed  her  arm  tenderly 
and  replied:  "I  promise,  you  shall  only 
do  what  you  like."  She  appeared  re- 
lieved in  mind,  and  asked  with  a  smile: 
"Do  you  really  mean  it?" 

And  he  looked  into  her  eyes  and  re- 
plied.   "I  swear  it." 

"Now  you  may  take  the  tickets,"  she 
said. 

During  the  journey  they  could  hardly 
speak,  as  the  carriage  was  full,  and  when 
they  got  to  Maison-Lafitte  they  went 
toward  the  Seine.  The  sun,  which  shone 
full  upon  the  river,  upon  the  leaves,  and 
upon  the  turf,  seemed  to  reflect  in  them 
his  brightness,  and  th^y  went,  hand  in 


hand,  along  the  bank,  looking  at  the 
shoals  of  little  fish  swimming  near  the 
bank,  brimming  over  with  happiness,  as 
if  they  were  raised  from  earth  in  their 
lightness  of  heart. 

At  last  she  said:     "How  "iooHsh  you 
must  think  me!" 

"Why?"  he  asked. 

"To  come  out  like  this,  all  alone  with 
you." 

"Certainly  not;  it  is  quite  natural." 
"No,  no,  it  is  not  natural  for  me — be« 
cause  I  do  not  wish  to  commit  a  fault, 
and  yet  this  is  how  girls  fall.  But  if 
you  only  knew  how  wretched  it  is,  every 
day  the  sam^e  thing,  every  day  in  the 
month,  and  every  month  in  the  year.  I 
live  quite  alone  with  mamma,  and  as  she 
has  had  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  she  is 
not  very  cheerful.  I  do  the  best  I  can 
and  try  to  laugh  in  spite  of  everything, 
but  I  do  not  always  succeed.  But  all 
the  same,  it  was  v/rong  in  me  to  come, 
though  you,  at  any  rate,  v;ill  not  be 
sorry." 

By  the  way  of  an  answer  he  kissed  her 
ardently  on  the  ear  that  was  nearest  him, 
but  she  started  away  from  him  with  an 
abruDt  movement,  and  getting  suddenly 
angry  exclaimed:  "Oh!  Monsieur 
Frangois,  after  what  you  swore  to  me!"  j 
And  they  went  back  to  Maison-Lafitte. 

They  had  lunch  at  the  Petit-Havre,  a 
low  house,  buried  under  four  enormous 
poplar  trees,  by  the  side  of  the  river. 
The  air,  the  heat,  the  small  bottle  of 
white  wine,  and  the  sensation  of  being 
so  close  together,  made  them  red  and 
silent,  with  a  feeling  of  oppression,  but 
after  the  coffee  they  regained  their  high 
spirits,  and  having  crossed  the  Seine 
started  off  alone  the  bank  toward  the 


THE  FATHER 


161 


village  of  La  Frette.  Suddenly  he  asked ; 
"What  is  your  name?" 

"Louise." 

"Louise,"  he  repeated,  and  said  noth- 
ing more. 

The  river,  which  described  a  long 
curve,  bathed  a  row  of  white  houses  in 
the  distance,  which  were  reflected  in  the 
water.  The  girl  picked  the  daisies  and 
made  them  into  a  great  bunch,  while  he 
sang  vigorously,  as  intoxicated  as  a  colt 
that  has  been  turned  into  a  meadow.  On 
their  left,  a  vine-covered  slope  followed 
the  river.  Suddenly  Frangois  stopped 
motionless  with  astonishment:  "Oh! 
look  there!"  he  said. 

The  vines  had  come  to  an  end,  and 
the  whole  slope  was  covered  with  lilac 
bushes  in  flower.  It  was  a  violet-colored 
wood!  A  kind  of  great  carpet  stretched 
over  the  earth,  reaching  as  far  as  the 
village,  more  than  two  miles  off.  She 
also  stood  surprised  and  delighted,  and 
murmured:  "Oh!  how  pretty!"  And 
crossing  a  meadow  they  walked  toward 
that  curious  low  hill,  which  every  year 
furnishes  all  the  lilac  which  is  sold 
through  Paris  on  the  carts  of  the  flower- 
peddlers. 

A  narrow  path  went  beneath  the  trees, 
so  they  took  it,  and  when  they  came  to 
a  small  clearing,  they  sat  down. 

Swarms  of  flies  were  buzzing  around 
them,  and  making  a  continuous,  gentle 
sound,  and  the  sun,  the  bright  sun  of  a 
perfectly  still  day,  shone  over  the  bright 
slopes,  and  from  that  wood  of  flowers  a 
powerful  aroma  was  borne  toward  them, 
a  wave  of  perfume,  the  breath  of  the 
flowers. 

A  church  clock  struck  in  the  distance. 
They  embraced  gently,  then  clasped 
each   other   close,   lying  on   the   grass, 


without  the  knowledge  of  anytning  ex- 
cept of  that  kiss.  She  had  closed  her 
eyes  and  held  him  in  her  arms,  pressing 
him  to  her  closely,  without  a  thought, 
with  her  reason  bewildered,  and  from 
head  to  foot  in  passionate  expectation. 
And  she  surrendered  herself  altogether 
without  knowing  that  she  had  given  her- 
self to  him.  But  she  soon  came  to  her- 
self with  the  feeling  of  a  great  misfor- 
tune, and  she  began  to  cry  and  sob  with 
grief,  with  her  face  buried  in  her  hands. 

He  tried  to  console  her,  but  she 
wanted  to  start,  to  return  and  go  home 
immediately,  and  she  kept  saying  as  she 
walked  along,  quickly:  "Good  heavens! 
good  heavens!" 

He  said  to  her:  "Louise!  Louise! 
Plea«;e  let  us  stop  here."  But  now  her 
cheeks  were  red  and  her  eyes  hollow, 
and  as  soon  as  they  got  to  the  railway 
station  in  Paris,  she  left  him,  without 
even  saying  good-bye. 

III. 

When  he  met  her  in  the  omnibus  next 
day,  she  appeared  to  him  to  be  changed 
and  thinner,  'and  she  said  to  him :  'T 
want  to  speak  to  you;  we  will  get  down 
at  the  Boulevard." 

As  soon  as  they  were  on  the  pavement, 
she  said:  "We  must  bid  each  othet 
good-bye ;  I  cannot  meet  you  again  after 
what  has  happened." 

"But  why?"  he  asked. 

"Because  I  cannot;  I  have  been  cul^ 
pable,  and  I  will  not  be  so  again.'' 

Then  he  implored  her,  tortured  by  de- 
sire, maddened  by  the  wish  of  having 
her  entirely,  in  the  absolute  freedom  of 
nights  of  love,  but  she  replied  firmly. 
'No.  I  cannot,  I  cannot." 


162 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


He,  however,  only  grew  all  the  more 
excued,  and  promised  to  marry  her,  but 
she  Said;     '"No/  and  left  him. 

For  over  a  week  he  did  not  see  her. 
He  could  not  manage  to  meet  her,  and 
as  be  did  not  know  her  address,  he 
thought  he  had  lost  her  altogether.  On 
the  ninth  day,  however,  there  was  a  ring 
at  his  bell,  and  when  he  opened  it,  she 
was  there.  She  threw  herself  into  his 
arms,  and  did  not  resist  any  longer,  and 
for  three  months  she  was  his  mistress. 
He  v/as  beginning  to  grow  tired  of  her, 
when  she  told  him  a  woman's  most 
precious  secret,  and  then  he  had  one 
idea  and  wish — to  break  with  her  at  any 
price.  As,  however,  he  could  not  do 
that,  not  knowing  how  to  begin  or  what 
to  say,  full  of  anxiety,  he  took  »  de- 
cisive step.  One  night  he  changed  his 
iodgings,  and  disappeared. 

The  blow  was  so  heavy  that  she  did 
not  look  for  the  man  v/ho  had  aban- 
doned her,  but  threw  herself  at  her 
mother's  knees,  confessed  her  misfor- 
tune, and  some  months  after  gave  birth 
to  a  boy. 


IV. 


Years  passed,  and  Fran(;ois  Tessier 
grew  old,  without  there  having  been  any 
alteration  in  his  life.  He  led  the  dull, 
monotonous  life  of  bureaucrats,  without 
hopes  and  without  expectations.  Every 
day  he  got  up  at  the  same  time,  went 
through  the  same  streets,  went  through 
the  same  door,  past  the  same  porter, 
went  into  the  same  office,  sat  in  the 
same  chair,  and  did  the  same  v/ork.  He 
was  alone  in  the  world,  alone,  during  the 
day,  in  the  midst  of  his  different  col- 
leagues, and  alone  at  night  in  his  bache- 


lor's lodgings,  and  he  laid  by  a  hundred 

francs  a  month,  against  old  age. 

Every  Sunday  he  went  to  the  Champs- 
Elysees  to  watch  the  elegant  people,  the 
carriages,  and  the  pretty  women,  and  the 
next  day  he  used  to  say  to  one  of  his 
colleagues:  "The  return  of  the  car- 
riages from  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  was 
very  brilliant  yesterday."  One  fine 
Sunday  morning,  howev^er,  he  went  into 
the  Pare  Monceau  where  the  mothers 
and  nurses,  sitting  on  the  sides  of  the 
walks,  watched  the  children  playing,  and 
suddenly  Frangois  Tessier  started.  A 
woman  passed  by,  holding  two  children 
by  the  hand:  a  little  boy  ot  about  ten 
and  a  little  girl  of  four.    It  was  she. 

He  walked  another  hundred  yards, 
and  then  fell  into  a  chair,  choking  with 
emotion.  She  had  not  recognized  him, 
and  so  he  came  back,  wishing  to  see  her 
pgain.  She  v/as  sitting  down  now  and 
the  boy  was  standing  by  her  side  very 
quietly,  while  the  little  girl  was  making 
sand  castles.  It  was  she,  it  was  cer- 
tainly she,  but  she  had  the  serious  locks 
of  a  lady,  was  dressed  sim.ply,  and 
looked  seif-possessed  and  dignified.  He 
looked  2t  her  from  a  distance,  for  he  did 
not  v3Rtue  to  co  nca",  but  the  little 
boy  raised  his  head,  and  Francois  Tessier 
felt  himself  tremble.  It  was  his  own 
son,  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  that. 
And  as  he  looked  at  him,  he  thought  he 
could  recognize  himself  as  he  appeared 
in  an  old  photograph  taken  years  ago. 
He  remained  hidden  behind  a  tree,  wait- 
ing for  her  to  go,  that  he  might  follow 
her. 

He  did  not  sleep  that  night.  The  idea 
of  the  child  especially  harassed  him. 
His  son!  Oh!  If  hf*  could  only  have 
known,  have  been  sure?    But  what  could 


THE  FATHER 


i63 


he  have  done?  However,  he  went  to  the 
house  whe.e  she  had  once  Lved  and 
asked  about  her.  He  was  told  that  a 
neighbor,  an  honorable  man  of  strict 
morals  had  been  touched  by  her  distress 
and  had  married  her;  he  knew  the  fault 
she  had  committed  and  had  married  her, 
and  had  even  recognized  the  child,  his, 
Franqois  Tessier's  child,  as  his  own. 

He  returned  to  the  Pare  Monceau 
every  Sunday,  for  then  he  always  saw 
her,  and  each  time  he  was  seized  with  a 
mad,  an  irresistible  longing  to  take  his 
son  into  his  arms,  cover  him  with  kisses 
and  to  steal  him,  to  carry  him  off. 

He  suffered  horribly  in  his  wretched 
isolation  as  an  old  bachelor,  with  nobody 
to  care  for  him,  and  he  also  suffered 
atrocious  mental  torture,  torn  by  pater- 
nal tenderness  springing  from  remorse, 
longing,  and  jealoury,  and  from  that 
need  of  loving  one's  ov/n  children  which 
nature  has  implanted  in  all.  And  so 
at  last  he  determined  to  make  a  de- 
spairing attempt,  and  going  up  to  her, 
as  she  entered  the  park,  he  said,  stand- 
ing in  the  middle  of  the  path,  pale  and 
with  trembling  lips :  "You  do  not  recog- 
nize me."  She  raised  her  eyes,  looked 
at  him,  uttered  an  exclamation  of  hor- 
ror, of  terror,  and  taking  the  two  chil- 
dren by  the  hand  she  rushed  away,  drag- 
ging them  after  her,  while  he  went  home 
and  wept,  inconsolably. 

Months  passed  without  his  seeing  her 
again.  He  suffered,  day  and  night,  for 
he  was  a  prey  to  his  paternal  love.  He 
would  gladly  have  died,  if  he  could  only 
have  kissed  his  son ,  he  would  have  com- 
mitted murder,  perfo'^med  axiy  task, 
braved  any  danger,  ^-entured  anything. 
He  wrote  to  her,  but  she  did  not  reply, 
and  after  writing  her  some  twenty  let- 


ters he  saw  that  there  was  no  hope  of 
altering  her  determination.  Then  he 
formed  the  desperate  resolution  of  writ« 
ing  to  her  husband,  being  quite  pre- 
pared to  receive  a  bullet  from  a  revolver, 
if  need  be.  His  htter  only  consisted  o* 
a  few  lines,  as  follows: 

"Monsieur: 

"You  must  have  a  perfect  horror  of 
my  name,  but  I  am  so  miserable,  so 
overcome  by  misery,  that  my  only  hope 
is  in  you,  and  therefore  I  venture  to  re- 
quest you  to  grant  me  an  interview  of 
only  five  minutes. 

"I  have  the  honor,  etc." 

The  next  day  he  received  the  reply: 

"Monsieur: 

"1  fhrll  exnect  you  tc  morrow,  Tues- 
day, at  five  o'clock." 


V. 


As  he  went  up  the  staircase,  Fran(;ois 
Tessier's  heart  beat  so  violently  that  he 
had  to  stop  several  times.  There  was  a 
dull  and  violent  noise  in  his  breast,  the 
noise  as  of  some  animal  galloping;  he 
could  only  breathe  with  difficulty,  and 
had  to  hold  on  to  the  banisters  in  order 
not  to  fall. 

He  rang  the  bell  on  the  third  floor,  and 
v/hen  a  maidservant  had  opened  the 
door,  he  asked :  "Dees  Monsieur  Flamel 
live  here?" 

"Yes,  Monsieur.    Kindly  come  in." 

He  was  shown  into  the  drawing-room; 
he  was  alone  and  waited,  feeling  be- 
wildered, as  in  the  midst  of  a  catastro- 
phe, until  a  door  opened  and  a  man 
came  in.  He  was  tall,  serious,  and 
rather  stout,  he  wore  a  black  frock-coat, 
and  pointed  to  a  chair  with  his  hand 


164 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Francois  Tessier  sat  down,  and  said, 
panting:  "Monsieur — Monsieur — I  do 
not  know  whether  you  know  my  name — 
whether  you  know — " 

Monsieur  Flamel  interrupted  him: 
"You  need  not  tell  it  me.  Monsieur,  I 
know  it.  My  wife  has  spoken  to  me 
about  you." 

He  spoke  it  in  the  dignified  tone  of 
voice  of  a  good  man  who  wishes  to  be 
severe, — with  the  commonplace  state- 
liness  of  an  honorable  man,  and  Fran- 
gois  Tessier  continued:  "Well,  Mon- 
sieur, I  want  to  say  this.  I  am  dying 
of  grief,  of  remorse,  of  shame,  and  I 
would  like  once,  only  once,  to  kiss  the 
child." 

Monsieur  Fl  mel  rose  and  rang  the 
bell,  and  when  the  servant  came  in,  he 
said:  "Will  /ou  bring  Louis  here?" 
When  she  had  gone  out,  they  remained 
face  to  face,  A^ithout  speaking,  having 
nothing  more  :o  say  to  one  another,  and 
waited.  Then,  suddenly,  a  little  boy  of 
ten  rushed  into  the  room,  and  ran  up  to 
the  man  whom  he  believed  to  be  his 


father,  but  he  stopped  when  he  saw  a 
stranger,  and  Monsieur  Flamel  kissed 
him  and  said:  "Now  go  and  kiss  that 
gentleman,  my  dear."  And  the  child 
went  up  to  Tessier  nicely,  and  looked 
at  him. 

Frangois  Tessier  had  risen,  he  let  his 
hat  fall  and  was  ready  to  fall  himself 
as  he  looked  at  his  son,  while  Monsieur 
Flamel  had  turned  away,  from  a  feeling 
of  delicacy,  and  was  looking  out  of  the 
window. 

The  child  waited  in  surprise,  but  he 
picked  up  the  hat  and  gave  it  to  the 
stranger.  Then  Frangois,  taking  the 
child  up  in  his  arms,  began  to  kiss  him 
wildly  all  over  his  face,  on  his  eyes,  his 
cheeks,  on  his  mouth,  on  his  hair,  and 
the  youngster,  frightened  at  the  shower 
of  kisses  tried  to  avoid  them,  turned 
away  his  head  and  pushed  away  the 
man's  face  with  his  little  hands.  But 
suddenly  Frangois  Tessier  put  him  down, 
cried:  "Good-bye!  Good-bye!"  and 
rushed  out  of  the  room  as  if  he  had  been 
a  thief. 


The  Artist 


"Bah!  Monsieur,"  the  old  mounte- 
bank said  to  me;  "it  is  a  matter  of  ex- 
^jrcise  and  habit,  that  is  all!  Of  course, 
one  requires  to  be  a  little  gifted  that 
way  and  not  to  be  butter-fingered,  but 
what  is  chiefly  necessary  is  patience  and 
daily  practice  for  long,  long  years." 

His  modesty  surprised  me  all  the 
more,  because  of  all  performers  who  are 
generally  infatuated  with  their  own  skill, 
he  was  the  most  wonderfully  clever  one 


I  had  met.  Certainly  I  had  frequently 
seen  him,  for  everybody  had  seen  him 
in  some  circus  or  other,  or  even  in  trav- 
eling shows,  performing  the  trick  that 
consists  of  putting  a  man  or  woman  with 
extended  arms  against  a  wooden  target, 
and  in  throwing  knives  between  their 
fingers  and  round  their  heads,  from  a 
distance.  There  is  nothing  very  extraor- 
dinary in  it,  after  all,  when  one  knows 
the   tricks  of  the  trade,  and  that   the 


THE  ARTIST 


165 


knives  are  not  the  least  sharp,  and  stick 
into  the  wood  at  some  distance  from 
the  flesh.  It  is  the  rapidity  of  the 
throws,  the  glitter  of  the  blades,  and 
the  curve  which  the  handles  make  toward 
their  living  object,  which  give  an  air  of 
danger  to  an  exhibition  that  has  become 
commonplace,  and  only  requires  very 
middHng  skill. 

But  here  there  was  no  trick  and  no 
deception,  and  no  dust  thrown  into  the 
eyes.  It  was  done  in  good  earnest  and 
in  all  sincerity.  The  knives  were  as 
sharp  as  razors,  and  the  old  mountebank 
planted  them  close  to  the  flesh,  exactly 
in  the  angle  between  the  fingers.  He 
surrounded  the  head  with  a  perfect  halo 
of  knives,  and  the  netk  with  a  collar 
from  which  nobody  could  have  extri- 
cated himself  without  cutting  his  caro- 
tid artery,  while,  to  increase  the  difli- 
culty,  the  old  fellow  went  through  the 
performance  without  seeing,  his  whole 
face  being  covered  with  a  close  mask  of 
thick  oilcloth. 

Naturally,  like  other  great  artists,  he 
was  not  understood  by  the  crowd,  who 
confounded  him  with  vulgar  tricksters, 
and  his  mask  only  appeared  to  them  a 
trick  the  more,  and  a  very  common  trick 
into  the  bargain. 

"He  must  think  us  very  stupid,"  they 
Baid.  "How  could  he  possibly  aim  with- 
out having  his  eyes  open?" 

And  they  thought  there  must  be  im- 
perceptible holes  in  the  oilcloth,  a  sort 
of  latticework  concealed  in  the  mate- 
rial. It  was  useless  for  him  to  allow  the 
public  to  examine  the  mask  for  them- 
selves before  the  exhibition  began.  It 
was  all  very  well  that  they  could  not 
discover  any  trick,  but  they  were  only 
nil  the  more  convinced  that  they  were 


being  tricked.  Did  not  the  people  kno^ 
that  they  ought  to  be  tricked? 

I  had  recognized  a  great  artist  in  the 
old  mountebank,  and  I  was  quite  sure 
that  he  was  altogether  incapable  of  any 
trickery.  I  told  him  so,  while  express- 
ing my  admiration  to  him;  and  he  had 
been  touched  by  my  open  admiration 
and  above  all  by  the  justice  I  had  done 
him.  Thus  we  became  good  friends, 
and  he  explained  to  me,  very  modestly, 
the  real  trick  which  the  crowd  do  not 
understand,  the  eternal  trick  contained 
in  these  simple  words'.  "To  be  gifted 
by  nature  and  to  practice  every  day  for 
long,  long  years." 

He  had  been  especially  struck  by  the 
certainty  which  I  expressed  that  any 
trickery  must  become  impossible  to  him. 
"Yes,"  he  said  to  me;  "quite  impos- 
sible !  Impossible  to  a  degree  which  you 
cannot  imagine.  If  I  were  to  tell  you! 
But  where  would  be  the  use?" 

His  face  clouded  over,  and  his  eyes 
filled  with  tears.  I  did  not  venture  to 
force  myself  into  his  confidence.  My 
looks,  however,  were  not  so  discreet  as 
my  silence,  and  begged  him  to  speak;  so 
he  responded  to  their  mute  appeal. 

"After  all,"  he  said;  "why  should  I 
not  tell  you  about  it?  You  will  under- 
stand me."  And  he  added,  with  a  look 
of  sudden  ferocity:  "She  understood  it, 
at  any  rate!" 

"Who?"  I  asked. 

"My  strumpet  of  a  wife,"  he  replied. 
"Ah!  Monsieur,  what  an  abominable 
creature  she  was — if  you  only  knew! 
Yes,  she  understood  it  too  well,  too  well, 
and  that  is  why  I  hate  her  so;  even 
more  on  that  account,  than  for  having 
deceived  me.  For  that  is  a  natural  fault, 
is  it  not.  and  may  be  pardoned?     But 


166 


WORKS  OF  CUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


the  other  tiing  was  a  crime,  a  horrible 
crime." 

The  woman,  who  stood  against  the 
wooden  target  every  night  with  her  arms 
stretched  out  and  her  fingers  extended, 
and  whom  the  old  mountebank  fitted 
with  gloves  and  with  a  halo  formed  of 
his  knives,  which  were  as  sharp  as  razors 
and  which  he  planted  close  to  her,  was 
his  wife.  She  might  have  been  a  woman 
of  forty,  and  must  have  been  fairly 
pretty,  but  with  a  perverse  prettiness; 
she  had  an  impudent  mouth,  a  mouth 
that  was  at  the  same  time  sensual  and 
bad,  with  the  lower  lip  too  thick  for  the 
thin,  dry  upper  lip. 

I  had  several  times  noticed  that  every 
time  he  planted  a  knife  in  the  board, 
she  uttered  a  laugh,  so  low  as  scarcely  to 
be  heard,  but  which  was  very  signifi- 
cant when  one  heard  it,  for  it  was  a 
hard  and  very  mocking  laugh.  I  had 
always  attributed  that  sort  of  reply  to 
an  artifice  which  the  occasion  required. 
It  was  intended,  I  thought,  to  accentuate 
the  danger  she  incurred  and  the  con- 
tempt that  she  felt  for  it,  thanks  to  the 
sureness  of  the  thrower's  hands,  and  so 
I  was  vey  much  surprised  when  the 
mountebank  said  to  me: 

"Have  you  observed  her  laugh,  I  say? 
Her  evil  laugh  which  makes  fun  of  me, 
and  her  cowardly  laugh  which  defies  me? 
Yes,  cowardly,  because  she  knows  that 
nothing  can  happen  to  her,  nothing,  in 
spite  of  all  she  deserves,  in  spite  of  all 
that  I  ought  to  do  to  her,  in  spite  of  all 
that  I  wa7it  ^o  do  to  her." 

*'What  do  you  want  to  do?'* 

"Confound  it!  Cannot  you  guess?  I 
want  to  kill  her." 

"To  kill  her,  because  she  has — " 

"Because  she  has  deceived  me?    No, 


no,  not  that,  I  tell  you  again.  I  have 
forgiven  her  for  that  a  long  time  ago, 
and  I  am  too  much  accustomed  to  it! 
But  the  worst  of  it  is  that  the  first  time 
I  forgave  her,  when  I  told  her  that  all 
the  same  I  m'ght  some  day  have  my  re- 
venge by  cutting  her  throat,  if  I  choose, 
without  seeming  to  do  it  on  purpose,  as 
if  it  were  an  accident,  mere  awkward- 
ness— " 

'  Oh!    So  you  .^>aid  that  to  her?" 

"Of  course  I  did,  and  I  meant  it.  I 
thought  I  might  be  able  to  do  it,  for  you 
see  I  had  the  perfect  right  to  do  so.  It 
was  so  simple,  so  easy,  so  tempting! 
Just  think!  A  mistake  of  less  than  half 
an  inch,  and  her  skin  would  b^  cut  at 
the  neck  where  the  jugular  vein  is,  and 
the  jugular  would  be  severed.  My 
knives  cut  very  well!  And  when  once  i 
the  jugular  is  cut — good-bye.  The  blood  I 
would  spurt  out,  and  one,  two,  three  red 
jets,  and  all  would  be  over;  she  would 
be  dead,  and  I  should  have  had  my  re- 
venge!" 

"That  is  true,  certainly,  horribly 
true!" 

"And  without  any  risk  to  me,  eh? 
An  accident,  that  is  all;  bad  luck,  one  of 
those  mistakes  which  happen  every  day 
in  our  business.  What  could  they  ac- 
cuse me  of?  Whoever  would  think  of 
accusing  me,  even?  Homicide  through 
imprudence,  that  would  be  all!  They 
would  even  pity  me,  rather  than  accuse 
me.  *My  wife!  My  poor  wife  I'  I 
should  say,  sobbing,  *My  wife,  who  is 
so  necessary  to  me,  who  is  half  the 
breadwinner,  who  takes  part  in  my  per* 
formancel*  You  must  acknowledge  that 
I  should  be  pitied!" 

"Certainly;  there  is  not  the  least 
doubt  aboct  that." 


FALSE  ALARM 


167 


"And  you  must  allow  that  such  a  re- 
venge would  be  a  very  nice  revenge,  the 
best  possible  revenge  which  I  could  have 
with  assured  impunity." 

"Evidently  that  is  so." 

*'Very  well!  But  when  I  told  her  so, 
as  I  have  to'd  you,  end  more  forcibly 
still;  threatening  her,  as  I  wab  mad  with 
rage  and  ready  to  do  the  deed  that  I 
had  dreamed  of  on  the  spot,  what  do 
you  think  she  said?" 

"That  you  were  a  good  fellow,  and 
would  certainly  not  have  the  atrocious 
courage  to — " 

"Tut!  tut!  tut!  I  am  not  such  a 
good  fellow  as  you  think.  I  am  not 
frightened  of  blood,  and  that  I  have 
proved  already,  though  it  would  be  use- 
less to  tell  you  how  and  where.  But  I 
had  no  necessity  to  prove  it  to  her,  for 
she  knows  that  I  am  capable  of  a  good 
many  things;  even  of  crime;  especially 
of  one  crime." 

"And  she  was  not  frightened?'* 

"No.  She  merely  replied  that  I  could 
not  do  whrt  I  said;  you  understand. 
That  I  could  not  do  it!" 

"Why  not?" 

"Ah !  Monsieur,  so  you  do  not  under- 
stand? Why  do  you  not?  Have  I  not 
explained  to  you  by  what  constant,  long, 
daily  pract'ce  I  have  learned  to  plant  my 
knives  without  seems;  what  I  am  doing?" 

"Yes,  well,  what  thei.?" 

"Well!  Cannot  you  understand  what 
she  has  understood   with  such  terrible 


results,  that  now  my  hand  would  no 
longer  obey  me  if  I  wished  to  make  a 
mistake  as  1  threw?" 

"Is  it  possible?" 

"Nothing  is  truer,  I  am  sorry  to  say. 
For  I  really  have  wished  to  have  the 
revenge  which  I  have  dreamed  of,  and 
which  I  thought  so  easy.  Exasperated 
by  that  bad  woman's  insolence  and  con- 
fidence in  her  own  safety,  I  have  sev- 
eral times  made  up  my  mind  to  kill 
her,  and  have  exerted  all  my  energy  and 
all  my  skill  to  make  my  knives  fly 
aside  when  I  threw  them  to  m^ke  a 
border  round  her  neck.  I  have  tried 
with  ail  my  might  to  make  them  deviate 
half  an  inch,  just  enough  to  cut  her 
throat.  I  wanted  to,  and  I  have  never 
succeeded,  never.  And  always  the  slut's 
horr!b'e  laugh  makes  fun  of  me,  alv/ays, 
always." 

And  with  a  deluge  of  tears,  with 
something  like  a  roar  of  unsatiated  and 
muzzled  rage,  he  ground  his  teeth  as  he 
wound  up:  "She  knows  me,  the  jade; 
she  is  in  the  secret  of  my  work,  of  my 
patience,  of  my  trick,  routine,  whatever 
you  may  call  it!  She  lives  in  my  inner- 
most being,  and  sees  into  it  more  closely 
than  you  do,  or  than  I  do  myself.  She 
knows  what  a  faultless  machine  I  have 
become,  the  machine  of  which  she  makes 
fun,  the  machine  which  is  too  welt 
wound  up.  the  machine  which  cannot  get 
out  of  order — and  she  knows  that  I  can* 
net  make  a  mistake.'* 


False  Alarm 


"I  HAVE  a  perfect  horror  of  pianos," 
said  Fremecourt,  "of  those  hateful  boxes 
which  ull  up  a  drawing-room,  and  have 


not  even  the  soft  sound  and  the  queex 
shape  of  the  mahogany  or  veneered 
sninets,    to    which    our    grandmothers 


168 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


sighed  out  exquisite,  long-forgotten  bal- 
lads, allowing  their  fingers  to  run  over 
the  keys,  while  around  them  there  floated 
a  delicate  odor  of  powder  and  muslin, 
and  some  little  Abbe  or  other  turned 
over  the  leaves,  continually  making  mis- 
takes as  he  looked  at  the  patches  close  to 
the  lips  on  the  white  skin  of  the  player 
instead  of  at  the  music.  *"I  wish  there 
were  a  tax  upon  them,  or  that  some 
evening  during  a  riot,  the  people  would 
make  huge  bonfires  of  them,  which 
would  illuminate  the  whole  town.  They 
«imply  exasperate  me,  and  affect  my 
nerves,  and  make  me  think  of  the  tor- 
tures those  poor  girls  must  suffer,  who 
are  condemned  not  to  stir  for  hours, 
but  to  keep  on  constantly  strumming 
away  at  the  chromatic  scales  and 
monotonous  arpeggios,  and  to  have  no 
other  object  in  life  except  to  win  a  prize 
at  the  Conservatoire. 

'Their  incoherent  music  suggests  to 
me  the  sufferings  of  those  w^ho  are  ill, 
abandoned,  wounded.  It  proceeds  from 
every  floor  of  every  house,  it  irritates 
you,  nearly  drives  you  mad,  and  makes 
you  break  out  into  ironical  fits  of 
laughter. 

"And  yet  when  that  madcap  Lalie 
Spring  honored  me  with  her  love — ^I 
never  can  refuse  anything  to  a  woman 
"who  smells  of  rare  perfume,  and  who 
has  a  large  store  of  promises  in  her 
looks,  and  who  puts  out  her  red,  smiling 
lips  immediately,  as  if  she  were  going  to 
offer  you  handsel  money — I  bought  a 
oiano,  so  that  she  might  strum  upon  it 
to  her  heart's  content.  I  got  it,  how- 
ever, on  the  hire-purchase  system,  and 
paid  so  much  a  month,  as  grisettes*  do 
for  their  furniture. 

"At  that  time  I  had  the  aoartments  I 


had  so  long  dreamed  of:  warm,  elegant, 
light,  well-arranged,  with  two  entrances, 
and  an  incomparable  porter's  wife,  who 
had  been  canteen-keeper  in  a  Zouave 
regiment,  and  knew  everything  and  un- 
derstood everything  at  a  wink. 

"It  was  the  kind  of  apartment  from 
which  a  woman  has  not  the  courage  to 
escape,  so  as  to  avoid  temptation,  where 
she  becomes  weak,  and  rolls  herself  up 
on  the  soft,  eider-dov/n  cushions  like  a 
cat,  where  she  is  appeased,  and  in  spite 
of  herself,  thinks  of  love  at  the  sight  of 
the  low,  wide  couch,  so  suitable  for 
caresses,  rooms  with  heavy  curtains, 
which  quite  deaden  the  sound  of  voices 
and  of  laughter,  and  filled  with  fluwers 
that  scent  the  air,  whose  smell  lingers 
on  the  folds  of  the  hangings. 

'They  were  rooms  in  which  a  woman 
forgets  time,  w^here  she  begins  by  accept- 
ing a  cup  of  tea  and  nibbling  a  sweet 
cake,  and  abandons  her  fingers  timidly 
and  with  regret  to  other  fingers  which 
tremble,  and  are  hot,  and  so  by  degrees 
loses  her  head  and  succumbs. 

"I  do  not  know  whether  the  piano 
brought  us  ill  luck,  but  Lalie  had  not 
even  time  to  learn  four  songs  before  she 
disappeared  like  the  wind,  just  as  she 
had  come — flick-flack,  good-night,  good- 
bye. Perhaps  it  was  from  spite,  because 
she  had  found  letters  from  other  women 
on  my  table;  perhaps  to  change  her 
companion,  as  she  v/as  not  one  of  those 
to  hang  on  to  one  man  and  become  a 
fixture. 

"I  had  not  been  in  love  with  her, 
certainly,  but  yet  such  breakings  have 
always   some   effect   on  a  man.     Some 


*Work-girl,   a   name   applied   to   those 
whose,  virtue  is  not  too  rigorous. 


FALSE  ALARM 


169 


string  breaks  when  a  woman  leaves  you, 
and  you  think  that  you  must  start  all 
over  again,  and  take  another  chance  in 
that  forbidden  sport  in  which  one  risks 
so  much,  the  sport  that  one  has  been 
through  a  hundred  times  before,  and 
which  leaves  you  nothing  to  show  in  the 
end. 

''Nothing  is  more  unpleasant  than  to 
^end  your  apartments  to  a  friend,  to 
realize  that  some  one  is  going  to  dis- 
turb the  mysterious  intimacy  which 
really  exists  between  the  actual  owner 
and  his  fortune,  and  violate  the  soul  of 
those  past  kisses  which  float  in  the  air; 
that  the  room  whose  tints  you  connect 
with  some  recollection,  some  dream, 
some  sweet  vision,  and  whose  colors 
you  have  tried  to  make  harmonize  with 
certain  fair-haired,  pink-skinned  girls,  is 
going  to  become  a  commonplace  lodg- 
ing, like  the  rooms  in  an  ordinary  lodg- 
ing house,  fit  only  for  hidden  crime  and 
for  evanescent  love  affairs. 

"However,  poor  Stanis  had  begged  me 
so  urgently  to  do  him  that  service;  he 
was  so  very  much  in  love  with  Madame 
de  Frejus.  Among  the  characters  in 
this  comedy  there  was  a  brute  of  a  hus- 
band who  was  terribly  jealous  and  sus- 
picious; one  of  those  Oihellos  who  have 
always  a  flea  in  their  ear,  and  come 
back  unexpectedly  from  shooting  or  the 
club,  who  pick  up  pieces  of  torn  paper, 
listen  at  doors,  smell  out  meetings  with 
the  nose  of  a  detective,  and  seem  to 
have  been  sent  into  the  world  only  to  be 
cuckolds,  but  who  know  better  than  most 
how  to  lay  a  snare,  and  to  play  a  nasty 
trick.  So  when  I  went  to  Venice,  I  con- 
sented to  let  him  have  my  rooms. 

"I  will  leave  you  to  guess  whether 
they  made  up  for  lost  time,  although, 


after  all,  it  is  no  business  of  yours.  My 
journey,  however,  which  was  only  to 
have  lasted  a  few  weeks,  —  just  long 
enough  for  me  to  benefit  by  the  change 
of  air,  to  rid  my  brain  of  the  image 
of  my  last  mistress,  and  perhaps  to  find 
another,  among  that  strange  mixture  of 
society  which  one  meets  there,  a  med- 
ley of  American,  Slav,  Viennese,  and 
Italian  women,  who  instill  a  little  arti- 
ficial life  into  that  old  city,  asleep  amid 
the  melancholy  silence  of  the  lagoons, 
— was  prolonged,  and  Stanis  was  as 
m,uch  at  home  in  my  rooms  as  he  was 
in  his  own. 

"Madame  Piquignolles,  the  retired 
canteen-keeper,  took  great  interest  in 
this  adventure,  watched  over  their  little 
love  affair,  and,  as  she  used  to  say,  was 
on  guard  as  soon  as  they  arrived  one 
after  the  other,  the  marchioness  cov- 
ered with  a  thick  veil,  and  slipping  in 
as  quickly  as  possible,  always  uneasy, 
and  afraid  that  Monsieur  de  Frejus 
might  be  following  her,  and  Stanis  with 
the  assured  and  satisfied  look  of  an 
amorous  husband,  who  is  going  to  meet 
his  little  wife  after  having  been  away 
from  home  for  a  few  days. 

"Well,  one  day  during  one  of  those 
delicious  moments  when  his  beloved  one, 
fresh  from  her  bath,  and  invigorated  by 
the  coolness  of  the  water,  was  pressing 
close  to  her  lover,  reclining  in  his  arms, 
and  smiling  at  him  with  half-closed  eyes, 
during  one  of  those  moments  when  peo- 
ple do  not  speak,  but  continue  their 
dream,  the  sentinel,  without  even  asking 
leave,  suddenly  burst  into  the  room,  for 
worthy  Madame  Piquignolles  was  in  a 
terrible  fight. 

"A  few  minutes  before,  a  well-dressed 
gentleman,   followed   by  two   others  of 


170 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


seedy  appearance,  but  who  looked  very 
strong,  and  fit  to  knock  anybody  down, 
had  questioned  and  cross-questioned  her 
in  a  rough  manner,  and  tried  to  turn  her 
inside  out,  as  she  said,  asking  her 
whether  Monsieur  de  Fremecourt  lived 
on  the  first  floor,  without  giving  her 
any  explanation.  When  she  declared 
that  there  was  nobody  occupying  the 
apartments  then,  as  her  ledger  was  not 
in  France,  Monsieur  de  F.ejus — for  it 
could  certainly  be  nobody  but  he — had 
burst  out  into  an  evil  laugh,  and  said. 
*Very  well;  I  shall  go  and  fetch  the 
Police  Commissary  of  the  district,  and 
he  will  make  you  let  us  in!' 

"And  as  quickly  as  possible,  while 
ohe  was  telling  her  story,  now  in  a  low, 
and  then  in  a  shrill  voice,  the  woman 
picked  up  the  marchioness's  dress,  cloak, 
iace-edgcd  drawers,  silk  petticoat,  and 
little  varnished  shoes,  pulled  her  out  of 
bed,  without  giving  her  time  to  let  her 
know  what  she  was  doing,  or  to  moan, 
or  to  have  a  fit  of  hysterics,  and  carried 
her  off,  as  if  she  had  been  a  doll,  with 
all  her  pretty  toggery,  to  a  large,  empty 
cupboard  in  the  dining-room,  that  was 
concealed  by  Flemish  tapestry.  'You 
are  a  man.  Try  to  get  out  of  the  mess,' 
she  said  to  Stanis  as  she  shut  the  door; 
'I  will  be  answerable  for  Madame.'  And 
the  enormous  woman,  who  was  out  of 
breath  by  hurrying  upstairs  as  she  had 
done,  and  whose  kind,  large,  red  face 
was  dripping  with  perspiration,  while 
her  ample  bosom  shook  beneath  her 
loose  jacket,  took  Madame  de  Frejus 
on  to  her  knees  as  if  she  had  been  a 
baby,  whose  nurse  was  trying  to  quiet 
her. 

"She  felt  the  poor  little  culprit's  heart 
beating  as   if   it  were   going   to  burst, 


while  shivers  ran  over  her  skin,  which 
was  so  soft  and  delicate  that  the  porter's 
wife  was  afraid  that  she  might  hurt  it 
with  her  coarse  hands.  She  was  struck 
with  wonder  at  the  cambric  chemise, 
which  a  gust  of  wind  would  have  carried 
off  as  if  it  had  been  a  pigeon's  feather, 
and  by  the  delicate  odor  of  that  scarce 
flower  which  filled  tlie  narrow  cupboard, 
and  which  rose  up  in  the  darkness  from 
that  supple  body,  which  was  impreg- 
nated with  the  warmth  of  the  bed. 

"She  would  have  liked  to  be  there, 
in  that  profaned  room,  and  to  tell  them 
in  a  loud  voice— with  her  hands  upon 
her  hips  as  at  the  time  when  she  used 
to  serve  brandy  to  her  comrades  at 
Daddy  I'Arbi's — that  they  had  no  com- 
monsense,  that  they  were  none  of  them 
good  for  much,  neither  the  Police  Com- 
missary, the  husband  nor  the  subordi- 
nates, to  come  and  torment  a  pretty 
young  thing,  who  was  having  a  little  bit 
of  fun,  like  that.  It  was  a  nice  job,  to 
get  over  the  wall  in  that  way,  to  be 
absent  from  the  second  call  of  names, 
especially  when  they  were  all  of  the 
same  sort,  and  were  glad  of  five  francs 
an  hour!  She  had  certainly  done  quite 
right  to  get  out  sometimes  and  to  have 
a  sweetheart,  and  she  was  a  charming 
little  thing,  and  that  she  would  say,  if 
she  were  called  before  the  Court  as  a 
witness. 

"And  she  took  Madame  de  Frejus  in 
her  arms  to  quiet  her,  and  repeated  the 
same  thing  a  dozen  times,  whispered 
pretty  things  to  her,  and  inteirupted  het 
occasionally  to  listen  whether  they  were 
not  searching  all  the  nooks  and  corners 
of  the  apartment.  'Come,  come,'  she 
said;  *do  not  distress  yourself.  Be  calm, 
my  d\^^.    It  hurts  me  to  hear  you  cry 


FALSE  ALARM 


171 


like  that.  Tbere  will  be  no  mischief 
done,  I  will  vouch  for  it.' 

"The  marchioness,  who  was  nearly 
fainting  and  who  was  prostrate  with 
terror,  could  only  sob  out:  'Good 
heavens!     Good  heavens!' 

"She  scarcely  seemed  to  be  conscious 
of  anything;  her  head  seemed  vacant, 
her  ears  buzzed,  and  she  felt  benumbed, 
like  one  who  goes  to  sleep  in  the  snow. 

"Ah!  Only  to  forget  everything,  as 
her  love  dream  was  over,  to  go  out 
quickly  like  those  little  rose-colored 
tapers  at  Nice,  on  Shrove  Tuesday  eve- 
ning. 

"Oh!  Not  to  awake  any  more,  as  the 
to-morrow  would  come  in  black  and  sad, 
because  a  whole  array  of  barristers, 
ushers,  solicitors,  and  judges  would  be 
against  her,  and  disturb  her  usual 
quietude,  would  torment  her,  cover  her 
with  mud,  as  her  delicious,  amorous  ad- 
venture— ^her  first — which  had  been  so 
carefully  enveloped  in  mystery,  and  had 
been  kept  so  secret  behind  closed  shut- 
ters and  thick  veils,  would  become  an 
everyday  episode  of  adultery  which 
would  get  wind  and  be  discussed  from 
door  to  door.  The  lilac  had  faded,  and 
she  was  obliged  to  bid  farewell  to  happi- 
ness, as  if  to  an  old  friend  who  was  go- 
ing far,  very  far  away,  never  to  return! 

"Suddenly,  however,  she  started  and 
sat  up,  with  her  neck  stretched  out  and 
her  eyes  fixed,  while  the  ex-canteen- 
keeper,  who  was  trembling  with  emo- 
tion, put   her  hands   to  her  left  ear, 


which  was  her  best,  like  a  speaking 
trumpet,  and  tried  to  hear  the  cries 
which  succeeded  each  other  from  room 
to  room,  amid  a  noise  of  opening  and 
shutting  of  doors. 

"'Ah!  upon  my  word,  I  am  not 
blind.  It  is  Monsieur  de  Stanis  who  k 
looking  for  me,  and  making  all  that 
noise.  Don't  you  hear:  "M'ame  Pi- 
quignolles,  M'me  Piquignolles ! "  Saved, 
saved ! ' 

"Stanis  was  still  quite  pale,  and  in  a 
panting  vo'ce  he  cried  out  to  them: 
'Nothing  serious,  only  that  fool  Freme- 
court,  who  lent  me  the  rooms,  has  for- 
gotten to  pay  for  his  piano  for  the  last 
five  months,  a  hundred  francs*  a  month. 
You  understand;  they  came  to  claim  it 
and  as  we  did  not  reply,  why,  they 
fetched  the  Police  Commissary,  and 
gained  entrance  in  the  name  of  the  law.' 

"'A  nice  fright  to  give  one!'  Ma- 
dame Piquignolles  said,  throwing  her- 
self on  to  a  chair.  'Confound  the  nasty 
piano!' 

*Tt  may  be  useless  to  add,  that  the 
marchioness  has  quite  renounced  trifles, 
as  our  forefathers  used  to  say,  and 
would  deserve  a  prize  for  virtue,  if  the 
Academy  would  only  show  itself  rather 
more  gallant  toward  pretty  women,  who 
take  crossroads  in  order  to  become  vir- 
tuous. 

"Emotions  like  that  cure  people  of 
running  risks  of  that  kiiid!" 


$20. 


That  Pig  of  a  Morm 


"There,  my  friend,"  I  said  to  La- 
barbe,  "you  have  just  repeated  those 
five  words,  That  pig  of  a  Morin.'  Why 
on  earth  do  I  never  hear  Morin's  name 
mentioned  without  his  being   called  a 

Labarbe,  who  is  a  Deputy,  looked  at 
me  with  eyes  like  an  owl's,  and  said: 
*'Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  do  not 
know  Morin's  story,  and  yet  come  from 
La  Rochelle?"  I  was  obliged  to  declare 
that  I  did  not  know  Morin's  story,  and 
then  Labarbe  rubbed  his  hands,  and  be- 
gan his  recital. 

"You  knew  Morin,  did  you  not,  and 
you  remember  his  large  linen-draper's 
shop  on  the  Quai  de  la  Rochelle?" 

"Yes,  perfectly." 

"All  right,  then.  You  must  know  that 
in  1862  or  '63  Morin  went  to  spend  a 
fortnight  in  Paris  for  pleasure,  or  for 
his  pleasures,  but  under  the  pretext  of 
renewing  his  stock,  and  you  also  know 
what  a  fortnight  in  Paris  means  for  a 
country  shopkeeper;  it  makes  his  blood 
grow  hot.  The  theater  every  evening, 
women's  dresses  rustling  up  against  you, 
and  continual  excitement;  one  goes  al- 
most mad  with  it.  One  sees  nothing 
but  dancers  in  tights,  actresses  in  very 
low  dresses,  round  legs,  fat  shoulders, 
all  nearly  within  reach  of  one's  hands, 
without  daring  or  being  able  to  touch, 
and  one  scarcely  ever  tastes  an  inferior 
dish.  And  one  leaves  it,  with  heart  still 
all  in  a  flutter,  and  a  mind  still  ex- 
hilarated by  a  sort  of  longing  for  kisses 
which  tickle  one's  lips. 

"Morin  was  in  that  state  when  he 
took  his  ticket  for  La  Rochelle  by  the 
8:40  night  express.  And  he  was  walk- 
ing up  and  down  the  waiting-room  at  the 


station,  when  he  stopped  suddenly  in 
front  of  a  young  lady  who  was  kissing 
an  old  one.  She  had  her  veil  up,  and 
Morin  murmured  with  delight:  *By 
Jove,  what  a  pretty  woman!' 

"When  she  had  said  'Good-bye'  to 
the  old  lady,  she  went  into  the  waiting- 
room,  and  Morin  followed  her;  then  she 
went  on  to  the  platform  and  Morin 
still  followed  her;  then  she  got  into 
an  empty  carriage,  and  he  again  fol- 
lowed her.  There  were  very  few 
travelers  by  the  express,  the  engine 
whistled,  and  the  train  started.  They 
were  alone.  Morin  devoured  her  with 
his  eyes.  She  appeared  to  be  about 
nineteen  or  twenty,  and  was  fair,  tall, 
and  with  demure  looks.  She  wrapped 
a  railway  rug  round  her  legs  and 
stretched  herself  on  the  seat  to  sleep. 

"Morin  asked  himself:  'I  wonder  who 
she  is?'  And  a  thousand  conjectures, 
a  thousand  projects  went  through  his 
head.  He  said  to  himself:  'So  many 
adventures  are  told  as  happening  on 
railway  journeys,  that  this  may  be  one 
that  is  going  to  present  itself  to  me. 
Who  knows?  A  piece  of  good  luck  like 
that  happens  very  quickly,  and  perhaps 
I  need  only  be  a  little  venturesome. 
Was  it  not  Danton  who  said:  "Auda- 
city, more  audacity,  and  always  auda- 
city." If  it  was  not  Danton  it  was 
Mirabeau,  but  that  does  not  matter. 
But  then,  I  have  no  audacity,  and  that 
is  the  difficulty.  Oh!  If  one  only 
knew,  if  one  could  only  read  people's 
minds!  I  will  bet  that  every  day  one 
passes  by  magnificent  opportunities 
without  knowing  it,  though  a  gesture 
would  be  enough  to  let  me  know  that 
she  did  not  ask  for  anything  better. 


172 


THAT  PIG  OF  A  MORIN 


173 


*Th<5n  he  imagined  to  himself  com- 
binations which  led  him  to  triumph. 
He  pictured  some  chivalrous  deed,  or 
merely  some  slight  service  which  he 
rendered  her,  a  lively,  gallant  conver- 
sation which  ended  in  a  declaration, 
"which  ended  in — in  what  you  think. 

"But  he  could  find  no  opening;  had 
no  pretext,  and  he  waited  for  some 
fortunate  circumstance,  with  his  heart 
ravaged,  and  his  mind  topsy-turvy. 
The  night  passed^  and  the  pretty  girl 
still  slept,  while  Morin  was  meditating 
his  own  fall.  The  day  broke  and  soon 
the  first  ray  of  sunlight  appeared  in  the 
sky,  a  long,  clear  ray  which  shone  on 
the  face  of  the  sleeping  girl,  and  woke 
her,  so  she  sat  up,  looked  at  the  coun- 
try, then  at  Morin  and  smiled.  She 
smiled  like  a  happy  woman,  with  an 
engaging  and  bright  look,  and  Morin 
trembled.  Certainly  that  smile  was  in- 
tended for  him,  it  was  a  discreet  in- 
vitation, the  signal  which  he  was  wait- 
ing for.  That  smile  meant  to  say: 
'How  stupid,  what  a  ninny,  what  a  dolt, 
what  a  donkey  you  are,  to  have  sat 
there  on  your  seat  like  a  post  all  night. 

'Just  look  at  me,  am  I  not  charming? 
And  you  have  sat  like  that  for  the 
whole  night,  when  you  have  been  alone 
with  a  pretty  woman,  you  great  sim- 
pleton!* 

"She  was  still  smiling  as  she  looked 
at  him,  she  even  began  to  laugh;  and 
he  lost  his  head  trying  to  find  some- 
thing suitable  to  say,  no  matter  what. 
But  he  could  thing  of  nothing,  notliing, 
and  then,  seized  with  a  coward's  cour- 
age, he  said  to  himself:  'So  much  the 
worse,  I  will  risk  everything,'  and  sud- 
denly, without  the  slightest  warning,  he 
went  toward  her,  his  arms  extended,  his 


lips  protruding  and  seizing  her  in  his 
arms  kissed  her. 

"She  sprang  up  with  a  bound,  crying 
out:  'Help!  help!'  and  screaming  with 
terror;  then  she  opened  the  carriage 
door,  and  waved  her  arm  outside;  then 
mad  with  terror  she  was  trying  to  jump 
out,  while  Morin,  who  was  almost  dis- 
tracted, and  feeling  sure  that  she  would 
throw  herself  out,  held  her  by  her  skirt 
and  stammered:  'Oh!  Madame!  Ohl 
Madame!' 

"The  train  slackened  speed,  and  then 
stopped.  Two  guards  rushed  up  at  the 
young  woman's  frantic  signals,  and 
she  threw  herself  into  their  arms,  stam- 
mering: 'That  man  wanted — wanted— 
to — to — '    And  then  she  fainted. 

"They  were  at  Mauze  station,  and 
the  gendarme  on  duty  arrested  Morin. 
When  the  victim  of  his  brutality  had 
regained  her  consciousness,  she  made 
her  charge  against  him,  and  the  police 
drew  it  up.  The  poor  linen-draper  did 
not  reach  home  till  night,  with  a  prose- 
cution hanging  over  him  for  an  outrage 
on  morals  in  a  public  place. 

II. 

"At  that  time  I  was  editor  of  the 
'Fanal  des  Charentes,'  and  I  used  to 
meet  Morin  every  day  at  the  Cafe  du 
Commerce.  The  day  after  his  adven- 
ture he  came  to  see  me,  as  he  did  not 
know  what  to  do.  I  did  not  hide  my 
opinion  from  him,  but  said  to  him :  'You 
are  no  better  than  a  pig.  No  decent 
man  behaves  like  that.' 

"He  cried.  His  wife  had  given  him 
a  beating,  and  he  foresaw  his  trade 
ruined,  his  name  dragged  through  the 
mire  and   dishonored,  his   friends   out* 


174 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


raged  and  taking  no  more  notice  of  him. 
In  tnc  end  he  excited  my  pity,  and  I 
sent  J  or  my  colleague  Rivet,  a  banter- 
ing, but  very  sensible  little  man,  to  give 
us  his  advice. 

"He  advised  me  to  see  the  Public 
Prosecutor,  who  v;as  a  friend  of  mine, 
and  so  I  sent  Morin  home,  and  went 
to  call  on  the  magistrate.  He  told  me 
that  the  woman  who  had  been  insulted 
was  a  young  lady,  Mademoiselle  Hen- 
riette  Bonnel,  who  had  just  received  her 
certificate  as  governess  in  Paris,  and 
spent  her  holidays  with  her  uncle  and 
aunt,  who  were  very  respectable  trades- 
people in  Mauze,  and  what  made 
Morin's  case  all  the  more  serious  was, 
that  the  uncle  had  lodged  a  complaint. 
But  the  public  official  had  consented 
to  let  the  matter  drop  if  this  complaint 
were  withdrawn,  so  that  we  must  try 
and  get  him  to  do  this. 

"I  went  back  to  Morin's  and  found 
him  in  bed,  ill  with  excitement  and  dis- 
tress. His  wife,  a  tall,  rawboned  woman 
with  a  beard,  was  abusing  him  contin- 
ually, and  she  showed  me  into  the  room, 
shouting  at  me:  *So  you  have  come  to 
see  that  pig  of  a  Morin.  Well,  there  he 
is,  the  darling!'  And  she  planted  her- 
self in  front  of  the  bed,  with  her  hands 
on  her  hips.  I  told  him  how  matters 
stood,  and  he  begged  me  to  go  and  see 
her  uncle  and  aunt.  It  was  a  delicate 
mission,  but  I  undertook  it,  and  the 
poor  devil  never  ceased  repeating:  *I 
assure  you  I  did  not  even  kiss  her,  no, 
not  even  that.  I  will  take  my  oath  to 
it!' 

"I  replied:  *It  is  all  the  same;  you 
are  nothing  but  a  pig.'  And  I  took  a 
thousand  franrs  which  he  gave  me,  to 
employ  the.m  as  I  thought  best,  but  as 


I  did  not  care  venturing  to  her  uncle's 
house  alone,  I  begged  Rivet  to  go  with 
me,  which  he  agreed  to  do,  on  the  con- 
dition that  we  went  immediately,  for 
he  had  some  urgent  business  at  La 
Rochelle  that  afternoon.  So  two  hours 
later  we  rang  at  the  door  of  a  nice 
countryhouse.  A  pretty  girl  came  and 
opened  the  door  to  us,  who  was 
assuredly  the  young  lady  in  question, 
and  I  said  to  Rivet  in  a  low  voice: 
'Confound  it!  I  begin  to  understand 
Morin!' 

"The  uncle.  Monsieur  Tonnelet,  sub- 
scribed to  'The  Fanal,'  and  was  a  fer- 
vent political  co-religionist  of  ours.  He 
received  us  with  open  arms,  and  con- 
gratulated us  and  wished  us  joy;  he  was 
delighted  at  having  the  two  editors  in 
his  house,  and  Rivet  whispered  to  me: 
*I  think  we  shall  be  able  to  arrange  the 
matter  of  that  pig  cf  a  Morin  for  him.' 

"The  niece  had  left  the  room,  and  I 
introduced  the  delicate  subject.  I  waved 
the  specter  of  scandal  before  his  eyes; 
I  accentuated  the  inevitable  deprecia- 
tion which  the  young  lady  would  suffei 
jf  such  an  affair  got  known,  for  no- 
body would  believe  in  a  simple  kiss. 
The  good  man  seemed  undecided,  but 
could  not  make  up  his  mind  about  any- 
thing without  his  wife,  who  would  not 
be  in  until  late  that  evening.  But  sud- 
denly he  uttered  an  exclamation  of 
triumph:  'Look  here,  I  have  an  excel- 
lent idea.  I  will  keep  you  here  to  dine 
and  sleep,  and  when  my  wife  comes 
home,  I  hope  we  shall  be  able  to  arrange 
matters.' 

"Rivet  resisted  at  first,  but  the  wish 
to  extricate  that  pig  of  a  Morin  decided 
him,  and  we  accepted  the  invitation.  So 
the   uncle   got   up   radiant,    called   his 


THAT  PIG  OF  A  MOKIN 


175 


oiece,  and  proposed  that  we  should  take 
a  stroll  in  ins  grounds,  saying:  'We  will 
leave  serious  maiters  until  the  morn- 
ing.' Rivet  and  he  began  to  talk  poli- 
tics, while  I  soon  found  myself  lagging 
a  littk  behind  with  the  girl,  v/ho  was 
really  cnarmingi  charming!  and  with 
the  greatest  precauaon  I  began  to  speak 
to  her  about  her  adventure,  and  try  to 
make  her  my  ally.  She  did  not,  how- 
ever, appear  the  least  confused,  and 
listened  to  me  Lke  a  person  who  was 
enjoying  the  whole  thing  very  much. 

"I  said  to  her:  *  J  List  think.  Mademoi- 
selle, how  unpleasant  it  will  be  for  you. 
You  will  have  to  appear  in  court,  to 
encounter  malicious  looks,  to  speak  be- 
fore everybody,  and  to  recount  that  un- 
fortunate occurrence  in  the  railway-car- 
riage, in  pubic.  Do  you  not  think,  be- 
tween ourselves,  that  it  would  have  been 
much  better  for  you  to  have  put  that 
dirty  scoundrel  back  ihto  his  place  with- 
out calling  for  assistance,  and  merely  to 
have  changed  your  carriage?'  She  be- 
gan to  laugh,  and  replied:  'What  you 
say  is  quite  true!  but  what  could  I  do? 
I  was  frightened,  and  when  one  is 
frightened,  ore  does  not  stop  to  reason 
with  oneself.  As  soon  as  I  realized  the 
situation,  I  was  very  sorry  that  I  had 
called  out,  but  then  it  was  too  late. 
You  must  also  remember  that  the  idiot 
threw  himself  upon  me  like  a  madman, 
without  saying  a  word  and  looking  like 
a  lunatic.  I  did  not  even  know  what 
he  wanted  of  me.' 

"She  looked  me  full  in  the  face,  with- 
out beirg  ne-vous  or  intimidated,  and  I 
said  to  myself:  'She  is  a  funny  sort  of 
girl,  thst:  I  can  quite  see  how  that  pig 
Morin  came  to  make  a  mistake.'  and  I 
went  on,  jokingly:     *Come,  Mademoi- 


selle, confess  that  he  was  excusable,  for 
after  all,  a  man  cannot  hud  himself 
opposite  such  a  pretty  girl  as  you  are, 
without  feeling  a  legitimate  desire  to 
kiss  her.' 

"She  laughed  more  than  ever,  and 
showed  her  teeth,  and  said:  'Between 
the  desire  and  the  act,  Monsieur,  there 
is  room  for  respect.'  It  was  a  funny 
expression  to  use,  although  it  was  not 
very  clear,  and  I  asked  abruptly:  'Well 
now,  supposing  I  were  to  kiss  you  now 
what  would  you  do?'  She  stopped  tc 
look  at  me  from  head  to  foot,  and  theD 
said  calmly:  'Oh!  you?  That  is  quite 
another  matter.* 

'T  knew  perfectly  well,  by  Jove,  that 
it  was  not  the  same  thing  at  all,  as 
everybody  in  the  neighborhood  called 
me  'Handsome  Labarbe.'  I  was  thirty 
years  old  in  those  days,  but  I  asked  her: 
'And  why,  pray?' 

"She  shrugged  her  shoulders,  and  re- 
plied: 'Well,  because  you  are  not  so 
stupid  as  he  is.'  And  then  she  added, 
looking  at  me  slyly:  'Nor  so  ugly, 
cither.' 

"Before  she  could  make  a  movement 
to  avoid  me,  I  had  implanted  a  hearty 
kiss  on  her  cheek.  She  sprang  aside,  but 
it  was  too  late,  and  then  she  said :  'Well, 
you  are  not  very  bashful,  either!  But 
don't  do  that  sort  of  thing  again.' 

"I  put  on  a  humble  look  and  said 
in  a  low  voice:  'Oh!  Mademoiselle,  as 
for  me,  if  I  long  for  one  thing  more 
than  another,  it  is  to  be  summoned  be- 
fore a  magistrate  on  the  same  charge 
as  Morin.' 

"  'Why?'  she  asked. 

"Looking  steadily  at  her,  I  replied: 
'Because  you  are  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful creatures  living;  because  it  would 


176 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


be  an  honor  and  a  glory  for  me  to  have 
offered  you  violence,  and  because  people 
would  have  said,  after  seeing  you: 
*'Well,  Labarbe  has  richly  deserved  what 
he  has  got,  but  he  is  a  lucky  fellow,  all 
the  same."  ' 

*'She  began  to  laugh  heartily  again, 
and  said:  'How  funny  you  are!'  And  she 
had  not  finished  the  word  funny,  be- 
fore I  had  her  in  my  arms  and  was  kiss- 
ing her  ardently  wherever  I  could  find 
a  place,  on  her  forehead,  on  her  eyes, 
on  her  lips  occasionally,  on  her  cheeks, 
in  fact,  all  over  her  head,  some  part  of 
which  she  was  obliged  to  leave  ex- 
posed, in  spite  of  herself,  in  order  to 
defend  the  others.  At  last  she  man- 
aged to  release  herself,  blushing  and 
angry.  'You  are  very  unmannerly,  Mon- 
sieur,' she  said,  'and  I  am  sorry  I 
listened  to  you.' 

"I  took  her  hand  in  some  confusion, 
and  stammered  out:  'I  beg  your  par- 
don, Mademoiselle.  I  have  offended 
you;  I  have  acted  like  a  brute!  Do  not 
be  angry  with  me  for  what  I  have  done. 
If  you  knew — ' 

"I  vainly  sought  for  some  excuse,  and 
in  a  few  moments  she  said:  'There  is 
nothing  for  me  to  know.  Monsieur.'  But 
I  had  found  something  to  say,  and  I 
cried:     'Mademoiselle,  I  love  you!' 

"She  was  really  surprised,  and  raised 
her  eyes  to  look  at  me,  and  I  went  on: 
*Yes,  Mademoiselle,  and  pray  listen  to 
me.  I  do  not  know  Morin,  and  I  do 
not  care  anything  about  him.  It  does 
not  matter  to  me  the  least  if  he  is  com- 
mitted for  trial  and  locked  up  mean- 
while. I  saw  you  here  last  year,  and  I 
was  so  taken  with  you,  that  the  thought 
of  you  has  never  left  me  since,  and  it 
does  not  matter  to  me  whether  you  be- 


lieve me  or  not.  I  thought  you  adora* 
ble,  and  the  remembrance  of  you  took 
such  a  hold  on  me  that  I  longed  to  see 
you  again,  and  so  I  made  use  of  that 
fool  Morin  as  a  pretext,  and  here  I  am. 
Circumstances  have  made  me  exceed  the 
due  limits  of  respect,  and  I  can  only  beg 
you  to  pardon  me.' 

"She  read  the  truth  in  my  looks,  and 
was  ready  to  smile  again;  then  she  mur- 
mured: 'You  humbug!'  But  I  raised 
my  hand,  and  said  in  a  sincere  voice 
(and  I  really  believe  that  I  was  sin- 
cere) :  'I  swear  to  you  that  I  am  speak- 
ing the  truth.'  She  replied  quite  sim- 
ply:   'Really?' 

"We  were  alone,  quite  alone,  as  Rivet 
and  her  uncle  had  disappeared  in  a 
side  walk,  and  I  made  her  a  real  declara- 
tion of  love,  while  I  squeezed  and  kissed 
her  hands,  and  she  listened  to  it  as  to 
something  new  and  agreeable,  without 
exactly  knowing  how  much  of  it  she  was 
to  believe,  while  in  the  end  I  felt 
agitated,  and  at  last  really  myself  be- 
lieved what  I  said.  I  was  pale,  anxious, 
and  trembling,  and  I  gently  put  my  arm 
round  her  waist,  and  spoke  to  her 
softly,  whispering  into  the  little  curls 
over  her  ears.  She  seemed  dead,  so 
absorbed  in  thought  was  she. 

"Then  her  hand  touched  mine,  and 
she  pressed  it,  and  I  gently  circled  her 
waist  with  a  trembling,  and  gradually  a 
firmer,  grasp.  She  did  not  move  now, 
and  I  touched  her  cheeks  with  my  lips, 
and  suddenly,  without  seeking  them 
mine  met  hers.  It  was  a  long,  long  kiss, 
and  it  would  have  lasted  longer  still,  if 
I  had  not  heard  a  Hum!  Hum!  just  be- 
hind me.  She  made  her  escape  through 
the  bushes,  and  I  turning  round  saw 
Rivet  coming  toward  me,  and  walking  in 


THAT  PIG  OF  A  MORIN 


177 


the  middle  of  the  path.  He  said  with- 
out even  smiling:  *So  that  is  the  way 
in  which  you  settle  the  affair  of  that 
pig  Morin.' 

"I  replied,  conceitedly:  'One  does 
what  one  can,  my  dear  fellow.  But  what 
about  the  uncle?  How  have  you  got  on 
with  him?    I  will  answer  for  the  niece.' 

"  'I  have  not  been  so  fortunate  with 
him,'  he  replied.  Whereupon  I  took  his 
arm,  and  we  went  indoors.  , 

ni. 

"Dinner  made  me  lose  my  head  alto- 
gether. I  sat  beside  her,  and  my  hand 
continually  met  hers  under  the  table- 
cloth, my  foot  touched  hers,  and  our 
looks  encountered  each  other. 

"After  dinner  we  took  a  walk  by 
moonlight,  and  I  whispered  all  the  ten- 
der things  I  could  think  of  to  her.  I 
held  her  close  to  me,  kissed  her  every 
moment,  moistening  my  lips  against 
hers,  while  her  uncle  and  Rivet  were 
disputing  as  they  walked  in  front  of  us. 
We  went  in,  and  soon  a  messenger 
brought  a  telegram  from  her  aunt,  say- 
ing that  she  would  return  by  the  first 
train  the  next  morning,  at  seven  o'clock. 

"  'Very  well,  Henriette,'  her  uncle 
said,  'go  and  phow  the  gentlemen  their 
rooms.'  She  showed  Rivet  his  first,  and 
he  whispered  to  me:  'There  was  no 
danger  of  her  taking  us  into  yours  first.* 
Then  she  took  me  to  my  room,  and  as 
soon  as  she  was  alone  with  me,  I  took 
her  in  my  arms  again  and  tried  to  ex- 
cite her  senses  and  overcome  her  re- 
sistance, but  when  she  felt  that  she  was 
near  succumbing,  she  escaped  out  of  the 
room,  and  I  got  between  the  sheets, 
very  much  put  out  and  excited  and  feel- 
int^  rather  foolUb    ^^r  T  knew  that   I 


should  not  sleep  much.  I  was  wonder- 
ing how  I  could  have  committed  such 
a  mistake,  when  there  was  a  gentle 
knock  3t  my  door,  and  on  my  asking 
who  was  there,  a  low  voice  replied:  'I.' 

"I  dressed  myself  quickly  and  opened 
the  door,  and  she  came  in:  'I  forgot  to 
ask  you  what  you  take  in  the  morning,* 
she  said,  'chocolate,  tea,  or  coffee?'  I 
put  my  arms  around  her  impetuously 
and  said,  devouring  her  with  kisses:  *I 
will  take — I  will  take — '  But  she  freed 
herself  from  my  arms,  blew  out  my  can- 
dle, and  disappeared,  and  left  me  alone 
in  the  dark,  furious,  trying  to  find  some 
matches  and  not  able  to  do  so.  At  last 
I  got  some  and  I  went  into  the  passage, 
feeling  half  mad,  with  my  candlestick  in 
my  hand. 

"What  was  I  going  to  do?  I  did  not 
stop  to  reason,  I  only  wanted  to  find 
her,  and  I  would.  I  went  a  few  steps 
without  reflecting,  but  then  I  suddenly 
thought  to  myself:  'Suppose  I  should  go 
into  the  uncle's  room,  what  should  I 
say?'  And  I  stood  still,  with  my  head 
a  void,  and  my  heart  beating. 

"But  in  a  few  moments,  I  thought  of 
an  answer:  'Of  course,  I  shall  say  thai 
I  was  looking  for  Rivet's  room,  to  speak 
to  him  about  an  important  matter,'  and 
I  began  to  inspect  all  the  doors,  trymg 
to  find  hers,  and  at  last  I  took  hold  of 
a  handle  at  a  venture,  turned  it  and 
went  in.  There  was  Henriette,  sitting 
on  her  bed  and  looking  at  me  in  tears. 
So  I  gently  turned  the  key,  and  going  up 
to  her  on  tiptoe,  I  said:  'I  forgot  to 
ask  you  for  something  to  read,  Made- 
moiselle.' I  will  not  tell  you  the  book 
I  read,  but  it  is  the  most  wonderful  of 
romances,  the  most  divine  of  poems. 
And  when  once  I  had  turned  the  first 


178 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


page,  she  iet  me  turn  over  as  many 
leaves  as  1  liked,  and  I  got  through  so 
many  chapters  that  our  candles  were 
quite  bu.ned  out. 

'Then,  after  thanking  her,  I  was 
stealthily  returning  to  my  room,  when 
a  rough  hand  seized  me,  and  a  voice — 
it  was  Rivet's — whispered  in  my  ear: 
'So  you  have  not  yet  quite  settled  that 
affair  of  Morin's?' 

"At  seven  o'clock  the  next  morning, 
she  herself  brought  me  a  cup  of 
chocolate.  I  have  never  drunk  any- 
thing like  it,  soft,  velvety,  p2rfumed, 
delicious.  I  could  scarcely  take  away 
my  lips  from  the  cup,  and  she  had 
hardly  left  the  room  when  Rivet  came 
in.  He  seemed  nervous  and  irritable 
like  a  man  who  had  not  slept,  and  he 
said  to  me  crossly:  'If  you  go  on  like 
this,  you  will  e..d  by  spoiling  the  affair 
of  that  pig  of  a  Morin!' 

"At  eight  o'clock  the  aunt  arrived. 
Our  discussion  was  very  short,  for  they 
witbjrew  their  complaint,  and  I  left  five 
hundred  francs  for  the  poor  of  the  town. 
They  wanted  to  keep  us  for  the  day, 
and  they  arranged  an  excursion  to  go 
and  see  some  ruins.  Henriette  made 
signs  to  me  to  stay,  behind  her  uncle's 
back,  and  I  accepted,  but  Rivet  was 
determined  to  go,  and  though  I  took 
him  aside,  ard  beg:;ed  and  prayed  him 
to  do  this  fcr  me  he  appeared  quite 
exasperated  and  kept  saying  to  me:  *I 
have  had  enough  of  that  pig  of  a 
Morin's  affair,  do  you  hear?* 

"Of  course  I  was  obliged  to  go  also, 
and  it  was  one  of  the  hardest  moments 
of  my  life.  I  could  have  gone  on 
arranging  that  business  as  long  as  I 
lived,  and  when  we  were  in  the  railway 
carriage,  after  shaking  hands  with  her 


in  silence,  I  said  to  Rivet:  'You  are  a 
mere  brute!'  And  he  replied:  'My 
dear  fellow,  you  were  beginning  to  ex« 
cite  me  confoundedly.' 

"On  getting  to  the  'Fanal'  office,  I 
saw  a  crowd  waiting  for  us,  and  as  soon 
as  they  saw  us,  they  all  exclaimed: 
*Well,  have  you  settled  the  affair  of 
that  pig  of  a  Morin?'  All  La  Rochelle 
was  excited  about  it,  and  Ri\'et,  who 
had<got  over  his  ill  humor  on  the  jour- 
ney, had  great  difficulty  in  keeping  him- 
self from  laughing  as  he  said:  'Yes, 
we  have  managed  it,  thanks  to  Labarbe.* 
And  we  went  to  Morin's. 

"He  was  sitting  in  an  easy-chair,  with 
mustard  plasters  on  his  legs,  and  cold 
bandages  on  his  head,  nearly  dead  with 
misery.  He  was  coughing  with  the  short 
cough  of  a  dying  man,  without  anyone 
knowing  how  he  had  caught  it,  and  his 
wife  seemed  like  a  tigress  ready  to  eat 
him.  As  soon  as  he  saw  us  he  trembled 
violently  as  to  make  his  hands  and  knees 
shake,  so  I  said  to  him  immediately: 
'It  is  all  settled,  you  dirty  scamp,  but 
don't  do  such  a  thing  again.* 

*'He  got  up  choking,  took  my  hands 
and  kissed  them  as  if  they  had  belonged 
to  a  prince,  cried,  nearly  fainted,  em- 
braced Rivet,  and  even  kissed  Madame 
Morin,  who  gave  him  such  a  push  as  to 
send  him  staggering  back  into  his  chair. 
But  he  never  got  over  Lhe  blow;  his 
mind  h::d  been  too  much  upset.  In  all 
the  country  round,  moreover,  he  was 
called  nothing  but  that  pig  of  a  Morin, 
and  the  ep'thet  went  through  him  like  a 
sword-thrust  every  time  he  heard  it. 
When  a  street-boy  called  after  him; 
Tig!'  he  turned  his  head  instinctively. 
His  f-iends  also  overwhelmed  him  with 
horrible  jokes,  and  wseH  to  chaff  him, 


THAT  PIG  OF  A  MORIN 


179 


whenever  they  were  eating  ham,  by  say- 
ing: It's  a  bit  of  you!'  He  died  two 
years  later. 

"As  for  myself,  when  I  was  a  candi- 
date for  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  in 
1875,  I  called  on  the  new  notary  at 
Foncerre,  Monsieur  Belloncle,  to  solicit 
his  vote,  and  a  tall,  handsome,  and  evi- 
dently wealthy  lady  received  me.  'You 
do  not  know  me  again?'  she  said. 

"I  stammered  out:  *But — ^no,  Ma- 
dame.' 

"•Henriette  Bonne!?' 

"'Ah!'  And  I  felt  myself  turning 
pale,  while  she  seemed  perfectly  at  her 
ease,  and  looked  at  me  with  a  smile. 


"As  soon  as  she  had  left  me  alone 
with  her  husband,  he  took  both  my 
hands,  and  squeezing  them  as  if  he 
meant  to  crush  them,  he  said:  *I  have 
been  intending  to  go  and  see  you  for  a 
long  time,  my  dear  sir,  for  my  wife  has 
very  often  talked  to  me  about  you.  I 
know  under  what  painful  circumstances 
you  made  her  acquaintance,  and  I  know 
also  how  perfectly  you  behaved,  how 
lull  of  delicacy,  tact,  and  devotion  you 
snowed  yourself  in  t^e  affair — '  He 
hesitated,  and  then  said  in  a  lower  tone, 
as  if  he  had  been  saying  sonje.hinff  low 
and  coarse:  'In  the  affair  of  th-if  p'| 
of  a  Morin.'  " 


VOLUME  II 


Mm  Harriet 


There  were  seven  of  us  in  a  four-in- 
hand,  four  womt;n  and  three  men,  one 
of  whom  was  on  the  box  seat  beside  the 
coachman.  We  were  following,  at  a 
foot  pace,  the  broad  highway  which  ser- 
pentines along  the  coast. 

Setting  out  from  Etretat  at  break  of 
day,  in  order  to  visit  the  ruins  of  Tan- 
carville,  we  were  still  asleep,  chilled  by 
the  fresh  air  of  the  morning.  The  wo- 
men, especially,  who  were  but  little 
accustomed  to  these  early  excursions, 
let  their  eyelids  fall  and  rise  every  mo- 
ment, nodding  their  heads  or  yawning, 
quite  insensible  to  the  glory  of  the 
dawn. 

It  was  autumn.  On  both  sides  of  the 
road  the  bare  fields  stretched  out,  yel- 
lowed by  the  corn  and  wheat  stubble 
which  covered  the  soil  like  a  bristling 
growth  of  beard.  The  spongy  earth 
seemed  to  smoke.  Larks  were  singing 
high  up  in  the  air,  while  other  birds 
piped  in  the  bushes. 

At  length  the  sun  rose  in  front  of  us, 
a  bright  red  en  the  plane  of  the  hori- 
zon; and  as  it  ascended,  growing  clearer 
from  minute  to  minute,  the  country 
seemed  to  awake,  to  smile,  to  shake  and 
stretch  itself,  like  a  young  girl  who  is 
leaving  her  bed  in  her  white  airy 
chemise.  The  Count  d'Etraille,  who 
was  seated  on  the  box,  cried: 

"Look!  look!  a  hare!"  and  he  pointed 
toward  the  left,  indicating  a  piece  of 
hedge.  The  leveret  threaded  its  way 
along,  almost  concealed  by  the  field, 
only  its  large    ears  visible      Then    it 


swerved  across  a  deep  rut,  stopped^ 
agam  pursued  its  easy  cou.se,  changed 
its  direction,  stopped  anew,  disturbed, 
spying  out  every  danger,  and  undecided 
as  to  the  route  it  should  take.  Suddenly 
it  began  to  run,  with  'reat  bounds  from 
its  hind  legs,  disappearing  finally  in  a 
large  patch  of  beet-root.  All  the  men 
had  woke  up  to  watch  the  course  of  the 
beast. 

Rene  Lemanoir  then  exclaimed: 

"We  are  not  at  all  gallant  this  morn- 
ing," and  looking  at  'ns  neighbor,  the 
little  Baroness  of  Sterennes,  who  was 
struggling  with  drowsiness,  he  said  to  hei 
in  a  subdued  voice:  "You  are  thinking 
of  your  husband.  Baroness.  Reassure 
yourself;  he  will  not  return  before 
Saturday,  so  you  have  still  four  days." 

She  responded  to  him  with  a  sleepy 
smile : 

"How  rude  you  are."  Then,  shaking 
off  her  torpor,  she  added:  "Now,  let 
somebody  say  something  that  will  make 
us  all  laugh.  You,  Monsieur  Chenal, 
who  have  the  reputation  of  possessing 
a  larger  fortune  than  the  Duke  of 
Richelieu,  tell  us  a  love  story  in  which 
you  have  been  mixed  up,  anything  you 
like." 

Leon  Chenal,  an  old  painter,  who  had 
once  been  very  handsome,  very  strong, 
who  was  very  proud  of  his  physique  and 
very  amiable,  took  his  long  white  beard 
in  his  hand  and  smiled;  then,  after  a 
few  moments'  reflection,  he  became 
suddenly  grave. 

"Ladies,  it  will  not  be  an   amusing 


181 


182 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


tale;  for  1  am  going  to  relate  to  you 
the  most  lamentable  love  affair  of  my 
life,  and  I  sincerely  hope  that  none  of 
my  friends  has  ever  passed  through  a 
similar  experience. 


"At  that  time  I  was  twenty-five  years 
old,  and  was  making  daubs  along  the 
coast  of  Normandy.  I  call  'making 
daubs'  that  wandering  about,  with  a  bag 
on  one's  back,  from  mountain  to  moun- 
tain, under  the  pretext  of  studying  and 
of  sketching  nature.  I  know  nothing 
more  enjoyable  than  that  happy-go- 
lucky  wandering  life,  in  which  you  are 
perfectly  free,  without  shackles  of  any 
kind,  without  care,  without  pre-occu- 
pation,  without  thought  even  of  to-mor- 
row. You  go  in  any  direction  you 
please,  without  any  guide  save  your 
fancy,  without  any  counselor  save  your 
eyes.  You  pull  up,  because  a  running 
brook  seduces  you,  or  because  you  are 
attracted,  in  front  of  an  inn,  by  the 
smell  of  potatoes  frying.  Sometimes  it 
is  the  perfume  of  clematis  which  decides 
you  in  your  choice,  or  the  naive  glance 
of  the  servant  at  an  inn.  Do  not 
despise  me  for  my  affection  for  these 
rustics.  These  girls  have  soul  as  well 
as  feeling,  not  to  mention  firm  cheeks 
and  fresh  lips;  while  their  hearty  and 
willing  kisses  have  the  flavor  of  wild 
fruit.  Love  always  has  its  price,  come 
whence  it  may.  A  heart  that  beats 
when  you  make  your  appearance,  an 
e.ve  that  weeps  when  you  go  away,  these 
are  tnings  so  rare,  so  sweet,  so  precious, 
that  they  must  never  be  despised. 

"I  have  had  rendezvous  in  ditches  in 
which  cattle  repose,  and  in  barns  amon^ 


the  straw,  still  steaming  from  the  heat 
of  the  day.  I  have  recollections  of 
canvas  spread  on  rude  and  creaky 
benches,  and  of  hearty,  fresh,  free 
kisses,  more  delicate,  free  from  affecta- 
tion, and  sincere  than  the  subtle  attrac- 
tions of  charming  and  distinguished  wo- 
men. 

''But  what  you  love  most  amid  all 
these  varied  adventures  are  the  country, 
the  woods,  the  risings  of  the  sun,  the 
twilight,  the  light  of  the  moon.  For  the 
painter  these  are  honeymoon  trips  with 
Nature.  You  are  alone  with  her  in  that 
long  and  tranquil  rendezvous.  You  go 
to  bed  in  the  fields  amid  marguerites 
and  wild  poppies,  and,  with  eyes  wide 
open,  you  watch  the  going  down  of  the 
sun,  and  descry  in  the  distance  the  little 
village,  with  its  pointed  clock-tower, 
which  sounds  the  hour  of  midnight. 

"You  sit  down  by  the  side  of  a 
spring  which  gushes  out  from  the  foot 
of  an  oak,  amid  a  covering  of  fragile 
herbs,  growing  and  redolent  of  life. 
You  go  down  on  your  knees,  bend  for* 
ward,  and  drink  the  cold  and  pellucid 
water,  wetting  your  mustache  and  nose; 
you  drink  it  with  a  physical  pleasure,  as 
though  you  were  kissing  the  spring,  lip 
to  lip.  Sometimes,  when  you  encounter 
a  deep  hole,  along  the  course  of  these 
tiny  brooks,  you  plunge  into  it,  quite 
naked,  and  on  your  skin,  from  head  to 
foot,  like  an  icy  and  delicious  caress, 
you  feel  the  lovely  and  gentle  quivering 
of  the  current. 

*'You  are  gay  on  the  hills,  melan- 
choly on  the  verge  of  pools,  exalted 
when  the  sun  is  crowned  in  an  ocean  of 
blood-red  shadows^  and  when  it  casts 
on  the  rivers  its  red  reflection.  And  at 
night,    under  the    moon,  as    it  passes 


AilSS  HARRIET 


183 


the  vault  of  iieaven,  you  think  of 
things,  singular  things,  which  would 
never  have  occurred  to  your  mind  un- 
der the  brilliant  light  of  day. 

'"So,  in  wandering  through  the  same 
country  we  are  in  this  year,  I  came  to 
the  little  village  cf  Benouville,  on  the 
Falaise,  between  Yport  and  Etretat.  I 
came  from  Fecamp,  following  the  coast, 
a  high  coast,  perpendicular  as  a  wall, 
with  projecting  and  rugged  rocks  falling 
sheer  down  into  the  sea.  I  had  walked 
since  the  morning  on  the  close  clipped 
grass,  as  smooth  and  as  yielding  as  a 
carpet.  Singing  lustily,  I  walked  with 
long  strides,  looking  sometimes  at  the 
slow  and  lazy  flight  of  a  gull,  with  its 
short,  white  wings,  sailing  in  the  blue 
heavens,  sometimes  at  the  green  sea,  or 
at  the  brown  sails  of  a  fishing  bark.  In 
short,  I  had  passed  a  happy  day,  a  day 
of  listlessness  and  of  liberty. 

*I  was  shown  a  little  farmhouse, 
where  travelers  were  put  up,  a  kind  of 
inn,  kept  by  a  peasant,  which  stood  in 
the  center  of  a  Norman  court,  sur- 
rounded by  a  double  row  of  beeches. 

"Quitting  the  Falaise,  I  gained  the 
hamlet,  which  was  hemmed  in  by  trees, 
and  I  presented  myself  at  the  house  of 
Mother  Lecacheur. 

"She  was  an  old,  wrinkled,  and 
austere  rustic,  who  always  seemed  to 
yield  to  the  pressure  of  new  customs 
with  a  kind  of  contempt. 

"It  was  the  month  of  May:  the 
spreading  apple-trees  covered  the  court 
with  a  whirling  shower  of  blossoms 
which  rained  unceasingly  both  upon 
people  and  upon  the  grass. 

"I  said: 

*'  'Weil,  Madame  Lecacheur.  have 
yoii  a  room  for  me?* 


"Astonished  to  fmd  that  I  knew  her 
name,  she  answered: 

"  'That  depends ;  everything  is  let ; 
but,  all  the  same,  there  will  be  no  harm 
in  looking.' 

"In  five  minutes  we  were  in  perfect 
accord,  and  I  deposited  my  bag  upon 
the  bare  floor  of  a  rustic  room,  fur- 
nished with  a  bed,  two  chairs,  a  table, 
and  a  washstand.  The  room  opened  into 
the  large  and  smoky  kitchen,  where 
the  lodgers  took  their  meals  with  the 
people  of  the  farm  and  with  the  farmer 
himself,  v/ho  was  a  widower. 

"I  washed  my  hands,  after  which  I 
went  out.  The  old  woman  was  fricas- 
seeing  a  chicken  for  dinner  in  a  large 
fireplace,  in  which  hung  the  stew-pot, 
black  with  smoke. 

"  'You  have  travelers,  then,  at  the 
present  time?'  said  I  to  her. 

"She  answered  in  an  offended  tone  of 


voice : 


I  have  a  lady,  an  English  lady,  who 
has  attained  to  years  of  maturity.  She 
is  occupying  my  other  room.' 

"By  means  of  an  extra  five  sous  a 
day,  I  obtained  the  privilege  of  dining 
out  in  the  court  when  the  weather  was 
fine. 

"My  cover  was  then  placed  in  front 
of  the  door,  and  I  commenced  to  gnaw 
with  hunger  the  lean  members  of  the 
Normandy  chicken,  to  drink  the  clear 
cider,  and  to  munch  the  hunk  of  white 
bread,  w^hich,  though  four  days  old,  was 
excellent. 

"Suddenly,  the  wooden  barrier  which 
opened  on  to  the  highway  was  opened, 
and  a  strange  person  directed  her  steps 
toward  the  house.  She  was  very  slender, 
very  tall,  enveloped  in  a  Scotch  shawl 
with  red  borders.    You  would  have  be* 


1 84 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


lieved  that  she  had  no  arms,  if  you  had 
not  seen  a  long  hand  appear  just  above 
the  hjps,  holaing  a  wnite  tounst  um- 
brella. The  lace  of  a  mummy,  sur- 
rounded With  sausage  rolls  of  plaited 
gray  hair,  which  bounded  at  every  step 
she  took,  made  me  think,  I  know  not 
why,  of  a  sour  herring  adorned  with 
curling  papers.  Lowering  her  eyes,  she 
passed  quickly  in  front  of  me,  and  en- 
*.ered  the  bouse. 

*'This  singular  apparition  made  me 
curious.  She  undoubtedly  was  my 
neighbor,  the  aged  English  lady  of 
whom  our  hostc^^s  had  spoken. 

"I  did  not  see  her  again  that  day. 
The  next  day,  when  I  had  begun  to 
paint  at  the  end  of  that  beautiful  valley, 
which  you  know  extends  as  far  as 
Etretat,  lifting  my  eyes  suddenly,  I  per- 
ceived something  singularly  attired 
standing  on  the  crest  of  the  declivity; 
it  looked  Khe  a  pole  decked  out  with 
flags.  It  was  she.  On  seeing  me,  she 
suddenly  disappeared.  I  re-entered  the 
house  at  midday  for  lunch,  and  took  my 
seat  at  the  common  table,  so  as  to  make 
the  acquaintance  of  this  old  and 
original  creature.  But  she  did  not 
respond  to  my  polite  advances,  was  in- 
sensible even  to  my  little  attentions.  I 
poured  water  out  for  her  with  great 
alacrity,  I  passed  her  the  dishes  with 
great  eagerness.  A  slight,  almost  im- 
perceptible movement  of  the  head,  and 
an  English  word,  murmured  so  low  that 
I  did  not  understand  it,  v/ere  her  only 
acknowledgments. 

"I  ceased  occupying  myself  with  her, 
although  she  had  disturbed  my  thoughts. 
At  the  end  of  three  days,  I  knew  as 
much  about  her  as  did  Madame 
Lecacheur  hersc-* 


**She  was  called  Miss  Harriet.  Seek- 
ing out  a  secluded  village  m  which  to 
pass  ihe  summer,  she  haa  been  attracted 
to  Benouviile,  some  six  months  before, 
and  did  not  seem  disposed  to  quit  it. 
She  never  spoke  at  table,  ate  rapidly, 
reading  all  the  while  a  smail  book, 
treating  of  some  Protestant  propaganda. 
She  gave  a  copy  of  it  to  everybody. 
The  cure  himself  had  received  no  less 
than  four  copies,  at  the  hands  of  an 
urchin  to  whom  she  had  paid  two  sous' 
commission.  She  said  sometimes  to  our 
hostess,  abruptly,  without  preparing  her 
in  the  least  for  the  declaration: 

"  *I  love  the  Saviour  more  than  all; 
I  worship  him  in  all  creation;  I  adore 
him  in  all  nature;  I  carry  him  always 
in  my  heart.' 

And  she  would  immediately  present 
the  old  woman  with  one  of  her 
brochures  which  were  destined  to  con- 
vert the  universe. 

*Tn  the  village  she  was  not  liked.  In 
fact,  the  schoolmaster  had  declared  that 
rhe  was  an  atheist,  and  that  a  sort  of 
reproach  attached  to  her.  The  cure, 
v/ho  had  been  consulted  by  Madame 
Lecacheur,  responded: 

"  'She  is  a  heretic,  but  God  does  not 
wish  the  death  of  the  sinner,  and  I  be- 
lieve her  to  be  a  person  of  pure  morals.' 

"These  words,  'atheist,'  'heretic,' 
words  which  no  one  can  precisely  define, 
threw  doubts  into  some  minds.  It  was 
asserted,  however,  that  this  English- 
woman was  rich,  and  that  she  had 
passed  her  life  in  traveling  through 
every  country  in  the  world,  because  hei 
family  had  thrown  her  off.  Why  hacJ 
her  family  thrown  her  off?  Because  ci 
her  natural  impiety? 

"She  was.  in  fact,  one  of  those  peo- 


MISS  HARRIET 


183 


pie  of  exalted  principles,  one  of  those 
opinionated  puritans  ol  whom  England 
produces  so  many,  one  of  those  good 
and  insupportable  old  women  who 
haunt  the  tables  d'hote  of  every  hotel 
in  Europe,  who  spoil  Italy,  poison 
Switzerland,  render  the  charming  cities 
of  the  Mediterranean  uninhabitable, 
carry  everywhere  their  fantastic  manias, 
their  petrified  vestal  manners,  their  in- 
describable toilettes,  and  a  certain  odor 
of  indiarubber,  which  makes  one  believe 
that  at  night  they  slip  themselves  into 
a  case  of  that  material.  When  I  meet 
one  of  these  people  in  a  hotel,  I  act  like 
birds  which  see  a  manik'n  m  a  field. 

"This  woman,  however,  appeared  so 
singular  that  she  did  not  displease  me. 

"Madame  Lecacheur,  hostile  by  in- 
stinct to  everything  that  was  not  rustic, 
felt  in  her  narrow  soul  a  kind  of  hatred 
for  the  ecstatic  extravagances  of  the  old 
girl.  She  had  found  a  phrase  by  which 
to  describe  her,  I  know  not  how,  but  a 
phrase  assuredly  contemptuous,  which 
had  sprung  to  her  lips,  invented  prob- 
ably by  some  confused  and  mysterious 
travail  of  soul.  She  said:  'That  wo- 
man is  a  demoniac'  This  phrase  as 
uttered  by  that  austere  and  sentimental 
creature,  seemed  to  me  irresistibly 
comic.  I,  myself,  never  called  her  now 
anything  else  but  'the  demoniac,'  feeling 
a  singular  pleasure  in  pronouncing  this 
word  on  seeing  her. 

"I  would  ask  Mother  Lecacheur: 
'Well,  what  is  our  demoniac  about  to- 
day?' To  which  my  rustic  friend  would 
respond,  with  an  air  of  having  been 
scandalized: 

"  'What  do  you  think,  sir?  She  has 
picked  up  a  toad  which  has  had  its  leg 
battered    and   carried  it   to  her   room» 


and  has  put  it  in  her  washstand,  and 
dressed  it  up  hke  a  man.  If  ihat  is  not 
profanation,  I  should  like  to  know  what 
is!' 

"On  another  occasion,  when  walking 
along  the  Falaise,  she  had  bought  a 
large  fish  which  had  just  been  caught, 
simply  to  throw  it  back  into  the  sea 
again.  The  sailor,  from  whom  she  had 
bought  it,  though  paid  handsomely,  was 
greatly  provoked  at  this  act — more  ex- 
asperated, indeed,  than  if  she  had  put 
her  hand  into  his  pocket  and  taken  his 
money.  For  a  whole  month  he  could 
not  speak  of  the  circumstance  without 
getting  in'cO  a  fury  and  denouncing  it  as 
an  outrage.  Oh  yes!  She  was  indeed  a 
demoniac,  this  Miss  Harriet,  and 
Mother  Lecacheur  must  have  had  an  in- 
spiration of  genius  in  thus  christening 
her. 

"The  stable-boy,  who  was  called 
Sapeur,  because  he  had  served  in  Africa 
in  his  youth,  entertained  other  aver- 
sions. He  said,  with  a  roguish  air: 
'She  is  an  old  hag  who  has  lived  her 
days.'  If  the  poor  woman  had  but 
knov^n ! 

"Little  kind-hearted  Celeste  did  not 
wait  upon  her  willingly,  out  I  was  never 
able  to  understand  why.  Probably  her 
cnly  reason  was  that  she  was  a  stranger, 
of  another  race,  of  a  different  tongue, 
and  of  another  religion.  She  was  in 
good  truth  a  demoniac! 

"She  passed  her  time  wandering 
about  the  country,  adorinj?  and  search- 
ing for  God  in  nature.  I  found  her  one 
evening  on  her  knees  in  a  cluster  of 
bushes.  Having  discovered  something 
red  through  the  leaves,  I  brushed  aside 
the  branches,  and  Miss  Harriet  at  once 
rose   to   her    feet     confused   at    havina 


186 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


been  found  thus,  looking  at  me  with 
eyes  as  terrible  as  those  of  a  wild  cat 
surprised  in  open  day. 

"Sometimes,  when  I  was  working 
among  the  rocks,  I  would  suddenly  des- 
cry her  on  the  banks  of  the  Falaise 
standing  like  a  semaphore  signal.  She 
gazed  passionately  at  the  vast  sea,  glit- 
tering in  the  sunlight,  and  the  boundless 
.sky  empurpled  with  fire.  Sometimes  I 
would  distinguish  her  at  the  bottom  of 
an  alley,  walking  quickly,  with  her 
elastic  English  step;  and  I  would  go 
toward  her,  attracted  by  I  know  not 
what,  simply  to  see  her  illuminated 
visage,  her  dried-up  features,  which 
seemed  to  glow  with  an  ineffable,  inward, 
and  profound  happiness. 

"Often  I  would  encounter  her  in  the 
comer  of  a  field  sitting  on  the  grass,  un- 
der the  shadow  of  an  apple-tree,  with 
her  little  Bible  lying  open  on  her  knee, 
while  she  looked  meditatively  into  the 
distance. 

"I  could  no  longer  tear  myself  away 
from  that  quiet  country  neighborhood, 
bound  to  it  as  I  was  by  a  thousand  links 
of  love  for  its  soft  and  sweeping  land- 
scapes. At  this  farm  I  was  out  of  the 
world,  far  removed  from  everything, 
but  in  close  proximity  to  the  soil,  the 
good,  healthy,  beautiful  green  soil.  And, 
must  I  avow  it,  there  was  something 
besides  curiosity  which  retained  me  at 
the  residence  of  Mother  Lecacheur.  I 
wished  to  become  acquainted  a  little 
with  this  strange  Miss  Harriet,  and  to 
learn  what  passes  in  the  solitary  souls 
of  those  wandering  old,  English  dames. 

11. 

"We  became  acquainted  in  a  rather 
singular  manner.    I  had  just  finished  a 


study  which  appeared  to  me  to  display 
genius  and  power;  as  it  must  have, 
since  it  was  sold  for  ten  thousand 
francs,  fifteen  years  later.  It  was  as 
simple,  however,  as  that  two  and  two 
make  four,  and  had  nothing  to  do  with 
academic  rules.  The  whole  of  the  right 
side  of  my  canvas  represented  a  rock, 
an  enormous  rock,  covered  with  sea- 
wrack,  brown,  yellow,  and  red,  across 
which  the  sun  poured  like  a  stream  of 
oil.  The  light,  without  which  one  could 
see  the  stars  concealed  in  the  back- 
ground, fell  upon  the  stone,  and  gilded 
it  as  if  with  fire.  That  was  all.  A 
first  stupid  attempt  at  dealing  with 
light,  with  burning  rays,  with  the 
sublime. 

"On  the  left  was  the  sea,  not  the  blue 
sea,  the  slate-colored  sea,  but  a  sea  of 
jade,  as  greenish,  milky,  and  thick  as 
the  overcast  sky. 

"I  was  so  pleased  with  my  work  that 
I  danced  from  sheer  delight  as  I  carried 
it  back  to  the  inn.  I  wished  that  the 
whole  world  could  have  seen  it  at  one 
and  the  same  moment.  I  can  remem- 
ber that  I  showed  it  to  a  cow  which 
was  browsing  by  the  wayside,  exclaim- 
ing, at  the  same  time:  'Look  at  that, 
my  old  beauty;  you  will  not  often  see 
its  like  again.* 

"When  I  had  reached  the  front  of 
the  house,  I  immediately  called  out  to 
Mother  Lecacheur,  sTiouting  with  all 
my  might: 

"  'Ohe !  Ohe !  my  mistress,  come  here 
and  look  at  this.' 

"The  rustic  advanced  and  looked  at 
my  work  with  stupid  eyes,  which  dis- 
tinguished nothing,  and  did  not  even 
recognize  whether  the  picture  was  the 
representation  of  an  ox  or  a  house. 


MISS  HARRIET 


187 


"Miss  Harriet  came  into  the  house, 
and  passed  in  rear  of  me  just  at  the 
moment  when,  holding  out  my  canvas 
at  arm's  length,  I  was  exhibiting  it  to 
the  female  innkeeper.  The  'demoniac' 
could  not  help  but  see  it,  for  I  took  care 
to  exhibit  the  thing  in  such  a  way  that 
it  could  not  escape  her  notice.  She 
stopped  abruptly  and  stood  motionless, 
stupefied.  It  was  her  rock  which  was 
depicted,  the  one  which  she  usually 
climbed  to  dream  away  her  time  undis- 
turbed. 

"She  uttered  a  British  'Oh/  which 
was  at  once  so  accentuated  and  so 
flattering,  that  I  turned  round  to  her 
smiling,  and  said: 

'*  'This  is  my  last  work,  Mademoi- 
selle.' 

"She  murmured  ecstatically,  comi- 
cally, and  tenderly: 

"  'Oh !  Monsieur,  you  must  under- 
stand what  it  is  to  have  a  palpitation.' 

"I  colored  up,  of  course,  and  was 
more  excited  by  that  compliment  than 
if  it  had  come  from  a  queen.  I  was 
seduced,  conquered,  vanquished.  I 
could  have  embraced  her — upon  my 
honor. 

"I  took  my  seat  at  the  table  beside 
her,  as  I  had  always  done.  For  the 
first  time,  she  spoke,  drawling  out  in  a 
loud  voice: 

"  'Oh !     I  love  nature  so  much.' 

"I  offered  her  some  bread,  some 
water,  some  wine.  She  now  accepted 
these  with  the  vacant  smile  of  a 
mummy.  I  began  to  converse  with  her 
about  the  scenery. 

"After  the  meal,  we  rose  from  the 
table  together  and  walked  leisurely 
across  the  court;  then,  attracted  by  the 
fiery  glow  which  the  settip?:  sun   cast 


over  the  surface  of  the  sea,  I  opened 
the  outside  gate  which  faced  in  the 
direction  of  the  Falaise,  and  we  walked 
on  side  by  side,  as  satisfied  as  any  two 
persons  could  be  who  have  just  learned 
to  understand  and  penetrate  each 
other's  motives  and  feelings. 

"It  was  a  misty,  relaxing  evening,  one 
of  those  enjoyable  evenings  which  im- 
part happiness  to  mind  and  body  alike. 
All  is  joy,  all  is  charm.  The  luscious 
and  balmy  air,  loaded  with  the  per- 
fumes of  herbs,  with  the  perfumes  of 
grass-wrack,  with  the  odor  of  the  wild 
flowers,  caresses  the  soul  with  a  pene- 
trating sweetness.  We  were  going  to 
the  brink  of  the  abyss  which  overlooked 
the  vast  sea  and  rolled  past  us  at  the 
distance  of  less  than  a  hundred  meters. 

"We  drunk  with  open  mouth  and  ex- 
panded chest,  that  fresh  breeze  from  the 
ocean  which  glides  slowly  over  the  skin, 
salted  as  it  is  by  long  contact  with 
the  waves. 

"Wrapped  up  in  her  square  shawl,  in- 
spired by  the  balmy  air  and  with  teeth 
firmly  set,  the  English-woman  gazed 
fixedly  at  the  great  sun-ball,  as  it  de- 
scended toward  the  sea.  Soon  its  rim 
touched  the  waters,  just  in  rear  of  a 
ship  which  had  appeared  on  the  hori- 
zon, until,  by  degrees,  it  was  swallowed 
up  by  the  ocean.  We  watched  it 
plunge,  diminish,  and  finally  disappear. 

"Miss  Harriet  contemplated  with 
passionate  regard  the  last  glimmer  of 
the  flaming  orb  of  day. 

"She  muttered:  'Oh!  love — ^I  love 
— '  I  saw  a  tear  start  in  her  eye.  She 
continued:  T  wish  I  were  a  little  bird, 
so  that  I  could  mount  up  into  the  firma- 
ment.' 

"She    remained    standing    as    I    had 


188 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


often  before  seen  her,  perched  on  the 
river  bank,  her  face  as  red  as  her  flam- 
ing shawl.  I  should  have  liked  lo  have 
sketched  her  in  my  album.  It  would 
have  been  an  ecstatic  caricature.  I 
turned  my  face  away  from  her  so  as 
to  be  able  to  laugh. 

*'I  then  spoke  to  her  of  painting,  as 
I  would  have  done  to  a  fellow-artist, 
ushig  the  technical  terms  common 
among  the  devotees  of  the  profession. 
She  listened  attentively  to  me,  eagerly 
seeking  to  divine  the  sense  of  the  ob- 
scure words,  so  as  to  penetrate  my 
thoughts.  From  time  to  time,  she  would 
vixclaim:  *0h!  I  understand,  I  under- 
stand. This  is  vex-y  interestmg.'  We 
returned  home. 

"The  next  day,  on  seeing  me,  she 
approached  me  eagerly,  holding  out  her 
hand;  and  we  became  firm  friends  im- 
mediately. 

"She  was  a  brave  creature,  with  an 
clastic  sort  of  a  soul,  which  became  en- 
thusiast): at  a  bound.  She  lacked 
equilibrium,  like  all  women  who  are 
spinsters  at  the  age  of  fifty.  She 
seemed  to  be  pickled  in  vinegary  inno- 
cence, though  her  heart  still  retained 
something  of  youth  and  cf  girlish  effer- 
vescence. She  loved  both  nature  and 
animals  with  a  fervent  ardor,  a  love 
like  old  w'ne,  nellow  through  age,  with 
a  sensual  love  that  she  had  never  be- 
stowed on  men. 

"One  thing  is  certain:  a  mare  roam- 
ing in  a  meadow  with  a  foal  at  .'ts  side, 
a  bird's  nest  full  of  young  ones,  squeak- 
ing, wiih  their  open  mouths  and  enor- 
mous heads,  made  her  quiver  with  the 
most  violent  emotion. 

"Poor  solitary  beings!  Sad  wan- 
derers    from     'cH"    d*hcte    to     table 


d'hote,  poor  beings,  ridiculous  and  la- 
mentable, I  love  you  ever  since  I  be- 
came acquainted  with  Miss  Harriet! 

"I  soon  discovered  that  she  had 
something  she  would  like  to  tell  me, 
but  dared  not,  and  I  was  amused  at  hei 
timidity.  When  I  started  out  in  the 
morning  with  my  box  on  my  back,  she 
v/ould  accompany  me  as  lar  as  the  end 
of  the  village,  silent,  but  evidently 
struggling  inwardly  to  fmd  words  with 
which  to  begin  a  conversation.  Then 
rhe  would  leavo  me  abruptly,  and,  with 
jaunty  step,  walk  away  quickly. 

"One  day,  however,  sh3  plucked  up 
courage: 

"  'I  would  like  to  seo  how  you  paint 
pictures?  Will  you  show  me?  I  have 
been  very  curious.' 

"And  she  colored  up  as  though  she 
had  given  utterance  to  words  extremely 
audacious. 

"I  conducted  her  to  the  bottom  of 
the  Petit-Val,  whero  I  liad  commenced 
a  large  picture. 

"She  remained  standing  near  me,  fol- 
lowing all  my  gestures  with  concen- 
trated attention.  Then,  suddenly,  fear- 
ing, perhaps,  that  she  v/as  disturbing 
ne,  she  said  to  me:  *Thank  you,'  and 
v/alked  away. 

But  in  a  short  time  she  became  more 
familiar,  and  accompanied  me  every 
day,  her  countenance  exhibiting  visible 
pleasure.  She  carried  her  folding  stool 
under  her  arm,  would  not  consent  to 
my  carrying  it,  and  she  sat  always  by 
my  side.  She  would  remain  there  for 
hours  immovable  and  mute,  following 
with  her  eye  the  point  of  my  brush  in 
its  every  movement.  Wh^n  I  would 
obtain,  by  a  laree  splatch  of  color 
spread  on  with  a  knife,  a  striking  and 


MISS  HARRIET 


189 


unexpected  effect,  she  would,  in  spite  of 
herself,  give  vent  to  a  half-suppressed 
*0h!'  of  astonishment,  of  joy,  of  ad- 
miration. She  had  the  most  tender 
respect  for  my  canvases,  an  almost 
religious  respect  for  that  human  repro- 
duction of  a  part  of  nature's  work  di- 
vine. IMy  studies  appeared  to  her  to  be 
pictures  of  sanctity,  and  sometimes  she 
spoke  to  me  of  God,  with  the  idea  of 
converlii-g  me. 

*'0h!  lie  was  a  queer  good-natured 
being,  this  GoJ  of  hers.  He  was  a  sort 
of  village  philosopher  without  any  great 
resources,  and  without  great  power;  for 
she  always  figured  him  to  herself  as  a 
being  quivering  over  injustices  com- 
mitted under  his  eyes,  and  helpless  to 
prevent  them. 

"She  was,  however,  on  excellent 
terms  wiLh  him,  affecting  even  to  be  the 
confidant  cf  his  secrets  and  of  his 
whims.    She  said: 

"  *God  wills,  or  God  does  not  will,* 
just  like  a  sergeant  announcing  to  a 
recruit:     'The  cclonel  has  commanded.* 

"At  the  bottom  of  her  heart  she  de- 
plored Try  ignorance  of  the  intention 
of  the  Eternal,  which  she  strove,  nay, 
felt  herself  compelled,  to  impart  to 
.me. 

"Almost  every  day,  I  found  in  my 
pockets,  in  my  hat  when  I  lifted  it  from 
the  ground,  in  my  box  of  colors,  in  my 
polished  shoes,  standing  in  the  mornings 
in  front  of  my  door,  those  little  pious 
brochures,  which  she,  no  doubt,  received 
directly  from  Paradise. 

**I  treated  her  as  one  would  an  old 
friend,  with  unaffected  cordiality.  But 
I  soon  perceived  that  she  hid  changed 
aomewhat  in  her  manner;  but,  for  a 
w^hile,  I  paid  little  attention  to  it. 


"When  I  walked  about,  whether  tc 
the  bottom  of  the  valley,  or  through 
some  country  lanes,  1  w^ould  see  her 
suddenly  appear,  as  though  she  were 
returning  from  a  lipid  walk.  She 
would  then  sit  down  abruptly,  out  of 
breath,  as  though  she  had  been  running 
or  overcome  by  some  profound  emo- 
tion. Her  face  would  be  red,  tnat 
English  red  whic^  is  denied  to  the  peo- 
ple of  all  other  countries;  then,  with- 
out any  reason,  she  would  grow  pale, 
become  the  ccLir  cf  the  ground,  and 
seem  ready  to  Jaint  away.  Gradually, 
however,  I  would  see  her  regain  her 
ordinary  color,  whereupon  she  would 
begin  to  speak. 

"Then,  without  warning,  she  would 
break  off  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence, 
cpring  up  from  hsr  seat,  and  march  off 
ro  rapidly  and  so  strongly,  that  it 
would,  sometimes,  put  me  to  my  wits' 
end  to  try  and  discover  whether  I  had 
done  or  said  an>thing  to  displease  or 
offend  her. 

*'I  finally  came  :o  the  conclusion  that 
this   arose   from  her  early  habits  and 
training,  somewhat   modified,  no  doubt 
in  honor  of  me,  s5nce  the  first  days  of 
cur  acquaintanceship. 

"When  she  retimed  to  the  farm, 
nfter  walking  for  hours  on  the  wind- 
beaten  coast,  her  Ic  ig  curled  hair  would 
be  shaken  out  an  I  hanging  loose,  as 
though  it  had  broken  away  from  its 
bearings.  It  was  seldom  that  this  gave 
her  any  concern;  though  sometimes  she 
looked  as  though  she  had  been  dining 
sa?is  ceremonie;  her  locks  having  be- 
come disheveled  by  the  b'*eezes. 

"She  would  then  go  up  to  her  room 
in  order  to  adiust  what  I  called  her 
glass  lamps.    When  I  wotiM  say  to  her. 


190 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


in  familiar  gallantry,  which,  however, 
always  offended  her: 

"  'You  are  as  beautiful  as  a  planet 
to-day,  Miss  Harriet,'  a  little  blood 
would  immediately  mount  into  her 
cheeks,  the  blood  of  a  young  maiden, 
the  blood  of  sweet  fifteen. 

"Then  she  would  become  abruptly 
savage  and  cease  coming  to  watch  me 
paint.     But  I  always  thought: 

"  'This  is  only  a  fit  of  temper  she  is 
passing  through.' 

"But  it  did  not  always  pass  away. 
When  I  spoke  to  her  sometimes,  she 
would  answer  me,  either  with  an  air  of 
affected  indifference,  or  in  sullen  anger; 
and  she  became  by  turns  rude,  impa- 
tient, and  nervous.  For  a  time  I  never 
saw  her  except  at  meals,  and  we  spoke 
but  little.  I  concluded,  at  length,  that 
I  must  have  offended  her  in  something: 
and,  accordingly,  I  said  to  her  one  eve- 
ning: 

"  'Miss  Harriet,  why  is  it  that  you  do 
not  act  toward  me  as  formerly?  What 
have  I  done  to  displease  you?  You  are 
causing  me  much  pain!' 

"She  responded,  in  an  angry  tone,  in 
a  manner  altogether  sui  generis: 

"  'I  am  always  with  you  the  same  as 
formerly.  It  is  not  true,  not  true,'  and 
she  ran  upstairs  and  shut  herself  up  in 
her  room. 

"At  times  she  would  look  upon  me 
with  strange  eyes.  Since  that  time  I 
have  often  said  to  myself  that  those 
condemned  to  death  must  look  thus 
when  informed  that  their  last  day  has 
come.  In  her  eye  there  lurked  a  species 
of  folly,  a  folly  at  once  mysterious  and 
violent — even  more,  a  fever,  an  exasper- 
ated desire,  impatient,  at  once  incapa- 
ble of  being  realized  and  unrealizable! 


"Nay,  it  seemed  to  me  that  there  was 
also  going  on  within  her  a  combat,  in 
which  her  heart  struggled  against  an 
unknown  force  that  she  wished  to  over- 
come— perhaps,  even,  something  else. 
But  what  could  I  know?  What  could  I 
know? 

Ill 

"This  was  indeed  a  singular  revela- 
tion. 

"For  some  time  I  had  commenced  to 
work,  as  soon  as  daylight  appeared,  on 
a  picture,  the  subject  of  which  was  as 
follows ; 

"A  deep  ravine,  steep  banks  domi* 
nated  by  two  declivities,  lined  with 
brambles  and  long  rows  of  trees,  hidden, 
drowned  in  milky  vapor,  clad  in  ihat 
misty  robe  which  sometimes  floats  over 
valleys  at  break  of  day.  At  the  ex- 
treme end  of  that  thick  and  transparent 
fog,  you  see  coming,  or  rather  already 
come,  a  human  couple,  a  stripling  and  a 
maiden  embr:}ced,  interlaced,  she,  with 
head  leaning  on  him,  he,  inclined  toward 
her,  and  lip  to  lip. 

"A  ray  of  the  sun,  glistening  through 
the  branches,  has  traversed  the  fog  of 
dawn  and  illuminated  it  with  a  rosy  re- 
flection, just  behind  the  rustic  lovers, 
whose  vague  shadows  are  reflected  on 
it  in  clear  silver.  It  was  well  done,  yes, 
indeed,  well  done. 

"I  was  working  on  the  declivity  which 
led  to  the  Val  d'Etretat.  This  particu- 
lar morning,  I  had,  by  chance,  the  sort 
of  floating  vapor  which  was  necessary 
for  my  purpose.  Suddenly,  an  object 
appeared  in  front  of  me,  a  kind  of  phan- 
tom; it  v/as  Miss  Harriet.  On  seeing 
me,  she  took  to  flight.  But  I  called 
after  her  saying:     'Come  here,   come 


MISS  HARRIET 


191 


here,  Mademoiselle,  I  have  a  nice  little 
picture  for  you.' 

"She  came  forward,  though  with 
seeming  reluctance.  I  handed  her  my 
sketch.  She  said  nothing,  but  stood  for 
a  long  time  motionless,  looking  at  it. 
Suddenly  she  burst  into  tears.  She 
wept  spasmodically,  like  men  who  have 
been  struggling  hard  against  shedding 
tears,  but  who  can  do  so  no  longer,  and 
abandon  themselves  to  grief,  though  un- 
willingly. I  got  up,  trembling,  moved 
myself  by  the  sight  of  a  sorrow  I  did 
not  comprehend,  and  I  took  her  by  the 
hand  with  a  gesture  of  brusque  affec- 
tion, a  true  French  impulse  which  im- 
pels one  quicker  than  one  thinks, 

"She  let  her  hands  rest  in  mine  for 
a  few  seconds  and  I  felt  them  quiver, 
as  if  her  whole  nervous  system  was 
twisting  and  turning.  Then  she  with- 
drew her  hands  abruptly,  or,  rather,  tore 
them  out  of  mine. 

"I  recognized  that  shiver  as  soon  as 
I  had  felt  it;  I  was  deceived  in  nothing. 
Ah!  the  love  shudder  of  a  woman, 
whether  she  is  fifteen  or  fifty  years 
of  age,  whether  she  is  one  of  the  people 
or  one  of  the  tnonde,  goes  so  straight 
to  my  heart  that  I  never  had  any  diffi- 
culty in  understanding  it! 

"Her  whole  frail  being  trembled,  vi- 
brated, yielded.  I  knew  it.  She  walked 
away  before  I  had  time  to  say  a  word, 
leaving  me  as  surprised  as  if  I  had  wit- 
nessed a  miracle,  and  as  troubled  as  if 
I  had  commit  led  a  crjicv. 

"I  did  not  go  in  to  breakfast.  1  took 
a  walk  on  the  b?nks  of  the  Falaise,  feel- 
ing that  I  could  just  as  soon  weep  as 
laugh,  looking  on  the  adventure  as  both 
comic  and  deplorable,  and  my  position 


as  ridiculous,  fain  to  believe  thaf  1  had 
lost  my  head. 

"I  asked  myself  what  I  ought  to  do. 
I  debated  whether  I  ought  not  to  take 
my  leave  of  the  place  and  almost  imme- 
diately my  resolution  was  formed. 

"Somewhat  sad  and  perplexed,  I  wan- 
dered about  until  dinner  time,  and  en- 
tered the  farmhouse  just  when  the  soup 
had  been  served  up. 

"I  sat  down  at  the  table,  as  usual. 
Miss  Harriet  was  there,  munching  away 
solemnly,  without  speaking  to  anyone, 
without  even  lifting  her  eyes.  She  wore, 
however  her  usual  expression,  both  of 
countenance  and  manner. 

"I  waited,  patiently,  till  the  meal  had 
been  finished.  Then,  turning,'  toward 
the  landlady,  I  said:  'Madame  Leca- 
cheur,  it  will  not  be  long  now  before  I 
shall  have  to  take  my  leave  of  you.' 

"The  good  woman,  at  once  surprised 
and  troubled,  replied  in  a  quivering 
voice:  'My  dear  sir,  what  is  it  I  have 
just  heard  you  say?  Are  you  going  to 
leave  us,  after  I  have  become  so  much 
accustomed  to  you?' 

"I  looked  at  Miss  Harriet  from  the 
corner  of  my  eye.  Her  countenance  did 
not  change  in  the  least;  but  the  under- 
servant  came  toward  me  with  eyes 
wide  open.  She  was  a  fai:  girl,  of  about 
eighteen  years  of  age,  rosy,  fresh,  strong 
as  a  horse,  yet  possessing  a  rare  attri- 
bute in  one  in  her  position — she  was 
very  neat  and  clean.  I  had  kissed  her 
at  odd  times,  in  out  of  the  way  cor- 
ners, in  the  manner  of  a  mountain 
^T-^ide,  nothing  more. 

"The  dinner  being  over,  I  went  to 
smoKe  my  pipe  under  the  apple-trees, 
walking  up  and  down  at  my  ease,  from 
one  end  of  the  court  to  the  other.    AU 


192 


WORKS  Of  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


the  reflections  which  1  had  made  during 
the  da>,  tne  strange  discovery  of  the 
momiug,  that  grotesque  and  passionate 
attachment  for  me,  the  recollections 
which  that  revelation  had  suddenly 
called  up,  recoUections  at  once  charm- 
ing and  perplexing,  perhaps,  also,  that 
look  which  the  servant  had  cast  on  me 
at  the  announcement  of  my  departure — 
•.!^  these  things,  mixed  up  and  com- 
bined, put  me  now  in  an  excited  bodily 
state,  with  the  tickling  sensation  of 
kisses  on  my  lips,  and  in  my  veins  some- 
thing which  urgt:d  me  on  to  commit 
some  folly. 

"Night  having  come  on,  casting  its 
dark  shadows  under  the  trees,  I  descried 
Celeste,  who  had  gone  to  shut  the  hen- 
coops, at  the  other  end  of  the  inclosurc. 
I  darted  toward  'ier,  runnmg  so  noise- 
lessly that  she  beard  nothing,  and  as 
she  got  up  from  closing  the  small  traps 
by  which  the  chickens  went  in  and  out, 
I  clasped  her  in  my  arms  and  rained  on 
her  coarse,  fat  face  a  shower  of  kisses. 
She  made  a  struggle,  laughing  all  the 
same,  as  she  was  accustomed  to  do  in 
such  circumstances.  What  made  me 
suddenly  loose  my  grip  of  her?  Why 
did  I  at  once  experience  a  shock?  What 
was  it  that  I  heard  behind  me? 

"It  was  Miss  Harriet  who  had  come 
upon  us,  who  had  seen  us,  and  who 
stood  in  front  of  us,  as  motionless  as  a 
specter.  Then  she  disappeared  in  the 
darkness. 

"I  was  ashamed,  embarrassed,  more 
annoyed  at  having  been  surprised  by 
her  than  if  she  had  caught  me  commit- 
ting some  criminal  act. 

"x  olept  badly  that  night;  I  was 
worried  and  haunted  by  sad  thoughts. 
/  seemed  to  *^ear  loud  weepinn:  but  in 


this  1  was  no  aoubt  deceived.  More* 
over,  I  thought  several  times  that  I 
heard  some  one  walking  up  and  down 
in  the  house,  and  that  some  one  opened 
my  door  from  the  outside. 

"Toward  morning,  I  was  overcome 
by  fatigue,  and  sleep  seized  on  mc.  I 
got  up  late  and  did  not  go  downstairs 
until  breakfast  time,  being  still  in  a 
bewildered  state,  not  knowmg  what 
kind  of  face  to  put  on. 

"No  one  had  seen  Miss  Harriet.  Wa 
waited  for  her  at  table,  but  she  cid  not 
appear.  At  length,  Mother  Lecacheur 
went  to  her  room.  The  Englishwoman 
had  gone  out.  She  must  have  set  out 
at  break  of  day,  as  she  was  wont  to 
do,  in  order  to  see  the  sun  rise. 

"Nobody  seemed  astonished  at  this 
and  we  began  to  eat  in  silence. 

*'The  weather  was  hot,  very  hot,  one 
of  those  still  sultry  days  when  not  a 
leaf  stirs.  The  table  had  been  placed 
out  of  doors,  under  an  apple- iree;  and 
from  time  to  time  Sapeur  had  gone  to 
the  cellar  to  draw  a  jug  of  cider,  every- 
body was  so  thirsty.  Celeste  brcught 
the  dishes  from  the  kitchen,  a  ragout  ot 
mutton  with  potatoes,  a  cold  rabbit,  and 
a  salad.  Afterward  she  placed  before 
us  a  dish  of  strawberries,  the  first  of 
the  season. 

**As  I  wanted  to  wash  and  freshen 
these,  I  begged  the  servant  to  go  and 
bring  a  p'tcher  of  cold  water. 

*'In  about  five  minutes  she  returned, 
declaring  that  the  well  was  dry.  She 
had  lowered  the  pitcher  to  the  full  ex- 
tent of  the  cord,  and  had  touched  the 
bottom,  but  on  drawing:  the  pitcher  up 
again,  it  was  empty.  Mother  Lecacheur, 
anxious  to  ey'.ine  the  thing  for  her- 
self. Ti'ent  and  looked  down  the  hole. 


MISS  HARRIET 


wa 


She  returned  announcing  that  one  could 
see  clearly  something  in  the  well,  some- 
thing altogether  unusual.  But  this,  no 
doubt,  was  pottles  of  strav/,  which,  out 
of  spite,  had  been  cast  down  it  by  a 
neighbor. 

"I  wished  also  to  look  down  the  well, 
hoping  to  clear  up  the  mystery,  and 
perched  myself  close  to  its  brink.  I 
perceived,  indistinctly,  a  white  object. 
What  could  it  be?  I  then  conceived 
the  idea  of  lowering  a  lantern  at  the 
end  of  a  cord.  When  I  did  so,  the  yel- 
low flame  danced  on  the  layers  cf  stone 
and  gradu:illy  became  clearer.  All  four 
of  us  were  leaning  over  the  opening, 
Sapeur  and  Celeste  having  now  joined 
us.  The  kntern  rested  on  a  black  and 
white,  indistinct  mass,  singular,  incom- 
prehensible.    Sapeur  exclaimed: 

"  'It  is  a  horse.  I  see  the  hoofs.  It 
must  have  escaped  from  the  meadow, 
during  the  night,  and  fallen  in  head- 
long.* 

"But,  suddenly,  a  cold  shiver  attacked 
my  spine,  I  first  recognized  a  foot,  then 
a  clothed  limb;  the  body  was  entire,  but 
the  other  limb  had  disappeared  under 
the  water. 

"I  groaned  and  trembled  so  violently 
that  the  light  of  the  lamp  danced 
hither  and  thither  o/er  the  object,  dis- 
covering a  slipper. 

"  *It  is  a  woman !  who — ^who — can  it 
be?     It  is  Miss  Harriet.' 

"Sapeur  rlone  did  not  manifest  hor- 
ror. He  had  witnessed  many  such 
scenes  in  Africa. 

"Mother  Lecacheur  and  Celeste  be- 
gan to  scream  and  to  shriek,  and  ran 
away. 

"But  it  was  necessary  to  recover  the 
corose  of  the  dead.    I  attached  the  boy 


securely  by  the  loihs  to  the  end  of  the 
pulley-rope;  then  I  lowered  him  slowly, 
and  watched  him  disappear  in  the  dark- 
ness. In  the  one  hand  he  had  a  lan- 
tern, and  held  on  to  the  rope  with  the 
other.  Soon  I  recognized  his  voice, 
which  seemed  to  come  from  the  center 
of  the  earth,  crying: 

"  'Stop.' 

"I  then  saw  him  fish  something  out 
of  the  water.  It  was  the  other  limb. 
He  bound  the  two  feet  together,  and 
shouted  anew: 

"  'Haul  up.' 

"I  commenced  to  wind  him  up,  but 
I  felt  my  arms  strain,  my  muscles 
twitch,  and  was  in  terror  lest  I  should 
let  ths  boy  fall  to  the  bottom.  Wheo 
his  head  appeared  over  the  brink,  J 
asked : 

"'What  is  it?'  as  though  I  only  ex- 
pected that  he  would  tell  me  what  he 
had  discovered  at  the  bottom. 

"We  both  got  on  to  the  stone  slab  at 
the  edge  of  the  well,  and,  face  to  face, 
hoisted  the  body. 

"Mother  Lecacheur  and  Celeste 
watched  us  from  a  distance,  concealed 
behind  the  wall  of  the  house.  When 
they  saw,  issuing  from  the  well,  the 
black  slippers  and  white  stockings  of 
the  drowned  person,  they  disappeared. 

"Sapeur  seized  the  ankles  of  the  poor 
chaste  woman,  and  we  drew  it  up,  in- 
clined, as  it  was,  in  the  most  immodest 
posture.  The  head  was  in  a  shockmg 
state,  bruised  and  black;  and  the  long, 
gray  hair,  hanging  down,  was  tangled 
and  disordered. 

"  *In  the  name  of  all  that  is  holy, 
how  lean  she  is!'  exclaimed  Sapeur,  in 
a  contemptuous  tone. 

"We  carried  her  into  the  room,  and 


194 

as  the  women  did  not  put  in  an  appear- 
ance, I,  with  the  assistance  of  the  lad, 
dressed  the  corpse  for  burial. 

"I  washed  her  disfigured  face.  By 
the  touch  of  my  hand  an  eye  was  slightly 
opened;  it  seemed  to  scan  me  with  that 
pale  stare,  with  that  cold,  that  terrible 
look  which  corpses  have,  a  look  which 
seems  to  come  from  the  beyond.  I 
plaited  up,  as  well  as  I  could,  her  dis- 
heveled hair,  and  I  adjusted  on  her  fore- 
head a  novel  and  singularly  formed 
lock.  Then  I  took  off  her  dripping  wet 
garments,  baring,  not  without  a  feeling 
of  shame,  as  though  I  had  been  guilty 
of  some  profanation,  her  shoulders  and 
her  chest,  and  her  long  arms,  slim  as 
the  twigs  of  branches. 

"I  next  went  to  fetch  some  flowers, 
corn  poppies,  blue  beetles,  marguerites, 
and  fresh  and  perfumed  herbs,  with 
which  to  strew  her  funeral  couch. 

"Being  the  only  person  near  her,  it 
was  necessary  for  me  to  perform  the 
Msual  ceremonies.  In  a  letter  found  in 
her  pocket,  written  at  the  last  moment, 
she  asked  that  her  body  be  buried  in 
the  village  in  which  she  had  passed  the 
last  days  of  her  life.  A  frightful  thought 
then  oppressed  my  heart.  Was  it  not 
on  my  account  that  she  wished  to  be 
laid  at  rest  in  this  place? 

"Toward  the  evening,  all  the  female 
gossips  of  the  locality  came  to  view 
the  remains  of  the  defunct ;  but  I  would 
not  allow  a  single  person  to  enter;  I 
wanted  to  be  alone;  and  I  watched  by 
the  corpse  the  whole  night. 

"By  the  flickering  light  of  the  can- 
dles, I  looked  at  the  body  of  this  miser- 
able woman,  wholly  unknown,  who  had 
died  so  lamentably  and  so  far  away 
from  home.     Had  she  left  no  friends. 


VVORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


no  relatives  behind  her?  What  had  her 
infancy  been?  What  had  been  her  life? 
When  had  she  come  thither,  all  alone,  a 
wanderer,  like  a  dog  driven  from  home? 
What  secrets  of  suffering  and  of  despair 
were  sealed  up  in  that  disagreeable  body, 
in  that  spent  and  withered  body,  that 
impenetrable  hiding  place  of  a  mystery 
which  had  driven  her  far  away  from 
affection  and  from  love? 

"How  many  unhappy  beings  there 
are!  I  felt  that  upon  that  human  crea- 
ture weighed  the  eternal  injustice  of 
implacable  nature!  Life  was  over  with 
her,  without  her  ever  having  experi- 
enced, perhaps,  that  which  sustains  the 
most  miserable  of  us  all — to  wit,  the 
hope  of  being  once  loved!  Otherwise, 
why  should  she  thus  have  concealed  her- 
self, have  fled  from  the  face  of  others? 
Why  did  she  love  everything  so  ten- 
derly and  so  passionately,  everything 
living  that  was  not  a  man? 

"I  recognized,  also,  that  she  believed 
in  a  God,  and  that  she  hoped  for  com- 
pensation from  him  for  the  miseries  she 
had  endured.  She  had  now  begun  to 
decompose,  and  to  become,  in  turn,  a 
plant.  She  who  had  blossomed  in  the 
sun  was  now  to  be  eaten  up  by  the 
cattle,  carried  away  in  herbs,  and  in  the 
flesh  of  beasts,  again  to  become  human 
flesh.  But  that  which  is  called  the  soul 
had  been  extinguished  at  the  bottom  of 
the  dark  well.  She  suffered  no  longer. 
She  had  changed  her  life  for  that  of 
others  yet  to  be  bom. 

"Hours  passed  away  in  this  silent  and 
sinister  communion  with  the  dead.  A 
pale  light  at  length  announced  the  dawn 
of  a  new  day,  and  a  bright  ray  glistened 
on  the  bed,  shedding  a  dash  of  fire  on 


THE  HOLE 


195 


Ae  bedclothes  and  on  her  fiands.  This 
was  the  hour  she  had  so  much  loved, 
when  the  waking  birds  began  to  sing 
in  the  trees. 

"I  opened  the  window  to  its  fullest 
extent,  I  drew  back  the  curtains,  so 
that  the  whole  heavens  might  look  in 
upon  us.  Then  bending  toward  the 
glassy  corpse,  I  took  in  my  hands  the 
mutilated  head,  and  slowly,  without 
terror  or  disgust,  imprinted  a  long,  long 
kiss  upon  those  lips  which  had  never 


before    received    the    salute    of    love."' 

3fC  JJC  7^  3)C  jp  ^^ 

Leon  Chenal  remained  silent.  The 
women  wept.  We  heard  on  the  box 
seat  Count  d'Etraille  blow  his  nose,  from 
time  to  time.  The  coachman  alone  had 
gone  to  sleep.  The  horses,  which  felt 
no  longer  the  sting  of  the  whip,  had 
slackened  their  pace  and  dragged  softly 
along.  And  the  four-in-hand,  hardly 
moving  at  all,  became  suddenly  torpid, 
as  if  laden  with  sorrow. 


The  Hole 


CUTS  AND  WOUNDS  WHICH  CAUSED 

IDE.4TH. 
That   was   the   heading   of   the   charge 
which    brought    Leopold    Renard,    up- 
holsterer, before  the  Assize  Court. 

Round  him  were  the  principal  wit- 
nesses, Madame  Flameche,  widow  of  the 
victim,  Louis  Ladureau,  cabinetmaker, 
and  Jean  Durdent,  plumber. 

Near  the  criminal  was  his  wife, 
dressed  in  black,  a  little  ugly  woman, 
who  looked  like  a  monkey  dressed  as  a 
lady. 

This  is  how  Renard  described  the 
drama : 

"Good  heavens,  it  is  a  misfortune  of 
which  I  am  the  first  and  last  victim, 
and  with  which  my  will  has  nothing  to 
do.  The  facts  are  their  own  commen- 
tary. Monsieur  le  President.  I  am  an 
honest  man,  a  hard-working  man,  an 
:  upholsterer  in  the  same  street  for  the 
last  sixteen  years,  known,  liked,  re- 
spected,  and   esteemed  by  all,   as  my 


neighbors  have  testified,  even  the  porter, 
who  is  not  foldtre  every  day.  I  am 
fond  of  work,  I  am  fond  of  saving,  I 
like  honest  men,  and  respectable  plea- 
sures. That  is  what  has  ruined  me,  so 
much  the  worse  for  me;  but  as  my  will 
had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  I  continue 
to  respect  myself. 

"Every  Sunday  for  the  last  five  years, 
my  wife  and  I  have  spent  the  day  at 
Passy.  We  get  fresh  air,  not  to  say  that 
we  are  fond  of  fishing — as  fond  of  it 
as  we  are  of  small  onions.  Melie  in- 
spired me  with  that  passion,  the  jade; 
she  is  more  enthusiastic  than  I  am, 
the  scold,  and  all  the  mischief  in  this 
business  is  her  fault,  as  you  will  see 
immediately. 

"I  am  strong  and  mild-tempered, 
without  a  pennyworth  of  malice  in  me. 
But  she!  oh!  la!  la!  she  looks  insignif- 
icant, she  is  short  and  thin,  but  she 
does  more  mischief  than  a  weasel.  I  do 
not  deny  that  she  has  some  good  Quali- 


196 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ties;  she  has  some,  and  those  very  im- 
portant to  a  man  in  business.  But  her 
character!  Just  ask  about  it  i:i  th3 
neighborhood;  even  the  porter's  wife, 
who  has  just  sent  me  about  my  busi- 
ness— she  will  tell  you  something  about 
it. 

**Every  day  she  used  to  fmd  fault  with 
my  mild  temper:  *!  would  not  put  up 
with  this!  I  would  not  put  up  with 
that.*  Jf  I  had  listened  to  her,  Mon- 
sieur le  President,  I  should  have  had  at 
least  three  bouts  of  fisticuffs  a  month." 

Madame  Rcnard  interrupted  him: 
"And  for  good  reasons  too;  they  laugh 
best  who  laugh  last." 

He  turned  toward  her  frankly:  "Oh! 
very  well,  I  can  blame  you,  since  you 
were  the  cause  of  it." 

Then,  facing  the  President  again  he 
said : 

"I  will  continue.  We  used  to  go  to 
Passy  every  Saturday  evening,  so  as  to 
be  able  to  begin  fishing  at  daybreak  the 
next  morning.  It  is  a  habit  which  has 
become  second  nature  with  us,  as  the 
saying  is.  Three  years  ago  this  sum- 
mer I  d"scovered  a  place,  oh!  such  a 
spot!  There,  in  the  shade,  were  eight 
feet  of  water  at  least  and  perhaps  ten, 
a  hole  with  a  retour  under  the  bank, 
a  regular  retreat  for  fish  and  a  para- 
dise for  any  fisherman.  I  might  look 
upon  that  hole  as  my  property.  Mon- 
sieur I2  President,  as  I  was  its  Chris- 
topher Columbus.  Everybody  in  the 
neighborhood  knew  it,  without  making 
any  opposition.  They  used  to  say: 
That  is  Renard's  place';  and  nobody 
would  have  gone  to  it,  not  even  Mon- 
sieur Plumsay,  who  is  renowned,  be  it 
said  without  any  offense,  for  appropriat- 
ing other  people's  places. 


"Well,  I  went  as  usual  to  that  place, 
of  which  I  felt  as  certain  as  if  1  had 
owned  it.  I  had  scarcely  got  there  on 
Saturday,  when  I  got  into  'Delila,'  with 
my  wife.  'Delila'  is  my  Norwegian  boat, 
which  I  had  built  by  Fourmaise,  and 
which  is  light  and  safe.  Well,  as  I  said, 
v.'e  got  into  the  boat  and  we  were  going 
to  bait,  and  for  baiting  there  is  nobody 
to  be  compared  with  me,  and  they  all 
know  it.  You  want  to  know  with  what 
I  bait?  I  cannot  answer  that  question; 
it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  accident; 
I  cannot  answer,  that  is  my  secret. 
There  are  more  than  three  hundred  peo- 
ple who  have  asked  mc;  I  have  been 
offered  glasses  of  brandy  and  liquors, 
fried  fish,  matelots,*  to  make  me  tell! 
But  just  go  and  try  whether  the  chub 
will  come.  Ah!  they  have  patted  my 
stomach  to  get  at  my  secret,  my  recipe. 
Only  my  wife  knows,  and  she  will  not 
tell  it,  any  more  than  I  shall!  Is  not 
that  so,  Melie?" 

The  President  of  the  Court  inter- 
rupted him: 

"Just  get  to  the  facts  as  soon  as 
you  can." 

The  accused  continued:  "I  am  get- 
ting to  them;  I  am  getting  to  them. 
Well,  on  Saturday,  July  8,  we  left  by 
the  five  twenty-five  train,  and  before 
dinner  we  went  to  ground-bait  as  usual. 
The  weather  promised  to  keep  fine,  and 
I  said  to  Melie:  'All  right  for  tomor- 
row!' And  she  replied:  'It  looks  like 
it.'  We  never  talk  more  than  that  to- 
gether. 

"And  then  we  returned  to  dinner. 
I  was  happy  and  thirsty,  and  that  was 
the   cause   of    everj^thing.     I   said     to 


*A    preparation    of    several    kinds    of 
fish,  with  a  sharp  saure. 


THE  HOLE 


107 


Melie:  'Look  here,  Melle,  it  is  fine 
weather,  so  suppose  I  drink  a  bottle  of 
Casque  a  tnechc.  That  is  a  little  white 
wine  which  we  have  christened  so,  be- 
cause if  ycu  drink  too  much  cf  it  it 
prevents  you  from  sleeping  and  is  the 
opposite  of  a  night  cap.  Do  you  under- 
stand me? 

"She  replied:  'You  can  do  as  you 
p. ease,  but  you  will  be  ill  again,  and 
will  not  be  able  to  get  up  to-mcrrow.' 
That  was  true,  sensible,  prudent,  and 
clearsighted,  1  must  confess.  Neverthe- 
less, I  could  not  withstand  it,  and  I 
drank  my  bottle.  It  all  comes  from 
that. 

"Well,  I  could  not  sleep.  By  Jove! 
It  kept  me  awake  till  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  then  I  went  to  sleep  so 
soundly  that  I  should  not  have  heard  the 
angel  shouting  at   the  Last   Judgment. 

'Tn  sho'-t,  my  wife  woke  me  at  six 
o'clock  and  I  jumped  out  of  bed,  hastily 
put  on  my  trousers  and  jersey,  washed 
my  face  and  jumped  on  board  'Delila.' 
But  it  was  too  late,  for  when  I  arrived 
at  my  hole  it  wns  already  taken!  Such 
a  thing  had  never  happened  to  me  in 
three  years,  and  it  made  me  feel  as  if 
I  were  being  robbed  under  my  own  eyes. 
I  said  to  myself,  'Confound  it  ail!  con- 
found it!*  And  then  my  wife  began  to 
nag  at  me.  *Eh!  What  about  your 
Casque  d  meche!  Get  along,  you 
drunkard!  Are  you  satisfied,  you  great 
fool?'  I  could  say  nothing,  b:cause  it 
was  all  quite  true,  and  so  I  landed  all 
the  same  near  the  spot  and  tried  to 
profit  by  what  was  left.  Perhaps  after 
all  the  fellow  might  catch  nothing,  and 
go  away. 

"He  wrs  a  little  thin  man,  in  white 
linen  coat  and  waistcoat,  and   with  a 


large  straw  hat,  and  his  wife,  a  tat 
woman  who  was  doing  embroidery,  was, 
behind  him. 

"When  she  saw  us  take  up  our  posi* 
tion  close  to  their  place,  she  murmured: 
T  suppose  there  are  no  other  places 
on  the  river!'  And  my  wife,  who  was 
furious,  replied :  'People  who  know  how 
to  behave  make  inquiries  about  the 
habits  of  the  neighborhood  before  oc- 
cupying reserved  spots.* 

"As  I  did  not  want  a  fuss,  I  said  to 
her:  Tlold  your  tongue,  Melie.  Let 
them  go  on,  let  them  go  on;  we  shall 
see.' 

"Well,  v;e  had  fastened  'Delila'  un- 
der the  willowtrees,  and  had  landed  and 
were  fishing  side  by  side,  Melie  and  I, 
close  to  th'*  tv/o  others;  but  here,  Mon- 
sieur, I  must  enter  into  details. 

''We  had  only  been  there  about  five 
minutes  when  our  male  neighbor's  float 
began  to  go  down  two  or  three  times, 
and  then  he  pulled  out  a  chub  as  thick 
as  my  thigh,  rather  less,  perhaps,  but 
nearly  as  big!  My  heart  beat,  and  the 
perspiration  stood  on  my  forehead,  and 
Melie  said  to  me:  'Well,  you  sot,  did 
you  see  that?' 

"Just  then,  Monsieur  Bru,  the  grocer 
of  Poissy,  who  was  fond  of  gudgeon 
fishing,  passed  in  a  boat,  and  called  out 
lo  me:  'So  somebody  has  taken  your 
usuol  place,  Monsieur  Renard?'  And 
I  replied:  'Yes,  Monsieur  Bru,  there 
are  some  people  in  this  world  who  do 
not  know  the  usages  of  common  polite- 
ness.' 

"The  little  man  in  linen  pretended 
not  to  hear,  nor  his  fat  lump  of  a  wife. 
either." 

Here  the  President  interrupted  him  a 
second  time:    "Take  care,  you  are  in* 


198 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


suiting  the  widow,  Madame  Flameche, 
who  is  present." 

Renard  made  his  excuses:  "I  beg 
your  pardon,  I  beg  your  pardon,  my 
anger  carried  me  away.  Well,  not  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  had  passed  when  the 
little  man  caught  another  chub  and  an- 
other almost  immediately,  and  another 
five  minutes  later. 

'The  tears  were  in  my  eyes,  and  then 
I  knew  that  Madame  Renard  was  boil- 
ing with  rage,  for  she  kept  on  nagging 
at  me:  'Oh,  how  horrid!  Don't  you 
see  that  he  is  robbing  you  of  your  fish? 
Do  you  think  that  you  will  catch  any- 
thing? Not  even  a  frog,  nothing  what- 
ever. Why,  my  hands  are  burning,  just 
to  think  of  it.' 

''But  I  said  to  myself:  'Let  us  wait 
until  twelve  o'clock.  Then  this  poach- 
ing fellow  will  go  to  lunch,  and  I  shall 
get  my  place  again.'  As  for  me.  Mon- 
sieur le  President,  I  lunch  on  the  spot 
every  Sunday;  we  bring  our  provisions 
in  'Delila.'  But  there!  At  twelve 
o'clock,  the  wretch  produced  a  fowl  out 
of  a  newspaper,  and  while  he  was  eat- 
ing, actually  he  caught  another  chub! 

"Melie  and  I  had  a  morsel  also,  just 
a  mouthful,  a  mere  nothing,  for  our 
heart  was  not  in  it. 

"Then  I  took  up  my  newspaper,  to 
aid  my  digestion.  Every  Sunday  I  read 
the  'Gil  Bias'  in  the  shade  like  that, 
by  the  side  of  the  water.  It  is  Colum- 
bine's day,  you  know,  Columbine  who 
writes  the  articles  in  the  'Gil  Bias.'  I 
generally  put  Madame  Renard  into  a 
passion  by  pretending  to  know  this 
Columbine.  It  is  not  true,  for  I  do  not 
know  her,  and  have  never  seen  her,  but 
that  does  not  matter;  she  writes  very 
well,  and  then  she  says  things  straight 


out  for  a  wom.an.  She  suits  me,  and 
there  are  not  many  of  her  sort. 

"Well,  I  began  to  tease  my  wife,  but 
she  got  angry  immediately,  and  very 
angry,  and  so  I  held  my  tongue.  At 
that  moment  our  two  v;itnesses,  who  are 
present  here,  Monsieur  Ladureau  and 
Monsieur  Durdent,  appeared  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river.  We  knew  each 
other  by  sight.  The  little  man  began  to 
fish  again,  and  he  caught  so  many  that 
I  trembled  with  vexation,  and  his  wife 
said:  Tt  is  an  uncommonly  good  spot, 
and  we  will  come  here  always.  Desire.' 
As  for  me,  a  cold  shiver  ran  down  my 
back,  and  Madame  Renard  kept  repeat- 
ing: 'You  are  not  a  man;  you  have 
the  blood  of  a  chicken  in  your  veins'; 
and  suddenly  I  said  to  her:  'Look  here, 
I  would  rather  go  away,  or  I  shall  only 
be  doing  something  foolish.' 

"And  she  whispered  to  me  as  if  she 
had  put  a  red-hot  iron  under  my  nose: 
'You  are  not  a  man.  Now  you  are 
going  to  run  away,  and  surrender  your 
place!    Off  you  go,  Bazaine!' 

"Well,  I  felt  that,  but  yet  I  did  not 
move,  while  the  otjier  fellow  pulled  out 
a  bream,  Oh!  I  never  saw  such  a  large 
one  before,  never!  And  then  my  wife 
began  to  talk  aloud,  as  if  she  were  think- 
ing, and  you  can  see  her  trickery.  She 
said:  'That  is  what  one  might  call 
stolen  fish,  seeing  that  we  baited  the 
place  ourselves.  At  any  rate,  they  ought 
to  give  us  back  the  money  we  have 
spent  on  bait.' 

"Then  the  fat  woman  in  the  cotton 
dress  said  in  turn:  'Do  you  mean  to 
call  us  thieves,  Madame?'  And  they 
began  to  explain,  and  then  they  came  to 
words.  Oh!  Lord!  those  creatures  know 
some  good  ones.    They  shouted  so  loud. 


THE  INN 


199 


that  our  two  witnesses,  who  were  on 
the  other  bank,  began  to  call  out  by  way 
of  a  joke:  'Less  noise  over  there;  you 
will  prevent  your  husbands  from  fish- 
ing.' 

"The  fact  is  that  neither  of  us  moved 
any  more  than  if  we  had  been  two  tree- 
stumps.  We  remained  there,  with  our 
noses  over  the  water,  as  if  we  had  heard 
nothing,  but  by  Jove,  we  heard  all  the 
same.     'You  are  a  mere  liar.' 

"  'You  are  nothing  better  than  a 
street-walker.' 

"  'You  are  only  a  trollop.' 
"  'You  are  a   regular  strumpet.' 
"And  so  on,  and  so  on;  a  sailor  could 
not  have  said  more. 

"Suddenly  I  heard  a  noise  behind 
me,  and  turned  round.  It  was  the  other 
one,  the  fat  woman  who  had  fallen  on 
to  my  wife  with  her  parasol.  Whack! 
whack!  Melie  got  tv/o  of  them,  but  she 
was  furious,  and  she  hits  hard  when 
she  is  in  a  rage,  so  she  caught  the  fat 
woman  by  the  hair  and  then,  thump, 
thump.  Slaps  in  the  face  rained  down 
like  ripe  plums.  I  should  have  let  them 
go  on — ^women  among  themselves,  men 
among  themselves — it  does  not  do  to 
mix  the  blows,  but  the  little  man  in  the 
linen  jacket  jumped  up  like  a  devil  and 
was  going  to  rush  at  my  wife.  Ah! 
no,  no,  not  that,  my  friend!  I  caught 
the  gentleman  with  the  end  of  my  fist, 
crash,  crash,  one  on  the  nose,  the  other 
in  the  stomach.    He  threw  up  his  arms 


and  legs  and  fell  on  his  back  into  the 
river,  just  into  the  hole. 

"I  should  have  fished  him  out  most 
certainly.  Monsieur  le  President,  if  I 
had  had  the  time.  But  unfortunately 
the  fat  woman  got  the  better  of  it,  and 
she  was  drubbing  Melie  terribly.  I 
know  that  I  ought  not  to  have  assisted 
her  while  the  man  was  drinking  his  fill, 
but  I  never  thought  that  he  would 
drown,  and  said  to  myself:  'Bah,  it  will 
cool  him.' 

"I  therefore  ran  up  to  the  women  to 
separate  them,  and  all  I  received  was 
scratches  and  bites.  Good  Lord,  what 
creatures!  Well,  it  took  me  five  min- 
utes, and  perhaps  ten,  to  separate  those 
two  viragoes.  When  I  turned  around, 
there  was  nothing  to  be  seen,  and  the 
water  was  as  smooth  as  a  lake.  The 
others  yonder  kept  shouting:  'Fish  him 
out!'  It  was  all  very  well  to  say  that, 
but  I  cannot  swim  and  still  less  dive! 

"At  last  the  man  from  the  dam  came, 
and  two  gentlemen  with  boat-hooks,  but 
it  had  taken  over  a  quarter  of  an  hour. 
He  was  found  at  the  bottom  of  the 
hole  in  eight  feet  of  water,  as  I  have 
said,  but  he  was  dead,  the  poor  little 
man  in  his  linen  suit!  There  are  the 
facts,  such  as  I  have  sworn  to.  I  am 
innocent,  on  my  honor." 

The  witnesses  having  deposed  to  the 
same  effect,  the  accused  was  acquitted. 


The  Inn 

Like  all  the  little  wooden  inns  in  the  the  white  summits  of  the  mountains,  the 

higher  Alps,  tiny  auberges  situated  in  the  inn   of   Schwarenbach   is   a   refuge   for 

bare  and  rocky  gorges  which  intersect  travelers  who  are  crossing  the  Gemmi. 


:oo 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


It  is  open  six  months  in  the  year,  and 
is  inhabited  by  the  family  of  Jean 
Hauser.  As  soon  as  the  snow  begins 
to  fall,  and  fills  the  valley  so  as  to 
make  the  road  down  to  Loeche  im- 
passable, the  father,  with  mother, 
daughter,  and  the  three  sons  depart, 
leaving  the  house  in  charge  of  the  old 
guide,  Gaspard  Hari,  with  the  young 
guide,  Ulrich  Kunsi,  and  Sam,  the  great 
mountain  dog. 

The  two  men  and  the  dog  remain  till 
spring  in  their  snowy  prison,  with  noth- 
ing before  their  eyes  except  immense, 
white  slopes  of  the  Balmhorn,  sur- 
rounded by  light,  glistening  summits, 
and  shut  up,  blocked  up,  and  buried  by 
the  snow  which  rises  around  them,  en- 
veloping and  almost  burying  the  little 
house  up  to  the  eaves. 

It  was  the  day  on  which  the  Hauser 
family  were  going  to  return  to  Loeche, 
as  winter  was  approaching,  and  the 
descent  was  becoming  dangerous.  Three 
mules  started  first,  laden  with  baggage 
and  led  by  the  three  sons.  Then  the 
mother,  Jeanne  Hauser,  and  her  daugh- 
ter Louise  mounted  a  fourth  mule,  and 
set  off  in  their  turn.  The  father  fol- 
lowed them,  accompanied  by  the  two 
nen  in  charge,  who  were  to  escort  the 
'amily  as  far  as  the  brow  of  the  descent, 
"irst  of  all  they  skirted  the  small  lake, 
tow  frozen  over,  at  the  foot  of  the  mass 
jf  rocks  which  stretched  in  front  of  the 
inn;  then  they  followed  the  valley, 
which  was  dominated  on  all  sides  by 
snow-ccvered  peaks. 

A  ray  of  sunlight  glinted  into  that 
little  white,  glistening,  frozen  desert, 
illuminating  it  with  a  cold  and  dazzling 
flame.  No  living  thing  appeared  among 
this  ocean  of  hills;  there  was  no  stir 


in  that  immeasurable  solitude,  no  noise 
disturbed  the  profound  silence. 

By  degrees  the  young  guide,  Ulrich 
Kunsi,  a  tall,  long-legged  Swiss,  left 
daddy  Hauser  and  old  Gaspard  behind, 
in  order  to  catch  up  with  the  mule  which 
carried  the  two  women.  The  younger 
one  looked  at  him  as  he  approached,  as 
if  she  would  call  him  with  her  sad  eyes. 
She  was  a  young,  light-haired  peasant 
girl,  whose  milk-white  cheeks  and  pale 
hair  seemed  to  have  lost  their  color  by 
long  dwelling  amid  the  ice.  When  Ul- 
rich had  caught  up  with  the  animal 
which  carried  the  women,  he  put  his 
hand  on  the  crupper,  and  relaxed  his 
speed.  Mother  Hauser  began  to  talk 
to  him,  and  enumerated  with  minutest 
detail  all  that  he  would  have  to  attend 
to  during  the  winter.  It  was  the  first 
winter  he  would  spend  up  there,  while 
old  Hari  had  already  spent  fourteen 
winters  amid  the  snow,  at  the  inn  of 
Schwarenbach. 

Ulrich  Kunsi  listened,  without  ap- 
pearing to  understand,  and  looked  in- 
cessantly at  the  girl.  From  time  to 
time  he  replied:  "Yes,  Madame 
Hauser";  but  his  thoughts  seemed  far 
away,  and  his  calm  features  remained 
unmoved. 

They  reached  Lake  Daube,  whose 
broad,  frozen  surface  reached  to  the 
bottom  of  the  valley.  On  the  right, 
the  Daubenhorn  showed  its  black  mass, 
rising  up  in  a  peak  above  the  enormous 
moraines  of  the  Lommeon  glacier, 
which  soared  above  the  Wildstrubel. 
As  they  approached  the  neck  of  the 
Gemmi,  where  the  descent  to  Loeche  be- 
gins, the  immense  horizon  of  the  Alps 
of  the  Valais,  from  which  the  broad* 


THE  INN 


201 


deep   valley    of    the    Rhone    separated 
them,  came  in  view. 

In  the  distance,  there  was  a  group  of 
white,  unequal,  flat  or  pointed  moun- 
tain summits,  which  glistened  in  the 
sun;  the  Mischabel  with  its  twin  peaks, 
the  huge  group  of  the  Weisshorn,  th3 
heavy  Brunegghorn,  the  lofty  and 
formidable  pyramid  of  Mont  Cervin, 
slayer  of  men,  and  the  Dent  Blanche, 
that  terrible  coquette. 

Then  beneath  them,  as  at  the  bot- 
tom of  a  tcrribb  abyss,  they  saw  Loechc, 
its  houses  looking  like  grains  of  sand 
which  had  been  thrown  into  that  enor- 
mous crevice  which  finishes  and  closes 
the  Gcmmi,  and  which  opens,  down  be- 
low, on  to  the  Rhone. 

The  mule  stopped  at  the  edge  of  the 
path,  which  turns  and  twists  continually, 
zigzagging  fantastically  and  strangely 
along  the  steep  side  cf  the  mountain, 
as  far  as  the  almost  invisible  little  vil- 
lage at  its  feet.  Th?  women  jumped 
into  the  snov/,  and  the  two  old  men 
joined   them. 

**Well,"  father  Hauser  said,  "good- 
bye, and  keep  up  your  spirits  till  next 
year,  my  friends,"  and  old  Hari  replied: 
*'Till  next  year." 

They  embraced  each  other,  and  then 
Madame  Hauser  in  her  turn,  offered 
her  check,  and  the  girl  did  the  same. 
When  Ulrich  Kunsi's  turn  came,  be 
whispered  in  Louise's  ear: 

"Do  not  forget  those  up  yonder,"  and 
she  replied:  *'No,"  in  such  a  low  voice, 
that  he  guessed  what  she  had  said,  with- 
out hearing  it. 

"Well,  adieu,"  Jean  Hauser  repeated, 
"and  don't  fall  in."  Then,  going  before 
the  two  women,  be  commenced  the 
descent,  and  soon  all  three  disappeared 


at  the  first  turn  in  the  road,  while  tho 
two  men  returned  to  the  inn  at  Sch- 
warenbach. 

They  walked  slowly  side  by  side, 
without  speaking.  The  parting  was  over, 
rnd  they  would  b:  alone  together  for. 
four  or  five  months.  Then  Gaspard 
Ilari  began  to  relate  his  Ills  hst  winter, 
lie  had  remained  with  Michael  Canol, 
v/ho  was  too  old  now  to  sland  it;  for 
r.n  accident  might  happen  during  that 
bng  solitude.  They  had  nrt  been  dull, 
however;  the  only  thing  was  to  be  re- 
signed to  it  from  th^  first,  and  in  the 
end  one  would  find  plenty  of  distraction, 
games  and  other  means  of  whiling  away 
the  time. 

Ulrich  Kunsi  listened  to  him  with  his 
eyes  on  the  ground,  fcr  in  thought  he 
\vas  with  those  who  were  descending  to 
the  village.  They  soon  came  in  sight 
cf  the  inn,  which  was  scarcely  visible, 
so  small  did  it  look,  a  mere  black  speck 
rt  the  foct  of  that  enormous  billow 
of  snow.  When  they  opened  the  door^ 
Sam,  the  great  curly  dog,  began  to  romp 
round  them. 

"Come,  my  boy,"  old  Gaspard  said, 
"we  have  no  women  now,  so  we  must 
get  our  own  dinner  ready.  Go  and  peel 
the  potatoes."  And  they  both  sat  down 
on  wooden  stools,  and  began  to  put  the 
bread  into  the  soup. 

The  next  mo"ning  seemed  very  long 
to  Kunsi.  Old  Ilari  smoked  and  smoked 
beside  the  hearth,  while  the  young  man 
looked  out  of  the  window  at  the  snow- 
covered  mountain  opposite  the  house. 
In  the  afternoon  he  went  out,  and  going 
over  the  previous  day's  ground  again, 
he  looked  for  the  traces  of  the  mule 
that  had  carried  the  two  women;  then 
when  he  had  reached  the  neck  of  the 


202 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Gemmi,  he  laid  himself  down  on  his 
stomach,  and  looked  at  Loeche. 

The  village,  in  its  rocky  pit,  was  not 
yet  buried  under  the  snow,  although  the 
white  masses  came  quite  close  to  it, 
balked,  however,  of  their  prey  by  the 
pine  woods  which  protected  the  hamlet. 
From  his  vantage  point  the  low  houses 
looked  like  pavingstones  in  a  large  mea- 
dow. Hauser's  little  daughter  was  there 
now  in  one  of  those  gray-colored  houses. 
In  which?  Ulrich  Kunsi  was  too  far 
away  to  be  able  to  make  them  out 
separa^tely.  How  he  would  have  liked 
to  go  down  while  he  was  yet  able! 

But  the  sun  had  disappeared  behind 
the  lofty  crest  of  the  Wildstrubel,  and 
the  young  man  returned  to  the  chalet. 
Daddy  Hari  was  smoking,  and,  when 
he  saw  his  mate  come  in,  proposed  a 
game  of  cards  to  him.  They  sat  down 
opposite  each  other  for  a  long  time  and 
played  the  simple  game  called  hrisque; 
then  they  had  supper  and  went  to  bed. 

The  following  days  were  like  the  first, 
bright  and  cold,  without  any  more  snow. 
Old  Gaspard  spent  his  afternoons  in 
watching  the  eagles  and  other  rare  birds 
which  ventured  on  to  those  frozen 
heights,  while  Ulrich  journeyed  regularly 
to  the  neck  of  the  Gemmi  to  look  at  the 
village.  In  the  evening  they  played  at 
cards,  dice,  or  dominoes,  and  lost  and 
won  trifling  sums,  just  to  create  an  in- 
terest in  the  game. 

One  morning  Hari,  who  was  up  first, 
called  his  companion.  A  moving  cloud 
of  white  spray,  deep  and  light,  was  fall- 
ing on  them  noiselessly,  and  burying 
them  by  degrees  under  a  dark,  thick 
coverlet  of  foam.  This  lasted  four  days 
and  four  nights.  It  was  necessary  to 
free  the  door  and  the  windows,  to  dig 


out  a  passage,  and  to  cut  steps  to  get 
over  this  frozen  powder,  which  a  twelve- 
hours'  frost  had  made  as  hard  as  the 
granite  of  the  moraines. 

They  lived  like  prisoners,  not  ven- 
turing outside  their  abode.  They  had 
divided  their  duties  and  performed  them 
regularly.  Ulrich  Kunsi  undertook  the 
scouring,  washing,  and  everything  that 
belonged  to  cleanliness.  He  also 
chopped  up  the  wood,  while  Gaspard 
Hari  did  the  cooking  and  attended  to 
the  fire.  Their  regular  and  monotonous 
work  was  relieved  by  long  games  at 
cards  or  dice,  but  they  never  quarreled, 
and  were  always  calm  and  placid.  They 
were  never  even  impatient  or  ill- 
humored,  nor  did  they  ever  use  hard 
words,  for  they  had  laid  in  a  stock  of 
patience  for  this  wintering  on  the  top 
of  the  mountain. 

Sometimes  old  Gaspard  took  his  rifle 
and  went  after  chamois,  and  occasion- 
ally killed  one.  Then  there  was  a  feast 
in  the  inn  at  Schwarenbach,  and  they 
reveled  in  fresh  meat.  One  morning 
he  went  out  as  usual.  The  thermometer 
outside  marked  eighteen  degrees  of 
frost,  and  as  the  sun  had  not  yet  risen, 
the  hunter  hoped  to  surprise  the  animals 
at  the  approaches  to  the  Wildstrubel. 
Ulrich,  being  alone,  remained  in  bed 
until  ten  o'clock.  He  was  of  a  sleepy 
nature,  but  would  not  have  dared  to 
give  way  like  that  to  his  inclination  in 
the  presence  of  the  old  guide,  who  was 
ever  an  early  riser.  He  breakfasted 
leisurely  with  Sam,  who  also  spent  his 
days  and  nights  in  sleeping  in  front  of 
the  fire;  then  he  felt  low-spirited  and 
even  frightened  at  the  solitude,  and  was 
seized  by  a  longing  for  his  daily  game 
of  cards,  as  one  is  by  the  domination  of 


THE  INN 


203 


an  invincible  habit.  So  he  went  9ut  to 
meet  his  companion,  who  was  to  return 
at  four  o'clock. 

The  snow  had  leveled  the  whole  deep 
valley,  filled  up  the  crevasses,  oblit- 
erated all  signs  of  the  two  lakes  and 
covered  the  rocks,  so  that  between  the 
high  summits  there  was  nothing  but  an 
immense,  white,  regular,  dazzling,  and 
frozen  surface.  For  three  weeks,  Ul- 
rich  had  not  been  to  the  edge  of  the 
precipice,  from  which  he  had  looked 
down  on  to  the  village,  and  he  wanted 
to  go  there  before  climbing  the  slopes 
which  led  to  the  Wildstrubel.  Loeche 
was  now  covered  by  the  snow,  and  the 
houses  could  scarcely  be  distinguished, 
hidden  as  they  were  by  that  white  cloak. 

Turning  to  the  right,  Ulrich  reached 
the  Lammern  glacier.  He  strode  along 
with  a  mountaineer's  long  swinging  pace, 
striking  the  snow,  which  was  as  hard 
as  a  rock,  with  his  iron-shod  stick,  and 
with  piercing  eyes  looking  for  the  little 
black,  moving  speck  in  the  distance, 
on  that  enormous,  white  expanse. 

When  he  reached  the  end  of  the 
glacier  he  stopped,  and  asked  himself 
whether  the  old  man  had  taken  that 
road,  and  then  he  began  to  walk  along 
the  moraines  with  rapid  and  uneasy 
steps.  The  day  was  decHning ;  the  snow 
was  assuming  a  rosy  tint,  and  a  dry, 
frozen  wind  blew  in  rough  gusts  over 
its  crystal  surface.  Ulrich  uttered  a 
long,  shrill,  vibrating  call.  His  voice 
sped  through  the  deathlike  silence  in 
which  the  mountains  were  sleeping;  it 
reached  into  the  distance,  over  the  pro- 
found and  motionless  waves  of  glacial 
foam,  like  the  cry  of  a  bird  over  the 
waves  of  the  sea;  then  it  died  away 
and  nothing  answered  him. 


He  started  off  again.  The  sun  had 
sunk  behind  the  mountain  tops,  which 
still  were  purpled  with  the  reflection 
from  the  heavens,  but  the  depths  of 
the  valley  were  becoming  gray,  and 
suddenly  the  young  man  felt  frightened. 
It  seemed  to  him  as  if  the  silence,  the 
cold,  the  solitude,  the  wintry  death  of 
these  mountains  were  taking  possession 
of  him,  were  stopping  and  freezing  his 
blood,  making  his  Hmbs  grow  stiff,  and 
turning  him  into  a  motionless  and  frozen 
object;  and  he  began  to  run  rapidly 
toward  the  dwelling.  The  old  man,  he 
thought,  would  have  returned  during  his 
absence.  He  had  probably  taken  an- 
other road;  and  would,  no  doubt,  be 
sitting  before  the  fire,  with  a  dead 
chamois  at  his  feet. 

He  soon  came  in  sight  of  the  inn,  but 
no  smoke  rose  from  it.  Ulrich  ran 
faster.  Opening  the  door  he  met  Sam 
who  ran  up  to  him  to  greet  him,  but 
Gaspard  Hari  had  not  returned.  Kunsi, 
in  his  alarm,  turned  round  suddenly, 
as  if  he  had  expected  to  find  his  com- 
rade hidden  in  a  corner.  Then  he  re- 
lighted the  fire  and  made  the  soup; 
hoping  every  moment  to  see  the  old 
man  come  in.  From  time  to  time  he 
went  out  to  see  if  Gaspard  were  not  in 
sight.  It  was  night  now,  that  wan  night 
of  the  mountain,  a  livid  night,  with  the 
crescent  moon,  yellow  and  dim,  just 
disappearing  behind  the  mountain  tops, 
and  shining  faintly  on  the  edge  of  the 
horizon. 

Then  the  young  man  went  in  and  sat 
down  to  warm  his  hands  and  feet,  while 
he  pictured  to  himself  every  possible 
sort  of  accident.  Gaspard  might  have 
broken  a  leg,  have  fallen  into  a  crevasse, 
have  taken  a  false  step  and  dislocated 


204 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


his  ankle.  Perhaps  he  was  lying  on 
the  snow,  overcome  and  stiff  with  the 
cold,  in  agony  of  mind,  lost  and  per- 
haps shouting  for  help,  calling  with  all 
his  might,  in  the  silence  of  the  night. 

But  where?  The  mountain  was  so 
vast,  io  rugged,  so  dangerous  in  places, 
especially  at  that  time  of  the  year,  that 
it  would  have  required  ten  or  twenty 
guides  walking  for  a  week  in  all  direc- 
tions, to  find  a  man  in  that  immense 
space.  Ulrich  Kunsi,  however,  made 
up  his  mind  to  set  out  with  Sam,  if 
Gaspard  did  not  return  by  one  in  the 
morning;  and  he  made  his  preparations. 

He  put  provisions  for  two  days  into 
a  bag,  took  his  steel  climbing-irons,  tied 
a  long,  thin,  strong  rope  round  his  waist 
and  looked  to  see  that  his  iron-shod 
stick  and  his  ax,  which  served  to  cut 
steps  in  the  ice,  were  in  ord^r.  Then 
he  waited.  The  tire  was  burning  on  the 
hearth,  the  great  dog  was  sno:-lng  in 
front  of  it,  and  the  clock  was  ticking  in 
its  case  of  resounding  wood,  as  regularly 
as  a  heart  beating. 

He  waited,  his  ears  on  the  alert  for 
distant  sounds,  and  shivered  when  the 
wind  blew  against  the  roof  and  the 
walls.  It  struck  twelve,  and  he  trem- 
bled. Then,  as  he  felt  frightened  hnd 
shivery,  he  put  some  water  on  the  fire, 
so  that  he  might  have  hot  coffee  be- 
fore starting.  When  the  clock  struck 
one  he  got  up,  woke  Sam,  opened  the 
door  and  went  off  in  the  direction  of 
the  Wildstrubel.  For  five  hours  he 
ascended,  scaling  the  rocks  by  means  of 
his  climbing-irons,  cutting  into  the  ice, 
advancing  continually,  and  occasionally 
hauling  up  the  dog,  who  remained  be- 
low at  the  foot  of  some  slope  that  was 
too   steep  for  him,  by  means  of  the 


rope.  About  six  o'clock  he  reached  one 
of  the  summits  to  which  old  Gaspard 
often  came  after  chamois,  and  he  waited 
till  it  should  be  daylight. 

The  sky  was  growing  pale  overhead, 
and  suddenly  a  strange  light,  springing, 
nobody  could  tell  whence,  suddenly 
illuminated  the  immense  ocean  of  pale 
mountain  peaks,  which  stretched  for 
many  leagues  around  him.  It  seemed 
as  if  this  vague  brightness  arose  from 
the  snow  itself,  in  order  to  spread  it- 
self into  space.  By  degrees  the  highest 
and  most  distant  summits  assumed  a 
delicate,  flcshllke  rr-se  color,  and  the 
red  sun  appeared  behind  the  ponderous 
giants  01  the  Bernese  Alps. 

Ulrich  Kunsi  set  off  again,  walking 
like  a  hunter,  stooping  and  looking  for 
any  traces,  and  saying  to  his  dog: 
"Seek  old  fellow,  seek!" 

He  was  descending  the  mountain  now, 
scanning  the  depths  closely,  and  from 
time  to  time  shouting,  uttering  a  loud, 
prolonged  familiar  cry  which  soon  died 
away  in  that  silent  vastness.  Then,  he 
put  his  ear  to  the  ground,  to  listen. 
He  thought  he  could  distinguish  a  voice, 
and  so  h2  began  to  run  and  shout  again. 
But  he  beard  nothing  more  and  sat 
down,  worn  out  and  in  despair.  Toward 
midday  h3  breakfasted  and  gave  Sam, 
who  was  as  tired  as  himself,  something 
to  eat  also;  then  he  recommenced  his 
search. 

When  evening  came  he  was  still  walk- 
ing, having  traveled  more  than  thirty 
miles  ever  the  mountains.  As  he  was 
too  far  away  uo  return  home,  and  too 
tired  to  drag  himself  along  any  further, 
he  dug  a  hole  in  the  snow  and  crouched 
in  it  with  his  dog,  under  a  blanket 
which  he  had  brought  with  h.im-    Th«» 


THE  INN 


205 


man  and  the  dog  lay  side  by  side, 
warming  themselves  one  against  the 
other,  but  frozen  to  the  marrow  never- 
theless. Ulrich  scarcely  slept,  his  mind 
haunted  by  visions  and  his  Lmbs  shak- 
ing with  cold. 

Day  was  breaking  when  he  got  up. 
His  legs  were  as  stiff  as  iron  bars,  and 
his  spirits  so  low  that  he  was  ready  to 
weep,  while  his  heart  was  beating  so 
that  he  almost  fell  with  excitement 
whenever  he  thought  he  heard  a  noise. 

Suddenly  he  imagined  that  he  also 
was  going  to  die  of  cold  in  the  midst 
of  this  vast  solitude.  The  terror  of 
such  a  death  roused  his  energies  and 
gave  him  renewed  vigor.  He  was  de- 
scending toward  the  inn,  falling  down 
and  getting  up  again,  and  followed  at 
a  distance  by  Sam,  who  was  limping  on 
three  legs.  They  did  not  reach  Sch- 
warenbach  until  four  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon.  The  house  was  empty,  and 
the  young  man  made  a  fire,  had  some- 
thing to  eat,  and  went  to  sleep,  so  worn- 
out  that  he  did  not  think  of  anything 
more. 

He  slept  for  a  long  time,  for  a  very 
long  time,  the  unconquerable  sleep  of 
exhaustion.  But  suddenly  a  voice,  a 
cry,  a  name:  *'Ulrich,"  aroused  him 
from  his  profound  slumber,  and  made 
him  sit  up  in  bed.  Had  he  been  dream- 
ing? Was  it  one  of  those  strange  ap- 
peals which  cress  the  dreams  of  dis- 
quieted minds?  No,  he  heard  it  still, 
that  reverberating  cry. — ^which  had  en- 
tered at  his  ears  and  remained  in  his 
brain, — thrilling  him  to  the  tips  of  his 
sinewy  fingers.  Certainly,  somebody 
had  cried  out,  a'ld  called:  "Ulrich!" 
There  was  somebody  there,  near  the 
house,  there  fou'd  be  no  doubt  of  that, 


and  he  opened  the  door  and  shouted: 
'Is  it  you,  Gaspard?"  with  all  the 
strength  of  his  lungs.  But  there  was  no 
reply,  no  murmur,  no  groan,  nothing. 
It  was  quite  dark,  and  the  snow  looked 
wan. 

The  wind  had  risen,  that  icy  wind 
which  cracks  the  rocks,  and  leaves  noth- 
ing alive  on  those  deserted  heights.  It 
came  in  sudden  gusts,  more  parching 
and  more  deadly  than  the  burning  wind 
of  the  desert,  and  again  Ulrich  shouted: 
''Gaspard!  Gaspard!  Gaspard!*'  Then 
he  waited  again.  Everything  was  silent 
on  the  mountain!  Then  he  shook  with 
terror,  and  with  a  bound  he  was  inside 
the  inn.  He  shut  and  bolted  the  door, 
and  then  fell  into  a  chair,  trembling 
all  over,  for  he  felt  certain  that  his 
comrade  had  called  him  at  the  moment 
of  dissolution. 

He  was  certain  of  that,  as  certain  as 
one  is  of  conscious  life  or  of  taste  when 
eating.  Old  Gaspard  Hari  had  been 
dying  for  two  days  and  three  nights 
somewhere,  in  some  hole,  in  one  of 
those  deep,  untrodden  ravines  whose 
whiteness  is  more  sinister  than  subter- 
ranean darkness.  He  had  been  dying 
for  two  days  and  three  nights  and  he 
had  just  then  died,  thinking  of  his 
comrade.  His  soul,  almost  before  it 
was  released,  had  taken  its  fli^^ht  to  the 
inn  where  Olrich  was  sleeping,  and  it 
had  called  him  by  that  terrible  and 
mysterious  power  which  the  spirits  of 
the  dead  possess.  That  voiceless  soul 
had  cried  to  the  wornout  soul  of  the 
sleeper;  it  had  uttered  its  last  farewell, 
or  its  reproach,  or  its  curse  on  the  man 
who  had  not  searched  carefully  e^iough. 

And  Ulrich  felt  that  it  was  there, 
quite  close  to  him,  behind  the  wall,  be* 


J06 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


hind  the  door  which  he  had  just  fast- 
ened. It  was  wandering  about,  like  a 
night  bird  which  skims  a  lighted  window 
with  his  wings,  and  the  terrified  young 
man  was  ready  to  scream  with  horror. 
He  wanted  to  run  away,  but  did  not 
dare  go  out;  he  did  not  dare,  and  would 
never  dare  in  the  future,  for  that  phan- 
tom would  remain  there  day  and  night, 
round  the  inn,  as  long  as  the  old  man's 
body  was  not  recovered  and  deposited 
in  the  consecrated  earth  of  a  church- 
yard. 

Daylight  came,  and  Kunsi  recovered 
some  of  his  courage  with  the  return  of 
the  bright  sun.  He  prepared  his  meal, 
gave  his  dog  some  food,  and  then  re- 
mained motionless  on  a  chair,  tortured 
at  heart  as  he  thought  of  the  old  man 
lying  on  the  snow.  Then,  as  soon  as 
night  once  more  covered  the  mountains, 
new"  terrors  assailed  him.  He  now 
walked  up  and  down  the  dark  kitchen, 
which  was  scarcely  lighted  by  the  flame 
of  one  candle.  He  walked  from  one  end 
of  it  to  the  other  with  great  strides, 
listening,  listening  to  hear  the  terrible 
cry  of  the  preceding  night  again  break 
the  dreary  silence  outside.  He  felt  him- 
self alone,  unhappy  man,  as  no  man  had 
ever  been  alone  before!  Alone  in  this 
immense  desert  of  snow,  alone  five 
tliousand  feet  above  the  inhabited  earth, 
above  human  habitations,  above  that 
stirring,  noisy,  palpitating  life,  alone 
under  an  icy  sky!  A  mad  longing  im- 
pelled him  to  run  away,  no  matter 
where,  to  get  down  to  Loeche  by  fling- 
ing himself  over  the  precipice;  but  he 
did  not  even  dare  to  open  the  door,  as 
he  felt  sure  that  the  other,  the  dead, 
man   would  bar  his   road,   so   that  he 


might  not  be  obHged  to  remain  up  there 
alone. 

Toward  midnight,  tired  with  walking, 
worn-out  by  grief  and  fear,  he  fell  into 
a  doze  in  his  chair,  for  he  was  afraid  of 
his  bed,  as  one  is  of  a  haunted  spot. 
But  suddenly  the  strident  cry  of  the 
preceding  evening  pierced  his  ears,  so 
shrill  that  Ulrich  stretched  out  his  arms 
to  repulse  the  ghost,  and  he  fell  on  to 
his  back  with  his  chair. 

Sam,  who  was  awakened  by  the  noise, 
began  to  howl  as  frightened  dogs  do, 
and  trotted  all  about  the  house  trying 
to  find  out  where  the  danger  came  from. 
When  he  got  to  the  door,  he  sniffed 
beneath  it,  smelling  vigorously,  with  his 
coat  bristling  and  his  tail  stiff  while 
he  growled  angrily.  Kunsi,  who  was 
terrified,  jumped  up,  and  holding  his 
chair  by  one  leg,  cried:  "Don't  come 
in,  don't  come  in,  or  I  shall  kill  you." 
And  the  dog,  excited  by  this  threat, 
barked  angrily  at  that  invisible  enemy 
who  defied  his  master's  voice.  By  de- 
grees, however,  he  quieted  down,  came 
back  and  stretched  himself  in  front  of 
the  fire.  But  he  was  uneasy,  and  kept 
his  head  up,  and  growled  between  his 
teeth. 

Ulrich,  in  turn,  recovered  his  senses, 
but  as  he  felt  faint  with  terror,  he  went 
and  got  a  bottle  of  brandy  out  of  the 
sideboard,  and  drank  off  several  glasses, 
one  after  another,  at  a  gulp.  His  ideas 
became  vague,  his  courage  revived,  and 
a  feverish  glow  ran  through  his  veins. 

Hq  ate  scarcely  anything  the  next 
day,  and  limited  himself  to  alcohol; 
so  he  lived  for  several  days,  like  a 
drunken  brute.  As  soon  as  he  thought 
of  Gaspard  Hari  he  began  to  drink 
again,   and  went   on   drinking  until  he 


IHE  INN 


iOl 


fell  on  to  the  floor,  overcome  by  in- 
toxication. And  there  he  remained  on 
his  face,  dead  drunu,  his  limbs  be- 
numbed, and  snoring  with  his  face  to 
the  ground.  But  scarcely  had  he  di- 
gested the  maddening  and  burning 
liquor,  than  the  same  cry,  "Ulrich," 
woke  him  like  a  bullet  piercing  his  brain, 
and  he  got  up,  still  staggering,  stretch- 
ing out  his  hands  to  sav»i  himself  from 
falling,  and  calling  to  Sam  to  help  him. 
And  the  dog,  who  appeared  to  be  going 
mad  like  his  master,  rushed  to  the  door, 
scratched  it  with  his  claws,  and  gnawed 
it  with  his  ^jng  white  teeth,  while  the 
young  man,  his  neck  thrown  back,  and 
his  head  in  the  air,  drank  the  brandy  in 
gulps,  as  if  it  were  cold  water,  so  that  it 
might  by  and  by  send  his  thoughts,  his 
frantic  terror,  and  his  mem.ory,  to  sleep 
again. 

In  three  weeks  he  had  consumed  all 
his  stock  of  ardent  spirits.  But  his 
continual  drunkenness  only  lulled  his 
terror,  which  awoke  more  furiously  than 
ever,  as  soon  as  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  calm  it  by  drinking.  His  fixed 
idea,  which  had  been  intensified  by  a 
month  of  drunkenness,  and  which  was 
continually  increasing  in  his  absolute 
solitude,  penetrated  him  like  a  gimlet. 
He  now  walked  about  his  house  like  a 
wild  beast  in  its  cage,  putting  his  ear 
to  the  door  to  listen  if  the  other  were 
there,  and  defying  him  through  the 
wall.  Then  as  soon  as  he  dozed,  over- 
come by  fatigue,  he  heard  the  voice 
which  made  him  leap  to  his  feet. 

At  last  one  night,  as  cowards  do  when 
driven  to  extremity,  he  sprang  to  the 
door  and  opened  it,  to  see  who  was 
calling  him,  and  to  force  him  to  keep 
quiet     But  such  a  gusi  of  cold  wind 


blew  into  his  face  that  it  chilled  him 
to  the  bone.  He  closed  and  bolted  the 
door  again  immediately,  without  notic- 
ing that  Sam  had  rushed  out.  fhcn 
as  he  was  shivering  with  cold,  he  thre-A 
some  wood  on  the  fire,  and  sat  down  in 
front  of  it  to  warm  himself.  But  sud- 
denly he  started,  for  somebody  was 
scratching  at  the  wall,  and  crying.  In 
desperation  he  called  out:  "Go  away!'* 
but  was  answered  by  another  long,  sor^ 
rowful  wail. 

Ihen  all  his  remaining  senses  forsook 
him,  from  sheer  fright.  He  repeated: 
"Go  away!"  and  turned  round  to  find 
some  corner  in  which  to  hide,  while  the 
other  person  went  round  the  house  still 
crying,  and  rubbing  against  the  wall. 
Ulrich  went  to  the  oak  sideboard,  which 
was  full  of  plates  and  dishes  and  oi 
provisions,  and  lifting  it  up  with  super- 
human strength,  he  drarjged  it  to  tha 
door,  so  as  to  form  a  barricad2.  Then 
piling  up  all  the  rest  of  the  furniture, 
the  mattresses,  paillasses,  and  chairs,  he 
stopped  up  the  windows  as  men  dC' 
when  assailed  by  an  enemy. 

But  the  person  outside  now  uttered 
long,  plaintive,  mournful  groans,  to 
which  the  young  man  replied  by  similar 
groans,  and  thus  days  and  nights  passed 
without  their  ceasing  to  howl  at  each 
other.  The  one  was  continually  walk- 
ing round  the  house  and  scraped  the 
walls  with  his  nails  so  vigciously  that 
it  seemed  as  if  he  wished  to  destroy 
them,  while  the  other,  inside,  followed 
all  his  movements,  stooping  down,  and 
holding  his  ear  to  the  walls,  and  reply- 
ing to  all  his  appeals  with  terrible  cries. 
One  evening  however,  Ulrich  heard 
nothing  more,  and  !.•  sat  down,  so  over- 
come by  fatigue  that  he  went  to  sleep 


208 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


iirmediately,  and  awoke  in  the  morning 
without  a  thought,  without  any  recollec- 
tion of  what  had  happened,  just  as  if  his 
head  had  been  emptied  during  his  heavy 
sleep.    But  he  felt  hungry,  and  he  ate. 

The  winter  was  over,  and  the  Gemmi 
pass  was  practicable  again,  so  the  Hau- 
ser  family  started  off  to  return  to  their 
inn.  As  soon  as  they  had  reached  the 
top  of  the  ascent,  the  women  mounted 
their  mule,  and  spoke  about  the  two 
men  who  they  would  meet  again  shortly. 
They  were,  indeed,  rather  surprised  that 
neither  of  them  had  come  down  a  few 
days  before,  as  soon  as  the  road  be- 
cam^e  passable,  in  order  to  tell  them  all 
about  their  long  winter  sojourn.  At 
last,  however,  they  saw  the  inn,  still 
covered  with  snow,  like  a  quilt.  The 
door  and  the  windows  were  closed,  but 
a  httle  smoke  was  coming  out  of  the 
chimney,  which  reassured  old  Hauser; 
on  going  up  to  the  door,  however,  he 
saw  the  skeleton  of  an  animal  which 
had  been  torn  to  pieces  by  the  eagles, 
a  large  skeleton  lying  on  its  side. 

They  all  looked  closely  at  it,  and  the 
mother  said:  'That  must  be  Sam." 
Then  she  shouted:  "Hi!  Gaspard!"  A 
cry  from  the  interior  of  the  house  an- 
swered her,  so  sharp  a  cry  that  one 
might  have  thought  some  animal  uttered 


it.  Old  Hauser  repeated:  "Hi!  Gas- 
pard!" and  they  heard  another  cry, 
similar  to  the  first. 

Then  the  three  men,  the  father  anw 
the  two  sons,  tried  to  open  the  door,  bui 
it  resisted  their  efforts.  From  the 
empty  cow-stall  they  took  a  beam  to 
serve  as  a  battering-ram,  and  hurled  it 
against  the  door  with  all  their  might. 
The  wood  gave  way,  and  the  boards 
flew  into  splinters;  then  the  house  was 
shaken  by  a  loud  voice,  and  inside,  be- 
hind the  sideboard  which  was  over- 
turned, they  saw  a  man  standing  up- 
right, his  hair  f  alHng  on  to  his  shoulders 
and  a  beard  descending  to  his  breast, 
with  shining  eyes  and  nothing  but  rags 
to  cover  him.  They  did  not  recognize 
him,  but  Louise  Hauser  exclaimed:  "It 
is  Ulrich,  mother."  And  her  mother  de- 
clared that  it  was  Ulrich,  although  his 
hair  was  white. 

He  allowed  them  to  go  up  to  him, 
and  to  touch  him,  but  he  did  not  reply 
to  any  of  their  questions,  and  they  were 
obliged  to  take  him  to  Loeche,  where 
the  doctors  found  that  he  was  mad. 
Nobody  ever  knew  what  had  become 
of  his  companion. 

Little  Louise  Hauser  nearly  died  that 
summer  of  decline,  which  the  medical 
men  attributed  to  the  cold  air  of  the 
mountains. 


A  Family 


I  WAS  going  to  see  my  friend  Simon  spend  long,  quiet,  and  happy  evenings 

Radevin  once  more,  for  I  had  not  seen  with  him.     He  was  one  of  those  men 

him  for  fifteen  years.    Formerly  he  was  to  whom   one  tells   the  most  intimate 

my  most  intimate  friend,  and  I  used  to  affairs  of  the  heart,  and  in  whom  one 


A  FAMILY 


209 


finds,  when  quietly  talking,  rare,  clever, 
ingenious,  and  refined  thoughts — 
thoughts  which  jtimulate  and  capture 
the  mind. 

For  years  we  had  scarcely  been  sepa- 
rated: we  had  lived,  traveled,  thought, 
and  dreamed  together;  had  liked  the 
same  things  with  the  same  liking,  ad- 
mired the  same  books,  comprehended 
the  same  works,  shivered  with  the  same 
sensations,  and  very  often  laughed  at 
the  same  individuals,  whom  we  under- 
stood completely,  by  merely  exchanging 
a  glance. 

Then  he  married — quite  unexpectedly 
married  a  little  girl  from  the  provinces, 
who  had  come  to  Paris  in  search  of  a 
husband.  How  ever  could  that  little, 
thin,  insipidly  fair  girl,  with  her  weak 
hands,  her  light,  vacant  eyes,  and  her 
clear,  silly  voice  who  was  exactly  like 
a  hundred  thousand  marriageable  dolls, 
have  picked  up  that  intelligent,  clever 
young  fellow?  Can  anyone  understand 
these  things?  No  doubt  he  had  hoped 
for  happiness,  simple,  quiet,  and  long- 
enduring  happiness,  in  the  arms  of  a 
good,  tender,  and  faithful  woman;  he 
had  seen  all  that  in  the  transparent 
looks  of  that  schoolgirl  with  light  hair- 
He  had  not  dreamed  of  the  fact  that 
an  active,  living,  and  vibrating  man 
grows  tired  as  soon  as  he  has  compre- 
hended the  stupid  reality  of  a  common- 
place life,  unless  indeed,  he  becomes  so 
brutalized  as  to  be  callous  to  externals. 

What  would  he  be  like  when  I  met 
him  again?  Still  lively,  witty,  light- 
hearted,  and  enthusiastic,  or  in  a  state 
of  mental  torpor  through  provincial 
life?  A  man  can  change  a  great  deal  in 
the  course  of  fifteen  years! 


The  train  stopped  at  a  small  station 
and  as  I  got  out  of  the  carriage,  a  stout, 
a  very  stout  man  with  red  cheeks  and 
a  big  stomach  rushed  up  to  me  with 
open  arms,  exclaiming:   *'George!" 

I  embraced  him,  but  I  had  not  recog- 
nized him,  and  then  I  said,  in  astonish- 
ment: "By  jove!  You  have  not  grown 
thin!" 

And  he  replied  with  a  laugh:  "What 
did  you  expect?  Good  living,  a  good 
table,  and  good  nights!  Eating  and 
sleeping,  that  is  my  existence!" 

I  looked  at  him  closely,  trying  to 
find  the  features  I  held  so  dear  in  that 
broad  face.  His  eyes  alone  had  not 
altered,  but  I  no  longer  saw  the  sam» 
looks  in  them,  and  I  said  to  myself:  "Jf 
looks  be  the  reflection  of  the  mind,  the 
thoughts  in  that  head  are  not  what  they 
used  to  be — those  thoughts  which  I 
knew  so  well." 

Yet  his  eyes  were  bright,  full  of 
pleasure  and  friendship,  but  they  had 
not  that  clear,  intelligent  expression 
which  tells  better  than  do  words  the 
value  of  the  mind.  Suddenly  he  said  to 
me: 

"Here  are  my  two  eldest  children." 
A  girl  of  fourteen,  who  was  almost  a 
woman,  and  a  boy  of  thirteen,  in  the 
dress  of  a  pupil  from  a  lycee,  came  for- 
ward in  a  hesitating  and  awkward  man- 
ner, and  I  said  in  a  low  voice:  "Are 
they  yours?" 

"Of  course  they  are,"  he  replied 
laughing. 

"How  many  have  you?" 

"Five!  There  are  three  more  in- 
doors." 

He  said  that  in  a  proud,  self-satis- 
fied, almost  triumphant  manner,  and  I 
felt  profound  pity,  mingled  with  a  feel- 


ZIO 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ing  of  vague  contempt  for  this  vain- 
glorious and  simple  reproducer  of  his 
species,  who  spent  his  nights  in  his 
country  house  in  uxorious  pleasures. 

1  got  into  a  carriage,  v/hich  he  drove 
himself,  and  wc  set  off  through  the 
town,  a  dull,  sleepy,  gloomy  town  where 
nothing  was  moving  in  the  st-eets  save 
a  few  dogs  and  two  or  three  maidser- 
vants. Here  and  there  a  shopkeeper 
standing  at  his  door  took  off  his  hat, 
and  Simon  returned  the  salute  and  told 
me  the  man's  name — ^no  doubt  to  show 
me  that  he  knew  ail  the  inhabitants  per- 
sonally. The  thought  struck  me  that 
he  was  thinking  of  becoming  a  candi- 
date for  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  that 
dream  of  all  who  have  buried  them- 
selves in  the  provinces. 

We  were  soon  out  of  the  town;  the 
carriage  turned  into  a  garden  which  had 
some  pretensions  to  a  park,  and  stopped 
in  front  of  a  turrctcd  house,  v/hich  tried 
to  pass  for  a  "chateau. 

"That  is  my  den,"  Simon  said,  so  that 
he  might  be  complimented  on  it,  and  I 
replied  that  it  vv^as  delightful. 

A  lady  appeared  en  the  steps,  dressed 
up  for  a  visitor,  her  hair  done  for  a 
visitor,  and  with  phrases  ready  prepared 
for  a  visitor.  She  was  no  longer  the 
light-haired,  insipid  girl  I  had  seen  in 
church  fifteen  years  previously,  but  a 
stout  lady  in  curls  and  flounces,  one  of 
those  ladies  of  uncertain  age,  without 
intellect,  without  any  of  thosiO  things 
which  constitute  a  woman.  In  short  she 
was  a  mother,  a  stout,  comm.onplace 
mother,  a  human  layer  and  brood  mare, 
a  machine  of  flesh  which  procreates, 
without  mental  care  save  for  her  chil- 
Iren  and  her  housekeeping  book. 

She  welcomed  me.  and  I  went  into 


the  hall,  where  three  children,  ranged 
according  to  their  height,  were  ranked 
for  review,  like  firemen  befor*^  a  mayor. 
"Ah!  ah!  so  there  are  the  others?"  said 
I.  And  Simon,  who  was  radiant  with 
pleasure,  named  them:  "Jean,  Sophie, 
and  Gontran." 

The  door  of  the  drawing-room  was 
open.  I  went  in,  and  in  the  depths  of 
an  easy-chair  I  saw  something  trem- 
bling, a  mail,  an  old,  paralyzed  man. 
Madame  Radevin  came  forward  and 
said:  "This  is  my  grandfather,  Mon- 
sieur; he  is  eighty-seven."  And  then  she 
shouted  into  the  shaking  old  mans  ears: 
"This  is  a  friend  of  Simon's,  grand* 
papa." 

The  old  gentleman  tried  to  say  "Good 
day"  to  me,  and  ne  -rurtered:  "Oui, 
oua,  oua,"  and  waved  his  hand. 

I  took  a  seat  saymg:  "You  are  verj 
kind,  Monsieur." 

Simon  had  just  come  in,  and  he  said 
with  a  laugh:  "So!  You  have  made 
grandpapa's  acquaintance.  He  is  price- 
less, is  that  old  man.  He  is  the  dehght 
of  the  children,  and  he  is  so  greedy  that 
he  almost  kills  himself  at  every  meaL 
You  have  no  idea  what  he  would  eat  if 
he  were  allowed  to  do  as  he  pleased. 
E*^t  you  will  see,  you  will  see.  He  looks 
all  the  sweets  over  as  if  they  were  so 
m.any  girls.  You  hnve  never  seen  any- 
thing funnier;  you  will  see  it  presently." 

I  was  then  shown  to  my  room  to 
change  my  dress  for  dinner,  and  hearing 
a  great  clatter  behind  me  on  the  stairs, 
I  turned  round  a^^d  saw  that  all  the 
children  were  following  me  behind  their 
father— to  do  me  honor,  no  doubt. 

My  windows  looked  out  on  to  a  plain, 
a  bare,  interminable  plain,  an  ocean  of 
grass,  of  wheat,  and  of  oats  without  a 


A  jbAMILY 


;u 


dump  of  trees  or  any  rising  ground,  a 
striking  and  melancholy  picture  of  the 
life  which  they  must  be  leading  in  that 
house. 

A  bell  rang;  it  was  for  dinner,  and  so 
I  went  downstairs.  Madame  Radevin 
took  my  arm  in  a  ceremonious  manner, 
and  we  went  into  the  dining-room.  A 
footman  wheeled  in  the  old  man's  arm- 
chair, who  gave  a  greedy  and  curious 
V)ok  at  the  dessert,  as  with  difficulty  he 
turned  his  shaking  head  from  one  dish 
to  the  other. 

Simon  rubbed  his  hands,  saying: 
^Tou  will  be  amused."  Ail  the  children 
understood  that  I  was  going  to  be  in^ 
dulged  with  the  sight  of  their  greed) 
grandfather  and  they  began  to  laugh 
accordingly,  while  their  mother  merely 
smiled  and  shrugged  her  shoulders. 
Simon,  making  a  speaking  trumpet  of 
his  hands,  shouted  at  the  eld  man: 
"This  evening  there  is  sweet  rice- 
cream,"  and  the  wrinkled  facj  of  the 
grandfather  brightened,  hr  trembled 
violently  all  over,  showinp'  that  he  had 
understood  and  wa«  very  pleased.  The 
dinner  began. 

"Just  look!"  Sii.ion  whispered. 
The  grandfather  did  not  like  the  soup, 
and  refused  to  eat  i' ;  but  he  was  made 
to,  on  account  of  YAs  health.  The  foot- 
man forced  the  i^voo^  ^^to  t^s  mouth, 
while  the  eld  ma-i  blew  energetically,  so 
as  not  to  swall'^w  the  soup,  which  was 
thus  scattered  like  a  stream  of  water 
on  to  the  tab.e  and  over  his  neighbors. 
The  children  shook  with  delight  at  the 
spectacle,  v/hile  their  father,  who  was 
also  amusfd,  said:  "Isn't  the  old  man 
funny?" 

During  the  whole  meal  they  we^e  all 
taken   up  solely  with  him.     With  hrs 


eyes  he  devourec  the  uisue^  which  were 
put  on  the  table,  and  with  tremblmg 
hands  tried  to  oeize  them  and  pull  them 
to  him.  They  put  them  almost  within 
his  reach  to  see  his  useless  efforts,  his 
trembling  c'.utches  at  them,  the  piteous 
appeal  of  his  whole  nature,  cf  his  eyes, 
of  his  :.iouth,  and  of  his  nose  as  he 
smell^J  them.  He  slobbered  on  to  his 
tab'  J  napkin  with  eagerness,  while  utter- 
ir^  inarticulate  grunts,  and  the  whole 
iamily  was  highly  amused  at  this  hor- 
rible and  grotesque  scene. 

Then  they  put  a  tiny  morsel  on  to 
his  plafe,  which  he  ate  with  feverish 
gluttony,  in  order  to  get  something 
more  as  soon  as  possible.  When  the 
rice-cream  was  brought  in,  he  nearly 
had  a  fit,  and  groaned  with  greediness 
Gontran  called  out  to  him:  "You  have 
eaten  too  much  already;  you  will  have 
no  more."  And  they  pretended  not  to 
give  him  any.  Then  he  began  to  cry — 
cry  and  tremble  more  violently  than 
ever,  while  all  the  children  laughed.  At 
last,  however,  they  gave  him  his  help- 
ing, a  very  small  piece.  As  he  ate  the 
Jlrst  mouthful  of  the  pudding,  he  made 
a  comical  and  greedy  noise  in  his  throat, 
and  a  movement  with  his  neck  like 
ducks  do,  when  they  swallow  too  large 
a  morsel,  and  then,  when  he  had  done, 
he  began  to  stamp  his  feet,  so  as  to  get 
more. 

I  was  seized  with  pity  for  this  piti- 
able and  ridiculous  Tantalus,  and  inter- 
posed on  his  behalf:  "Please,  will  you 
not  give  him  a  little  more  rice?" 

But  Simon  replied:  "Oh!  no  my  dear 
fellow,  if  he  were  to  eat  too  much,  it 
might  harm  him  at  his  age." 

I  held  my  tongue,  and  thought  ovex 
these  words.     Oh!    ethics!   Oh!    logic? 


212 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Oh!  wisdom!  At  his  age!  So  they  de- 
prived him  of  his  only  remaining 
pleasure  out  of  regard  ior  his  health! 
His  health !  What  would  he  do  with  it, 
inert  and  trembling  wreck  that  he  was? 
They  were  taking  care  of  his  life,  so 
they  said.  His  life?  How  many  days? 
Ten,  twenty,  fifty,  or  a  hundred?  Why? 
For  his  own  sake?  Or  to  preserve  for 
some  time  longer,  the  spectacle  of  his 
impotent  greediness  in  the  family. 

There  was  nothing  left  for  him  to  do 
In  this  life,  nothing  whatever.  He  had 
one  single  wish  left,  one  sole  pleasure; 


why  not  grant  him  that  last  solace  con- 
stantly, until  he  died? 

After  playing  cards  for  a  long  time,  I 
went  up  to  my  room  and  to  bed;  I 
was  low-spirited  and  sad,  sad,  sad!  I 
sat  at  my  window,  but  I  heard  nothing 
but  the  beautiful  warbling  of  a  bird  in 
a  tree,  somewhere  in  the  distance.  No 
doubt  the  bird  was  singing  thus  in  a 
low  voice  during  the  night,  to  lull  his 
mate,  who  was  sleeping  on  her  eggs. 

And  I  thought  of  my  poor  friend's 
five  children,  and  to  myself  pictured 
him  snoring  by  the  side  of  his  ugly 
wife. 


Bellflower* 


How  strange  are  those  old  recollec- 
tions which  haunt  us,  without  our  being 
able  to  get  rid  of  them! 

This  one  is  so  very  old  that  I  cannot 
understand  how  it  has  clung  so  vividly 
and  tenaciously  to  my  memory.  Since 
then  I  have  seen  so  many  sinister  things, 
either  affecting  or  terrible,  that  I  am 
astonished  at  not  being  able  to  pass  a 
single  day  without  the  face  of  Mother 
Bellflower  recurring  to  my  mind's  eye, 
just  as  I  knew  her  formerly  long,  long 
ago,  when  I  was  ten  or  twelve  years  old. 

She  was  an  old  seamstress  who  came 
to  my  parents'  house  once  a  week,  every 
Thursday,  to  mend  the  linen.  My  parents 
lived  in  one  of  those  country  houses 
called  chateax,  which  are  merely  old 
houses  with  pointed  roofs,  to  which  are 
attached  three  or  four  adjacent  farms. 

The  village,  a  large  village,  almost  a 
small  market  tnwn^  was  a  few  hundred 


yards  off,  and  nestled  round  the  church, 
a  red  brick  church,  which  had  become 
black  with  age. 

Well,  every  Thursday  Mother  Bell- 
flower  came  between  half  past  six  and 
seven  in  the  morning,  and  went  imme- 
diately into  the  linen-room  and  began 
to  work.  She  was  a  tall,  thin,  bearded 
or  rather  hairy  woman,  for  she  had  a 
beard  all  over  her  face,  a  surprising,  an 
unexpected  beard,  growing  in  improb- 
able tufts,  in  curly  bunches  which 
looked  as  if  they  had  been  sown  by  a 
madman  over  that  great  face,  the  face 
of  a  gendarme  in  petticoats.  She  had 
them  on  her  nose,  under  her  nose, 
round  her  nose,  on  her  chin,  on  her 
cheeks;  and  her  eyebrows,  which  were 
extraordinarily  thick  and  long,  and 
quite  gray,  bushy  and  bristling,  looked 


*Clochette. 


BELLFLOWER 


213 


exactly  like  a  pair  of  mustaches  stuck 
on  there  by  mistake. 

She  limped,  but  not  like  lame  people 
generally  do,  but  like  a  ship  pitching. 
When  she  planted  her  great,  bony,  vi- 
brant body  on  her  sound  leg,  she  seemed 
to  be  preparing  to  mount  some  enor- 
mous wave,  and  then  suddenly  she 
dipped  as  if  to  disappear  in  an  abyss, 
and  buried  herself  in  the  ground.  Her 
walk  reminded  one  of  a  ship  in  a  storm, 
and  her  head,  which  was  always  cov- 
ered with  an  enormous  white  cap,  whose 
ribbons  fluttered  down  her  back,  seemed 
to  traverse  the  horizon  from  North  to 
South  and  from  South  to  North,  at  each 
limp. 

I  adored  Mother  Bellflower.  As  soon 
as  I  was  up  I  used  to  go  into  the  linen- 
room,  where  I  found  her  installed  at 
work,  with  a  foot-warmer  under  her 
feet.  As  soon  as  I  arrived,  she  made  me 
take  the  foot-warmer  and  sit  upon  it,  so 
that  I  might  not  catch  cold  in  that 
large,  chilly  room  under  the  roof. 

"That  draws  the  blood  from  your 
head,"  she  would  say  to  me. 

She  told  me  stories,  while  mending 
the  linen  with  her  long,  crooked,  nimble 
fingers;  behind  her  magnifying  spec- 
tacles, for  age  had  impaired  her  sight, 
her  eyes  appeared  enormous  to  me, 
strangely  profound,  double. 

As  far  as  I  can  remember  from  the 
things  which  she  told  me  and  by  which 
my  childish  heart  was  moved,  she  had 
the  large  heart  of  a  poor  woman.  She 
told  me  what  had  happened  in  the 
village,  how  a  cow  had  escaped  from 
the  cowhouse  and  had  been  found  the 
next  morning  in  front  of  Prosper 
Malet's  mill,  looking  at  the  sails  turn- 
ing, or  about  a  hen's  egg  which  had  been 


found  in  the  church  belfry  without  any- 
one being  able  to  understand  what 
creature  had  been  there  to  lay  it,  or 
the  queer  story  of  Jean  Pila's  dog,  who 
had  gone  ten  leagues  to  bring  back  his 
master's  breeches  which  a  tramp  had 
stolen  while  they  were  hanging  up  to 
dry  out  of  doors,  after  he  had  been 
caught  in  the  rain.  She  told  me  these 
simple  adventures  in  such  a  manner 
that  in  my  mind  they  assumed  the 
proportions  of  never-to-be-forgotten 
dramas,  of  grand  and  mysterious 
poems;  and  the  ingenious  stories  in- 
vented by  the  poets,  which  my  mother 
told  me  in  the  evening,  had  none  of  the 
flavor,  none  of  the  fullness  or  of  the 
vigor  of  the  peasant  woman's  narra- 
tives. 

Well,  one  Thursday  when  I  had  spent 
all  the  morning  in  listening  to  Mother 
Clochette,  I  wanted  to  go  upstairs  to 
her  again  during  the  day,  after  picking 
hazelnuts  with  the  manservant  in  the 
wood  behind  the  farm.  I  remember  it 
all  as  clearly  as  what  happened  only 
yesterday. 

On  opening  the  door  of  the  linen- 
room,  I  saw  the  old  seamstress  lying  on 
the  floor  by  the  side  of  her  chair,  her 
face  turned  down  and  her  arms 
stretched  out,  but  still  holding  her 
needle  in  one  hand  and  one  of  my 
shirts  in  the  other.  One  of  her  legs 
in  a  blue  stocking,  the  longer  one  no 
doubt,  was  extended  under  her  chair, 
and  her  spectacles  glistened  by  the  wall, 
where  they  had  rolled  away  from  her. 

I  ran  away  uttering  shrill  cries.  They 
all  came  running,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
I  was  told  that  Mother  Clochette  was 
dead. 

I  cannot  describe  the  profound,  poig- 


214 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


nant,  terrible  emotion  which  stirred  my 
childish  heart.  I  went  slowly  down 
into  the  drawi*ig-room  and  hid  myself 
in  a  dark  corner,  in  the  depttis  of  a 
great,  old  armchair,  where  I  knelt  and 
wept.  I  remained  there  for  a  long  time 
no  doubt,  for  night  came  on.  Suddenly 
some  one  came  in  with  a  lamp — without 
seeing  me,  however—and  I  heard  my 
father  and  mother  talking  with  the 
medical  man,  whose  voice  I  rccognr.ed. 

He  had  been  sent  for  immediately, 
?nd  he  was  explaining  the  cause  of  the 
accident,  of  which  I  understood  noth- 
ing, however.  Then  he  sat  down  and 
had  a  glass  of  liqueur  and  a  biscuit. 

He  went  on  talking,  and  what  he 
then  said  will  remain  engraved  on  my 
mind  until  I  die!  I  think  that  I  can 
give  the  exact  words  which  he  used. 

"Ah!"  said  he,  "the  poor  woman! 
she  broke  her  leg  the  day  of  my  arrival 
here.  I  had  not  even  had  time  to  wash 
my  hands  after  getting  off  the  diligence 
before  I  was  sent  for  in  all  haste,  for 
it  was  a  bad  case,  very  bad. 

"She  was  seventeen,  and  a  pretty  girl, 
very  pretty!  Would  anyone  believe  it? 
I  have  never  told  h2r  story  before,  in 
fact  no  one  but  myself  and  one  other 
person,  who  is  no  longer  living  in  this 
part  of  the  country,  ever  knew  it.  Now 
that  she  is  dead,  I  may  be  less  discreet. 

"A  young  assistant  teacher  had  just 
come  to  live  in  the  village;  he  was 
good-looking  and  had  the  bearing  of  a 
soldier.  All  the  girls  ran  after  him,  but 
he  was  disdainful.  Besides  that,  he  was 
very  much  afraid  of  his  superior,  the 
schoolmaster,  old  Grabu,  who  occasion- 
ally got  out  of  bed  the  wrong  foot  first. 

"Old  Grabu  already  employed  pretty 
flortense,  who  has  just  died  here,  and 


who  was  afterward  nicknamed  Clo« 
chette.  The  assistant  master  singled 
out  the  pretty  young  girl,  who  was  no 
doubt  flattered  at  being  chosen  by  this 
disdainful  conqueror;  at  any  rate,  she 
fell  in  love  with  him,  and  he  succeeded 
in  persuading  her  to  give  him  a  first 
meeting  in  the  hayloft  behind  the 
school,  at  night  after  she  had  done  her 
day's  sewing. 

"She  pretended  to  go  home,  but  in- 
stead of  going  downstairs  when  she  left 
the  Grabus',  she  w^ent  upstairs  and  hid 
among  the  hay,  to  wait  for  her  lover. 
He  soon  joined  her,  and  he  was  be- 
ginning to  say  pretty  things  to  her, 
when  the  door  of  the  hayloft  opened 
and  the  schoolmaster  appeared,  and 
asked:  "What  are  you  doing  up  there, 
Sigisbert?"  Feeling  sure  that  he  would 
be  Caught,  the  young  schoolmaster  lost 
his  presence  cf  mind  and  replied 
stupidly:  'I  came  up  here  to  rest  a 
Lttle  among  the  bundles  of  hay,  Mon- 
lIout  Grabu.' 

"The  loft  was  very  large  and  abso- 
lutely •  dark.  Sigisbert  pushed  the 
frightened  girl  to  the  further  end  and 
said:  'Go  there  and  hide  yourself.  I 
shall  lose  my  situation,  so  get  away  and 
hide  yourself.' 

"When  the  schoolmaster  heard  the 
whispering,  he  continued:  'Why,  you 
are  not  by  yourself.' 

"  *Yes  I  am,  Monsieur  Grabu!* 

'*  'But  you  are  not,  for  you  are  talk- 
ing.' 

** 'I  swear  I  am,  Monsieur  Grabu.' 

"  'I  will  soon  find  out,'  the  old  man 
replied,  and  double-locking  the  door, 
he  went  down  to  get  a  light. 

"Then  the  young  man,  who  was  a 
coward  such   as  one  sometimes  meets, 


IN  THE  WOOD 


n$ 


lost  his  head,  and  he  repeated,  having 
grown  furious  all  of  a  sudden:  'Hide 
yourself,  so  that  he  may  not  find  you. 
You  will  deprive  me  of  my  bread  for 
my  whole  l^fc;  you  will  ruin  my  whole 
career!     Do  hide  yourself!' 

'They  could  hear  the  key  turning  in 
the  lock  again,  and  Hortense  ran  to 
the  window  which  looked  out  on  to 
the  street,  opened  it  quickly,  and  then 
in  a  low  and  determined  voice  said: 
'You  will  come  and  pick  me  up  when 
he  is  gone,'  and  she  jumped  out. 

"Old  Grabu  found  nobody,  and  went 
down  again  in  great  surprise.  A  quar- 
ter of  an  hour  later,  Monsieur  Sigisbert 
came  to  me  and  related  his  adventure. 
The  girl  had  remained  at  the  foot  of  2he 
wall  unable  to  get  up,  as  she  had  fallen 
from  the  second  story,  and  I  went  with 
him  to  fetch  her.  It  was  raining  in  tor- 
rents, and  I  brought  the  unfortunate 
girl  home  with  me,  for  the  right  leg 
was  broken  in  three  places,  and  the 
bones  had  come  out  through  the  flesh. 
She  did  not  complain,  and  merely  said, 
with  admirable  resignation:  1  am 
punished,   well  punished!* 

"I   sent   for   assistance   and   for  the 


workgirFs  friends  and  told  them  a 
made-up  story  of  a  runaway  carriage 
which  had  knocked  her  down  and  lamed 
her,  outside  my  door.  They  believed  roe, 
and  the  gendarmes  for  a  whole  mvmth 
tried  in  vain  to  find  the  author  of  this 
accident. 

"That  is  all!  Now  I  say  that  this 
woman  was  a  heroine,  and  had  the 
fiber  of  those  who  accomplish  the 
grandest  deeds  in  history. 

"That  was  her  only  love  affair,  and 
she  died  a  virgin.  She  v/as  a  martyr,  a 
noble  soul,  a  sublimely  devoted  woman! 
And  if  I  did  not  absolutely  admire  her, 
I  should  not  have  told  you  this  storj', 
which  I  would  never  tell  anyone  during 
her  life:  you  understand  why." 

The  doctor  ceased;  mamma  cried 
and  papa  said  some  words  which  I  did 
not  catch;  then  they  left  the  room,  and 
I  remained  on  my  knees  in  the  armchair 
and  sobbed,  while  I  heard  a  strange 
noise  of  heavy  footsteps  and  something 
knocking  against  the  side  of  the  stair- 
case. 

They  were  carrying  away  Clochette's 
body. 


In  the  Wood 


The  mayor  was  just  going  to  sit 
down  to  breakfast,  when  he  was  told 
that  the  rural  policeman  was  waiting  for 
him  at  the  mairie,  with  two  prisoners. 
He  went  there  immediately,  and  found 
Old  Hochedur  standing  up  and  watch- 
ing a  middle-class  couple  of  mature 
years  with  stern  looks. 


The  man,  a  fat  old  fellow  with  a  red 
nose  and  white  hair,  seemed  utterly- 
dejected;  while  the  woman,  a  little 
roundabout,  stout  creature,  with  shining 
cheeks,  looked  at  the  agent  who  had 
arrested  them  with  defiant  eyes. 

"What  is  it?    What  is  it,  Hochedur?" 
The   rural  policeman  made  his  deo- 


216 

osition.  He  had  gone  out  that  morn- 
ing at  his  usual  time,  in  order  to  patrol 
his  beat  from  the  forest  of  Champioux 
as  far  as  the  boundaries  of  Argentcuil. 
He  had  not  noticed  anything  unusual 
in  the  country  except  that  it  was  a 
fine  day,  and  that  the  wheat  was  doing 
well,  when  the  son  of  old  Bredel,  who 
was  going  over  his  vines  a  second  time, 
called  out  to  him:  "Here,  daddy  Hoche- 
dur,  go  and  have  a  look  into  the  skirts 
of  the  wood,  in  the  first  thicket,  and 
you  will  catch  a  pair  of  pigeons  there 
who  must  be  a  hundred  and  thirty  years 
old  between  them!" 

He  went  in  the  direction  that  had 
been  indicated  to  him,  and  had  gone 
into  the  thicket.  There  he  heard  words 
and  gasps,  which  made  him  suspect  a 
flagrant  breach  of  morality.  Advancing, 
therefore,  on  his  hands  and  knees  as  if 
to  surprise  a  poacher,  he  had  arrested 
this  couple,  at  the  very  moment  v/hen 
they  were  going  to  abandon  themselves 
to  their  natural  instincts. 

The  mayor  looked  at  the  culprits  in 
astonishment,  for  the  man  was  cer- 
tainly sixty,  and  the  woman  fifty-five  at 
least.  So  he  began,  to  question  them, 
beginning  with  the  man,  who  replied  in 
such  a  weak  voice,  that  he  could 
scarcely  be  heard. 

"What  is  your  name?" 

"Nicolas  Beaurain." 

"Your  occupation?" 

"Haberdasher,  in  the  Rue  des  Mar- 
trys,  in  Paris." 

"What  were  you  doing  in  the  wood?" 

The  haberdasher  remained  silent, 
with  his  eyes  on  his  fat  stomach,  and 
his  hands  resting  on  his  thighs,  and  the 
mayor  continued: 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"Do  you  deny  what  the  of&cer  of  the 
municipal   authorities   states?" 

"No,  Monsieur." 

"So  you  confess  it?" 

"Yes,  Monsieur." 

"What  have  you  to  say  In  your  de- 
fense?" 

"Nothing,  Monsieur." 

"Where  did  you  meet  the  partner  in 
your  misdemeanor?" 

"She  is  my  wife,  Monsieur." 

"Your  wife?" 

"Yes,  Monsieur." 

"Then — then — you  do  not  live  to- 
gether in  Paris?" 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  Monsieur,  but 
we  are  living  together!" 

"But  in  that  case  you  must  be  mad, 
altogether  mad,  my  dear  sir,  to  get 
caught  like  that  in  the  country  at  ten 
o'clock  in  the  morning." 

The  haberdasher  seemed  ready  to  cry 
with  shame,  and  he  murmured:  "It  was 
she  who  enticed  me!  I  told  her  it  was 
stupid,  but  when  a  woman  has  got  a 
thing  into  her  head,  you  know,  you  can- 
not get  it  out." 

The  mayor,  who  liked  open  speaking, 
smiled  and  replied: 

"In  your  case,  the  contrary  ought  to 
have  happened.  You  would  not  be 
here,  if  she  had  had  the  idea  only  in 
her  head." 

Then  Monsieur  Beaurain  was  seized 
with  rage,  and  turning  to  his  wife,  he 
said:  "Do  you  see  to  what  you  have 
brought  us  with  your  poetry?  And 
now  we  shall  have  to  go  before  the 
Courts,  at  our  age,  for  a  breach  of 
morals!  And  we  shall  have  to  shut  up 
the  shop,  sell  our  good-will,  and  go  to 
some  other  neighborhood!  That's  what 
it  has  come  to!" 


IN  THE  woorr 


ii> 


Madame  Beaurain  got  up,  and  with- 
out looking  at  her  husband,  explained 
herself  without  any  embarrassment, 
without  useless  modesty,  and  almost 
without  hesitation. 

"Of  course,  Monsieur,  I  know  that  we 
have  made  ourselves  ridiculous.  Will 
you  allow  me  to  plead  my  cause  hke  an 
advocate,  or  rather  like  a  poor  woman; 
and  I  hope  that  you  will  be  kind  enough 
to  send  us  home,  and  to  spare  us  the 
disgrace  of  a  prosecution. 

"Years  ago,  when  I  was  young,  I 
made  Monsieur  Beaurain's  acquain- 
tance on  Sunday  in  this  neighborhood. 
He  was  employed  in  a  draper's  shop, 
and  I  was  a  saleswoman  in  a  ready-made 
clothing  establishment.  I  remember  it, 
as  if  it  were  yesterday.  I  used  to  come 
and  spend  Sundays  here  occasionally 
with  a  friend  of  mine.  Rose  Leveque, 
with  whom  I  lived  in  the  Rue  Pigalle, 
and  Rose  had  a  sweetheart,  while  I  had 
not.  He  used  to  bring  us  here,  and  one 
Saturday,  he  told  me  laughing,  that  he 
should  bring  a  friend  with  him  the  next 
day.  I  quite  understood  what  he 
meant,  but  I  replied  that  it  would  be 
no  good;  for  1  was  virtuous.  Monsieur. 

"The  next  day  we  met  Monsieur 
Beaurain  at  the  railway  station.  In 
those  days  he  was  good-looking,  but  I 
had  made  up  my  mind  not  to  yield  to 
him,  and  I  did  not  yield.  Well,  we 
arrived  at  Bezons.  It  was  a  lovely  day, 
the  sort  of  day  that  tickles  your  heart. 
When  it  is  fine  even  now,  just  as  it 
used  to  be  formerly,  I  grow  quite 
foolish,  and  when  I  am  in  the  country,  I 
.utterly  lose  my  head.  The  verdure,  the 
swallows  flying  so  swiftly,  the  smell  of 
the  grass,  the  scarlet  poppies,  the 
daisies,  all  that  makes  me  quite  excited! 


It  is  like  champagne  when  one  is  not 
used  to  it! 

"Well,  it  was  lovely  weather,  warm 
and  bright,  and  it  seemed  to  penetrate 
into  your  body  by  your  eyes  when  you 
looked,  and  by  your  mouth  when  you 
breathed.  Rose  and  Simon  hugged  ana 
kissed  each  other  every  minute,  and 
that  gave  me  something  to  look  at! 
Monsieur  Beaurain  and  I  walked  behind 
them,  without  speaking  much,  for  when 
people  do  not  know  each  other  well, 
they  cannot  find  much  to  talk  about 
He  looked  timid,  and  I  liked  to  see  his 
embarrassment.  At  last  we  got  to  the 
little  wood;  it  was  as  cool  as  in  a  bath 
there,  and  we  all  four  sat  down.  Rose 
and  her  lover  joked  me  because  I  looked 
rather  stern,  but  you  will  understand 
that  I  could  not  be  otherwise.  And 
then  they  began  to  kiss  and  hug  again, 
without  putting  any  more  restraint  upon 
themselves  than  if  we  had  not  been 
there.  Then  they  whispered  together, 
and  got  up  and  went  off  among  the  trees 
without  saying  a  word.  You  may  fancy 
how  I  felt,  alone  with  this  young  fellow 
whom  I  saw  for  the  first  time.  I  felt 
so  confused  at  seeing  them  go  that  it 
gave  me  courage  and  I  began  to  talk. 
I  asked  him  what  his  business  was,  and 
he  said  he  was  a  linen  draper's  assistant, 
as  I  told  you  just  now.  We  talked  for 
a  few  minutes  and  that  made  him  bold, 
and  he  wanted  to  take  liberties  with  me, 
but  I  told  him  sharply  to  keep  his  own 
place.  Is  not  that  true.  Monsieur  Beau- 
rain?" 

Monsieur  Beaurain,  who  was  looking 
at  his  feet  in  confusion,  did  not  reply, 
and  she  continued :  "Then  he  saw  that  I 
was  virtuous,  and  he  began  to  make 
love  to  me  nicely,  like  an   honorable 


218 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


man,  ana  from  that  time  he  came  every 
Sunday,  for  he  was  very  much  in  love 
wilh  mc.  I  was  very  fond  of  him  also, 
very  fond  of  him!  He  was  a  good-look- 
ing fellow,  formerly,  and  in  short  he 
married  me  the  next  September,  and  we 
started  business  in  the  Rue  dcs  Martyrs. 

"It  was  a  hard  struggle  for  some 
years,  Monsieur.  Business  did  not 
prosper,  and  we  could  not  afford  many 
country  excursions,  and  then  we  be- 
came unaccustomed  to  them.  One  has 
other  things  in  one's  head  and  things 
more  of  the  cash  box  than  of  pretty 
speeches  when  one  is  in  business.  We 
were  growing  old  by  degrees  without 
perceiving  it,  like  quiet  people  who  do 
not  think  much  about  love.  Eut  one 
does  not  regret  anything  as  long  as  one 
does  not  notice  what  one  has  lost. 

"And  after  that,  Monsieur,  business 
went  better,  and  we  became  tranquil  as 
to  the  future!  Then,  you  see,  I  do  not 
exactly  know  whnt  passed  v'ithin  me — 
no,  I  really  do  not  know,  but  I  began 
to  dream  like  a  little  boarding-school 
girl.  The  sight  of  the  Kttle  carts  full  of 
lowers  which  are  peddled  about  the 
streets  made  me  cy;  the  smell  of 
violets  sought  me  cut  in  my  easy-chair, 
behind  my  cash  box,  and  made  my  heart 
beat!  Then  I  used  tc  get  up  and  go  on 
to  the  doorstep  to  lock  at  the  blue  sky 
between  the  roofs.  When  one  looks  at 
the  sky  from  a  street,  it  seems  like  a 
river  flowing  over  Paris,  winding  as  it 
goes,  and  the  swallows  pass  to  and  fro 
in  it  like  fish.  These  sort  of  things  are 
very  stupid  at  my  age!  But  what  can 
one  do,  Monsieur,  when  one  has  worked 
Ul    one's  life?     A    moment  comes    in 


which  one  perceives  that  one  could  have 
done  something  else,  and  then,  one  re- 
grets, oh!  yes,  one  feels  great  regret! 
Just  think  that  for  twenty  years  I  might 
have  gone  and  had  kisses  in  the  woods, 
like  other  v;omen.  I  used  to  think  how 
delightful  it  would  be  to  lie  under  the 
trees,  loving  some  one!  And  I  thought 
of  it  every  day  and  every  night!  I 
dreamed  of  the  moonlight  on  the  water, 
until  I  felt  inclined  ta  drown  myself. 

*'I  did  not  venture  to  speak  to  Mon- 
sieur Beaurain  about  this  at  first.  I 
knew  that  he  would  make  fun  of  me, 
and  send  me  back  to  sell  my  needles 
and  cotton!  And  then,  to  speak  the 
truth,  Monsieur  Beaurain  never  said 
much  to  me,  but  when  I  looked  in  the 
glass,  I  also  understood  quite  well  that 
I  also  no  longer  appealed  to  anyone! 

"Well,  I  made  up  my  mind,  and  1 
proposed  an  excursion  into  the  country 
to  him,  to  the  place  where  we  had  first 
become  acquainted.  He  agreed  without 
any  distrust,  and  we  arrived  here  this 
morning,  about  nine  o'clock. 

"I  felt  quite  young  again  when  I  got 
among  the  corn,  for  a  woman's  heart 
never  grows  old!  And  really,  I  no 
longer  saw  my  husband  as  he  is  at 
present,  but  just  like  he  was  formerly! 
That  I  will  swear  to  ycu.  Monsieur.  As 
true  as  I  am  standing  here,  I  was  in- 
toxicated. I  began  to  kiss  him,  and  he 
was  niore  surprised  than  if  1  had  tried 
to  murder  him.  He  kept  saying  to  me: 
'Why,  you  must  be  mad  this  morning? 
What  is  the  matter  with  you — '  I  did 
not  listen  to  him,  I  only  listened  to  my 
own  heart,  and  I  made  him  come  into 
the  wood  with  me.    There  is  the  story. 


THE  MARQUIS  DE  FUMEROL 


Z19 


I  have  spoken  the  truth,  Monsieur  le 
Maire,  the  whole  truth." 
The  mayor  was  a  sensible  man.    He 


rose  from  his  chair,  smiled,  and  said: 
"Go  in  peace,  Madame,  and  sin  no 
more — under  the  trees." 


The  Marquis  de  Fumerol 


Roger  de  Toumevillf  v;as  sitting 
astride  a  chair  in  the  midst  of  his 
friends  and  talking;  he  helc.  a  cigar  in 
his  hand,  aid  from  time  to  time  took 
a  whiff  and  blew  out  a  small  cloud  of 
smoke. 

"We  were  at  dinner  when  a  letter  was 
brought  in,  and  my  father  opened  it. 
You  knew  rr\y  f::thcr,  who  thinks  that 
he  is  king  of  France  ad  interim.  I  call 
him  Don  Quixote,  because  for  twelve 
years  he  has  been  running  a  tilt  against 
the  windmill  of  the  Republic,  without 
quite  knowing  whether  it  was  in  the 
name  of  Bourbon  or  of  Orleans.  At 
present  he  is  holding  the  lance  in  the 
name  of  Orleans  alone,  because  there  is 
nobody  else  left.  In  any  case,  he  thinks 
himself  the  first  gentleman  in  France, 
the  best  known,  the  most  influential,  the 
head  of  the  party;  and  as  he  is  an  irre- 
movable senator,  he  thinks  that  the 
neighborinfT  kings*  thrones  are  very 
insecure. 

'•'As  f^i  my  mother,  she  is  my  father's 
inspiration,  the  soul  cf  the  kingdom  and 
of  religion,  the  right  arm  of  God  on 
earth,  and  the  scourge  cf  cvil-thinkers. 

"Well,  this  letter  was  brought  in  while 
we  were  at  dinner.  My  father  opened 
and  read  it,  and  then  he  said  to  my 
mother:  *Your  brother  is  dying.'  She 
grew  very  pale.  My  uncle  was  scarcely 
ever  mentioned  ia  the  Uouse.  and  I  did 


not  know  him  at  all;  all  1  knew  from 
public  talk  was  that  he  had  led,  and  was 
stiL  'eading,  the  life  of  a  buffoon.  After 
having  spent  his  fortune  wJlh  an  incal- 
culable number  of  women,  he  had  only 
retained  two  mistresses,  with  whom  he 
was  living  in  small  apartments  in  the 
R-ue  des  Martyrs. 

"An  ex-peer  of  France  and  cx-colonel 
of  cavalry,  it  was  said  that  he  believed 
in  neither  God  nor  devil.  Having  no 
faith,  therefore,  in  a  future  life  he  had 
abused  this  present  life  in  every  way, 
and  had  become  a  living  wound  to  my 
mother's  heart. 

'  'Give  me  that  letter,  Paul,'  she  said, 
and  when  she  had  read  it,  I  asked  for  it 
in  my  turn.    Here  it  is: 

"  'Monsieur  le  Comtc  :  I  think  I 
ought  to  let  you  know  that  your  brother- 
in-law,  Count  Fumerol,  is  going  to  die. 
Perhaps  you  would  make  preparations 
and  not  forget  that  I  toI:l  you. 

"Your   servant,    Melani.' 

"  'We  must  think,'  my  father  mur- 
mured. 'In  my  position,  I  ought  to 
watch  over  your  brother's  last  mo- 
ments.' 

"My  mother  continued:  'I  will  send 
for  Abbe  Poivron  and  ask  his  advice, 
and  then  I  will  go  to  m.y  brother's  with 
him  and  Roger.  Stop  here,  Paul,  for 
you  must  not  compromise  yourself:  but 
a  woman  can,  and  ought,  to  do  these 


220 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


things.  For  a  politician  in  your  posi- 
tion, it  is  another  matter.  It  would  be 
a  fine  thing  for  one  of  your  opponents 
to  be  able  to  bring  one  of  your  most 
laudable  actions  up  against  you.' 

"  'You  are  right!'  my  father  said.  *Do 
as  you  think  best,  my  dear  wife.' 

"A  quarter  of  an  hour  later,  the 
Abbe  Poivron  came  into  the  drawing- 
room,  and  the  situation  was  explained  to 
him,  analyzed,  and  discussed  in  all  its 
bearings.  If  the  Marquis  de  Fumerol, 
one  of  the  greatest  names  in  France, 
were  to  die  without  the  succor  of  reli- 
gion, it  would  assuredly  be  a  terrible 
blow  to  the  r.obility  in  general,  to  the 
Count  de  Toumeville  in  particular,  and 
the  free  thinkers  would  be  triumphant. 
The  evilly  disposed  newspapers  would 
^ing  songs  of  victory  for  six  months; 
ray  mother's  name  would  be  dragged 
through  the  mire  and  brought  into  the 
slander  of  Socialistic  journals,  and  my 
father's  would  be  bespattered.  It  was 
impossible  that  such  a  thing  should 
occur. 

"A  crusade  was  therefore  immediately 
decided  upon,  which  was  to  be  led  by 
the  Abbe  Poivron,  a  little  fat,  clean, 
slightly-scented  priest,  the  faithful  vicar 
af  a  large  church  in  a  rich  and  noble 
quarter. 

"The  landau  was  ordered  and  we 
three  started,  my  mother,  the  cure,  and 
I,  to  administer  the  last  sacraments  to 
my  uncle. 

"It  had  been  decided  that  first  of  all 
we  should  see  Madame  Melani  who  had 
written  the  letter,  and  who  was  most 
likely  the  porter's  wife  or  my  uncle's 
servant,  and  1  got  down  as  a  scout  in 
front  of  a  seven-storied  house  and  went 
into  a  dark  passage,  where  I  had  great 


difficulty  in  finding  the  porter's  den.  He 
looked  at  me  distrustfully,  and  I  said: 

"  'Madame  Melani,  if  you  please.' 

"'Don't  know  her!' 

"  'But  I  have  received  a  letter  from 
her.' 

"  'That  may  be,  but  I  don't  know  her. 
Are  you  asking  for  some  kept  woman?' 

"  *No,  a  servant  probably.  She  wrote 
me  about  a  place.' 

"  'A  servant — a  servant?  Perhaps  it 
is  the  Marquis's.  Go  and  see,  the  fifth 
story  on  the  left.* 

"As  soon  as  he  found  I  was  not  asking 
for  a  kept  woman,  he  became  more 
friendly  and  came  as  far  as  the  passage 
with  me.  He  was  a  tall,  thin  man  with 
white  whiskers,  the  manners  of  a  beadle, 
and  majestic  in  movement. 

"I  climbed  up  a  long  spiral  staircase, 
whose  balusters  I  did  not  venture  to 
touch,  and  I  gave  three  discreet  knocks 
at  the  left-hand  door  on  the  fifth  story. 
It  opened  immediately,  and  an  enor- 
mous dirty  woman  appeared  before  me, 
who  barred  the  entrance  with  her  open 
arms,  which  she  placed  upon  the  two 
doorposts,  and  grumbled  out: 

"  'What  do  you  want?' 

"  'Are  you  Madame  Melani?' 

"  'Yes.' 

"  T  am  the  Viscount  de  Toumeville.* 
"'Ah!  All  right!     Come  in.' 
"  'Well,   the   fact   is,   my  mother  is 
downstairs  with  a  priest.' 

"'Oh!  All  right;  go  and  bring  them 
up;  but  take  care  of  the  porter.' 

"I  went  downstairs  and  came  up 
again  with  my  mother,  who  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  abbe,  and  I  fancie*^  that 
I  heard  other  footsteps  behind  us.  As 
soon  as  we  were  in  the  kitchen,  M61ani 


THE  MARQUIS  DE  FUMEROL 


U\ 


offered  us  chairs,  and  we  all  four  sat 
down  to  deliberate. 

"  'Is  he  very  ill?'    My  mother  asked. 

"  *0h!  yes,  Madame;  he  will  not  be 
here  long.* 

"  'Does  he  seem  disposed  to  receive 
a  visit  from  a  priest?' 

"  'Oh!     I   do  not  think   so.* 

"  'Can  I  see  him?' 

"  'Well — ^yes — Madame — only  —  only 
• — those  young  ladies  are  with  him.' 

"  'What  young  ladies?' 

"  'Why — why — ^his  lady  friends,  of 
course.' 

"'Oh!'  Mamma  had  grown  scarlet, 
and  the  Abbe  Poivron  had  lowered  his 
eyes. 

"The  affair  began  to  amuse  me,  and  I 
said:  'Suppose  I  go  in  first?  I  shall  see 
how  he  receives  me,  and  perhaps  I  shall 
be  able  to  prepare  his  heart  for  you.' 

"My  mother,  who  did  not  suspect  any 
trick,  replied:     'Yes,  go  my  dear.' 

"But  a  woman's  voice  cried  out: 
'Melani!' 

"The  fat  servant  ran  out  and  said: 
*What  do  you  want,  Mademoiselle 
Claire?' 

"  'The  omelet,  quickly.' 

"  'In  a  minute,  Mademoiselle.'  And 
coming  back  to  us,  she  explained  this 
summons. 

"  'They  ordered  a  cheese  omelet  at 
two  o'clock  as  a  slight  collation.'  And 
immediately  she  began  to  break  eggs 
into  a  salad  bowl,  and  began  to  whip 
them  vigorously,  while  I  went  out  on 
to  the  landing  and  pulled  the  bell,  so  as 
to  announce  my  ofi&cial  arrival.  Melani 
opened  the  door  to  me,  and  made  me 
sit  down  in  an  anteroom,  while  she  went 
to  telj  my  uncle  that  I  had  come.  Then 
slie  came  back  and  asked  me  to  go  in, 


while  the  abbe  hid  behina  the  door,  so 
that  he  might  appear  at  the  first  sign. 

"I  was  certainly  very  much  surprised 
at  seeing  my  uncle,  for  he  was  very 
handsome,  very  solemn,  and  very  ele- 
gant— the  old  rake. 

"Sitting,  almost  lying  in  a  large  arm- 
chair, his  legs  wrapped  in  blankets,  with 
his  hands,  his  long,  white  hands  over  the 
arms  of  the  chair,  he  was  waiting  for 
death  with  Biblical  dignity.  His  white 
beard  fell  on  his  chest,  and  his  hair, 
which  was  also  white,  mingled  with  it 
on  his  cheeks. 

"Standing  behind  his  armchair,  as  if 
to  defend  him  against  me,  were  two 
young  women,  two  stout  young  women, 
who  looked  at  me  with  the  bold  eyes  ox 
prostitutes.  In  their  petticoats  and 
morning  wrappers,  with  bare  arms,  with 
coal-black  hair  twisted  up  on  to  the 
napes  of  their  necks,  with  embroidered 
Oriental  slippers  which  showed  their 
ankles  and  silk  stockings,  they  looked 
like  the  immoral  figures  of  some  sym- 
bolical painting,  by  the  side  of  the  dying 
man.  Between  the  easy-chair  and  the 
bed,  there  was  a  table  covered  with  a 
white  cloth,  on  which  two  plates,  two 
glasses,  two  forks,  and  two  knives,  were 
waiting  for  the  cheese  omelet  which  had 
been  ordered  some  time  before  of 
Melani. 

"My  uncle  said  in  a  weak,  almost 
breathless,  but  clear  voice:  'Good  morn- 
ing, my  child:  it  is  rather  late  in  the 
day  to  come  to  see  me;  our  acquain- 
tanceship will  not  last  long.' 

"I  stammered  out:  'It  was  not  my 
fault,  uncle';  and  he  replied:  'No;  I 
know  that.  It  is  your  father's  and 
mother's  fault  more  than  yours.  Ho"Vi 
are  they?' 


Ul 


WORKS  OY  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"  'Pretty  well,  thank  you.  When 
they  heard  that  you  were  ill,  they  sent 
me  to  ask  after  you.' 

"  'Ah !  Why  did  they  not  come  them- 
selves?' 

"I  looked  up  at  the  two  girls  and  said 
gently:  'It  is  not  their  fault  if  they 
could  not  come,  uncle.  But  it  would  be 
difficult  for  my  father,  and  impossible 
for  my  mother  to  come  in  here.'  The 
old  man  did  not  reply,  but  raised  his 
hand  toward  mine,  and  I  took  the  pale, 
cold  hand  and  kept  it  in  my  own. 

"The  door  opened,  Mclani  came  in 
with  the  omelet  and  put  it  on  the  table, 
and  the  two  girls  immediately  sat  down 
in  front  of  their  plates  and  began  to  eat 
without  taking  their  eyes  oft"  me. 

"TheD  I  said:  'Uncle,  it  would  be  a 
great  pleasure  for  my  mother  to  em- 
brace you.' 

"  T  also — '  he  murmured,  *should 
like — '  He  said  no  more,  and  I  could 
think  of  nothing  to  propose  to  him,  and 
nothing  more  was  heard  except  the 
noise  of  Iha  plates  and  the  slight  sound 
of  eating  mouths. 

"Mow  the  abbe,  who  was  listening  be- 
hind thf.  door,  seeing  our  embarrass- 
ment, and  thinking  we  had  won  the 
game,  thought  the  time  had  come  to  in- 
terpose, and  showed  himself.  My  undo 
was  so  stupefied  at  that  apparition,  that 
at  first  he  remained  motionless;  then  he 
opened  his  mouth  as  if  he  meant  to 
swallow  up  the  priest,  and  cried  out  in. 
a  strong,  deep,  furious  voice:  'What  are 
you  doing  here?' 

"The  abbe,  v.ho  was  used  to  difficult 
situations,  came  forv.'ard,  murmuring: 
*I  have  come  in  your  sister^s  name, 
Monsieur  le  Marquis;  she  has  sent  me 
^-she  would  be  so  happy.  Monsieur — ' 


"But  the  Marquis  was  not  listening. 
Raising  one  hand,  he  pointed  to  the 
door  with  a  proud  and  tragic  gesture, 
and  said  angrily  and  gasping  for  breath: 
'Leave  this  room — go  oul — robber  of 
souls.  Go  out  from  here,  you  violator 
of  consciences!  Go  out  from  here,  you 
picklock  of  dying  men's  doors!' 

"The  abDe  went  backward,  and  I  too, 
went  to  the  door,  beating  a  retreat  with 
him;  and  the  two  Kttie  women,  who 
v;ere  avenged,  got  up,  leaving  their 
omelet  half  eaten,  and  stood  on  either 
side  of  my  uncle's  armchair,  putting 
their  hands  on  his  arm.s  to  calm  him. 
and  to  protect  him  against  the  criminal 
enterprises  of  the  Family  ani  of  Reli- 
gion. 

"The  abbe  and  I  rejoined  my  mother 
in  the  kitchen,  and  Melani  again  offered 
us  chairs.  'I  knew  quite  well  that  you 
v/ould  fail  that  way;  we  must  try  some 
other  means,  otherwise  he  will  escape 
us.*  And  we  began  deliberating  afresh, 
my  mother  being  of  one  opinion  and  the 
abbe  of  another,  while  I  held  a  third. 

"We  had  been  discussing  the  matter 
in  a  low  voice  for  half  an  fiour,  per- 
haps, when  a  great  noise  of  furniiure 
being  moved  and  of  cries  uttered  by  my 
uncle,  more  vehement  and  terrible  even 
than  the  former  had  been,  made  us  all 
jump  up. 

"Through  the  doors  and  walls  we 
could  hear  him  shouting:  'Go  out — out 
—rascals — ^humbugs;  get  out,  scoun- 
drels— get  out — get  out!' 

Melani  rushed  in,  but  came  back  im- 
mediately to  call  me  to  help  her,  and  I 
hastened  in.  Opposite  to  my  uncle  who 
was  terribly  excited  by  anger,  almost 
standing  up  and  vociferating,  two^  men, 
one  behind  the  other,  seemed  to  be  wait* 


THE  MARQUIS  DE  FUMEROL 


223 


ing  till  he  should  be   dead   with  lage. 

"By  his  long,  ridiculous  coat,  his 
pointed  English  choes,  bv  his  manners, 
— like  tho32  of  a  tutor  out  of  a  situa- 
tion,— by  his  high  collar,  white  necktie 
and  straight  hair,  by  his  humble  face,  I 
immediately  recognized  the  first  as  a 
Protestant  minister. 

"The  second  ^vas  the  porter  of  the 
house,  who  belonged  to  the  Reformed 
rehgion  and  had  followed  us.  Having 
known  of  our  d2feat  he  had  gone  to 
fetch  his  own  pastor,  in  hope  of  a  bet- 
ter fate.  My  uncle  seemed  mad  with 
rage!  If  the  sight  of  the  Catholic 
priest,  of  the  pr:er,t  cf  his  ancestors,  had 
irritated  the  Marquis  de  Fumerol,  who 
had  become  a  freethinker,  the  sight  of 
his  porter's  minister  made  him  alto- 
gether beside  aimself.  I  therefore  took 
the  two  men  by  the  arm  and  threw 
them  out  of  the  room  so  violently  that 
they  fell  up  against  each  other  twice,  be- 
tween the  two  doors  which  led  to  the 
staircase;  then  I  disappeared  in  my  turn 
and  returned  to  the  kitchen,  which  was 
our  headquarters,  in  order  to  take  coun- 
sel with  my  mother  and  the  abbe. 

*'But  Mcl?ni  came  back  in  terror, 
sobbing  out:  'He  is  dying — ^he  ib  dying 
— come  immediately — ^he  is  dying.' 

"My  mother  rushed  out.  My  uncle 
had  fallen  on  to  the  carpet,  full  length 
along  the  floor,  and  did  not  move.  I 
fancy  he  was  already  dead.  My  mother 
was  superb  at  that  moment!  She  went 
straight  up  to  the  two  girls  who  were 
kneeling  by  the  body  and  trying  to  raise 
it  up,  and  pointing  to  the  door  with 
irresistible  authority,  dignity,  and 
majesty,  she  said:  *Now  it  is  for  you  to 
go  cut.' 

"And  they  went  out  without  o.  pro- 


test, and  without  saying  a  word.  I 
must  add  that  I  was  getring  ready  to 
turn  them  out  as  unceremoniously  as  I 
had  dene,  the  parson  and  the  porter. 

"Then  the  Abbe  Poivron  administered 
extreme  unction  to  my  uncle  with  all 
the  customary  prayers  and  remilici  all 
his  sins,  while  my  mother  sobbed,  kneel- 
ing near  her  brother.  Suddenly,  how- 
ever, she  exclaimed:  *He  recognized 
mc;  he  pressed  my  hand;  I  am  s.:re  he 
recognized  me  and  thanked  mc!  Oh, 
God,  what  hr.ppiness!' 

"Poor  mamma!  If  she  b?,d  known 
or  guessed  to  whom  those  thank-  ought 
to  have  been  addressed! 

"They  laid  m.y  uncle  on  his  bed;  he 
was  certainly  dead  that  time. 

"  'Madame,'  Mclani  said,  'we  have  no 
sheets  to  bury  him  in;  all  the  linen  be- 
longs to  those  two  young  ladies/  and 
when  I  looked  at  the  omelet  which  they 
had  not  finished,  I  felt  inclined  to  laugh 
and  to  cry  at  the  same  time.  There  are 
some  strange  moments  and  some 
strange  sensations  in  Hfe,  occasionally! 

"We  gave  my  uncle  a  magnificent 
funeral,  v/ith  five  speeches  at  the  grave* 
Baron  de  Croiselles,  the  Senator, 
showed  in  admirable  terms,  that  God  al- 
ways returns  victorious  into  wcU-boin 
souls  which  have  gone  astray  for  a  mo- 
ment. All  the  members  of  the  P^oyalist 
and  Catholic  party  followed  the  funeral 
procession  with  triumphant  enthusiasm, 
speaking  of  that  beautiful  death,  after 
a  somewhat  restless  life." 

Viscount  Roger  ceased  speaking,  and 
those  around  him  laughed.  Then  some- 
body said:  "Bah!  That  is  the  story  i>i 
all  conversions  in  extremis." 


Saved 


The  little  Maquise  de  Rennedon 
came  rushing  in  like  a  ball  through  the 
window.  She  began  to  laugh  before  she 
spoke,  to  laugh  till  she  cried,  like  she 
had  done  a  month  previously,  when  she 
had  told  her  friend  that  she  had  be- 
trayed the  Marquis  in  order  to  have  her 
revenge,  but  only  once,  just  because  he 
was  really  too  stupid  and  too  jealous. 

The  little  Baroness  de  Grangerie  had 
thrown  the  book  which  she  was  reading 
on  to  the  sofa,  and  looked  at  Annette, 
curiously.  She  was  already  laughing 
herself,  and  at  last  she  asked: 

"What  have  you  been  doing  now?" 

"Oh!  my  dear! — my  dear!  it  is  too 
funny — too  funny.  Just  fancy — I  am 
saved ! — saved ! — saved ! " 

"How  do  you  mean,  saved?'* 

"Yes,  saved!" 

"From  what?" 

"From  my  husband,  my  dear,  saved! 
Delivered!    free!    free!   free!" 

"HoYj  free?    In  what?" 

"In  what?  Divorce!  yes  a  divorce! 
1  have  my  divorce!" 

"You  are  divorced?" 

"No,  not  yet;  how  stupid  you  are! 
One  does  not  get  divorced  in  three 
hours!  But  I  have  my  proofs  that  he 
has  deceived  me — caught  in  the  very  act 
— just  think! — in  the  very  act.  I  have 
got  him  tight." 

"Oh!  do  tell  me  all  about  it!  So  be 
deceived  you?" 

"Yes,  that  is  to  say  no — ^yes  and  no — 
I  do  not  know.  At  any  rate,  I  have 
proofs,  and  that  is  the  chief  thing." 

"How  did  you  manage  it?" 

"How  did  I  manage  it?  This  is  how! 
I  have  been  energetic,  very  energetic. 
For  the  last  three  months  he  has  been 


odious,  altogether  odious,  brutal,  coarse^ 
a  despot — ^in  one  word,  vile.  So  I  saicf 
to  myself:  This  cannot  last,  I  must 
have  a  divorce!  But  how? — for  it  is 
not  ve^y  easy.  I  tried  to  make  him 
beat  me,  but  he  would  not.  He  vexed 
me  from  morning  till  night,  made  me 
go  out  when  I  did  not  wish  to,  and  to 
remain  at  home  when  I  wanted  to  dine 
out;  he  made  my  life  unbearable  for 
me  from  one  week's  end  to  the  other, 
but  he  never  struck  me. 

"Then  I  tried  to  find  out  whether  he 
had  a  mistress  Yes,  he  had  one,  but  he 
took  a  thousand  precautions  in  going  to 
see  her,  and  they  could  never  be  caught 
together.     Guess  what  I  did  then?" 

"I  cannot  guess." 

"Oh!  you  could  never  guess.  I  asked 
my  brother  to  procure  me  a  photograph 
of  the  creature." 

"Of  your  husband's  mistress?" 

"Yes.  It  cost  Jacques  fifteen  louis,* 
the  price  of  an  evening,  from  seven 
o'clock  till  midnight,  including  a  dinner, 
at  three  louis  an  hour,  and  he  obtained 
the  photograph  into  the  bargain.* 

"It  appears  to  me  that  he  might  have 
obtained  it  anyhow  by  means  of  some 
artifice  and  without — ^without — ^without 
being  obliged  to  take  the  original  at  the 
same  time." 

"Oh!  she  is  pretty,  and  Jacques  did 
not  mind  the  least.  And  then,  I  wanted 
some  details  about  her,  physical  details 
about  her  figure,  her  breast,  her  com- 
plexion, a  thousand  things,  in  fact." 

"I  do  not  understand  you." 

"You  shall  see.  When  I  had  learned 
all  that  I  wanted  to  know,  I  went  to  a 


*60. 


77 


'i^ 


SAVED 


22S 


'—how  shall  I  put  it — to  a  man  of  bus- 
iness— you  know — one  of  those  men 
who  transact  business  of  all  sorts — 
agents  of — of — of  publicity  and  com- 
plicity— one  of  those  men — well,  you 
understand  what  I  mean." 

'Tretty  nearly,  I  think.  And  what 
did  you  say  to  him?" 

"I  said  to  him,  showing  the  photo- 
graph of  Clarisse  (her  name  is 
Clarisse):  'Monsieur,  I  want  a  lady's 
maid  who  resembles  this  photograph.  I 
require  one  who  is  pretty,  elegant,  neat, 
and  sharp.  I  will  pay  her  whatever  is 
necessary,  and  if  it  costs  me  ten  thou- 
sand francs*  so  much  the  worse.  I 
shall  not  require  her  for  more  than 
three  months.' 

"The  man  looked  extremely  aston- 
ished, and  said:  'Do  you  require  a  maid 
jof  an  irreproachable  character,  Ma- 
Idame?'  I  blushed  and  stammered:  'Yes 
of  course,  for  honesty.'  He  continued: 
*And — then — as  regards  morals?'  I  did 
not  venture  to  reply,  so  I  only  made  a 
sign  with  mv  head  which  signified  No. 
Then  sudaerxly,  I  comprehended  that  he 
had  a  horrible  suspicion  and  losing  my 
presence  of  mind,  1  exclaimed:  'Oh! 
Monsieur, — it  is  for  my  husband,  in 
order  that  I  mav  surDrise  him.' 

*Then  the  man  began  to  laugh,  and 
from  his  looks  I  gathered  that  I  had  re- 
gamed  his  esteem.  He  -^v^n  thought  I 
was  brave,  and  I  would  willingly  have 
made  a  bet  that  at  that  moment  he  was 
longing  to  shake  hands  wi\h  me.  How- 
ever, he  said  to  me:  *In  a  week  Ma- 
dame, I  shall  have  what  you  require;  I 
will  answer  for  my  success,  and  you 
shall  not  pay  me  until  I  have  succeeded. 
So  this  IS  a  photograph  of  your  hus- 
band's mistress?' 


"  'Yes,  Monsieur.* 

"  'A  handsome  woman,  and  not  too 
stout.    And  what  scent?' 

"I  did  not  understand,  and  repeated: 
'What  scent?' 

"He  smiled:  'Yes,  Madame,  per- 
fume is  essential  in  tempting  a  man,  for 
it  unconsciously  brings  to  his  mind  cer- 
tain reminiscences  which  dispose  him  to 
action;  the  perfume  creates  an  obscure 
confusion  in  his  mind,  and  disturbs  and 
energizes  him  by  recalling  his  pleasures 
to  him.  You  must  also  try  to  find  out 
what  your  husband  is  in  the  habit  of 
eating  when  he  dines  with  his  lady,  and 
you  might  give  him  the  same  dishes  the 
day  you  catch  him.  Oh!  we  have  got 
him,  Madame,  we  have  got  him.* 

"I  went  away  delighted,  for  here  I 
had  lighted  on  a  very  intelligent  man. 

"Three  days  later,  I  saw  a  tall,  dark 
girl  arrive  at  my  house;  she  was  very 
handsome,  and  her  looks  were  modest 
and  bold  at  the  same  time,  the  peculiar 
look  of  a  female  rake.  She  behaved 
very  properly  toward  me,  and  as  I  did 
not  exactly  know  what  she  was,  I  called 
her  Mademoiselle,  but  she  said  imme- 
diately: 'Oh!  pray,  Madame,  only  call 
me  Rose.*    And  she  began  to  talk. 

"  'Well,  Rose,  you  know  why  you 
have  come  here?' 

"  *I  can  guess  it,  Madame.* 

"  'Very  good,  my  girl — and  that  will 
not  be  too  much  bother  for  you?' 

"'Oh!  Madame,  this  will  be  the 
eighth  divorce  that  I  shall  have  caused; 
I  am  used  to  it.* 

"  'Why,  that  is  capital.  Will  it  take 
you  long  to  succeed?' 

"  'Oh!    Madame,    that    depends    en 


*$2000. 


226 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


tireiy  on  Monsieur's  temperament. 
When  I  have  seen  Monsieur  for  five 
minutes  alone,  1  shall  be  able  to  tell 
you  exactly.' 

"  'You  will  see  him  soon,  my  child, 
but  I  must  tell  you  that  he  is  not  hand- 
some.' 

"  That  does  not  matter  to  me,  Ma- 
dame. I  have  already  separated  some 
very  ugly  ones.  But  I  must  ask  you 
Madame,  whether  you  have  discovered 
his  favorite  perfume?' 

"  *Yes,  Rose — verbena.* 

"  'So  much  the  better,  Madame,  for 
I  am  also  very  fond  of  that  scent!  Can 
you  also  tell  me,  Madame,  whether 
Monsieur's  mistress  wears  silk  under- 
clothing and  nightdresses?* 

*'  'No,  my  child,  cambric  and  lace.* 

"'Oh!  then  she  is  altogether  of  su- 
perior station,  fcr  s'lk  underclothing  is 
getting  quite  ccmmcn.* 

"  'What  you  say  is  quite  true!* 

"  'Well,  Madame,  I  will  enter  your 
service.'  And  so  as  a  matter  cf  fact  she 
did  immediately,  and  as  if  she  had  done 
nothing  che  all  her  life. 

"An  hour  later  my  husband  came 
home.  Rcse  did  not  even  raise  her  eyes 
to  him,  but  he  raised  his  eyes  to  her. 
She  already  smelled  strongly  of  ver- 
bena. In  five  minutes  she  left  the 
room,  and  he  immediately  asked  me: 
•Who  is  that  girl?* 

"  'Why — iry  new  lady's  maid.* 

"  'Where  did  you  pick  her  up?* 

"'Bareness  d2  Grangerie  got  her  for 
me  with  the  best  references.* 

"'Ah!     she  is  rather  pretty!* 

"  'Do  ycu  think  so?* 

"  'Why,  yes — for  a  lady's  maid.* 

"I  was  delighted,  for  I  felt  that  he 
was  already  biting,  and  that  same  eve- 


ning Rose  said  to  me:  'I  can  novf 
promise  you  that  it  will  not  take  more 
than  a  fortnight,  Monsieur  is  very  easily 
caught!' 

"  'Ah!  you  have  tried  already?' 

"  'No,  Madame,  he  only  asked  what 
my  name  was,  so  that  he  might  hear 
what  my  voice  was  like.' 

"  'Very  well,  my  dear  Rose.  Get  on 
as  quick  as  you  can.' 

"'Do  not  be  alarmed,  Madame;  I 
chall  only  resist  long  enough  not  to 
make  myself  depreciated.' 

"At  the  end  cf  a  week,  my  husband 
scarcely  ever  went  out;  I  saw  him 
roaming  about  the  house  the  whole  af- 
ternoon, and  what  was  most  significant 
in  the  matter  was  that  he  no  longer  pre- 
vented me  from  going  out.  And  I,  I 
was  out  of  doors  nearly  the  whole  day 
long — ^in  order — in  order  to  leave  him 
at  liberty. 

"On  the  ninth  day,  while  Rcse  waa 
undressing  me,  she  said  to  me  with  a 
timid  air:  'It  happened  this  morning, 
Madame.* 

"I  was  rather  surprised,  or  rather 
overcome  even,  not  at  the  part  itself, 
but  at  the  way  in  which  she  told  me, 
and  I  stammered  out:  'And — and — it 
went  off  well?* 

'*'Oh!  yes,  very  well,  Madame.  For 
the  last  three  days  he  has  been  pressing 
me,  but  I  did  not  wish  matters  to  pro- 
ceed too  quickly.  You  will  tell  me 
when  ycu  want  us  to  be  caught,  Ma- 
dame.* 

'* 'Yes,  certainly.  Here!  let  us  say 
Thursday.' 

"  'Very  well,  Madame,  I  shall  grant 
nothing  more  till  then,  so  '^s  to  keep 
Monsieur  on  the  alert.' 

"  'You  are  sure  not  to  fail?* 


THE  SIGNAL 


227 


"*0h!  qujie  sure,  Madame.  I  will 
excite  him,  so  as  to  make  him  be  there 
at  the  very  moment  which  you  may 
appoint.' 

"  'Let  us  say  five  o'clock  then.' 

"  'Very  well,  Madame,  and  where?* 

"  'Well — in  my  bedroom.' 

"  'Very  good,  Madame,  in  your  bed- 
room.' 

"  'You  will  understand  what  I  did 
then,  my  dear.  I  went  and  fetched 
mamma  and  papa  first  cf  all,  and  then 
my  uncle  d'Orvelin,  the  President,  and 
Monsieur  Raplct,  the  Judge,  my  hus- 
band's friend.  I  had  not  told  them  v/hat 
I  was  going  to  show  them,  but  I  made 
them  all  go  on  tiptoe  as  far  as  the  door 
of  my  room,  I  waited  till  five  o'clock 
exactly,  and  oh !  how  my  heart  beat !  I 
had  made  the  porter  come  upstairs  as 
well,  so  as  to  have  an  additional  wit- 
ness! And  then — and  th?n  at  the  mo- 
ment when  the  clock  began  to  strike, 
I  opened  the  door  wide.    Ah!  ah!  ah! 


Here  he  was  evidently — it  was  quite 
evident,  my  dear.  Oh!  what  a  head! 
If  you  had  only  seen  his  head !  And  he 
turned  round,  the  idiot  i  Oh !  how  funny 
he  looked — I  laughed,  I  laughed.  And 
papa  was  angry  and  wanted  to  give  my 
husband  a  beating.  And  the  porter,  a 
good  servant  helped  him  to  dress  him- 
self before  U3 — before  U3.  H3  but- 
toned his  braces  for  him — what  a  joke 
it  was!  As  for  Rose,  she  was  perfect, 
absolutely  perfect.  She  cried — ch!  she 
cried  very  well.  She  is  an  invaluable 
girl.  If  you  ever  want  her,  don't  for- 
get! 

"And  here  I  am.  I  ^amc  immedi* 
ately  to  tell  you  of  the  affair  directly. 
I  am  free.    Long  live  divorce!" 

And  sh2  began  to  dance  in  the  middle 
of  the  drawing-room,  while  the  little 
Baroness,  who  was  thoughtful  and  put 
cut,  said: 

"Why  did  you  not  invite  me  to  see 
it?" 


The  Signal 


The  little  Marchioness  de  Rennedon 
was  still  asleep  ia  her  dark  and  per- 
fumed bedroom. 

In  her  soft,  low  bed,  between  sheets: 
of  delicate  cambric,  fine  as  lace  and 
caressing  as  a  kiss,  she  was  sleeping 
alone  and  tranquil,  the  happy  and  pro- 
found sleep  of  divorced  women. 

She  was  awakened  by  loud  voices  in 
the  little  blue  drawing-room,  and  she 
recognized  her  dear  friend,  the  little 
Baroness  de  Grangerie,  who  was  dis- 
puting with  the  lady's  maid,  because  the 


latter  would  not  allow  her  to  go  into 
the  Marchioness's  room.  So  tiie  little 
Marchioness  got  up,  opened  the  door, 
drew  back  the  door-hangings  and  showed 
her  head,  nothing  Lut  her  fair  head, 
hidden  under  a  cloud  of  hair. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you,  that 
you  have  come  so  early?"  she  asked. 
"It  is  not  nine  o'clock  yet." 

The  little  Baroness,  who  was  very 
pale,  nervous,  and  feverish,  replied:  "I 
must  speak  to  you.  Something  horrIU< 
has  happened  to  me." 


Z2S 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


*'Come  in,  my  dear." 

She  went  in,  they  kissed  each  other 
and  the  little  Marchioness  got  back  into 
her  bed",  while  the  lady's  maid  opened 
the  windows  to  let  in  light  and  air.  Then 
when  she  had  left  the  room,  Madame  de 
Rennedon  went  on:  "Well,  tell  me 
what  it  is." 

Madame  de  Grangerie  began  to  cry, 
shedding  those  pretty  bright  tears  which 
make  women  more  charming.  She 
sobbed  out,  without  wiping  her  eyes, 
so  as  not  to  make  them  red:  "Oh,  my 
dear,  what  has  happened  to  me  is  abom- 
i;qable,  abominable.  I  have  not  slept  all 
night,  not  a  minute;  do  you  hear,  not 
a  minute.  Here,  just  feel  my  heart, 
how  it  is  beating." 

And  taking  her  friend's  hand,  she  put 
it  on  her  breast,  on  that  firm,  round 
covering  of  women's  hearts  which  often 
sufiices  men,  and  prevents  them  from 
seeking  beneath.  But  her  heart  was 
really  beating  violently. 

She  continued:  "It  happened  to  me 
yesterday  during  the  day,  at  about  four 
o'clock — or  half  past  four;  I  cannot  say 
exactly.  You  know  my  apartments, 
and  you  know  that  my  little  drawing- 
room,  where  I  always  sit,  looks  on  to  the 
Rue  Saint-Lazare,  and  that  I  have  a 
mania  for  sitting  at  the  window  to 
look  at  the  people  passing.  The  neigh- 
borhood of  the  railway  station  is  very 
gay;  so  full  of  motion  and  lively — just 
what  I  like!  So,  yesterday,  I  was  sit- 
ting in  the  low  chair  which  I  have  placed 
in  my  window  recess;  the  window  was 
open  and  I  was  not  thinking  of  any- 
thing, simply  breathing  the  fresh  air. 
You  remember  how  fine  it  was  yester- 
day! 

"Suddenly.  I  remarked  a  woman  sit- 


ting at  the  window  opposite — a  woman 
in  red.  I  was  in  mauve,  you  know, 
my  pretty  mauve  costume.  I  did  not 
know  the  woman,  a  new  lodger,  who 
had  been  there  a  month,  and  as  it  has 
been  raining  for  a  month,  I  had  not  yet 
seen  her,  but  I  saw  immediately  that 
she  was  a  bad  girl.  At  first  I  was  very 
much  shocked  and  disgusted  that  she 
should  be  at  the  window  just  as  I  was; 
and  then  by  degrees,  it  amused  me  to 
watch  her.  She  was  resting  her  elbows 
on  the  window  ledge,  and  looking  at  the 
men,  and  the  men  looked  at  her  also, 
all  or  nearly  all.  One  might  have  said 
that  they  knew  of  her  presence  by  some 
means  as  they  got  near  the  house,  that 
they  scented  her,  as  dogs  scent  game, 
for  they  suddenly  raised  their  heads, 
and  exchanged  a  swift  look  with  her, 
a  sort  of  freemason's  look.  Hers  said: 
'Will  you?'  Theirs  replied:  T  have  no 
time,'  or  else:  'Another  day';  or  else; 
'I  have  not  got  a  sou';  or  else:  'Hide 
yourself,  you  wretch!' 

"You  cannot  imagine  how  funny  it 
was  tc<  see  her  carrying  on  such  a  piece 
of  work,  though  after  all  it  is  her  regular 
business. 

"Occasionally  she  shut  the  window 
suddenly,  and  I  saw  a  gentleman  go  in. 
She  had  caught  him  like  a  fisherman 
hooks  a  gudgeon.  Then  I  looked  at  my 
watch,  and  I  found  that  they  never 
stopped  longer  than  from  twelve  to 
twenty  minutes.  In  the  end  she  really 
infatuated  me,  the  spider!  And  then 
the  creature  is  so  ugly. 

"I  asked  myself :  'How  does  she  man- 
age to  make  herself  understood  so 
quickly,  so  well  and  so  completely? 
Does  she  add  a  sign  of  the  head  or  a 
motion  of  the  hands  to  her  looks?'  And 


THE  SIGNAL 


22^ 


I  took  my  opera-glasses  to  watch  her 
proceedings.  Oh!  they  were  very  sim- 
ple: first  of  all  a  glance,  then  a  smile, 
then  a  slight  sign  with  the  head  which 
meant:  'Are  you  coming  up?'  But  it 
was  so  slight,  so  vague,  so  discreet,  that 
it  required  a  great  deal  of  knack  to 
succeed  as  she  did.  And  I  asked  my- 
self: 'I  wonder  if  I  could  do  that  little 
movement,  from  below  upward,  which 
was  at  the  same  time  bold  and  pretty, 
as  well  as  she  does,'  for  her  gesture 
was  very  pretty. 

"I  went  and  tried  it  before  the  look- 
ing-glass, and  my  dear,  I  did  it  better 
than  she,  a  great  deal  better!  I  was 
enchanted,  and  resumed  my  place  at 
the  window. 

"She  caught  nobody  more  then,  poor 
girl,  nobody.  She  certainly  had  no  luck. 
It  must  really  be  very  terrible  to  earn 
one's  bread  in  that  way,  terrible  and 
amusing  occasionally,  for  really  some  of 
these  men  one  meets  in  the  street  are 
rather  nice. 

''After  that  they  all  came  on  my 
side  of  the  road  and  none  on  hers;  the 
sun  had  turned.  They  came  one  after 
the  other,  young,  old,  dark,  fair,  gray, 
white.  I  saw  some  who  looked  very 
nice,  really  very  nice,  my  dear,  far  bet- 
ter than  my  husband  or  than  yours — I 
mean  than  your  late  husband,  a^  you 
have  got  a  divorce.  Now  you  can 
choose. 

'T  said  to  myself:  Tf  I  give  them  the 
sign,  will  they  understand  me,  who  am 
a  respectable  woman?'  And  I  was 
seized  with  a  mad  longing  to  make  that 
sign  to  them.  I  had  a  longing,  a  terrible 
longing;  you  know,  one  of  those  long- 
ings which  one  cannot  resist!  I  have 
some  like  that  occasionally.    How  silly 


such  things  are,  don't  you  think  so?  X 
believe  that  we  women  have  the  souls 
of  monkeys.  I  have  been  told  (and 
it  was  a  physician  who  told  me)  that  the 
brain  of  a  monkey  is  very  like  ours. 
Of  course  we  must  imitate  some  one  or 
other.  We  imitate  our  husbands  when 
we  love  them,  during  the  first  months 
after  our  marriage,  and  then  our  lovers, 
our  female  friends,  our  confessors  when 
they  are  nice.  We  assume  their  ways  of 
thought,  their  manners  of  speech,  their 
words,  their  gestures,  everything.  It 
is  very  foolish. 

"However,  as  for  me,  when  I  anx 
much  tempted  to  do  a  thing  I  always 
do  it,  and  so  I  said  to  myself:  T  will 
try  it  once,  on  one  man  only,  just  to 
see.  What  can  happen  to  me? 
Nothing  whatever!  We  shall  exchange 
a  smile  and  that  will  be  all  and  I  shall 
deny  it,  most  certainly.' 

''So  I  began  to  make  my  choice,  I 
wanted  some  one  nice,  very  nice,  and 
suddenly  I  saw  a  tall,  fair,  very  good- 
looking  fellow  coming  alone.  I  like 
fair  men,  as  you  know.  I  looked  at  him, 
he  looked  at  me;  I  smiled,  he  smiled, 
I  made  the  movement,  oh!  so  faintly; 
he  replied  yes  with  his  head,  and  there 
he  was,  my  dear!  He  came  in  at  the 
large  door  of  the  house. 

"You  cannot  imagine  what  passed 
through  my  mind  then!  I  thought  I 
should  go  mad.  Oh !  how  frightened  I 
was.  Just  think,  he  will  speak  to  the 
servants !  To  Joseph,  who  is  devoted  to 
my  husband!  Joseph  would  certainly 
think  that  I  had  known  that  gentleman 
for  a  long  time. 

'What  could  I  do,  just  tell  me?  And 
he  would  ring  in  a  moment.  What  could 
I  do,  tell  me?     I  thought  I  would  go 


230 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  meet  him,  and  tell  him  he  had  made 
a  mistake,  and  beg  him  to  go  away.  He 
would  have  pity  on  a  woman,  on  a  poor 
woman:  So  I  rushed  to  the  door  and 
opened  it,  just  at  the  moment  when  he 
was  going  to  ring  the  bell,  and  I  stam- 
mered out,  quite  stupidly:  *Go  away, 
Monsieur,  go  away;  you  have  made  a 
mistake,  a  terrible  mistake;  I  took  you 
for  one  of  my  friends  whom  you  are 
very  like.  Have  pity  on  me,  Mon- 
sieur.' 

"But  he  only  began  to  laugh,  my 
dear,  and  replied:  'Good  morning,  my 
dear,  I  know  all  about  your  little  story, 
you  may  be  sure.  You  are  m.arried,  and 
so  you  want  forty  francs  instead  of 
twenty,  and  you  shall  have  them,  so  just 
show  the  way.* 

"And  he  pushed  me  in,  closed  the 
dooi,  and  as  I  remained  standing  before 
him,  horror-struck,  he  kissed  me,  put 
his  arm  round  my  waist  and  made  me 
go  back  into  the  drawing-room,  the  doer 
of  which  had  remained  open.  Then  he 
began  to  look  at  everything  like  an 
auctioneer,  and  continued:  'By  Jove,  it 
is  very  nice  in  your  rooms,  very  nice. 
You  must  be  very  down  on  your  luck 
just  now,  to  do  the  window  business!* 
"Then  I  began  to  bog  him  again. 
Oh!  Monsieur,  go  away,  please  go 
away!  My  husband  wull  be  coming  m 
soon^  it  is  just  his  time.  I  swear  tliat 
you  have  made  a  mistake!'  But  he  an- 
swered quite  coolly:  'Come,  my  beauty, 
f  have  had  enouch  of  this  nonsense,  and 
if  your  husband  comes  in,  I  will  give 
him  live  francs  to  go  and  have  a  drink 
at  the  cufe  opposite.'  And  then  seeing 
Raoul's  photograph  on  the  chimney- 
piece,  he  asked  me:  *Is  that  your— 
your  husband?* 


"  'Yes,  that  is  he.' 

"  'He  looks  like  a  nice,  disagreeable 
sort  of  fellow.  And  who  is  this?  One 
of  your  friends?' 

"It  was  your  photograph,  my  dear, 
you  know,  the  one  in  ball  dress.  I  did 
not  know  any  longer  what  I  was  saying 
and  I  stammered:  'Yes,  it  is  one  of  my 
friends.' 

"'She  is  very  nice;  you  shall  intro- 
duce me  to  her.' 

"Just  then  the  clock  struck  five,  and 
Raoul  comes  home  every  day  at  half 
past!  Suppose  he  were  to  come  home 
before  the  other  had  gone,  just  fancy 
what  would  have  happened!  Then- 
then — I  completely  lost  my  head — alto- 
gether— I  thought — I  thought — that — 
that — the  best  thing  would  be — to  get 
rid — of — of  this  man — as  quickly  as 
possible —  The  sooner  it  was  over— 
you  understand." 

^  ^  H:  ^  4^  4 

The  little  Marchioness  de  Rennedon 
had  begun  to  laugh,  to  laugh  madly, 
with  her  head  buried  in  her  pillow,  so 
that  the  whole  bed  shook,  and  when 
she  was  a  little  calmer  she  asked: 

"And — and — ^was  hs  good-looking?" 

"Yes." 

"And  yet  you  complain?'* 

"But — ^but — don't  you  see,  my  dear, 
he  said — he  said — ^he  should  come  again 
to-morrow — at  the  same  time — and  I — I 
am  terribly  frightened —  You  have  no 
idea  how  tenacious  he  is  and  obstinate — 
What  can  I  do — tell  me — what  can  I 
do?" 

The  little  Marchioness  sat  up  in  bed 
to  reflect,  and  then  she  suddenly  said: 
"Have  him  arrested!" 

Thb  little  Baroness  looked  stupefied, 


THE  DEVIL 


231 


and  stammered  out:  "What  do  you 
say?  What  are  you  thinking  of?  Have 
him  arrested?     Under  what  pretext?" 

"That  is  very  simple.  Go  to  the 
Commissary  of  Police  and  say  that  a 
gentleman  has  been  following  you  about 
for  three  months;  that  he  had  the  in- 
solence to  go  up  to  your  apartments 
yesterday;  that  he  has  threatened  you 
with  another  visit  to-morrow,  and  that 
you  demand  the  protection  of  the  law, 
and  they  will  give  you  two  polico  olTi- 
cers  who  will  arrest  him." 
"But,  my  dear,  suppose  he  telh — " 
"They  will  not  bcKcve  him,  you  silly 
thing,  if  you  have  told  your  tale  cleverly 
to  the  commissary,  but  they  will  believe 
you,  who  are  an  irreproachable  woman, 
and  in  society." 

"Oh!  I  shall  never  dare  to  do  it.*' 
"You  must  dare,  my  dear,  or  you  are 
lost" 

"But  think  that  he  will— he  will  in- 
sv-lt  me  if  he  is  arrested." 


"Very  well,  you  will  have  witnesses, 
and  he  will  be  sentenced." 

"Sentenced  to  what?" 

"To  pay  damages.  In  such  cases,  one 
must  be  pitiless!" 

"Ah!  speaking  of  damages — there  is 
one  thing  that  worries  ms  very  much — - 
very  much  indeed.  lie  left  me  two 
twenty-franc  pieces  on  the  mantelpiece." 

*  Two  twenty-francs  pieces?" 

"Yes." 

"No  more?* 

"No." 

"That  is  very  little.  It  would  have 
humiliated  me.    Well?" 

"Well!     What  am  I  to  do  with  that 

money?" 

The  little  Marchioness  hesitated  for  a 
few  seconds,  and  then  she  replied  in  a 
serious  voice: 

"My  dear — ^you  must  make — you 
must  make  your  husband  a  little  present 
with  it.    That  will  be  only  fair ! " 


The  Devil 


'^'he  peasant  was  standing  opposite 
ihe  doctor,  by  the  bedside  of  the  dying 
old  woman,  and  she,  calmly  resigned 
and  quite  lucid,  looked  at  them  and 
listened  to  their  talking.  She  was  going 
to  die,  and  she  did  not  rebel  at  it,  for 
her  life  was  over — she  was  ninety-two. 

The  July  sun  streamed  in  at  the  win- 
dow and  throu^^h  the  open  door  and 
cast  its  hot  flames  on  to  the  uneven 
brown  clay  floor,  which  had  been 
stamped  down  by  four  generations  of 
clodhoppers.     The   smell   of   the   fields 


came  in  also,  driven  by  the  brisk  wind, 
and  parched  b>  the  noontide  heat.  The 
grasshoppers  chirped  themselves  hoarse, 
filling  the  air  with  their  shrill  noise, 
like  that  of  the  wooden  crickets  which 
are  sold  to  children  at  fair  time. 

The  doctor  raised  his  voice  and  said: 
"Honore,  you  cannot  leave  your  mother 
in  t^Js  state;  she  may  die  at  any  mo- 
ment." And  the  peasant,  in  great  dis- 
tress, replied:  "But  I  must  get  in  my 
wheat,  for  it  has  been  lying  on  the 
ground  a  long  time,  and  the  weather  ii 


232 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


just  right  for  it;  what  do  you  say  about 
it,  mother?"  And  the  dying  woman,  sdll 
possessed  by  her  Norman  avariciousness, 
replies  yes  with  her  eyes  and  her  fore- 
head, and  so  urged  her  son  to  get  in  his 
wheat,  and  to  leave  her  to  die  alone. 
But  the  doctor  got  angry,  and  stamping 
his  foot  he  said:  "You  are  no  better 
than  a  brute,  do  you  hear,  and  I  will 
not  allow  you  to  do  it.  Do  you  under- 
stand? And  if  you  must  get  in  your 
wheat  to-day,  go  and  fetch  Rapet's  wife 
and  make  her  look  after  your  mother. 
I  will  have  it.  And  if  you  do  not  obey 
me,  I  will  let  you  die  like  a  dog,  when 
you  are  ill  in  your  turn;  do  you  hear 
me?" 

The  peasant,  a  tall,  thin  fellow  with 
slow  movements,  who  was  tormented  by 
indecision,  by  his  fear  of  the  doctor 
and  his  keen  love  for  saving,  hesitated, 
calculated,  and  stammered  out:  "How 
much  does  La  Rapet  charge  for  attend- 
ing sick  people?" 

"How  should  I  know?"  the  doctor 
cried.  "That  depends  upon  how  long 
she  is  wanted  for.  Settle  it  with  her, 
by  Jove!  But  I  want  her  to  be  here 
within  an  hour,  do  you  hear." 

So  the  man  made  up  his  mind.  "I 
will  go  for  her,"  he  replied;  "don't  get 
angry,  doctor."  And  the  latter  left, 
calling  out  as  he  went :  "Take  care,  you 
know,  for  I  do  not  joke  when  I  am 
angry!"  And  as  soon  as  they  were 
alone,  the  peasant  turned  to  his  mother, 
and  said  in  a  resigned  voice:  "I  will  go 
and  fetch  La  Rapet,  as  the  man  will 
have  it.    Don't  go  off  while  I  am  away.'* 

And  he  went  out  in  his  turn. 

La  Rapet,  v/ho  was  an  old  washer- 
woman, watched  the  dead  and  the  dying 
of  the  neighborhood,  and  then,  as  soon 


as  she  had  sewn  her  customers  into  that 
linen  cloth  from  which  they  would 
emerge  no  more,  she  went  and  took  up 
her  irons  to  smooth  the  linen  of  the  liv- 
ing. Wrinkled  like  a  last  year's  apple, 
spiteful,  envious,  avaricious  with  a  phe- 
nomenal avarice,  bent  double,  as  if  she 
had  been  broken  in  half  across  the 
loins,  by  the  constant  movement  of  the 
iron  over  the  linen,  one  might  have  said 
that  she  had  a  kind  of  monstrous  and 
cynical  affection  for  a  death  struggle. 
She  never  spoke  of  anything  but  of  the 
people  she  had  seen  die,  of  the  various 
kinds  of  deaths  at  which  she  had  been 
present,  and  she  related,  with  the  great- 
est minuteness,  details  which  were  al- 
ways the  same,  just  like  a  sportsman 
talks  of  his  shots. 

When  Honore  Bontemps  entered  her 
cottage,  he  found  her  preparing  the 
starch  for  the  collars  of  the  village 
women,  and  he  said:  "Good  evening; 
I  hope  you  are  pretty  well,  Mother 
Rapet." 

She  turned  her  head  round  to  look  at 
him  and  said:  "Fairly  well,  fairly  well, 
and  you?" 

"Oh!  as  for  me,  I  am  as  well  as  I 
could  wish,  but  my  mother  is  very 
sick." 

"Your  mother?" 

"Yes,  my  mother!'* 

"What's  the  matter  with  her?" 

"She  is  going  to  turn  up  her  toes, 
that's  what's  the  mat'.er  with  her!" 

The  old  woman  Look  her  hands  out 
of  the  water  and  asked  with  sudden 
sympathy:    "Is  she  as  bad  as  all  that?" 

"The  doctor  says  she  will  not  last 
till  morning." 

"Then  she  certainly  is  very  bad!" 
Honore  hesitated,  ^or  he  wanted  to  make 


THE  DEVIL 


233 


a  few  preliminary  remarks  before  com- 
ing to  his  proposal,  but  as  he  could  hit 
upon  nothing,  he  made  up  his  mind  sud- 
denly. 

"How  much  are  you  going  to  ask  to 
stop  with  her  till  the  end?  You  know 
that  I  am  not  rich,  and  I  cannot  even 
afford  to  keep  a  servant-girl.  It  is  just 
that  which  has  brought  my  poor  mother 
to  this  state,  too  much  work  and  fatigue ! 
She  used  to  work  for  ten,  in  spite  of 
her  ninety-two  years.  You  don't  find 
any  made  of  that  stuff  nowadays!" 

La  Rapet  answered  gravely:  "There 
are  two  prices:  Forty  sous  by  day  and 
three  francs  by  night  for  the  rich,  and 
twenty  sous  by  day,  and  forty  by  night 
for  the  others.  You  shall  pay  me  the 
twenty  and  forty."  But  the  peasant  re- 
flected, for  he  knew  his  mother  well. 
He  knew  how  tenacious  of  life,  how 
vigorous  and  unyielding  she  was.  He 
knew,  too,  that  she  might  last  another 
week,  in  spite  of  the  doctor's  opinion, 
and  so  he  said  resolutely:  "No,  I  would 
rather  you  would  fix  a  price  until  the 
end.  I  will  take  my  chance,  one  way 
or  the  other.  The  doctor  says  she  will 
die  very  soon.  If  that  happens,  so  much 
the  better  for  you,  and  so  much  the 
worse  for  me,  but  if  she  holds  out  till 
to-morrow  or  longer,  so  much  the  better 
for  me  and  so  much  the  worse  for  you!'* 

The  nurss  looked  at  the  man  in 
astonishment,  for  she  had  never  treated 
a  death  as  a  speculative  job,  and  she 
hesitated,  tempted  by  the  idea  of  the 
possible  gain.  But  almost  immediately 
she  suspected  that  he  wanted  to  juggle 
her,  "I  can  say  nothing  until  I  have 
seen  your  mother,"  she  replied. 

"Then  come  with  me  and  see  her." 

She  washed  her  hands,  and  went  with 


him  immediately.  They  did  not  speak 
on  the  road;  she  walked  with  short, 
hasty  steps,  while  he  strode  on  with  his 
long  legs,  as  if  he  were  crossing  a  brook 
at  every  step.  The  cows  lying  down 
in  the  fields,  overcome  by  the  heat^ 
raised  their  heads  heavily  and  lowed 
feebly  at  the  two  passers-by,  as  if  to 
ask  them  for  some  green  grass. 

When  they  got  near  the  house, 
Honore  Bontemps  murmured:  "Sup- 
pose it  is  all  over?"  And  the  uncon- 
scious wish  that  it  might  be  so  showed 
itself  in  the  sound  of  his  voice. 

But  the  old  woman  was  not  dead. 
She  was  lying  on  her  back,  on  her 
wretched  bed,  her  hands  covered  with 
a  pink  cotton  counterpane,  horribly  thin, 
knotty  paws,  like  some  strange  animal's, 
or  like  crabs'  claws,  hands  closed  by 
rheumatism,  fatigue,  and  the  work  of 
nearly  a  century  which  she  had  accom- 
plished. 

La  Rapet  went  up  to  the  bed  and 
looked  at  the  dying  woman,  felt  her 
pulse,  tapped  her  on  the  chest,  listened 
to  her  breathing,  and  asked  her  ques- 
tions, so  as  to  hear  her  speak:  then, 
having  looked  at  her  for  some  time 
longer,  she  went  out  of  the  room,  foU 
lowed  by  Honore.  His  decided  opinion 
was,  that  the  old  woman  would  not  last 
out  the  night,  and  he  asked:  "Well?" 
And  the  sick-nurse  replied:  "Well,  she 
may  last  two  days,  perhaps  three.  You 
will  have  to  give  me  six  francs,  every- 
thing included." 

"Six  francs!  six  francs!"  he  shouted. 
"Are  you  out  of  your  mind?  I  tell  yow 
that  she  cannot  last  more  than  five  o^ 
six  hours!"  And  they  disputed  angrily 
for  some  time,  but  as  the  nurse  said 
she  would  go  home,  as  the  time  was 


J4 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


slipping  away,  and  as  his  wheat  would 
not  come  to  the  farmyard  of  its  own 
accord,  he  agreed  to  her  terms  at  last: 

"Very  well,  then,  that  is  settled;  six 
francs  including  everything,  until  the 
corpse  is  taken  out." 

*'That  is  settled,  six  francs." 

And  he  went  away,  with  long  strides, 
to  the  wheat,  which  was  lying  on  the 
ground  under  the  hot  sun  which  ripens 
the  grain,  while  the  sick-nurse  returned 
to  the  house. 

She  had  brought  some  work  with  her, 
for  she  worked  without  stepping  by  the 
side  of. the  dead  and  dying,  sometimes 
for  herself,  sometimes  for  the  family, 
who  employed  her  as  seamstress  also, 
paying  her  rather  more  in  that  capacity. 
Suddenly  she  asked: 

''Have  you  received  the  last  sacra- 
ment. Mother  Bontemps?" 

The  old  peasant  woman  said  "No" 
with  her  head,  and  La  Rapet,  who  was 
very  devout,  got  w}  quickly:  "Good 
heavens,  is  it  possible?  I  will  go  and 
fetch  the  cure'';  and  she  rushed  off 
to  the  parsonage  so  quickly,  that  the 
urchins  in  the  street  thought  some  acci- 
dent had  happened,  when  they  saw  her 
trotting  off  like  that. 

The  priest  came  immediately  in  his 
surpHce,  preceded  by  a  choir-boy,  who 
rang  a  bell  to  announce  the  passage  of 
the  Host  through  the  parched  and  quiet 
country.  Some  men,  working  at  a  dis- 
tance, took  off  their  hrge  hats  and  re- 
mained motionless  until  the  white  vest- 
ment had  disappeared  behind  some  farm 
buildings;  the  women  who  were  making 
up  the  sheaves  stood  up  to  make  the 
sign  of  the  cross;  the  friehtened  black 
iiens  ran  away  along  the  ditch  until  they 
"•cached   a   well-krown     hole     through 


which  they  suddenly  disappeared,  while 
a  foal,  which  was  tied  up  i:i  a  meadow, 
took  fright  at  the  sight  of  the  surpHce 
and  began  to  gallop  round  at  the  length 
cf  its  rope,  kicking  violently.  The  choir- 
boy, in  his  red  cassock,  walked  quickly, 
and  the  priest,  the  square  biretta  on  his 
bowed  head,  followed  him,  muttering 
some  prayers.  Last  of  all  came  La 
Rapet,  bent  almost  doubb,  as  if  she 
v.'ishcd  to  prostrate  herself;  she  walked 
v/Ith  folded  hands,  as  if  she  were  in 
church, 

Honore  saw  them  pass  in  the  dis- 
tance, and  he  asked:  "Where  is  our 
priest  going  to?'  And  his  man,  who 
was  more  acute,  replied:  "He  is  taking 
tho  sacrament  to  your  mother,  of 
course ! " 

The  peasant  was  not  surprised  and 
said:  "That  is  quite  possible,"  and  went 
on  with  his  work. 

Mother  Bontemps  confessed,  received 
absolution  and  extreme  unction,  and  the 
priest  took  his  departure,  leaving  the 
two  women  alone  in  the  suffocating  cot- 
tage. La  Rapet  began  to  look  at  the 
dying  woman,  and  to  ask  herself  whether 
it  could  last  much  longer. 

The  day  was  on  the  wane,  and  a 
cooler  air  came  in  stronger  puffs,  mak- 
ing a  view  of  Epinal,  which  was  fast- 
ened to  the  wall  by  two  pins,  flap  up 
and  down.  The  scanty  window  cur- 
tains, which  had  formerly  been  white, 
but  were  now  yellow  and  covered  with 
fly-specks,  looked  as  if  they  were  going 
to  fly  off,  and  seemed  to  struggle  to 
get  away,  like  the  old  woman's  soul. 

Trying  motionless,  with  her  eyes  oyjen, 
the  old  mother  seemed  to  await  the 
death  wh'ch  w^as  so  near,  and  which  yet 
delayed  its  coming,  with  perfect  indif- 


THE  DEVIL 


^35 


ferench..  Her  short  breath  whistled  in 
her  throAt.  It  would  stop  altogether 
soon,  and  there  would  be  one  woman  less 
in  the  world,  one  whom  nobody  would 
regret. 

At  nightfall  Honore  returned,  and 
when  he  went  up  to  the  bed  and  saw 
that  his  mother  was  still  alive  he  asked : 
"How  is  she?''  just  as  he  had  done 
formerly,  when  she  had  been  sick.  Then 
he  sent  La  Rapct  away,  saying  to  her: 
"To-morrow  morning  at  five  o'clock, 
without  fail."  And  she  replied:  "To- 
morrow at  five  o''clock." 

She  came  at  daybreak,  and  found 
Honore  eating  his  soup,  which  he  had 
made  himself,  before  going  to  work. 

"Well,  is  your  mother  dead?"  asked 
the  nurse. 

"She  is  rather  better,  on  the  con- 
trary," he  replied,  with  a  malignant  look 
out  of  the  corner  of  his  eyes.  Then 
he  went  out. 

La  Rapct  was  seized  with  anxiety,  and 
went  up  to  the  dying  woman,  who  was 
in  the  same  state,  lethargic  and  impas- 
sive, her  eyes  open  and  hei  hands  clutch- 
ing the  counterpane.  Tne  nurse  per- 
ceived that  this  might  go  on  thus  for 
two  days,  four  days,  eight  days,  even, 
and  her  avaricious  mind  was  seized  with 
fear.  She  was  excited  to  fury  against 
the  cunning  ttUow  who  had  tricked  her, 
and  against  the  woman  who  would  not 
die. 

Neverthelei^s,  she  began  to  sew  and 
waited  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the 
WTinkled  face  of  Mother  Bontemps. 
When  Honore  returned  to  breakfast  he 
seemed  quite  satisfied,  and  even  in  a 
bantering  humor,  for  he  was  carrying 
in  his  wheat  under  very  favorable  cir- 
cumstance:;. 


La  Rapet  was  getting  exasperated; 
every  pas:,ing  minute  now  seemea  to  her 
so  much  tinrie  and  money  stolen  from 
her.  She  felt  a  mad  inclination  to 
choke  this  old  ass,  this  headstrong  old 
fool,  this  obstinate  old  wretch — to  stop 
that  short,  rapid  breath,  which  was 
robbing  her  of  her  time  and  money,  by 
squeezing  her  throat  a  little.  But  then 
she  reflected  on  the  danger  of  doing  so, 
and  other  thoughts  came  into  her  head, 
so  she  went  up  to  the  bed  and  said  to 
her:    "Have  you  ever  seen  the  Devil?" 

Mother  Bontemps  whispered:    "No." 

Then  the  sick-nurse  began  to  talk  and 
to  tell  her  tales  likely  to  terrify  her 
weak  and  dying  mind.  "Some  minutes 
before  one  dies  the  Devil  appears,"  she 
said,  "to  all.  He  has  a  broom  in  his 
hand,  a  saucepn.n  on  his  head  and  he 
utters  loud  cries.  When  anybody  had 
seen  him,,  all  was  over,  and  that  person 
liad  only  a  few  moments  longer  tc  live"j 
and  she  enumerated  all  those  to  whom 
the  Devil  had  appeared  that  year: 
Josephine  Loisel,  Eulalie  Ratier,  Sophie 
Fadagnau,  Seraphine  Grospied. 

Mother  Bontemps,  who  was  at  last 
most  disturbed  in  mind,  moved  about, 
wrung  her  hands,  and  tried  to  turn  her 
head  to  look  at  the  other  end  of  the 
room.  Suddenly  La  Rapet  disappeared 
at  the  foot  of  the  bed.  She  took  a 
sheet  out  of  the  cupboard  and  wrapped 
herself  up  in  it;  then  she  put  the  iron 
pot  on  to  her  head,  so  that  its  three 
short  bent  feet  rose  up  b'ke  horns,  took 
a  broom  in  her  right  hand  and  a  tin  pail 
in  her  left,  which  she  threw  up  suddenly, 
so  that  it  might  tall  to  the  ground 
noisily. 

Certainly  when  it  came  down,  it  made 
a  terrible  noise.    Then,  climbing  on  to 


236 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


a  chair,  the  nurse  showed  herself, 
gesticulating  and  uttering  shrill  cries  into 
the  pot  which  covered  her  face,  while 
she  menaced  the  old  peasant  woman, 
who  was  nearly  dead,  with  her  broom. 

Terrified,  with  a  mad  look  on  her 
face,  the  dying  woman  made  a  super- 
human effort  to  get  up  and  escape;  she 
even  got  her  shoulders  and  chest  out 
of  bed;  then  she  fell  back  with  a  deep 
sigh.  All  was  over,  and  La  Rapet  calmly 
put  everything  back  into  its  place;  the 
broom  into  the  corner  by  the  cupboard, 
the  sheet  inside  it,  the  pot  on  to  the 
hearth,  the  pail  on  to  the  floor,  and  the 
^hair  against  the  wall.     Then  with  a 


professional  air,  she  closed  the  dead 
woman's  enormous  eyes,  put  a  plate  on 
the  bed  and  poured  some  holy  water  into 
it,  dipped  the  twig  of  boxwood  into  it, 
and  kneeling  down,  she  fervently  re- 
peated the  prayers  for  the  dead,  which 
she  knew  by  heart,  as  a  matter  of  busi- 
ness. 

When  Honore  returned  in  the  evening, 
he  found  her  praying.  He  calculated 
immediately  that  she  had  made  twenty 
sous  out  of  him,  for  she  had  only  spent 
three  days  and  one  night  there,  which 
made  five  francs  altogether,  instead  of 
the  six  which  he  owed  her. 


The  Venus  of  Braniza 


Some  years  ago  there  lived  in  Braniza 
a  celebrated  Talmudist,  renowned  no 
less  on  account  of  his  beautiful  wife, 
than  for  his  wisdom,  his  learning,  and 
his  fear  of  God.  The  Venus  of  Braniza 
deserved  that  name  thoroughly;  she  de- 
served it  for  herself,  on  account  of  her 
singular  beauty,  and  even  more  as  the 
wife  of  a  man  deeply  versed  in  the  Tal- 
mud, for  the  wives  of  the  Jewish  phi- 
Josophers  are,  as  a  rule,  ugly  or  possess 
some  bodily  defect. 

The  Talmud  explains  this  in  the  fol- 
lowing manner:  It  is  well  known  that 
marriages  are  made  in  heaven,  and  at 
the  birth  of  a  boy  a  divine  voice  calls 
out  the  name  of  his  future  wife,  and 
vice  versd.  But  just  as  a  good  father 
tries  to  get  rid  of  his  good  wares  out 
of  doors,  and  only  uses  the  damaged 
*tuff  at  home  for  his  children,  so  God 


bestows  on  the  Talmudists  those  women 
whom  other  men  would  not  care  to 
have. 

Well,  God  made  an  exception  in  the 
case  of  our  Talmudist,  and  had  bestowed 
a  Venus  on  him,  perhaps  only  in  order 
to  confirm  the  rule  by  means  of  this 
exception,  and  to  make  it  appear  less 
hard.  This  philosopher's  wife  was  a 
woman  who  would  have  done  honor  to 
any  king's  throne,  or  to  a  pedestal  in 
any  sculpture  gallery.  Tall,  and  with  a 
wonderfully  voluptuous  figure,  she  car- 
ried a  strikingly  beautiful  head,  sur- 
mounted by  thick,  black  plaits,  on  heri 
proud  shoulders.  Two  large,  dark  eyeS) 
languished  and  glowed  beneath  long 
lashes,  and  her  beautiful  hands  looked 
as  if  they  were  carved  out  of  ivory. 

This  glorious  woman,  who  seemed  to 
have  been  designed  by  nature  to  rule. 


:HE  VENUS  OF  BRANIZA 


237 


10  see  slaves  at  her  feet,  to  provide 
occupation  for  the  painter's  brush,  the 
sculptor's  chisel,  and  the  poet's  pen, 
lived  the  life  of  a  rare  and  beautiful 
flower  shut  up  in  a  hothouse.  She 
would  sit  the  whole  day  long  wrapped 
up  in  her  costly  furs  looking  down 
dreamily  into  the  street. 

She  had  no  children;  her  husband, 
the  philosopher,  studied  and  prayed  and 
studied  again  from  early  morning  until 
late  at  night;  his  mistress  was  "the 
Veiled  Beauty,"  as  the  Talmudists  call 
the  Kabbalah.  Sh'*  paid  no  attention 
to  her  house,  fo/  jhe  was  rich,  and 
everything  went  of  its  own  accord  like 
a  clock  which  has  only  to  be  wound 
up  once  a  week;  nobody  came  to  see 
her,  and  she  never  went  out  of  the 
house ;  she  sat  and  dreamed  and  brooded 
and — ^yawned. 

^  3((  9i(  9|e  *  )ie 

One  day  when  a  terrible  storm  of 
thunder  and  lightning  had  spent  its  fury 
over  the  town,  and  all  windows  had 
been  opened  in  order  to  let  the  Messias 
in,  the  Jewish  Venus  was  sitting  as  usual 
in  her  comfortable  easy-chair,  shivering 
in  spite  of  her  furs,  and  thinking.  Sud- 
denly she  fixed  her  glowing  eyes  on  her 
husband  who  was  sitting  before  the  Tal- 
mud, swaying  his  body  backward  and 
forward,  and  said  suddenly: 

"Just  tell  me,  when  will  Messias, 
the  son  of  David,  come?" 

"He  will  come,"  the  philosopher  re- 
plied, "when  all  the  Jews  have  become 
*^,her  altogether  virtuous  or  altogether 
vicious,  says  the  Talmud." 

"Do  you  believe  that  all  the  Jews 
will  ever  become  virtuous?"  the  Venus 
continued. 


"How  am  I  to  believe  that?" 
"So  Messias  will  come  when  all  the 
Jews  have  become  vicious?" 

The  philosopher  shrugged  his  shoul- 
ders, and  lost  himself  again  in  the  laby- 
rinth of  the  Talmud,  out  of  which^  so 
it  is  said,  only  one  man  returned  in 
perfect  sanity.  The  beautiful  woman  at 
the  window  again  looked  dreamily  out 
into  the  heavy  rain,  while  her  white 
fingers  played  unconsciously  with  the 
dark  furs  of  her  splendid  robe. 
****** 

One  day  the  Jewish  philosopher  had 
gone  to  a  neighboring  town,  where  an 
important  question  of  ritual  was  to  be 
decided.  Thanks  to  his  learning,  the 
question  was  settled  sooner  than  he  had 
expected,  and  instead  of  returning  the 
next  morning,  as  he  had  intended,  he 
came  back  the  same  evening  with  a 
friend  who  was  no  less  learned  than 
himself.  He  got  out  of  the  carriage  at 
his  friend's  house  and  went  home  on 
foot.  He  was  not  a  little  surprised 
when  he  saw  his  windows  brilliantly 
illuminated,  and  found  an  officer's  serv- 
ant comfortably  smoking  his  pipe  in 
front  of  his  house 

"What  are  you  doing  here?"  he  asked 
in  a  friendly  manner,  but  with  some 
curiosity,  nevertheless. 

"I  am  on  guard,  lest  the  husband  of 
the  beautiful  Jewess  should  come  home 
imexpectedly." 

"Indeed?  Well,  mind  and  keep  a 
good  lookout." 

Saying  this,  the  philosopher  pretended 
to  go  away,  but  went  into  the  house 
through  the  garden  entrance  at  the  bacK. 
When  he  got  into  the  first  room,  he 
found  a  table  laid  for  two,  which  had 


238 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


evidently  only  been  left  a  short  time 
previously.  His  wife  was  sitting  as 
usual  Lt  her  bedroom  window  wrapped 
in  her  furs,  but  her  cheeks  were  sus» 
piciously  red,  and  her  dark  eyes  had 
not  their  usual  languishing  look,  but 
now  rested  on  her  husband  with  a  gaze 
which  expressed  at  the  same  time  satis- 
faction and  mockery.  At  that  moment 
his  foot  stuck  against  an  object  on 
the  floor,  which  gave  out  a  strange 
sound.  He  picked  it  up  and  examined 
it  in  the  light.  It  v/as  a  pair  of  spurs. 
"Who  has  been  herewith  you?"  asked 
the  Talmudist. 


The  Jewish  Venus  shrugged  her  shoul- 
ders contemptuously,  but  did  not  re- 
ply. 

■'Shall  I  tell  you?  The  Captain  of 
Hussars  has  been  with  you." 

"And  why  should  he  not  have  Heen 
here  with  me?"  she  said,  smoothing  the 
fur  on  her  jacket  with  her  white  hand. 

"Woman!  are  ycu  out  of  your  mind?" 

"I  am  in  full  possession  of  my 
senses,"  she  replied,  and  a  knowing 
smile  hovered  round  her  red  voluptuous 
lips.  "But  must  I  not  also  do  my  p«rt, 
in  order  that  Messias  may  cume  and  re- 
deem us  poor  Jews?" 


T/oe  Rabbit 


Old  Lecackeur  appeared  at  the  door 
of  his  bouse  at  his  Uiuul  hour,  between 
five  and  a  quarter  past  five  in  the  morn- 
ing, to  look  after  his  men  who  were 
going  to  v/crk. 

With  a  red  face,  only  half  awake,  his 
right  eye  open  and  the  leit  nearly  closed, 
he  was  buttoning  his  braces  over  his  fat 
stomach  with  seme  dlCiculty,  all  the 
time  looking  into  every  corner  of  the 
farmyard  with  a  searching  glance.  The 
sun  was  darting  his  oblique  rays  through 
the  beech-trees  by  the  side  of  the  ditch 
and  the  apple-trees  outside,  making  the 
cocks  crow  on  the  dung-hill,  and  the 
pigeons  coo  on  the  roof.  The  smell 
of  the  cow  stalls  came  through  tho 
open  door,  mingling  in  the  fresh  morn- 
ing air  with  the  pungent  odor  of  the 
stable  where  the  horses  were  neighing, 
with  their  heads  turned  toward  the  light. 

As  soon  as  bis  trousers  were  properly 


fastened,  Lecacheui'  cam«^  out,  and  went 
first  of  ail  toward  the  hen-house  to 
count  the  morning's  cggj,  for  he  had 
been  suspecting  thefts  fo.  some  time. 
But  the  servant  girl  ran  up  to  him  with 
lifted  arms  and  cried: 

"Master!  Master!  they  hav?  stolen  a 
rabbit  during  the  night." 

"A  rabbit?" 

"Yes,  I^Iaster,  the  big  gray  rabbit, 
from  the  hutch  on  the  left."  Where- 
upon the  farmer  quite  opened  his  left 
eye,  and  said,  simply: 

"I  must  sec  that." 

And  off  he  went  to  inspect  it.  The 
hutch  had  been  broken  open  and  the 
rabbit  was  gone.  Then  l.'.e  became 
thoughtful,  closed  his  left  fye  again, 
scratched  his  nose,  and  af'er  \  kittle 
consideration,  said  to  the  frlghlened 
girl,  who  was  standing  stupidly  bt;fore 
him: 


THE  RABBIT 


23'y 


**Go  and  fetch  the  gendarmes;  say  I 
Bzpect  tjucm  as  soon  as  possible." 

Lecacheur  was  mayor  of  the  village, 
Pairgry4o  Gras,  and  ruled  it  like  a 
tyrant,  m  ar.count  of  his  money  and 
position.  A.S  soon  as  the  servant  had 
lisappeared  m  the  direction  of  the  vil- 
lage, which  was  only  about  five  hundred 
yards  off,  be  went  into  the  house  to 
have  his  morning  coffee  and  to  discuss 
the  matter  with  his  wife.  He  found  her 
on  her  knees  in  front  of  the  fire,  trying 
to  get  it  to  burn  up  quickly.  As  soon 
as  he  got  to  the  door,  he  said: 

"Somebody  has  stolen  the  gray  rab- 
bit" 

She  turned  round  so  quickly  that  she 
found  herself  sitting  on  the  floor,  and 
looking  at  her  husband  with  distressed 
eyes,  she  said: 

"What  is  it,  Cacheux!    Somebody  has 
itolen  a  rabbit?" 
'    "The  big  gray  one." 

She  sighed:  "How  sad!  Who  can 
liave  done  it?" 

She  was  a  little,  thin,  active,  neat 
woman,  who  knew  all  about  farming. 
But  Lecacheur  had  his  own  ideas  about 
the  matter. 

"It  must  be  that  fellow  Polyte." 

His  wife  got  up  suddenly  and  said 
in  a  furious  voice: 

"He  did  it !  he  did  it !  You  need  not 
look  for  anv  one  else.  He  did  it! 
You  have  said  it,  Cacheux!" 

All  her  peasant's  fury,  all  her  avarice^ 
all  the  rage  of  a  saving  woman  against 
the  man  of  whom  she  had  always  been 
suspicious,  and  against  the  girl  whom 
she  had  always  suspected,  could  be  seen 
in  the  contraction  of  her  mouth,  in  the 
wrinkles  in  her  cheeks,  and  in  the  fore- 
head of  her  thin,  exasnerated  face. 


"And  what  have  you  done?''  she 
asked. 

"I  have  sent  for  the  gandarmes.'* 

This  Polyte  was  a  laborer,  who  had 
been  employed  on  the  farm  for  a  few 
days,  and  had  been  dismissed  by  Le- 
cacheur for  an  insolent  answer.  He  was 
an  old  soldier,  and  was  supposed  to 
have  retained  his  habits  of  marauding? 
and  debauchery  from  his  campaigns  in 
Africa.  He  did  nnythmg  for  a  liveli- 
hood, but  whether  working  as  a  mason^ 
a  navvy,  a  reaper,  whether  h2  broke 
stones  or  lopped  trees,  he  was  always 
lazy.  So  he  remained  in  no  position 
long,  and  had,  at  times,  to  change  his 
neighborhood  to  obtain  work. 

From  the  first  day  that  he  came  to 
the  .^'»rm.  Lecacheur's  wife  had  detested 
him,  and  now  she  was  sure  that  he  had 
committed  \be  robbery. 

In  about  half  an  hour  the  two  gen- 
darmes arrived.  Brigadier  Senateur  was 
very  tall  and  thin,  and  Gendarme 
Lenient,  short  and  fat.  Lecacheur  made 
them  sit  down  and  told  them  the  affair, 
and  then  they  went  and  saw  the  scene 
of  the  theft,  in  order  to  verify  the 
fact  that  the  hutch  had  been  broken 
open,  and  to  collect  all  the  proofs  they 
could.  When  they  got  back  tc  the 
kitchen,  the  mistress  brought  in  some 
wine,  filled  their  glasses  and  asked  with' 
a  distrustful  look: 

"Shall  you  catch  him?" 

The  brigadier,  who  had  his  sword  be* 
tween  his  legs,  appeared  thoughtful. 
Certainly,  he  was  sure  of  taking  him, 
if  he  was  pointed  out  to  him,  but  if  not, 
he  could  not  himself  answer  for  being 
able  to  discover  him.  After  reflecting 
for  a  long  time,  he  put  this  simple  ques* 
tion: 


^40 


-WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSAM  i 


"Do  you  know  the  thief?" 

And  Lecacheur  replied,  with  a  look  of 
Normandy  slyness  in  his  eyes: 

"As  for  knowing  him,  I  do  not.  as 
I  did  not  see  him  commit  the  robbery. 
If  I  had  seen  him,  I  should  have  made 
him  eat  it  raw,  skin  and  flesh,  without 
a  drop  of  cider  to  wash  it  down.  As 
for  saying  who  it  is,  I  cannot,  although 
I  believe  it  is  that  good-for-nothing 
Polyte." 

Then  he  related  at  length  his  troubles 
with  Polyte,  his  leaving  his  service,  his 
ibad  reputation,  things  which  had  been 
told  him,  accumulating  insignificant  and 
minute  proofs.  Then  the  brigadier,  who 
had  been  listening  very  attentively  while 
he  emptied  his  glass  and  filled  it  again, 
turned  to  his  gendarme  with  an  indiffer- 
ent air,  and  said: 

"We  must  go  and  look  in  the  cottage 
of  Severin's  wife."  At  which  the  gen- 
darme smiled  and  nodded  three  times. 

Then  Madame  Lecacheur  came  to 
them,  and  very  quietly,  with  all  a 
peasant's  cunning,  questioned  the  briga- 
dier in  her  turn.  The  shepherd  Severin, 
a  simpleton,  a  sort  of  brute  who  had 
been  brought  up  from  youth  among  his 
Oleating  flocks,  and  who  knew  of  scarcely 
anything  besides  them  in  the  world,  had 
nevertheless  preserved  the  peasant's  in- 
stinct for  saving,  at  the  bottom  of  his 
heart.  For  years  and  j'-ears  he  had 
hidden  in  hollow  trees  and  crevices  in 
the  rocks,  all  that  he  earned,  either  as 
shepherd,  or  by  curing  the  fractures  of 
animals  (for  the  bonesetter's  secret  had 
been  handed  down  to  him  by  the  old 
shepherd  whose  place  he  took"^  by  touch 
or  advice,  for  one  day  he  bought  a  small 
proprety  consisting  of  a  cottage  and  a 
^eldv  for  three  thousand  francs. 


A  few  months  latei  it  became  known 
that  he  was  going  to  marry  a  servant 
notorious  for  her  bad  morals,  the  inn- 
keeper's servant.  The  young  fellows 
said  that  the  girl,  knowing  that  he  was 
pretty  well  off,  had  been  to  his  cottage 
every  night,  and  had  taken  him,  be- 
witched him,  led  him  on  to  matrimony, 
little  by  little,  night  by  night. 

And  then,  having  been  to  the  mayor's 
ofi5ce  and  to  church,  she  lived  in  the 
house  which  her  man  had  bought,  while 
he  continued  to  tend  his  flocks,  day  and 
night,  on  the  plains. 

And  the  brigadier  added: 

"Polyte  has  been  sleeping  with  her 
for  three  weeks,  for  the  thief  has  no 
place  of  his  own  to  go  to!" 

The  gendarme  made  a  little  joke: 

"He  takes  the  shepherd's  blankets." 

Madame  Lecacheur,  seized  by  a  fresh 
access  of  rage,  of  rage  increased  by  a 
married  woman's  anger  against  debauch- 
ery, exclaimed: 

"It  is  she,  I  am  sure.  Go  there. 
Ah!  the  blackguard  thieves!" 

But  the  brigadier  was  quite  unmoved. 

"A  minute,"  he  said.  "Let  us  wait 
until  twelve  o'clock;  as  Polyte  goes  and 
dines  there  every  day  I  shall  catch  them 
with  it  under  their  noses." 

The  gendarme  smiled,  pleased  at  his 
chief's  idea,  and  Lecacheur  also  smiled- 
now,  for  the  affair  of  the  shepherd 
struck  him  as  very  funny :  deceived  hus- 
bands are  always  amusing. 
****** 

Twelve  o'clock  had  just  struck  when 
the  brigadier,  followed  by  his  man, 
knocked  gently  three  times  at  the  door 
of  a  small  lonely  house,  situated  at  th» 


I 


THE  RABBIT 


241 


comer  of  a  wood,  some  five  hundred 
yards  from  the  village. 

They  stood  close  against  the  wall,  so 
as  not  to  be  seen  from  within,  and 
waited.  As  nobody  answered,  the  briga- 
dier knocked  again  in  a  minute  or  two. 
It  was  so  quiet  that  the  house  seemed 
uninhabited;  but  Lenient,  the  gendarme, 
who  had  very  quick  ears,  said  that  he 
heard  somebody  moving  about  inside. 
Senateur  got  angry.  He  would  not  al- 
low anyone  to  resist  the  authority  of  the 
law  for  a  moment,  and,  knocking  at 
the  door  with  the  hilt  of  his  sword,  he 
cried  out: 

"Open  the  door,  in  the  name  of  the 
law." 

As  this  order  had  no  effect,  he  roared 
out: 

"If  you  do  not  obey,  I  shall  smash 
the  lock.  I  am  the  brigadier  of  the 
gendarmerie,  by  G — d !    Here,  Lenient." 

He  had  not  finished  speaking  when 
the  door  opened  and  Senateur  saw  be- 
fore him  a  fat  girl,  with  a  very  red 
color,  blowsy,  with  pendent  breasts,  big 
stomach,  and  broad  hips,  a  sort  of 
sanguine  and  sensual  female,  the  wife 
of  the  shepherd  Severin.  He  entered 
the  cottage. 

"I  have  come  to  pay  you  a  visit,  as 
I  want  to  make  a  little  search,"  he  said, 
and  he  looked  about  him.  On  the  table 
there  was  a  plate,  a  jug  of  cider  and  a 
glass  half  full,  which  proved  that  a 
meal  had  been  going  on.  Two  knives 
were  lying  side  by  side,  and  the  shrewd 
gendarme  winked  at  his  superior  ofiBcer. 

"It  smells  good,"  the  latter  said. 

"One  might  swear  that  it  was  stewed 
rabbit,"  Lenient  added,  much  amused. 

"Will  you  have  a  glass  of  brandy?" 
the  peasant  woman  asked. 


"No,  thank  you;  I  only  want  the  skin 
of  the  rabbit  that  you  are  eating." 

She  pretended  not  to  understand,  but 
she  was  trembling. 

"What  rabbit?" 

The  brigadier  had  taken  a  seat,  and 
was  calmly  wiping  his  forehead. 

"Come,  come,  you  are  not  going  to 
try  and  make  us  believe  that  you  live  on 
couch  grass.  What  were  you  eating 
there  all  by  yourself  for  your  dinner?" 

"I?  Nothing  whatever,  I  swear  to 
you.    A  mite  of  butter  on  my  bread." 

"You  are  a  novice,  my  good  woman 
— a  mite  of  butter  on  your  bread.  You 
are  mistaken;  you  ougLt  to  have  said: 
a  mite  of  butter  on  the  rabbit.  By 
G — d,  your  butter  smells  good!  It  is 
special  butter,  extra  good  butter,  butter 
fit  for  a  wedding;  certainly  not  house^ 
hold  butter!" 

The  gendarme  was  shaking  with 
laughter,  and  repeated : 

"Not  household  butter,  certainly." 

As  Brigadier  Senateur  was  a  joker, 
all  the  gendarmes  had  grown  facetious, 
and  the   officer   continued: 

"Where  is  your  butter?" 

"My  butter?" 

"Yes,  your  butter." 

"In  the  jar." 

"Then  where  is  the  butter  jar." 

"Here  it  is." 

Sht  brought  out  an  old  cup,  at  the 
bottom  of  which  there  was  a  layer  of 
rancid,  salt  •  butter.  The  brigadier 
smelled  it,  and  said,  with  a  shake  of 
his  head: 

"It  is  noi;  the  same.  I  want  the  but- 
ter that  smells  of  the  rabbit.  Come, 
Lenient,  open  your  eyes;  look  under  the 
sideboard,  my  good  fellow,  and  I  will 
look  under  the  bed." 


242 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Having  shut  the  door,  he  went  up  to 
the  bed  and  tried  to  move  it;  but  it 
was  fixed  to  the  wall,  and  bad  not 
been  moved  for  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury, apparently.  Then  the  brigadier 
stooped,  and  made  his  uniform  crack. 
A  button  hud  flown  off. 

"Lenient,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  brigadier?" 

"Come  here,  my  lad,  and  look  under 
the  bed ;  I  am  too  tall.  I  will  look  after 
the  sideboard." 

He  goL  up  and  waited  while  his  man 
executed  his  orders. 

Lenient,  who  was  short  and  stout, 
took  off  his  kepi,  laid  himself  on  his 
stomach,  and  putting  his  fa'^e  on  the 
floor  looked  at  the  black  cavity  under 
the  bed.    Then,  suddenly,  he  exclaimed: 

"All  right,  here  we  are!" 

"What  have  you  got?    The  rabbit?" 

"No,  the  thitf." 

"The  thief!  Pull  him  out,  pull  him 
out!" 

The  gendarme  had  put  his  arms  under 
the  bed  and  laid  hold  of  something. 
He  pulled  with  all  his  might,  and  at  last 
a  foot,  shod  in  a  thick  boot,  appeared, 
which  he  was  holding  in  his  right  hand. 
The  brigadier  grabbed  it,  crying: 

'Tull,  pull!" 

And  Lenient,  who  was  on  his  knees  ^y 
that  ticue,  was  pulling  at  the  other  leg. 
But  it  WciS  a  hard  job,  for  the  prisoner 
kicked  out  ha'rd,  and  arched  up  his  back 
across  the  bed. 

"Courage!  courage?  pull!  pull!" 
Senateur  cried,  and  they  pulled  with  all 
their  strength — so  hard  that  the  wooden 
bar  gave  way,  and  the  victim  came  out 
as  far  as  his  head.  At  last  they  got 
that  out  also,  and  saw  the  terrified  and 
furious  face  of  Polyte,  whose  arms  re- 


mained  stretched   out   under   the   bed. 

"Pull  away!"  the  brigadier  kept  on 
exclaiming.  Then  they  heard  a  strange 
noise  as  the  arms  followed  the  shoulders 
and  the  hands  the  arms.  In  the  hands 
was  the  handle  of  a  saucepan,  and  at 
the  end  of  the  handle  the  pan  itself, 
which   contained  stewed  rabbit. 

"Good  Lord!  good  Lord!"  the  briga- 
dier shouted  in  his  delight,  while  Lenient 
took  charge  of  the  man.  The  rabbit's 
skin,  an  overwhelming  proof,  was  dis- 
covered under  the  mattress,  and  the  gen- 
darmes returned  in  triumph  to  the  vil- 
lage with  their  prisoner  and  their  booty. 

>ic  ♦  ♦  4.  *  ♦ 

A  week  later,  as  the  affair  had  made 
much  stir,  Lecacheur,  on  going  into  the 
malrie  to  consult  the  schoolmaster,  was 
told  that  the  shepherd  Severin  Lad  been 
waiting  for  him  for  more  than  an  hour. 
He  found  him  sitting  on  a  chair  in  a 
corner  with  his  stick  between  his  legs. 
When  he  saw  the  mayor,  he  got  up,  took 
off  his  cap,  and  said: 

"Good  morning,  Maitre  Cacheux"; 
and  then  he  remained  standing,  timid 
and  embarrassed. 

"What  do  you  want?"  the  former, 
said. 

"This  is  it,  Monsieur.    Is  it  true  that  ■ 
somebody  stole  one  of  your  rabbits  last 
week?" 

"Yes,  it  is  quite  true,  Severin."  , 

"Who  stole  the  rabbit?"  I 

"Polyte  Ancas,  the  laborer."  | 

"Right!   right!     And  is  it  also  true 
that  it  was  found  under  my  bed?" 
"What  do  you  mean,  the  rabbit?" 
"The  rabbit  and  then  Polyte." 
"Yes,  my  poor  Severin,  quite  true, 
but  who  told  you?" 
"Pretty    well   everybody.     I  under- 


LA  MORILLONNE 


243 


stand!  And  I  suppose  you  know  all 
about  marriages,  as  you  marry*  peo- 
ple?" 

''What  about  marriage?" 

"With  regard  to  one's  rights." 

"What  rights?" 

"The  husband's  rights  and  then  the 
wife's  rights.'' 

"Of  course  I  do." 

"Oh!  Then  just  tell  me,  M'sieu 
Cacheux,  has  my  wife  the  right  to  go 
to  bed  with  Polyte?" 

"What  do  you  mean  by  going  to  bed 
with  Polyte?" 

"Yes,  has  she  any  right  before  the 
law,  and  seeing  that  she  is  my  wife,  to 
go  to  bed  with  Polyte?" 

"Why  of  course  not,  of  course  not." 
"If  I  catch  him  there  again,  shall  I 


have  the  right  to  thrash  him  and  her 
also?" 

"Why — ^why — ^why,  yes." 

"Very  well,  then;  I  will  tell  you  why 
I  want  to  know.  One  night  last  week, 
as  I  had  my  suspicions,  I  came  in  sud- 
denly, and  they  were  not  behaving  prop- 
erly. I  chucked  Polyte  out,  to  go  and 
sleep  somewhere  else;  but  that  was  all, 
as  I  did  not  know  what  my  rights  were. 
This  time  I  did  not  see  them;  I  only 
heard  of  it  from  others.  That  is  over, 
and  we  will  not  say  any  more  about  it; 
but  if  I  catch  them  again,  by  G — d! 
if  I  catch  them  again,  I  will  make  them 
lose  all  taste  for  such  nonsense,  Maitre 
Cacheux,  as  sure  as  my  name  is 
Severin." 


*In  France,  the  civil  marriarje  is  com- 
pulsory. 


La  Morillonne 


They  called  her  "La  Morillonne,"* 
not  only  on  account  of  her  black  hair 
and  of  a  complexion  which  resembled 
autumnal  leaves,  but  because  of  her 
thick  purple  lips  which  were  like  black- 
berries, when  she  curled  them. 

That  she  should  be  as  dark  as  this 
in  a  district  where  everybody  was  fair, 
and  born  of  parents  who  had  tow-colored 
hair  and  butter-like  complexions  was  one 
of  the  mysteries  of  atavism.  A  female 
ancestor  must  have  had  intimacy  with 
one  of  those  traveling  tinkers  who  have 
gone  about  the  country  from  time  im- 
memorial, with  faces  the  color  of  bister 
and  indigo,  crowned  by  a  wisp  of  light 
hair. 


From  that  ancestor  she  derived  not 
only  her  dark  complexion,  but  also  her 
dark  soul  and  her  deceitful  eyes,  whose 
depths  were  at  times  illuminated  by 
flashes  of  every  vice,  the  eyes  of  an 
obstinate  and  malicious  animal. 

Handsome?  Certainly  not,  nor  even 
pretty.  Ugly,  with  an  absolute  ugliness ! 
Such  a  false  look!  Ker  nose  ^as  flat 
having  been  smashed  by  a  blow,  while 
her  unwholesome-looking  mouth  was  al- 
ways slobbering  with  greediness,  oi 
uttering  something  vile.  Her  hair  was 
thick  and  untidy,  a  regular  nest  for 
vermin,   and   she  had   a   thin,    feverish 


*A   sort  of  Wack  grape. — Editor. 


Z44 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


body,  with  a  limping  walk.  In  short, 
she  was  a  peiftct  monster,  and  yet  all 
the  young  men  of  the  neighborhood 
had  made  love  to  her,  and  whoever  had 
been  so  honored  longed  for  her  society 
again. 

From  the  time  that  she  was  twelve, 
she  had  been  the  mistress  of  every  fel- 
low in  the  village.  She  had  corrupted 
boys  of  her  own  age  in  every  conceiv- 
able manner  and  place. 

Young  men  at  the  risk  of  imprison- 
ment, and  even  steady,  old,  notable,  and 
venerable  men,  ruch  as  the  farmer  at 
Eclausiaux,  Monsieur  Martin,  the  ex- 
mayor,  and  other  highly  respectable  citi- 
zens, had  been  taken  by  the  manners  of 
that  slut.  The  reason  why  the  rural 
policeman  was  not  severe  upon  them,  in 
spite  of  his  love  for  summoning  people 
before  the  magistrates,  was,  so  people 
said,  that  he  would  have  been  obliged  to 
take  out  a  summons  against  himself. 

The  consequence  was  that  she  had 
grown  up  without  being  interfered  with, 
and  was  the  mistress  of  every  fellow 
in  the  village,  as  said  the  schoolmaster, 
who  had  himself  been  one  of  the  fel- 
lows. But  the  most  curious  part  of  the 
business  was  that  no  one  was  jealous. 
They  handed  her  on  from  one  to  the 
other,  and  when  some  one  expressed  his 
astonishment  at  this  to  her  one  day,  she 
said  to  this  unintelligent  stranger: 

*'Is  everybody  not  satisfied?" 

And  then,  how  could  any  one  of  them, 
even  if  he  had  been  jealous,  have 
monopolized  her?  They  had  no  hold 
on  her.  She  was  not  selfish,  and  though 
she  accepted  all  gifts,  whether  in  kind 
or  in  money,  she  never  asked  for  any- 
thing, and  she  even  appeared  to  prefer 
pajnng  herself  after  her  own  fashion,  by 


stealing.  All  she  seemed  to  care  about 
as  her  reward  was  pilfering,  and  a  crown 
put  into  her  hand  gave  her  less  pleasure 
than  a  half  penny  which  she  had  stolen. 
Neither  was  it  any  use  to  dream  of  rul- 
ing her,  of  being  the  sole  male,  or  proud 
master  of  the  henroost,  for  none  of 
them,  no  matter  how  broad-shouldered 
he  was,  would  have  been  capable  of  it. 
Some  had  tried  to  vanquish  her,  but  in 
vain. 

How,  then,  could  any  of  them  claim 
to  be  her  master?  It  would  have  been 
the  same  as  wishing  to  have  the  sole 
right  of  baking  bread  in  the  common 
oven,  in  which  the  whole  village  baked. 

But  there  was  one  exception,  and  that 
was  Bru,  the  shepherd. 

He  lived  in  the  fields  in  a  movable 
hut,  feeding  on  cakes  made  of  unleav- 
ened dough,  which  he  kneaded  on  a 
stone  and  baked  in  the  hot  ashes,  now 
here,  now  there,  in  a  hole  dug  out  in 
the  ground,  and  heated  with  dead  wood. 
Potatoes,  milk,  hard  cheese,  black- 
berries, and  a  small  cask  of  old  gin 
distilled  by  himself,  were  his  daily  food. 
He  knew  nothing  about  love,  although 
he  was  accused  of  all  sorts  of  horrible 
things.  But  nobody  dared  abuse  him 
to  his  face;  in  the  first  place,  because 
Bru  was  a  spare  and  sinewy  man,  who 
handled  his  shepherd's  crook  like  a 
drum-major  does  his  staff;  secondly, 
because  of  his  three  sheep  dogs,  who 
had  teeth  like  wolves,  and  obeyed  no- 
body but  their  master;  and  lastly,  for 
fear  of  the  evil  eye.  For  Bru,  it  ap- 
peared, knew  spells  which  would  blight 
the  corn,  give  the  sheep  foot-rot,  cattle 
the  rinderpest,  make  cows  die  in  calving, 
and  set  fire  to  the  ricks  and  stacks. 

But  as  Bru  was  the  only  one  v/ho  did 


EPIPHANY 


245 


not  thirst  after  La  Morillonne,  naturally 
one  day  she  began  to  think  of  him,  and 
declared  that  she,  at  any  rate,  was  not 
afraid  of  his  evil  eye.  So  she  went  after 
him. 

"What  do  you  want?"  he  said,  and 
she  replied  boldly: 

"What  do  I  want?    I  want  you." 

"Very  well,"  he  said,  "but  then  you 
must  belong  to  me  alone." 

"All  right,"  was  her  answer,  "if  you 
think  you  can  please  me." 

He  smiled  and  took  her  into  his  arms, 
and  she  was  away  from  the  village  for 
a  whole  week.  She  had,  in  fact,  become 
Bru's  exclusive  property. 

The  village  grew  excited.  They  were 
not  jealous  of  one  another,  but  they 
were  of  him.  What!  Could  she  not 
resist  him?  Of  course  he  had  charms 
and  spells  against  every  imaginable 
thing.  Then  they  grew  furious;  next 
they  grew  bold,  and  watched  from  be- 
hind a  tree.  She  was  still  as  lively  as 
ever,  but  he,  poor  fellow,  seemed  to 
have  suddenly  fallen  ill,  and  required 
nursing  at  her  hands.  The  villagers, 
however,  felt  no  compassion  for  the 
poor  shepherd,  and  one  of  them,  more 
courageous  than  the  rest,  advanced  to- 
ward the  hut  with  his  gun  in  his  hand: 

"Tie  up  your  dogs,"  he  cried  out  from 
a  distance;  "fasten  them  up,  Bru,  or 
I  shall  shoot  them." 


"You  need  not  be  frightened  of  the 
dogs,"  Le  Morillonne  replied;  "I  will 
be  answerable  for  it  that  they  will  not 
hurt  you";  and  she  smiled  as  the  young 
man  with  the  gun  went  toward  her. 

"What  do  you  want?"  the  shepherd 
said: 

"I  can  tell  you,"  she  replied.  "He 
wants  me  and  I  am  very  willing. 
There!" 

Bru  began  to  cry,  and  she  continued: 

"You  are  a  good-for-nothing.'* 

And  she  went  off  with  the  lad.     Bru 

seized  his  crook,  seeing  which  the  yoimg 

fellow  raised  his  gun. 

"Seize  him!  seize  him!"  the  shepherd 
shouted,  urging  on  his  dogs,  while  the 
other  had  already  got  his  finger  on 
the  trigger  to  fire  at  them.  But  La 
Morillonne  pushed  down  the  muzzle  and 
called  out: 

"Here,  dogs!  here!  Prr,  prr,  my 
beauties!" 

And  the  three  dogs  rushed  up  to  her, 
licked  her  hands  and  frisked  about  as 
they  followed  her,  while  she  called  to 
the  shepherd  from  the  distance: 

"You  see,  Bru,  they  are  not  at  all 
jealous!" 

And  then,  with  a  short  and  evil  laugh, 
she  added: 

"They  are  my  property  now." 


Epiphany 


"Ah!"  said  Captain  the  Count  de 
Gar  ens,  "I  should  rather  think  that  I 
do  remember  that  Epiphany  supper, 
during  the  wart 


"At  the  time  I  was  quartermaster  of 
cavalry,  and  for  a  fortnight,  I  had  been 
lurking  about  as  a  scout  in  front  of 
the  German  advanced  guard.    The  ev^ 


I 


246 


WORKS  Cr  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ning  before  we  had  cut  down  a  few 
Uhlans  and  had  lost  three  men,  one  of 
whom  was  that  poor  little  Raudevillc. 
You  remember  Joseph  de  Raudeville 
well,  of  course. 

"Well,  on  that  day  my  captain  ordered 
me  to  take  six  troopers  and  occupy  the 
village  ot  Porterin,  where  there  had  been 
five  fights  in  three  weeks,  and  to  hold  it 
ail  night.  There  were  not  twenty  houses 
left  standing,  nay,  not  a  dozen,  in  that 
wasp's  nest.  So  I  took  ten  troopers, 
and  set  out  at  about  four  o'clock;  at 
five  o'clock,  while  it  was  still  pitch  dark, 
we  reached  the  first  houses  of  Porterin. 
I  halted  and  ordered  Marchas — you 
know  Pierre  de  Marchas,  who  after- 
ward married  little  Martel-Auvelin,  the 
daughter  of  the  Marquis  de  Martel- 
Auvelin — to  go  alone  into  the  village 
and  to  report  to  me  what  he  saw. 

"I  had  chosen  nothing  but  volunteers, 
and  all  of  good  family.  When  on  serv- 
ice it  is  pleasant  not  to  be  forced  into 
intimacy  with  unpleasant  fellows.  This 
Marchas  was  as  sharp  as  possible,  as 
cunning  as  a  fox,  and  as  supple  as  a 
serpent.  He  could  scent  the  Prussians 
as  well  as  a  dog  can  scent  a  hare,  could 
find  victuals  where  we  should  have  died 
of  hunger  without  him,  and  could  ob- 
tain information  from  everybody — in- 
formation which  was  always  reliable — 
with  incredible  cleverness. 

"In  ten  minutes  he  returned.  'All 
right,*  he  said;  'there  have  been  no 
Prussians  here  for  three  days.  It  is  a 
sinister  place,  is  this  village.  I  have 
been  talking  to  a  Sister  of  Mercy,  who 
is  attending  to  four  or  five  wounded 
men  in  an  abandoned  convent.* 

"I  ordered  them  to  ride  on,  and  we 


penetrated  into  the  principal  street.  On 
the  right  and  left  we  could  vaguely  see 
roofless  walls,  hardly  visible  in  the  pro- 
found darkness.  Here  and  there  a  hght 
was  burning  in  a  room;  some  family 
had  remained  to  keep  its  house  standing 
as  long  as  they  were  able;  a  family  of 
brave,  or  of  poor,  people.  The  rain  be- 
gan to  fall,  a  fine,  icy-cold  rain,  which 
froze  us  before  it  wetted  us  through, 
by  merely  touching  our  cloaks.  The 
horses  stumbled  against  stones,  against 
beams,  against  furniture.  Marchas 
guided  us,  going  before  us  on  foot,  and 
leading  his  horse  by  the  bridle. 

"  'Where  are  you  taking  us  to?'  I 
asked  him.  And  he  replied:  *I  have  a 
place  for  us  to  lodge  in,  and  a  rare 
good  one.*  And  soon  we  stopped  be- 
fore a  small  house,  evidently  belonging 
to  some  person  of  the  middle  class,  com- 
pletely shut  up,  built  on  to  the  street 
^vith  a  garden  in  the  rear. 

"Marchas  broke  open  the  lock  by 
means  of  a  big  stone,  which  he  picked 
up  near  the  garden  gate;  then  he 
mounted  the  steps,  smashed  in  the  front 
door  with  his  feet  and  shoulders,  lighted 
a  bit  of  wax  candle,  which  he  was  never 
without  and  preceded  us  into  the  com- 
fortable apartments  of  some  rich  pri- 
vate individual,  guiding  us  with  admir- 
able assurance,  just  as  if  he  had  lived 
in  this  house  which  he  now  saw  for  the 
first  time. 

"Two  troopers  remained  outside  to 
take  care  of  our  horses;  then  Marchas 
said  to  stout  Ponderel,  who  followed 
him:  'The  stables  must  be  on  the  left; 
I  saw  that  as  we  came  in;  go  and  put 
the  animals  up  there,  for  we  do  not 
want  them,'  and  then  turning  to  me  he 


EPIPHANY 


247 


said:  Give  your  orders,  confound  it 
aUi' 

"Marchas  always  astonished  me,  and 
I  replied  with  a  laugh:  'I  shall  post 
my  sentinels  at  the  country  approaches 
and  I  will  return  to  you  here.' 

"  'How  many  men  are  you  going  to 
take?' 

"  'Five.  The  others  will  relieve  them 
at  five  o'clock  in  the  evening.' 

"  'Very  well.  Leave  me  four  to  look 
after  provisions,  to  do  the  cooking,  and 
to  set  the  table.  I  will  go  and  find  out 
where  the  wine  is  hidden  away.' 

"I  went  off  to  reconnoiter  the  de- 
serted streets,  until  they  ended  in  the 
open  country,  so  as  to  post  my  sentries 
there. 

"Half  an  hour  later  I  was  back,  and 
found  Marchas  lounging  in  a  great  arm- 
chair, the  covering  of  which  he  had 
taken  off,  from  love  of  luxury  as  he  said. 
He  was  warming  his  feet  at  the  fire  and 
smoking  an  excellent  cigar,  whose  per- 
fume filled  the  room.  He  was  alone, 
his  elbows  resting  on  the  arms  of  the 
chair,  his  cheeks  flushed,  his  eyes  bright, 
and  looking  delighted. 

"I  heard  the  noise  of  plates  and 
dishes  in  the  next  room,  and  Marchas 
said  to  me,  smiling  in  a  beatific  man- 
ner: This  is  famous;  I  found  the 
champagne  under  the  flight  of  steps  out- 
side, the  brandy — fifty  bottles  of  the 
very  finest — in  the  kitchen  garden  un- 
der a  pear-tree,  which  did  not  look  to  me 
to  be  quite  straight,  when  I  looked  at  it 
by  the  light  of  my  lantern.  As  for 
solids,  we  have  two  fowls,  a  goose,  a 
duck,  and  three  pigeons.  They  are  be- 
ing cooked  at  this  moment.  It  is  a  de- 
lightful part  of  the  country.' 

"I  had  sat  down  opposite  to  him,  and 


the  fire  in  the  grate  was  burning  my 
nose  and  cheeks. 

"  'Where  did  you  find  this  wood?'  I 
asked. 

"  'Splendid  wood,'  he  replied.  'The 
owner's  carriage.  It  is  the  paint  which 
is  causing  all  this  flam.e,  an  essence  of 
alcohol  and  varnish.    A  capital  house  I* 

"I  laughed,  for  I  found  the  creature 
was  funny,  and  he  went  on:  Taney 
this  being  the  Epiphany!  I  have  had  a 
bean  put  into  the  goose,  but  there  is  no 
queen;  it  is  really  very  annoying!'  And 
I  repeated  like  an  echo:  *It  is  annoy- 
ing, but  what  do  you  want  me  to  do  in 
the  matter?' 

"  'To  find  some,  of  course.' 

"  'Some  women.  Women?  —  you 
must  be  mad!' 

"  *I  managed  to  find  the  brandy  un- 
der the  pear-tree,  and  the  champagne 
under  the  steps ;  and  yet  there  was  noth- 
ing to  guide  me,  while  as  for  you,  a 
petticoat  is  a  sure  sign.  Go  and  look, 
old  fellow.* 

*'He  looked  so  grave,  so  convinced, 
that  I  could  not  tell  whether  he  was 
joking  or  not.  So  I  replied:  'Look 
here,  Marchas,  are  you  having  a  joke 
with  me?' 

**  'I  never  joke  on  duty.' 

"  'But  where  the  devil  do  you  expect 
me  to  find  any  women?* 

"  'Where  you  like ;  there  must  be  two 
or  three  remaining  in  the  neighborhood, 
so  ferret  them  out  and  bring  there  here.' 

"I  got  up,  for  it  was  too  hot  in  front 
of  the  fire,  and  Marchas  went  on:  'Do 
you  want  an  idea?* 

«*Yes.' 

"  *Go  and  see  the  pries*^/ 

«  'The  priest?    What  for?' 


248 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"  *Ask  him  to  supper,  and  beg  him  to 
bring  a  woman  with  him.' 

"The  priest!  A  woman!  Ha!  ha! 
ha!' 

"But  Marchas  continued  with  extraor- 
dinary gravity:  *I  am  not  laughing; 
go  and  find  the  priest  and  tell  him  how 
we  are  situated,  and,  as  he  must  be  horri- 
bly dull,  he  will  come.  But  tell  him 
that  we  want  one  woman  at  least,  a  lady, 
of  course*  since  we  are  all  men  of  the 
world.  He  is  sure  to  have  the  names  of 
his  female  parishioners  on  the  tips  of 
his  fingers,  and  if  there  is  one  to  suit 
us,  and  you  manage  it  well,  he  will  in- 
dicate her  to  you.' 

"  'Come,  come,  Marchas,  what  are 
you  thinking  of?' 

"  'My  dear  Garens,  you  can  do  this 
quite  well.  It  will  be  very  funny.  We 
are  well  bred,  by  Jove !  and  we  will  put 
on  our  most  distinguished  manners  and 
our  grandest  style.  Tell  the  abbe  who 
we  are,  make  him  laugh,  soften  him, 
seduce  him,  and  persuade  him!' 

"  'No,  it  is  impossible.' 

"He  drew  his  chair  close  to  mine,  and 
as  he  knew  my  weak  side,  the  scamp 
continued:  'Just  think  what  a  swagger 
thing  it  will  be  to  do,  and  how  amus- 
ing to  tell  about;  the  whole  army  will 
talk  about  it,  and  it  will  give  you  a  fa- 
mous reputation.' 

"I  hesitated,  for  the  adventure  rather 
tempted  me.  He  persisted:  'Come,  my 
little  Garens.  You  are  in  command  of 
this  detachment,  and  you  alone  can  go 
and  call  on  the  head  of  the  church  in 
this  neighborhood.  I  beg  of  you  to  go, 
and  I  promise  you  that  after  the  war, 
1  will  relate  the  whole  affair  in  verse  in 
the  "Revue  des  Deux  Mondes."  You 
owe  this  much  to  your  men,  for  you 


have  made  them  march  enough  during 
the  last  month.' 

"I  got  up  at  last  and  asked:  'Where 
is  the  parsonage?' 

"  Take  the  second  turning  at  the  end 
of  the  street;  you  will  then  see  an  ave- 
nue, and  at  the  end  of  the  avenue  you 
will  find  the  church.  The  parsonage  is 
beside  it.'  As  I  departed  he  called 
out:  'Tell  him  the  bill  of  fare,  to 
make  him  hungry!' 

*'I  discovered  the  ecclesiastic's  little 
house  without  any  difiiculty;  it  was  by 
the  side  of  a  large,  ugly,  brick  church. 
As  there  was  neither  bell  nor  knocker, 
I  knocked  at  the  door  with  my  fist,  and 
a  loud  voice  from  inside  asked:  'Who 
is  there?'  to  which  I  replied:  *A  quar- 
termaster of  hussars.' 

"I  heard  the  noise  of  bolts,  and  a  key 
being  turned.  Then  I  found  myself 
face  to  face  with  a  tall  priest  with  a 
large  stomach,  the  chest  of  a  prize- 
fighter, formidable  hands  projecting 
from  turned-up  sleeves,  a  red  face,  and 
the  looks  of  a  kind  man.  I  gave  him 
a  military  salute  and  said:  'Good  day, 
Monsieur  le  Cure.' 

"He  had  feared  a  surprise,  some  ma- 
rauders' ambush,  and  he  smiled  as  he 
replied:  'Good  day,  my  friend;  come 
in.*  I  followed  him  into  a  small  room, 
with  a  red  tiled  floor,  in  which  a  small 
fire  was  burning,  very  different  to  Mar- 
chas's  furnace.  He  gave  me  a  chair  and 
said:     'What  can  I  do  for  you?' 

"  'Monsieur,  allow  me  first  of  all  to 
introduce  myself;  and  I  gave  him  my 
card,  which  he  took  and  read  half  aloud: 
The  Comte  de  Garens.* 

*'I  continued:  There  are  eleven  of 
us  here  Monsieur  I'Abbe.  five  on  grand 


EPIPHANY 


249 


guard,  and  six  installed  at  the  house  of 
an  unknown  inhabitant.  The  names  of 
the  six  are,  Garens  (that  is  I),  Pierre 
de  Marchas,  Ludovic  de  Ponderel,  Baron 
d'Etreillis,  Karl  Massouligny,  the 
painter's  son,  and  Joseph  Herbon,  a 
young  musician.  I  have  come  to  ask 
you,  in  their  name  and  my  own,  to  do 
us  the  honor  of  supping  with  us.  It 
is  an  Epiphany  supper,  Monsieur  le 
Cure,  and  we  should  like  to  make  it  a 
little  cheerful.* 

"The  priest  smiled  and  murmured: 
'It  seems  to  me  to  be  hardly  a  suit- 
able occasion  for  amusing  oneself.* 

"I  replied:  'We  are  fighting  every 
day,  Monsieur.  Fourteen  of  our  com- 
rades have  been  killed  in  a  month,  and 
three  fell  as  late  as  yesterday.  That 
is  war.  We  stake  our  life  every  mo- 
ment: have  we  not,  therefore,  the  right 
to  amuse  ourselves  freely?  We  are 
Frenchmen,  we  like  to  laugh,  and  we 
can  laugh  everywhere.  Our  fathers 
laughed  on  the  scaffold!  This  evening 
we  should  like  to  brighten  ourselves  up 
a  little,  like  gentlemen,  and  not  like 
soldiers;  you  understand  me,  I  hope. 
Are  we  wrong?' 

"He  replied  quickly:  'You  are  quite 
right,  my  friend,  and  I  accept  your  in- 
vitation with  great  pleasure.'  Then  he 
called  out:     'Hermance!' 

"An  old,  bent,  wrinkled,  horrible, 
peasant  woman  appeared  and  said: 
*What  do  you  want?' 

"  'I  shall  not  dine  at  home,  my  daugh- 
ter.' 

"  'Where  are  you  going  to  dine  then?' 

*'  'With  some  gentlemen,  hussars.' 

*'I  felt  inclined  to  say:  'Bring  your 
servant  with  you,*  just  to  see  Marchas's 
face,  but  I  did  not  venture  to,  and  con- 


tinued: 'Do  you  know  anyone  among 
your  parishioners,  male  or  female, 
whom  I  could  invite  as  well?'  He  hesi- 
tated, reflected,  and  then  said:  'No,  I 
do  not  know  anybody!* 

"I  persisted:  'Nobody?  Come,  Mon- 
sieur, think;  it  would  be  very  nice  to 
have  some  ladies,  I  mean  to  say,  some 
married  couples!  I  know  nothing  about 
your  parishioners.  The  baker  and  his 
wife,  the  grocer,  the — the — the — watch* 
maker  —  the  — •  shoemaker  —  the  —  the 
chemist  with  his  wife.  We  have  a  good 
spread,  and  plenty  of  wine,  and  we 
should  be  enchanted  to  leave  pleasant 
recollections  of  ourselves  behind  us  with 
the  people  here.' 

"The  priest  thought  again  for  a  long 
time  and  then  said  resolutely:  'No, 
there  is  nobody.* 

"I  began  to  laugh.  'By  Jove,  Mon- 
sieur le  Cure,  it  is  very  vexing  not  to 
have  an  Epiphany  queen,  for  we  have 
the  bean.  Come,  think.  Is  there  not  a 
married  mayor,  or  a  married  deputy- 
mayor,  or  a  married  municipal  councilor, 
or  schoolmaster?' 

*'  'No,  all  the  ladies  have  gone  away.' 
*"  What,  is  there  not  in  the  whole 
place  some  good  tradesman's  wife  with 
her  good  tradesman,  to  whom  we  might 
give  this  pleasure,  for  it  would  be  a 
pleasure  to  them,  a  great  pleasure  un- 
der present  circumstances?' 

"But  suddenly  the  cure  began  to 
laugh,  and  he  laughed  so  violently  tliat 
he  fairly  shook,  and  exclaimed:  *Ha! 
ha!  ha!  I  have  got  what  you  want,  yes. 
I  have  got  what  you  want!  Ha!  ha! 
ha!  We  will  laugh  and  enjoy  ourselves, 
my  children,  we  will  have  some  fun. 
How  pleased  the  ladies  will  be,  I  say. 


250 


V/ORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


how  delighted  they  will  be.     Ha!  ha! 
Where  arc  you  staying?' 

"I  described  the  house,  and  he  under- 
stood where  it  vv?as.  'Very  good,'  he 
said,  'It  belongs  to  Monsieur  Bertin- 
Lavaille.  I  will  be  there  in  half  an 
hour,  with  four  ladies.  Ila!  ha!  ha! 
four  ladies!' 

"He  went  out  with  me,  still  laughing, 
and  left  me,  repeating:  That  is  cap- 
ital; in  half  an  hour  at  Sertin-Lavaille's 
house.' 

"I  returned  quickly,  very  much  as- 
tonished and  very  much  puzzled. 
'Covers  for  how  many?'  Marchas  asked, 
as  soon  as  he  saw  me. 

"  'Eleven.  There  are  six  of  us  hus- 
sars besides  the  priest  and  four  ladies.' 

"He  v/as  thunderstruck,  and  I  tri- 
\imphant,  and  he  repeated:  Four 
ladies!     Did  you  say,  four  ladies?' 

*'  T  said  four  women.* 

"  'Real  women?' 

"  'Real  women.' 

"'Well,  accept  my  compliments!' 

"  'I  will,  for  I  deserve  them.' 

"He  got  out  of  his  armchair,  opened 
the  door,  and  I  saw  a  beautiful,  white 
tablecloth  on  a  long  table,  round  which 
three  hussars  in  blue  aprons  were  set- 
ting out  the  plates  and  glasses.  'There 
are  some  women  coming!'  Marchas 
cried.  And  the  three  men  began  to 
dance  and  to  cheer  with  all  their  might. 

"Everything  was  ready,  and  we  were 
waiting.  We  waited  for  nearly  an  hour 
while  a  delicious  smell  of  roast  poultry 
pervaded  the  whole  house.  At  last, 
however,  a  knock  against  the  shutt'^rs 
made  us  all  jump  un  at  the  same  mo- 
ment. Stout  Ponderel  ran  to  open  the 
door,  and  in  less  than  a  minute  a  little 
Sister  of  Mercy  appeared  in  the  door- 


way. She  was  thin,  wrinkled,  and  timid, 
and  successively  saluted  the  four  be- 
wildered hussars  who  saw  her  enter. 
Behind  her,  the  noise  of  sticks  sounded 
on  the  tiled  floor  in  the  vestibule.  As 
soon  as  she  had  come  into  the  draw- 
ing-room I  saw  three  old  heads  in  white 
caps,  following  each  other  one  by  one, 
balancing  themselves  with  different 
movements,  one  canting  to  the  right, 
v;hile  the  other  canted  to  the  left.  Then 
three  v/orthy  women  shov/ed  themselves, 
limping,  dragging  their  legs  behind  them, 
crippled  by  illness  and  deformed  through 
old  age,  three  infirm  old  women,  past 
service,  the  only  three  pensioners  who 
were  able  to  walk  in  the  establishment 
which  Sister  Saint-Benedict  managed. 

"She  had  turned  round  to  her  invalids, 
full  of  anxiety  for  them,  and  then  see- 
ing my  quartermaster's  stripes,  stie  said 
to  mc:  *I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for 
thinking  of  these  poor  women.  They 
have  very  little  pleasure  in  life,  and 
you  are  at  the  same  time  giving  them  a 
great  treat  and  doing  them  a  great 
honor.* 

"I  saw  the  priest,  who  had  remained 
in  the  obscurity  of  the  passage,  and  who 
was  laughing  heartily,  and  I  began  to 
laugh  in  my  turn,  especially  when  I  saw 
Marchas's  face.  Then,  motioning  the 
nun  to  the  seats,  I  said:  'Sit  down. 
Sister:  we  are  very  proud  and  very 
happy  that  you  have  accepted  our  un- 
pretentious invitation.' 

"She  took  three  chairs  which  stood 
against  the  wall,  set  them  before  the 
fire,  led  her  three  old  women  to  them, 
settled  them  on  them,  took  their  sticks 
and  shawls  which  she  put  into  a  cor- 
ner, and  then,  pointing  to  the  first,  a 
thin  woman  with  an  enormous  stomach, 


EPIPHANY 


251 


who  was  evidently  suffering  from  the 
dropsy,  she  said:  'This  is  Mother 
Paumelle,  whose  husband  was  killed  by 
falling  from  a  roof,  and  whose  son  died 
in  Africa;  she  is  sixty  years  old.'  Then 
she  pointed  to  another,  a  tall  woman, 
whose  head  shook  unceasingly:  'This 
is  Mother  Jean-Jean,  who  is  sixty- 
seven.  She  is  nearly  blind,  for  her  face 
was  terribly  singed  in  a  fire,  and  her 
right  leg  was  half  burned  off.' 

"Then  she  pointed  to  the  third,  a  sort 
of  drawf,  with  protruding,  round,  stu- 
pid eyes,  which  she  rolled  incessantly  in 
all  directions.  'This  is  La  Putois,  an 
idiot.    She  is  only  forty-four.* 

"I  bowed  to  the  three  women  as  if  I 
were  being  presented  to  some  Royal 
Highness,  and  turning  to  the  priest  I 
said:  'You  are  an  excellent  man.  Mon- 
sieur I'Abbe,  and  we  all  owe  you  a  debt 
of  gratitude.* 

"Everybody  was  laughing,  in  fact,  ex- 
cept Marchas,  who  seemed  furious,  and 
just  then  Karl  Massouligny  cried:  'Sis- 
ter Saint-Benedict,  supper  is  on  the 
table!' 

"I  made  her  go  first  with  the  priest, 
then  I  helped  up  Mother  Paumelle, 
whose  arm  I  took  and  dragged  her  into 
the  next  room,  which  was  no  easy  task, 
for  her  swollen  stomach  seemed  heavier 
than  a  lump  of  iron. 

"Stout  Ponderel  gave  his  arm  to 
Mother  Jean-Jean,  who  bemoaned  her 
crutch,  and  little  Joseph  Herbon  took 
the  idiot,  La  Putois,  to  the  dining-room, 
which  was  filled  with  the  odor  of  the 
viands. 

"As  soon  as  we  were  opposite  our 
plates,  the  Sister  clapped  her  hands 
three  times,  and,  with  the  precision  of 
soldiers    presenting    arms,    the    women 


made  a  rapid  sign  of  the  cross,  and  then 
the  priest  siowiy  repeated  tne  'Bene- 
dictus'  in  Latin.  Then  we  sat  down, 
and  the  two  fowls  appeared,  brought  in 
by  Marchas,  who  chose  to  wait  rather 
than  to  sit  down  as  a  guest  at  this  ri- 
diculous repast. 

"But  I  cried:  'Bring  the  champagne 
at  once!'  and  a  cork  flew  out  wlih  the 
noise  of  a  pistol,  and  in  spite  of  the 
resistance  of  the  priest  and  the  kind  Sis- 
ter, the  three  hussars  sitting  by  the  side 
of  the  three  invalids,  emptied  their 
three  full  glasses  down  their  throats  by 
force. 

"Massouligny,  who  possessed  the  fac- 
ulty of  making  himself  at  home,  and 
of  being  on  good  terms  with  everyone, 
wherever  he  was,  made  love  to  Mother 
Paumelle,  in  the  drollest  manner.  The 
dropsical  woman,  who  had  retained  her 
cheerfulness  in  spite  of  her  misfortunes, 
answered  him  banteringly  in  a  high  fal- 
setto voice  which  seemed  to  be  assumed, 
and  she  laughed  so  heartily  at  her 
neighbor's  jokes  that  her  large  stomach 
looked  as  if  it  were  going  to  rise  up  and 
get  on  to  the  table.  Little  Herbon  had 
seriously  undertaken  the  task  of  making 
the  idiot  dru^k,  and  Baron  d'Etreillis 
whose  wits  were  :iot  always  parti cularlj; 
charp,  was  questioning  old  Jean-Jean 
about  the  life,  the  habits,  and  the  rules 
in  the  hospital. 

"The  nun  said  to  Massouligr.y  in  con- 
sternation: *0h!  oh!  you  will  make 
her  ill ;  pray  do  not  make  her  laugh  like 
that.  Monsieur.  Oh!  Monsieur.'  Then 
she  got  up  and  rushed  at  Plerbon  to 
take  a  full  glass  out  of  his  hands  which 
he  was  hastily  emptving  down  La 
Putoi^i's  throat,  while  the  priest  shook 
with  laughter,  and  said  to  the  Sister: 


252 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


'Never  mind,  just  this  once,  it  will  not 
hurt  her.    Do  leave  them  alone.' 

"After  the  two  fowls  they  ate  the 
duck,  which  was  flanked  by  the  three 
pigeons  and  a  blackbird,  and  then  the 
goose  appeared,  smoking,  golden-colored, 
and  diffusing  a  warm  odor  of  hot, 
browned  fat  meat.  La  Paumelle  who 
was  getting  lively,  clapped  her  hands; 
La  Jean-Jean  left  off  answering  the 
Baron's  numerous  questions,  and  La 
Putois  uttered  grunts  of  pleasure,  half 
cries  and  half  sighs,  like  little  children 
do  when  one  shows  them  sweets.  *AI- 
low  me  to  carve  this  bird,'  the  cure 
said.  *I  understand  these  sort  of  opera- 
tions better  than  most  people.* 

"  'Certainly,  Monsieur  I'Abbe,'  and 
the  Sister  said:  'How  would  it  be  to 
open  the  window  a  little;  they  are  too 
warm,  and  I  am  afraid  they  will  be  ill.' 

"I  turned  to  Marchas:  'Open  the 
window  for  a  minute.'  He  did  so;  the 
cold  outer  air  as  it  came  in  made  the 
candles  flare,  and  the  smoke  from  the 
goose — which  the  cure  was  scientifically 
carving,  with  a  table  napkin  round  his 
neck  —  whirl  about.  We  watched  him 
doing  it,  without  speaking  now,  for  we 
were  interested  in  his  attractive  handi- 
work, and  also  seized  with  renewed  ap- 
petite at  the  sight  of  that  enormous 
golden-colored  bird,  whose  limbs  fell 
one  after  another  into  the  brown  gravy 
at  the  bottom  of  the  dish.  At  that  mo- 
ment, in  the  midst  of  greedy  silence 
which  kept  us  all  attentive,  the  distant 
report  of  a  shot  cam.e  in  at  the  open 
window. 

"I  started  to  my  feet  so  quickly  that 
mv  chair  fell  down  behind  me,  and  I 
fhou^pd-     'Mount,  all   of  you!     You, 


Marchas,  will  take  two  men  and  go  and 
see  what  it  is.  I  shall  expect  you  back 
here  in  five  minutes.'  And  while  the 
three  riders  went  off  at  full  gallop 
through  the  night,  I  got  into  the  saddle 
with  my  three  remaining  hussars,  in 
front  of  the  steps  of  the  villa,  while  the 
cure,  the  Sister,  and  the  three  old 
women  showed  their  frightened  faces  at 
the  window. 

"We  heard  nothing  more,  except  the 
barking  of  a  dog  in  the  distance.  The 
rain  had  ceased,  and  it  was  cold,  very 
cold.  Soon  I  heard  the  gallop  of  a 
horse,  of  a  single  horse,  coming  back. 
It  was  Marchas,  and  I  called  out  to 
him:    'Well?' 

"  'It  is  nothing;  Frangois  has 
wounded  an  old  peasant  who  refused  to 
answer  his  challenge  and  who  continued 
to  advance  in  spite  of  the  order  to  keep 
off.  They  are  bringing  him  here,  and 
we  shall  see  what  is  the  matter.' 

"I  gave  orders  for  the  horses  to  be 
put  back  into  the  stable,  and  I  sent  my 
two  soldiers  to  meet  the  others,  and  re- 
turned to  the  house.  Then  the  cure, 
Marchas  and  I  took  a  mattress  into  the 
room  to  put  the  wounded  man  on;  the 
Sister  tore  up  a  table  napkin  in  order 
to  make  lint,  while  the  three  fright- 
ened women  remained  huddled  up  in  a 
corner. 

"Soon  I  heard  the  rattle  of  sabers  on 
the  road,  and  I  took  a  candle  to  show  a 
light  to  the  men  who  were  returning. 
They  soon  appeared,  carrying  that 
inert,  soft,  long,  and  sinister  object 
which  a  human  body  becomes  when  life 
no  longer  sustains  it. 

"They  put  the  wounded  man  on  the 
mattress   that    had  been    prepared    for 


SIMON'S  PAPA 


253 


nim,  and  1  saw  at  the  first  glance  that 
he  was  dying.  He  had  the  death  rattle, 
and  was  spitting  up  blood  which  ran  out 
of  the  corners  of  his  mouth,  forced  out 
of  his  lungs  by  his  gasps.  The  man  was 
covered  with  it!  His  cheeks,  his  beard, 
his  hair,  his  neck,  and  his  clothes  seemed 
to  have  been  rubbed,  to  have  been 
dipped  in  a  red  tub;  the  blood  had  con- 
gealed on  him,  and  had  become  a  dull 
color  which  was  horrible  to  look  at. 

"The  old  man,  wrapped  up  in  a  large 
shepherd's  cloak,  occasionally  opened 
his  dull,  vacant  eyes.  They  seemed 
stupid  with  astonishment,  like  the  eyes 
of  hunted  animals  which  fall  at  the 
sportsman's  feet,  half  dead  before  the 
shot,  stupefied  with  fear  and  surprise. 

"The  cure  exclaimed:  'Ah!  there  is 
old  Placide,  the  shepherd  from  Les 
Marlins.  He  is  deaf,  poor  man,  and 
heard  nothing.  Ah!  Oh,  God!  they 
have  killed  the  unhappy  man!'  The 
Sister  had  opened  his  blouse  and  shirt, 
and  was  looking  at  a  little  blue  hole  in 
the  middle  of  his  chest,  which  was  not 
bleeding  any  more.  There  is  nothing 
to  be  done,'  she  said. 

"The  shepherd  was  gasping  terribly 
and  bringing  up  blood  with  every  breath. 
In  his  throat  to  the  very  depth  of  his 
lungs,  they  could  hear  an  ominous  and 
continued  gurgling.  The  cure,  standing 
in  front  of  him,  raised  his  right  hand. 


made  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  in  a 
slow  and  solemn  voice  pronounced  the 
Latin  words  which  purify  men's  couls. 
But  before  they  were  finished,  the  old 
man  was  shaken  by  a  rapid  shudder,  as 
if  something  had  broken  inside  him;  he 
no  longer  breathed.    He  was  dead. 

"When  I  turned  round  I  saw  a  sight 
which  was  even  more  horrible  than  the 
death  struggle  of  this  unfortunate  man. 
The  three  old  women  were  standing  up 
huddled  close  together,  hideous,  and 
grimacing  with  fear  and  horror.  I  went 
up  to  them,  and  they  began  to  utter 
shrill  screams,  while  La  Jean-Jean, 
whose  leg  had  been  burned  and  could 
not  longer  support  her,  fell  to  the 
ground  at  full  length. 

"Sister  Saint-Benedict  left  the  dead 
man,  ran  up  to  her  infirm  old  women, 
and  without  a  word  or  a  look  fo^  me 
wrapped  their  shawls  round  them,  gave 
them  their  crutches,  pushed  them  to  the 
door,  made  them  go  out,  and  disap- 
peared with  them  into  the  dark  night. 

"I  saw  that  I  could  not  even  let  a 
hussar  accompany  them,  for  the  meit! 
rattle  of  a  sword  would  have  sent  them 
mad  with  fear. 

"The  cure  was  still  looking  at  the 
dead  man;  but  at  last  he  turned  to  me 
and  said: 

"  'Oh!    What  a  horrible  thmg.' " 


Simon^s  Papa 


Noon  had  just  struck.  The  school- 
door  opened  and  the  youngsters 
streamed  out  tumbling  over  one  another 


in  their  haste  to  get  out  quickly.  Bu' 
instead  of  promptly  dispersing  and  go- 
ing home  to  dinner  as  was  their  daily 


254 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


wontf  the>  stopped  a  few  paces  off, 
broke  up  into  knots  and  set  to  whisper- 
ing. 

The  fact  was  that  that  morning  Si- 
mon, the  son  of  La  Blanchotte,  had,  for 
the  first  time,  attended  school. 

They  had  all  of  them  in  their  families 
heard  of  La  Blanchotte;  and  although 
in  public  she  was  welcome  enough,  the 
mothers  among  themselves  treated  her 
with  compassion  of  a  somewhat  disdain- 
ful kind,  which  the  children  had  caught 
without  in  the  least  knowing  why. 

As  for  Simon  himself,  they  did  not 
know  him,  for  he  never  went  abroad, 
and  did  not  play  around  with  them 
through  the  streets  of  the  village  or 
along  the  banks  of  the  river.  So  they 
loved  him  but  little;  and  it  was  with  a 
certain  delight,  mJnglcd  with  astonish- 
ment, that  they  gathered  in  groups  this 
morning,  repeating  to  each  other  this 
sentence,  concocted  by  a  lad  of  four- 
teen or  fifteen  who  appeared  to  know 
all  about  it,  so  sagaciously  did  he  wink: 
"You  know  Simon -— well,  he  has  no 
papa." 

La  Blanchotte*s  son  appeared  in  his 
turn  upon  the  threshold  of  the  school. 

He  was  seven  or  eight  years  old, 
rather  pale,  very  neat,  with  a  timid  and 
almost  awkward  manner. 

He  was  making  his  way  back  to  his 
mother's  house  when  the  various  groups 
of  his  schoolfellows,  perpetually  whis- 
pering, and  watching  him  with  the  mis- 
chievous and  heartless  eyes  of  children 
bent  upon  playing  a  nasty  trick,  gradu- 
ally surrounded  him  and  ended  by  in- 
closing altogether.  There  he  stood  amid 
them,  surnrised  and  embarrassed,  not 
understanding  what  Ihey  were  going  to 
do  v/ith  hira.     But  the  lad  who  had 


brfught  the  news,  puffed  up  with  the 
success  he  had  met  with,  demanded: 

"What  do  you  call  yourself?" 

He  answered:    "Simon." 

*Simon  what?"  retorted  the  other. 

The  child,  altogether  bewildered,  re- 
peated:   "Simon." 

The  lad  shouted  at  him:  "You  must 
be  named  Simon  something!  That  is 
not  a  name — Simon  indeed!" 

And  he,  on  the  brink  of  tears,  replied 
for  the  third  time: 

"I  am  named  Simon." 

The  urchins  began  laughing.  Tlie  lad 
triumphantly  lifted  up  his  voice:  "You 
can  see  plahily  that  h?.  has  no  papa." 

A  deep  silence  ensued.  The  children 
were  dumfounded  by  this  extraordinary, 
impossibly  monstrous  thing — a  boy  who 
had  not  a  papa;  they  looked  upon  him 
as  a  phenomenon,  an  unnatural  being, 
and  they  felt  rising  in  them  the  hitherto 
inexplicable  pity  of  their  mothers  for 
La  Blanchotte.  As  for  Simon,  he  had 
propped  himself  against  a  tree  to  avoid 
failing,  and  he  stood  there  as  if  para^ 
yzed  by  an  irreparable  disaster.  He 
sought  to  explain,  but  he  could  think  of 
no  answer  for  them,  no  way  to  deny  this 
horrible  charge  that  he  had  no  papa. 
At  last  he  shouted  at  them  quite  reck- 
lessly:   "Yes,  I  have  one." 

"Where  is  he?"  demanded  the  boy. 

Simon  was  silent,  he  did  not  know. 
The  children  shrieked,  tremendously  ex- 
cited. These  sons  of  toil,  nearly  related 
to  animals,  experienced  the  cruel  crav- 
ing which  makes  the  fowls  of  a  farm- 
yard destroy  one  of  their  own  kind  as 
soon  as  it  is  wounded.  Simon  suddenly 
spied  a  little  neighbor,  the  son  of  a 
widow,  whom  he  had  always  seen,  as  he 


SIMON'S  PAPA 


23$ 


himself  was  to  be  seen,  quite  alone  with 
his  mother. 

'*And  no  mere  have  you,"  he  said, 
"no  more  have  you  a  papa.'' 

"Yes,"  rephed  the  other,  *1  have 
one." 

"Where  is  he?"  rejoined  Simon. 

"He  is  dead,"  declared  the  brat  with 
superb  dignity,  'he  is  in  the  cemetery, 
is  my  papa." 

A  murmur  of  approval  rose  amid  the 
scapegraces,  as  if  the  fact  of  possessmg 
a  papa  dead  in  a  cemetery  made  their 
comrade  big  enough  to  crush  the  other 
one  who  had  no  papa  at  ail.  And  these 
rogues,  whose  fathers  were  for  the  most 
part  evil-doers,  drunkards,  thievts,  and 
ill-treat ers  of  their  wives  hustled  each 
other  as  they  pressed  closer  and  closer 
to  Simon  as  though  they,  the  H^itimate 
ones,  would  stifle  ih  their  pressure  ont 
who  was  beyond  the  law. 

The  lad  next  Simon  suddenly  put  his 
tongue  out  at  him  with  a  waggish  air 
and  shouted  at  him : 

"No  papa!     No  papa!" 

Simon  seized  him  by  the  hair  with 
both  hands  and  set  to  work  to  de- 
molish his  legs  with  kicks,  while  he  bit 
his  cheek  ferociously.  A  tremendous 
struggle  ensued  between  the  two  boys, 
and  Simon  found  himself  beaten,  torn, 
bruised,  rolled  on  the  ground  in  tne  mid- 
dle of  the  ring  of  applauding  little  vaga- 
bonds. As  he  arose,  mechanically 
brushing  his  little  blouse  all  covered 
with  dust  with  his  hand,  some  one 
shouted  at  him: 

"Go  and  tell  your  pa])a.*' 

He  then  felt  a  great  ninking  in  his 
heart.  They  were  stronger  than  he, 
they  had  beaten  hir^  and  he  had  no  an- 
swer to  give  them,  for  he  knew  it  was 


true  that  he  had  no  papa.  Full  of  pride 
he  tried  for  some  moments  to  struggle 
against  the  tears  which  were  suffocating 
him.  He  had  a  choking  fit,  and  then 
without  cries  he  began  to  weep  with 
great  sobs  which  shook  him  incessantly. 
Then  a  ferocious  joy  broke  out  among 
his  enemies,  and,  just  like  savages  in 
fearful  festivals,  they  took  one  another 
by  the  hand  and  danced  in  a  circle  about 
him  as  they  repeated  in  refrain: 

"No  papa!    No  papa!" 

But  suddenly  Simon  ceased  sobbinpr. 
Frenzy  overtook  him.  There  were 
stones  under  hie  feet;  he  picked  them 
up  and  with  all  his  strength  hurled  them 
at  his  tormentors.  Two  or  three  were 
struck  and  ran  away  yelling,  and  so 
formidable  did  he  appear  that  the  rest 
became  panic-strickjn.  Cowards,  like 
a  jeering  crowd  11  the  presence  of  an 
exasperated  man,  they  broke  up  and 
fled.  Left  alone,  the  little  thing  with- 
out a  father  set  off  running  toward  the 
fields,  for  a  recollection  had  been  awak- 
ened which  nerved  his  soul  to  a  great 
determination.  He  made  up  his  mind  to 
drown  himself  in  the  river. 

lie  remembered,  in  fact,  that  eight 
days  ago  a  poor  devil  who  begged  for 
his  livelihood  had  thrown  himself  into 
the  water  because  he  had  no  more 
money.  Simon  had  been  there  when 
they  fished  him  out  again;  and  the 
sight  of  the  fellow,  who  had  reemed  to 
him  so  miserable  and  ugly,  had  then  im- 
pressed him — ^his  pale  cheeks,  his  long 
drenched  beard,  and  his  open  eyes  beinij 
full  of  calm.    The  bystanders  had  saidi 

"He  is  dead." 

And  some  one  had  added: 

"He  is  qu.te  Lappy  now." 

So   Simon  wished  to  drown  himself 


256 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


also  because  he  had  no  father,  just  as 
the  wretched  being  did  who  had  no 
money. 

He  reached  the  water  and  watched  it 
flowing.  Some  fishes  were  rising  briskly 
in  the  clear  stream  and  occasionally 
made  little  leaps  and  caught  the  flies 
on  the  surface.  He  stopped  crying  in 
order  to  watch  them,  for  their  feeding 
interested  him  vastly.  But,  at  intervals, 
as  in  the  lulls  of  a  tempest,  when  tre- 
mendous gusts  of  wind  snap  off  trees 
ac^d  then  die  away,  this  thought  would 
return  to  him  with  intense  pain: 

"I  am  about  to  drown  myself  because 
I  have  no  papa." 

It  was  very  warm  and  fine  weather. 
The  pleasant  sunshine  warmed  the 
grass;  the  water  shcne  like  a  mirror; 
and  Simon  enjoyed  for  some  minutes 
the  happiness  of  that  languor  which  fol- 
lows weeping,  desirous  even  of  falling 
asleep  there  upon  the  grass  in  the 
warmth  of  noon. 

A  little  green  frong  leaped  from  under 
his  feet.  He  endeavored  to  catch  it. 
It  escaped  him.  He  pursued  it  and  lost 
it  three  times  following.  At  last  he 
caught  it  by  one  of  its  hind  legs  and 
began  to  laugh  as  it  saw  the  efforts  the 
creature  made  to  escape.  It  gathered 
itself  up  on  its  large  legs  and  then  with 
a  violent  spring  suddenly  stretched  them 
out  as  stiff  p.s  two  bars. 

Its  eyes  stared  wide  open  in  their 
round,  golden  circle,  and  it  beat  the  air 
with  its  front  limbs,  using  them  as 
though  they  were  hands.  It  reminded 
him  of  a  toy  made  with  straight  slips 
of  wood  nailed  zigzag  one  on  the  other, 
which  by  a  similar  movement  regulated 
the  exercise  of  the  little  soldiers  fastened 
thereon.    Then  he  thought  of  his  home 


and  of  his  mother,  and  overcome  by 
great  sorrow  he  again  began  to  weep. 
His  lips  trembled;  and  he  placed  him- 
self on  his  knees  and  said  his  prayers  as 
before  going  to  bed.  But  he  was  unable 
to  finish  them,  for  such  hurried  and  vio- 
lent sobs  overtook  him  that  he  was  com- 
pletely overwhelmed.  He  thought  no 
more,  he  no  longer  heeded  anything 
around  him  but  was  wholly  given  up  to 
tears. 

Suddenly  a  heavy  hand  was  placed 
upon  his  shoulder,  and  a  rough  voice 
asked  him: 

"What  is  it  that  causes  you  so  much 
grief,  mv  Tme  fellow?" 

Simon  turned  round.  A  tall  work- 
man, with  a  black  beard  and  hair  all 
curled,  was  staring  at  him  good- 
naturedly.  He  answered  with  his  eyes 
and  throat  full  of  tears: 

"They  have  beaten  me  because — I — I 
have  no  papa — no  papa." 

"What!"  said  the  man  smiling,  "why, 
everybody  has  one." 

The  ct  ild  answered  painfully  amid  his 
spasmj  of  grief: 

"But  I— I— I  have  none." 

Then   the  workman  became   serious 
He  had  recognized  La  Blanchotte's  son, 
and   although   a   recent   arrival   to   the 
neighborhood  he  had  a  vague  idea  of  her 
history. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "console  yourself, 
my  boy,  and  come  with  me  home  to 
your  mother.  She  will  give  you  a 
papa." 

And  so  they  started  on  the  way,  the 
big  one  holding  the  little  one  by  the 
hand.  The  man  smiled  afresh,  for  he 
was  not  sorry  to  see  this  Blanchotte, 
who  by  popular  report  was  one  of  the 
prettiest  girls  in  the  country-side-- -and, 


SIMON'S  PAPA 


257 


perhaps,  he  said  to  himself,  at  the  bot- 
tom of  his  heart,  that  a  lass  who  had 
erred  once  might  very  well  err  again. 

They  arrived  in  front  of  a  very  neat 
little  white  house. 

'There  it  is,"  exclaimed  the  child,  and 
he  cried:     "Mamma." 

A  woman  appeared,  and  the  workman 
instantly  left  off  smiling,  for  he  at  once 
perceived  that  there  was  no  more  fool- 
ing to  be  done  with  the  tall  pale  girl, 
who  stood  austerely  at  her  door  as 
though  to  defend  from  one  man  the 
threshold  of  that  house  where  she  had 
already  been  betrayed  by  another.  In- 
timidated, his  cap  in  his  hand,  he  stam- 
mered out: 

"See,  Madame,  I  have  brought  you 
back  your  little  boy,  who  had  lost  him- 
self near  the  river." 

But  Simon  flung  his  arms  about  his 
mother's  neck  and  told  her,  as  he  again 
began  to  cry: 

*'No,  mamma,  I  wished  to  drown  my- 
self, because  the  others  had  beaten  me 
— ^had  beaten  me — ^because  I  have  no 
papa.'* 

A  burning  redness  covered  the  young 
woman's  cheeks,  and,  hurt  to  the  quick, 
she  embraced  her  child  passionately, 
while  the  tears  coursed  down  her  face. 
The  man,  much  moved,  stood  there, 
not  knowing  how  to  get  away.  But 
Simon  suddenly  ran  to  him  and  said: 

"Will  you  be  my  papa?" 

A  deep  silence  ensued.  La  Blan- 
chotte,  dumb  and  tortured  with  shame, 
leaned  against  the  v/all,  her  hands  upon 
her  heart.  The  child,  seeing  that  no  an- 
swer was  made  him,  replied: 

"If  you  do  not  wish  it,  I  shall  return 
to  drown  mvsdf." 


The  workman  took  the  matter  as  a 
jest  and  answered  laughing: 

"Why,  yes,  I  wish  it  certainly." 

"What  is  your  name,  then,"  went,  on 
the  child,  "so  that  I  may  tell  the  others 
when  they  wish  to  know  your  name?" 

* 'Philip,"  answered  the  man. 

Simon  was  silent  a  moment  so  that  he 
might  get  the  name  well  into  his  mem- 
ory; then  he  stretched  out  his  arms, 
quite  consoled,  and  said: 

"Well,  then,  Philip,  you  are  my 
papa." 

The  workman,  lifting  him  from  the 
ground,  kissed  him  hastily  on  both 
cheeks,  and  then  strode  away  quickly. 

When  the  child  returned  to  school 
next  day  he  was  received  with  a  spite- 
ful laugh,  and  at  the  end  of  school, 
when  the  lads  were  on  the  point  of 
recommencing,  Simon  threw  these 
words  at  their  heads  as  he  would  have 
done  a  stone:  "He  is  named  Philip,  my 
papa." 

Yells  of  delight  burst  out  from  all 
sides. 

"Philip  who?  Philip  what?  What 
on  earth  is  Philip?  Where  did  you  pick 
up  your  Philip?" 

Simon  answered  nothing;  and  im- 
movable in  faith  he  defied  them  with 
his  eye,  ready  to  be  martyred  rather 
than  fly  before  them.  The  schoolmaster 
came  to  his  rescue  and  he  returned  home 
to  his  mother. 

For  a  space  of  three  months,  the  tall 
workman,  Philip,  frequently  passed  by 
La  Bianchotte's  house,  and  sometimes 
made  bold  to  speak  to  her  when  he  saw 
her  sewing  near  the  window.  She  an- 
swered him  civilly,  always  sedately, 
never  joking  with  him,  nor  permitting 
him  to  enter  her  house.    Notwithstand- 


258 


V/ORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ing  this,  being,  like  all  men,  a  bit  of  a 
coxconib,  he  imagined  that  she  was 
often  rosier  than  UoUal  when  she  chatted 
with  h.ni. 

But  a  fallen  reputation  is  so  difficult 
to  recover,  and  always  remains  so  frag- 
ile that,  in  spite  of  the  shy  reserve  La 
Blanchotte  maintained,  they  already 
gossiped  in  the  neighborhood. 

As  for  Simon,  he  loved  his  new  papa 
much,  and  walked  with  him  nearly  every 
evening  when  the  day's  work  was  done. 
He  went  regularly  to  school  and  mixed 
in  a  dignified  way  with  his  schoolfellows 
without  ever  answering  them  back. 

One  day,  however,  the  lad  who  had 
fitst  attacked  him  said  to  him: 

"You  have  lied.  You  have  not  ? 
p^pa  named  Philip.*' 

"Why  do  you  say  that?"  demanded 
Simor,  much  disturbed. 

The  youth  rubbed  his  hands.  He  re- 
plied : 

"Because  if  ycu  had  one  he  would  be 
your  mamma's  husband." 

Simon  was  confused  by  the  truth  of 
this  reasoning;  never' heless  he  retorted: 

"He  is  my  papa  all  the  same." 

"That  can  very  well  be,"  exclaimed 
the  urchin  with  a  sneer,  "but  that  is  not 
being  your  papa  altogether." 

La  Blanchotte's  little  one  bowed  his 
head  and  went  cff  dreaming  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  forge  belonging  to  old 
Loizon,  where  Philip  v/orked. 

This  forge  was  entombed  in  trees. 
It  was  very  dark  there,  the  red  glare  of 
a  formidable  furnace  alone  lit  up  with 
great  flashes  five  blacksmiths,  who  ham- 
mered upon  the^T  anvils  with  a  t^rr'ble 
din.  Stpndin»^  enveloped  in  flame,  they 
worked  like  demons,  their  eyes  fixed  on 
the  red-hot  iron  they  were  pounding; 


and  their  dull  ideas  rising  and  falling 
with  their  hammers. 

Simon  entered  without  being  noticed 
and  quietly  plucked  his  friend  by  the 
sleeve.  Philip  turned  round.  All  at  once 
the  v/ork  came  to  a  standstill  and  the 
men  looked  on  very  attentively.  Then,  in 
the  midst  of  this  unaccustomed  silence, 
rose  the  little  slender  pipe  of   Simon: 

"Philip,  explain  to  me  what  the  lad  at 
La  Michande  has  just  told  me,  that  you 
are  not  altogether  m.y  papa." 

"And  why  that?"  asked  the  smith. 

The   child   replied   in  all   innocence: 

"Because  you  are  not  my  mam.ma*s 
husband." 

No  one  laughed.  Philip  remained 
standing,  leaning  his  forehead  upon  the 
back  of  his  great  hands,  which  held  the 
handle  of  his  hammer  upright  upon  the 
anvil.  He  mused.  His  four  companions 
watched  him,  and,  like  a  tiny  mite 
among  these  giants,  Simon  anxiously 
v/aited.  Suddenly,  one  of  the  smiths, 
voicing  the  sentiment  of  all,  said  to 
Philip: 

"All  the  same  La  Blanchotte  is  a  good 
and  honest  girl,  stalwart  and  steady  in 
spite  of  her  misfortune,  and  one  who 
would  make  a  worthy  wife  for  an  honest 
man." 

"That  13  true,"  remarked  the  three 
others. 

The  smiti:  continued: 

"Is  it  the  girl's  fault  if  she  has  fallen? 
She  had  been  promised  marriage,  and  I 
know  more  than  one  who  is  much  re- 
spected to-day  and  has  sinned  every 
bit  as  much." 

"That  is  true,"  responded  the  three 
men  in  chorus. 

He  resumed: 

"How  hard  she  has  toiled,  poor  thing 


WAITER.  A  BOCK 


259 


to  educate  her  lad  all  alone,  and  how 
much  she  has  wept  since  she  no  longer 
goes  out,  save  to  church,  God  only 
knows." 

"That  also  is  true,"  said  the  others. 

Then  no  more  was  heard  save  the  roar 
of  the  bellows  which  fanned  the  fire  of 
the  furnace.  Philip  hastily  bent  himself 
down  to  Simon: 

"Go  and  tell  your  mamma  that  I 
shall  come  to  speak  to  her." 

Then  he  pushed  the  child  out  by  the 
shoulders.  He  returned  to  his  work  and 
in  unison  the  five  hammers  again  fell 
upon  their  anvils.  Thus  they  wrought 
the  iron  until  nightfall,  strong,  power- 
ful, happy,  like  Vulcans  satisfied.  But 
I  as  the  great  bell  of  a  cathedral  resounds 
'  upon  feast  days  above  the  jingling  of  the 
other  bells,  so  Philip's  hammer,  domi- 
nating the  noise  of  the  others,  clanged 
second  after  second  with  a  deafening  up- 
roar. His  eye  on  the  fire,  he  plied  his 
trade  vigorously,  erect  amid  the  sparks. 

The  sky  was  full  of  stars  as  he 
knocked  at  La  Blanchotte's  door.  He 
had  his  Sunday  blouse  on,  a  fresh  shirt, 
and  his  beard  was  trimmed.  The  young 
woman  showed  herself  upon  the  thres- 
hold and  said  in  a  grieved  tone: 

*Tt  is  ill  to  come  thus  when  night  has 
fallen,  Mr.  Philip." 

He  wished  to  answered,  but  stam- 
mered and  stood  confused  before  her. 

She  resumed: 


"And  you  understand  quite  well  that 
it  will  not  do  that  I  should  be  talked 
about  any  more." 

Then  he  said  all  at  once: 

"What  does  that  matter  to  me,  if  you 
will  be  my  wife!" 

No  voice  replied  to  him,  but  he  be- 
lieved that  he  heard  in  the  shadov/  of 
the  room  the  sound  of  a  body  falling. 
He  entered  very  quickly;  and  Simon, 
who  had  gone  to  his  bed,  distinguished 
the  sound  of  a  kiss  and  some  words  that 
his  mother  said  very  softly.  Then  he 
suddenly  found  himself  lifted  up  by 
the  hands  of  his  friend,  who,  holding 
him  at  the  length  of  his  herculean  arms, 
exclaimed  to  him: 

"You  will  tell  your  school-fellows  that 
your  papa  is  Philip  Remy,  the  black- 
smith, and  that  he  will  pull  the  ears  of 
all  who  do  you  any  harm." 

On  the  morrow,  when  the  school  was 
full  and  lessons  about  to  begin,  little 
Simon  stood  up  quite  pale  with  trem- 
bling lips: 

"My  papa,"  said  he  in  a  clear  voice, 
"is  Philip  Remy,  the  blacksmith,  and 
he  has  promised  to  box  the  ears  of  all 
who  do  me  any  harm." 

This  time  no  one  laughed  any  longer, 
for  he  was  very  well  known,  was  Philip 
Remy,  the  blacksmith,  and  he  was  a 
papa  of  whom  anyone  in  the  world 
would  be  proud. 


Waiter,  a  Bock! 


* 


Why  on  this  particular  evening,  did 
I  enter  a  certain  beer  shop?  I  cannot 
explain  it.  It  was  bitterly  cold.  A  fine 
rain,  a  watery  mist  floated  about,  veil- 


ing the  gas  jets  in  a  transparent  fog, 
maldng  the  pavements  under  the  shadow 


*  Bavarian  beer. 


260 


WORKS  OF  GUY  I>E  MAUPASSANT 


of  the  shop  fronts  glitter,  which  re- 
vealed the  soft  slush  and  the  soiled  feet 
of  the  passers-by. 

I  was  going  nowhere  in  particular; 
was  simply  having  a  short  walk  after 
dinner.  I  had  passed  the  Credit  Lyon- 
nais,  the  Rue  Vivienne,  and  several 
other  streets.  Suddenly  I  descried  a 
large  cafe,  which  was  more  than  half 
full.  I  walked  inside,  with  no  object 
in  mind.    I  v»ras  not  the  least  thirsty. 

By  a  searching  glance  I  detected  a 
place  where  I  would  not  be  too  much 
crowded.  So  I  went  and  sat  down  by 
the  side  of  a  man  who  seemed  to  me  to 
be  old,  and  who  smoked  a  half-penny 
day  pipe,  which  had  become  as  black  as 
.":oaL  From  six  to  eight  beer  saucers 
were  piled  up  on  the  table  in  front  of 
him,  indicating  the  number  of  "bocks" 
he  had  already  absorbed.  With  that 
same  glance  I  had  recognized  in  him  a 
''regular  toper,"  one  of  those  frequenters 
of  beer-houses,  who  come  in  the  morn- 
ing as  soon  as  the  place  is  open,  and 
only  go  away  in  the  evening  when  it  is 
about  to  close.  He  was  dirty,  bald  to 
about  the  middle  of  the  cranium,  while 
his  long  gray  hair  fell  over  the  neck  of 
his  frock  coat.  His  clothes,  much  too 
large  for  him,  appeared  to  have  been 
made  for  him  at  a  time  when  he  was 
very  stout.  One  could  guess  that  his 
pantaloons  were  not  held  up  by  braces, 
and  that  this  man  could  not  take  ten 
paces  without  having  to  pull  them  up 
and  readjust  them.  Did  he  wear  a 
vest?  The  mere  thought  of  his  boots 
and  the  feet  they  enveloped  filled  me 
with  horror.  The  frayed  cuffs  were  as 
black  at  the  edges  as  were  his  nails. 

As  soon  as  I  had  sat  down  near  him, 


this  queer  creature  said  to  me  in  a  tran- 
quil tone  of  voice: 

**How  goes  it  with  you?" 

I  turned  sharply  round  to  him  and 
closely  scanned  his  features,  whereupon 
he  continued: 

"I  see  you  do  not  recognize  me." 

"No,  I  do  not." 

"Des  Barrets." 

I  was  stupefied.  It  was  Count  Jean 
des  Barrets,  my  old  college  chum. 

I  seized  him  by  the  hand,  so  dum- 
founded  that  I  could  find  nothing  to 
say.  I,  at  length,  managed  to  stammer 
out: 

"And  you,  how  goes  it  with  you?" 

He  responded  placidly: 

"With  me?    Just  as  I  like." 

He  became  silent.  I  wanted  to  be 
friendly,  and  I  selected  this  phrase: 

"What  are  you  doing  now?" 

""^^ou  see  what  I  am  doing,"  he  an- 
swered, quite  resignedly. 

T  fell  my  face  getting  red.    I  insisted' 

"But  every  day?" 

"Every  day  Is  alike  to  me,"  was  his 
response,  accompanied  with  a  thick  puff 
of  tobacco  sm.oke. 

He  then  tapped  on  the  top  oi  the 
marble  table  with  a  sou,  to  attract  the 
attention  of  the  waiter,  and  called  out: 

"Waiter,  two  'bocks.' " 

A  voice  in  the  distance  repeated: 

"Two  'bocks,*  instead  of  four." 

Another  voice,  more  distant  still, 
shouted  out: 

"Here  they  are,  sir,  here  they  are." 

Immediately  there  appeared  a  man 
with  a  white  apron,  carrying  two 
"bocks,"  which  he  set  down  foaming 
on  the  table,  the  foam  running  over  the 
edge,  on  to  the  sandv  floor. 


WAITER,  A  BOCK 


261 


Des  Barrets  emptied  his  glass  at  a  sin- 
gle draught  and  replaced  it  on  the  table, 
sucking  in  the  drops  of  beer  that  had 
been  left  on  his  mustache.  He  next 
asked : 

"What  is  there  new?" 

"I  know  of  nothing  new,  worth  men- 
tioning, really,"  I  stammered:  "But 
nothing  has  grown  old  for  me;  I  am  a 
commercial  man." 

In  an  equable  tone  of  voice,  he  said: 

"Indeed — does  that  amuse  you?" 

"No,  but  what  do  you  mean  by  that? 
Surely  you  must  do  something!' 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?" 

"I  only  mean,  how  do  you  pass  your 
time!" 

"What's  the  use  of  occupying  myself 
with  anything.  For  my  part,  I  do  noth- 
ing at  all,  as  you  see,  never  anything. 
When  one  has  not  got  a  sou  one  can 
understand  why  one  has  to  go  to  work. 
What  is  the  good  of  working?  Do  you 
work  for  yourself,  or  for  others?  If 
you  work  for  yourself  you  do  it  for 
your  own  amusement,  which  is  all  right; 
if  you  work  for  others,  you  reap  noth- 
ing but  ingratitude." 

Then  sticking  his  pipe  into  his  mouth, 
he  called  out  anew: 

"Waiter,  a  'bock.'  It  makes  me  thirsty 
to  keep  calling  so.  I  am  not  accus- 
tomed to  that  sort  of  thing.  Yes,  I 
do  nothing;  I  let  things  slide,  and  I  am 
growing  old.  In  dying  I  shall  have 
nothing  to  regret.  If  so,  I  should  re- 
member nothing,  outside  this  public- 
house.  I  have  no  wife,  no  children,  no 
cares,  no  sorrows,  nothing.  That  is  the 
very  best  thing  that   could  happen  to 


one. 


He  then  emptied  the  glass  which  had 


been  brought  him,  passed  his  tongue 
over  his  lips,  and  resumed  his  pipe. 

I  looked  at  him  stupefied  and  asked 
him: 

"But  you  have  not  always  been  like 
that?" 

"Pardon  me,  sir;  ever  since  I  lefi 
college." 

"It  is  not  a  proper  life  to  lead,  my 
dear  sir;  it  is  simply  horrible.  Come, 
you  must  indeed  have  done  something, 
you  must  have  loved  something,  you 
must  have  friends." 

"No;  I  get  up  at  noon,  I  come  here, 
I  have  my  breakfast,  I  drink  my  'bock'; 
I  remain  until  evening,  I  have  my  din- 
ner, I  drink  'bock.*  Then  about  one 
in  the  morning,  I  return  to  my  couch, 
because  the  place  closes  up.  And  it 
is  this  latter  that  embitters  me  more 
than  anything.  For  the  last  ten  years, 
I  have  passed  six-tenths  of  my  time  on 
this  bench,  in  my  comer;  and  the  other 
four-tenths  in  my  bed,  never  changing. 
I  talk  sometimes  with  the  habitues" 

"But  on  arriving  in  Paris  what  did 
you  do  at  first?" 

I  paid  my  devoirs  to  the  Cafe  de 
Medicis." 

"What  next?" 

"Next?  I  crossed  the  water  and 
came  here." 

"Why  did  you  take  even  that  trou- 
ble?" 

"What  do  you  mean?  One  cannot 
remain  all  one's  life  in  the  Latin  Quar- 
ter. The  students  make  too  much  noise. 
But  I  do  not  move  about  any  longer. 
Waiter,  a  'bock.'" 

I  now  began  to  think  that  he  was 
making  fun  of  me,  and  I  continued: 

"Come  now,  be  frank.  You  have  *   ej? 


262 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


the  victim  of  some  great  sorrow; 
despair  in  love,  no  doubt!  It  is  easy 
to  see  that  you  are  a  man  whom  mis- 
fortune has  hit  hard.  What  age  are 
you?" 

"I  am  thirty  years  of  age,  but  I  look 
to  be  forty-five  at  least." 

I  looked  him  straight  in  the  face. 
His  shrunken  figure,  badly  cared  for, 
gave  one  the  impression  that  he  was  an 
old  man.  On  the  summit  of  his  cranium, 
a  few  long  hairs  shot  straight  up  from 
a  skin  of  doubtful  cleanness.  He  had 
enormous  eyelashes,  a  large  mustache, 
and  a  thick  beard.  Suddenly  I  had  a 
kind  of  vision,  I  Imow  not  why — the 
vision  of  a  basin  filled  with  noisome 
water,  the  water  which  should  have 
been  applied  to  that  poll.  I  said  to 
him: 

"Verily,  you  look  to  be  more  than 
ihat  age.  Of  a  certainty  you  must  have 
experienced  some  great  dissappoint- 
ment." 

He  replied: 

"I  tell  you  that  I  have  not.  I  am  old 
because  I  never  take  air.  There  is  noth- 
ing that  vitiates  the  life  of  a  man  more 
than  the  atmosphere  of  a  cafe" 

I  could  not  believe  him. 

"You  must  surely  have  been  married 
as  well?  One  could  not  get  baldheaded 
as  you  are  without  having  been  much 
in  love." 

He  shook  his  head,  sending  down  his 
back  little  hairs  from  the  scalp : 

"No,  I  have  always  been  virtuous." 

And  raising  his  eyes  toward  the  luster, 
which  beat  down  on  our  heads,  he  said: 

"If  I  am  baldheaded,  it  is  the  fault 
of  the  ^as.  It  is  the  enemy  of  hair. 
Waiter  .  *bock.*  You  must  ^>e  thirsty 
also?'* 


"No,  thank  you.  But  you  certainly 
interest  me.  When  did  you  have  your 
first  discouragement?  Your  life  is  not 
normal,  is  not  natural.  There  is  some- 
thing under  it  all." 

"Yes,  and  it  dales  from  my  infancy. 
I  received  a  heavy  blow  when  I  was 
very  young.  It  turned  my  life  into 
darkness,  which  will  last  to  the  end." 

"How  did  it  come  about?" 

"You  wish  to  know  about  it?  Well, 
then,  listen.  You  recall,  of  course,  the 
castle  in  which  I  was  brought  up,  seeing 
that  you  used  to  visit  it  for  five  or  six 
months  during  the  vacations?  You  re- 
member that  large,  gray  building  in  the 
middle  of  a  great  park,  and  the  long 
avenues  of  oaks,  which  opened  toward 
the  four  cardinal  points!  You  remem- 
ber my  father  and  my  mother,  both  oi 
v/hom  were  ceremonious,  solemn,,  and 
severe. 

"I  worshiped  my  mother;  I  was  sus- 
picious of  my  father;  but  I  respected 
both,  accustomed  always  as  I  was  to 
see  everyone  bow  before  them.  In 
the  country,  they  were  Monsieur  le 
Comte  and  Madame  la  Comtesse;  and 
our  neighbors,  the  Tannemares,  the 
Ravelets,  the  Brennevilles,  showed  the 
utmost  consideration  for  them. 

"I  was  then  thirteen  years  old,  happy, 
satisfied  with  everything,  as  one  is  at 
that  age,  and  full  of  joy  and  vivacity. 

"Now  toward  the  end  of  September,  a 
few  days  before  entering  the  Lycee, 
while  I  was  enjoying  myself  in  the 
mazes  of  the  park,  climbing  the  trees 
and  swinging  on  the  branches,  I  saw 
crossing  an  avenue  my  father  and 
mother,  who  were  walking  together. 

"I  recall  the  thing  as  though  it  were 
yesterday.     It  was  a  very  windy  day. 


WAITER,  A  BOCK 


263 


The  whole  line  of  trees  bent  under  the 
pressure  of  the  wind,  moaned  and 
seemed  to  utter  cries — cries  dull,  yet 
deep — so  that  the  whole  forest  groaned 
under  the  gale. 

"Evening  had  come  on,  and  it  was 
dark  in  the  thickets.  The  agitation  of 
the  wind  and  the  branches  excited  me, 
made  me  skip  about  like  an  idiot,  and 
howl  in  imitation  of  the  wolves. 

"As  soon  as  I  perceived  my  parents, 
I  crept  furtively  tovrard  them,  under 
the  branches,  in  order  to  surprise  them, 
as  though  I  had  been  a  vertible  wolf. 
But  suddenly  seized  with  fear,  I  stopped 
a  few  paces  from  them.  My  father,  a 
prey  to  the  most  violent  passion,  cried: 

"  'Your  mother  is  a  fool ;  moreover, 
it  is  not  your  mother  that  is  the  ques- 
tion, it  is  you.  I  tell  you  that  I  want 
money,  and  I  will  make  you  sign  this.* 

"My   mother    responded    in   a    firm 


voice : 
(( < 


I  will  not  sign  it.  It  is  Jean's  for- 
tune, I  shall  guard  it  for  him  and  I  will 
not  allow  you  to  devour  it  with  strange 
women,  as  you  have  your  own  heritage.* 

"Then  my  father,  full  of  rage, 
wheeled  round  and  seized  his  wife  by 
the  throat,  and  began  to  slap  her  full 
in  the  face  with  the  disengaged  hand. 

"My  mother's  hat  fell  off,  her  hair  be- 
came disheveled  and  fell  down  her 
back:  she  essayed  to  parry  the  blows, 
but  could  not  escape  from  them.  And 
my  father,  like  a  madman,  banged  and 
banged  at  her.  My  mother  rolled  over 
on  the  ground,  covering  her  lace  in 
both  her  hands.  Then  he  turned  her 
over  on  her  back  in  order  to  batter  her 
still  more,  pulling  away  the  hands  which 
were  covering  her  face. 

"As  for  me,  my  friend,  it  seemed  as 


though  the  world  had  come  to  an  end, 
that  the  eternal  laws  had  changed.  I 
experienced  the  overwhelmmg  dread 
that  one  has  in  presence  of  things  super- 
natural, in  presence  of  irreparable  dis- 
aster. My  boyish  head  whirled  round 
and  soared.  I  began  to  cry  with  all  my 
might,  without  knowing  why,  a  prey  to 
terror,  to  grief,  to  a  dreadful  bewilder- 
ment. My  father  heard  me.  I  believed 
that  he  wanted  to  kill  me,  and  I  fled 
like  a  hunted  animal,  running  straight 
in  front  of  me  through  the  woods. 

"I  ran  perhaps  for  an  hour,  perhaps 
for  two,  I  know  not.  Darkness  had  set 
in,  I  tumbled  over  some  thick  herbs,  ex- 
hausted, and  I  lay  there  lost,  devoured 
by  terror,  eaten  up  by  a  sorrow  capable 
of  breaking  forever  the  heart  of  a  child. 
I  became  cold,  I  became  hungry.  At 
bngth  day  broke.  I  dared  neither  get 
up,  walk,  return  home,  nor  save  myself, 
fearing  to  encounter  my  father  whom  I 
did  not  wish  to  see  again. 

"I  should  probably  have  died  of 
misery  and  of  hunger  at  the  foot  of  a 
tree  if  the  guard  had  not  discovered 
me  and  led  me  by  force. 

"I  found  my  parents  wearing  their 
ordinary  aspect.  My  mother  alone  spoke 
to  me: 

"  'How  you  have  frightened  me,  you 
naughty  boy;  I  have  been  the  whole 
night  sleepless.' 

"I  did  not  answer,  but  began  to  weep. 
My  father  did  not  utter  a  single  word. 

"Eight  days  later  I  entered  Lycee. 

"Well,  my  friend,  it  was  all  over  with 
me.  I  had  witnessed  the  other  side  of 
things,  the  bad  side;  I  have  not  been 
able  to  perceive  the  good  side  since  that 
day.  What  things  have  passed  in  my 
mind,   what    strange  phenomena   have 


264 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


warped  my  ideas,  I  do  not  know.  But 
I  no  longer  have  a  taste  for  anything,  a 
wish  for  anything,  a  love  for  anybody,  a 
desire  for  anything  whatever,  no  ambi- 
tion, no  hope.  And  I  always  see  my 
poor  mother  lying  on  the  ground,  in  the 
avenue,  while  my  father  was  maltreat- 
ing her.  My  mother  died  a  few  years 
after;  my  father  lives  still.  I  have  not 
seen  him  since.  Waiter,  a  *bock.' " 
A  waiter   brought   hiiii   his    "bock," 


which  he  swallowed  at  a  gulp.  But,  in 
taking  up  his  pipe  again,  trembling  as 
he  was,  he  broke  it.  Then  he  made  a 
violent  gesture: 

"Zounds!  This  is  indeed  a  grief,  a 
real  grief.  I  have  had  it  for  a  month, 
and  it  was  coloring  so  beautifully!" 

Then  he  went  off  through  the  vast 
saloon,  which  was  now  full  of  smoke 
and  of  people  drinking,  calling  out: 

"Waiter,  a  'bock' — and  a  new  pipe  " 


The  Sequel  to  a  Divorce 


Certainly,  although  he  had  been  en- 
gaged in  the  most  extraordinary,  most 
unlikely,  most  extravagant,  and  funniest 
cases,  and  had  won  legal  games  without 
a  trump  in  his  hand — although  he  had 
worked  out  the  obscure  law  of  divorce, 
as  if  it  had  been  a  Californian  gold 
mine,  Maitre*  Garrulier,  the  celebrated, 
the  only  Garrulier,  could  not  check  a 
movement  of  surprise,  nor  a  dishearten- 
ing shake  of  the  head,  nor  a  smile,  when 
the  Countess  de  Baudemont  explained 
her  affairs  to  him  for  the  first  time. 

He  had  just  opened  his  correspon- 
dence, and  his  slender  hands,  on  which 
he  bestowed  the  greatest  attention, 
buried  themselves  in  a  heap  of  female 
letters,  and  one  might  have  thought  one- 
self in  the  confessional  of  a  fashionable 
preacher,  so  impregnated  was  the  atmos- 
phere with  delicate  perfumes. 

Immediately — ^even  before  she  had 
said  a  word — ^with  the  sharp  glance  of  a 
practised  man  of  the  world,  that  look 
which  made  beautiful  Madame  de  Ser- 
penoise    say:      "He    strips   your   heart 


bare!"  the  lawyer  had  classed  her  in 
the  third  category.  Those  who  suffer 
came  into  his  first  category,  those  who 
love,  into  the  second,  and  those  who  are 
bored,  into  the  third — and  she  belonged 
to  the  latter. 

She  was  a  pretty  windmill,  whose  sails 
turned  and  flew  round,  and  fretted  the 
blue  sky  with  a  delicious  shiver  of  joy, 
as  it  were,  tind  had  the  brain  of  a  bird, 
in  which  four  correct  and  healthy  ideas 
cannot  exist  side  by  side,  and  in  which 
all  dreams  and  every  kind  of  folly  are 
engulfed,  like  a  great  kaleidoscope. 

Incapable  of  hurting  a  fly,  emotional, 
charitable,  v/ith  a  feeling  of  tenderness 
for  the  street  girl  who  sells  bunches  of 
violets  for  a  penny,  for  a  cab  horse 
which  a  driver  is  ill-using,  for  a  mel- 
ancholy pauper's  funeral,  when  the 
body,  without  friends  or  relations  to 
follow  it,  is  being  conveyed  to  the  com- 
mon grave,  doing  anything  that  might 
afford    five    minutes'    amusement,    not 


*Title  given  to  advocates  in  France 


THE  SEQUEL  TO  A  DIVORCE 


265 


caring  if  she  made  men  miserable  for 
the  rest  of  their  days,  and  taking  plea- 
sure in  kindling  passions  which  consumed 
men's  whole  being,  looking  upon  life  as 
too  short  to  be  anything  else  than  one 
uninterrupted  round  of  gaiety  and  en- 
joyment, she  thought  that  people  might 
find  plenty  of  time  for  being  serious  and 
reasonable  in  the  evening  of  life,  when 
they  are  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  ana 
their  looking-glasses  reveal  a  wrinkled 
face,  surrounded  with  white  hair. 

A  thorough-bred  Parisian,  whom  one 
would  follow  to  the  end  of  the  world, 
like  a  poodle;  a  woman  whom  one 
adores  with  the  head,  the  heart,  and 
the  senses  until  one  is  neady  driven 
mad,  as  soon  as  one  has  inhaled  the 
delicate  perfume  that  emanates  from 
her  dress  and  hair,  or  touched  her  skin, 
and  heard  her  laugh ;  a  woman  for  whom 
one  would  fight  a  duel  and  risk  one's 
life  without  a  thought;  for  whom  a 
man  would  remove  mountains,  and  sell 
his  soul  to  the  devil  several  times  over, 
if  the  devil  were  still  in  the  habit  of 
frequenting  the  places  of  bad  repute  on 
this  earth. 

She  had  perhaps  come  to  see  this 
Garrulier,  whom  she  had  so  often  heard 
mentioned  at  five  o'clock  teas,  so  as  to 
be  able  to  describe  him  to  her  female 
friends  subsequently  in  droll  phrases, 
imitating  his  gestures  and  the  unctuous 
inflections  of  his  voice,  in  order,  perhaps, 
to  experience  some  new  sensation,  or, 
perhaps,  for  the  sake  of  dressing  like  a 
woman  who  was  going  to  try  for  a  di- 
vorce; and,  certainly,  the  whole  effect 
was  perfect.  She  wore  a  splendid  cloak 
embroidered  with  jet— -which  gave  an 
almost  serious  effect  to  her  golden  hair, 
to  her   small   slightly   turned-UD   nose, 


with  its  quivering  nostrils,  and  to  hei 
large  eyes,  full  of  enigma  and  fun — over 
a  dark  stuff  dress,  which  was  fastened 
at  the  neck  by  a  sapphire  and  a  diamond 
pin. 

The  barrister  did  not  interrupt  her, 
but  allowed  her  to  get  excited  and  to 
chatter,  to  enumerate  her  causes  for 
complaint  against  poor  Count  de  Baud6- 
mont,  who  certainly  had  no  suspicion  of 
his  wife's  escapade,  and  who  would  have 
been  very  much  surprised  if  anyone  told 
him  of  it  at  that  moment,  when  he  was 
taking  his  fencing  lesson  at  the  club. 

AVhen  she  had  quite  finished,  he  said 
coolly,  as  if  he  were  throwing  a  pail  of 
water  on  some  burning  straw: 

"But,  Madame,  there  is  not  the  slight- 
est pretext  for  a  divorce  in  anything 
that  you  have  told  me  here.  The  judges 
would  ask  me  whether  I  took  the  Law 
Courts  for  a  thoater,  and  intended  to 
make  fun  of  them." 

And  seeing  how  disheartened  she  was, 
— ^that  she  looked  like  a  child  whose  fa- 
vorite toy  had  been  broken,  that  she  was 
so  pretty  that  he  would  have  liked  to 
kiss  her  hands  in  his  devotion,  and  as 
she  seemed  to  be  witty,  and  very  amus- 
ing, and  as,  moreover,  he  had  no  objec- 
tion to  such  visits  being  prolonged,  when 
papers  had  to  be  looked  over,  while 
sitting  close  together, — Maitre  Garrulier 
appeared  to  be  considering.  Taking  his 
chin  in  his  hand,  he  said: 

"However,  I  will  think  it  over;  there 
is  sure  to  be  some  dark  spot  that  can  be 
made  out  worse.  Write  to  me,  and 
come  and  see  me  again." 

In  the  course  of  her  visits,  that  black 
spot  had  increased  y,o  much,  and  Ma- 
dame de  Baudemopt  had  followed  her 
lawyer's  advice  so  punctually,  and  had 


266 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


played  on  the  various  strings  so  skillfully 
that  a  few  months  later,  after  a  law- 
suit, which  is  still  spoken  of  in  the 
course  of  which  the  President  h^d  to 
take  off  his  spectacles,  and  to  use  his 
pocket-handkerchief  noisily,  the  divorce 
was  pronounced  in  favor  of  the  Countess 
Marie  Anne  Nicole  Bournet  de  Baude- 
mont,  nee  de  Tanchart  de  Peothus. 

The  Count,  who  was  nonplussed  at 
such  an  adventure  turning  out  so  seri- 
ously, first  of  all  flew  into  a  terrible 
rage,  rushed  off  to  the  lawyer's  office  and 
threatened  to  cut  off  his  knavish  ears  for 
him.  But  when  his  access  of  fury  was 
over,  and  he  thought  of  it,  he  shrugged 
his  shoulders  and  said; 

"All  the  better  for  her,  if  it  amuses 
her!" 

Then  he  bought  Baron  Silberstein's 
yacht,  and  with  some  friends,  got  up  a 
cruise  to  Ceylon  and  India. 

Marie  Anne  began  by  triumphing, 
and  felt  as  happy  as  a  schoolgirl  going 
home  for  the  holidays;  she  committed 
every  possible  folly,  and  soon,  tired, 
satiated,  and  disgusted,  began  to  yawn, 
cried,  and  found  out  that  she  had  sacri- 
ficed her  happiness,  like  a  millionaire 
who  has  gone  mad  and  has  cast  his 
banknotes  and  shares  into  the  river,  and 
that  she  was  nothing  more  than  a  dis- 
abled waif  and  stray.  Consequently, 
she  now  married  again,  as  the  solitude 
of  her  home  made  her  morose  from 
morning  till  night ;  and  then,  besides  she 
found  a  woman  requires  a  mansion  when 
she  goes  into  society,  to  race  meetings, 
or  to  the  theater. 

And  so,  while  she  became  a 
marchioness,  and  pronounced  her  second 
"Yes,"  before  a  very  few  friends,  at  the 
ofifice  of  the  mayor  of  the  English  urban 


district,  malicious  people  in  the  Fau- 
bourg were  making  fun  of  the  whole 
affair,  and  affirming  this  and  that, 
whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  and  com- 
paring the  present  husband  to  the  for- 
mer one,  even  declaring  that  he  had  par- 
tially been  the  cause  of  the  former  di- 
vorce. Meanwhile  Monsieur  de  Baude- 
mont  was  wandering  over  the  four  quar- 
ters of  the  globe  trying  to  overcome  his 
homesickness,  and  to  deaden  his  longing 
for  love,  which  had  taken  possession  of 
his  heart  and  of  his  body,  like  a  slow 
poison. 

He  traveled  through  the  most  out-of- 
lh2-way  places,  and  the  most  lovely 
countrie?^  and  spent  months  and  months 
at  sea,  and  plunged  into  every  kind  of 
dissipation  and  debauchery.  But  neithei 
ths  supple  forms  nor  the  luxurious  ges- 
tures of  the  bayaderes,  nor  the  large 
passive  eyes  of  the  Creoles,  nor  flirta- 
tions with  English  girls  with  hair  the 
color  of  new  cider,  nor  nights  of  wak- 
ing dreams,  when  he  saw  new  constella- 
tions in  the  sky,  nor  dangers  during 
which  a  man  thinks  it  is  all  over  with 
him,  and  mutters  a  few  words  of  prayer 
in  spite  of  himself,  when  the  waves  are 
high,  and  the  sky  black,  nothing  was 
able  to  make  him  forget  that  little  Pa- 
risian woman  who  smelled  so  sweet  that 
she  might  have  been  taken  for  a  bouquet 
of  rare  flowers;  who  was  so  coaxing,  so 
curious,  so  funny;  who  never  had  the 
same  caprice,  the  same  smile,  or  the 
same  look  twice^  and  who,  at  bottom, 
was  worth  more  than  many  others, 
cither  saints  or  sinners. 

He  thought  of  her  constantly,  during 
long  hours  of  sleeplessness.  He  carried 
her  portrait  about  with  him  in  the 
breast    pocket    of    his    pea-jacket  —  a 


THE  SEQUEL  TO  A  DIVORCE 


26; 


channing  portrait  in  which  she  was  smil- 
ing, and  showing  her  white  teeth  be- 
tween her  hall -open  lips.  Her  gentle 
eyes  with  their  magnetic  look  had  a 
happy,  frank  expression,  and  from  the 
mere  arrangement  of  her  hair,  one  could 
see  that  she  was  fair  among  the  fair. 

He  used  to  kiss  that  portrait  of  the 
woman  who  had  been  his  wife  as  if  he 
wished  to  efface  it,  would  look  at  it  for 
hours,  and  then  throw  himself  down  on 
the  netting  and  scb  like  a  child  as  he 
looked  at  the  infinite  expanse  before 
him,  seeming  to  see  their  lest  happiness, 
the  joys  of  their  perished  affections,  and 
the  divine  remeniDrance  of  their  love,  in 
the  monotonous  waste  of  green  waters. 
And  he  tried  to  accuse  himself  for  all 
that  had  occurred,  and  not  to  be  angry 
with  her,  to  think  that  his  grievances 
were  imaginary,  and  to  adore  her  in 
spite  of  everything  and  always. 

And  so  he  roamed  about  the  world, 
tossed  to  and  fro,  suffering  and  hoping 
he  knew  not  what.  He  ventured  into 
the  greatest  dangers,  and  sought  for 
death  just  as  man  seeks  for  his  mistress, 
and  death  passed  close  to  him  without 
touching  him,  perhaps  amused  at  his 
grief  and  misery. 

For  he  was  as  wretched  as  a  stone- 
breaker,  as  one  of  those  poor  devils  who 
work  and  nearly  break  their  backs  over 
the  hard  flints  the  whole  day  long,  un- 
der the  scorching  sun  or  the  cold  rain; 
and  Marie  Anne  herself  was  not  happy, 
for  she  was  pining  for  the  past  and  re- 
membered their   former  love. 

At  last,  however,  he  returned  to 
France,  changed,  tanned  by  exposure, 
sun,  and  rain,  and  transformed  as  if  by 
some  witch's  philter. 

Nobody  would  have  recognized  the 


elegant  and  effeminate  clubman  in  this 
corsair  with  broad  shoulders,  a  skin  the 
color  of  tan,  with  very  red  Lps,  who 
rolled  a  little  in  his  walk;  who  seemed 
to  be  stifled  in  his  black  dress-coat,  but 
who  still  retained  the  distinguished  man- 
ners and  bearing  of  a  nobleman  of  the 
last  century,  one  of  those  who,  when 
he  was  ruined,  fitted  out  a  privateer, 
and  fell  upon  the  English  wherever  he 
met  them,  from  St.  Milo  to  Calcutta. 
And  wherever  he  showed  himself  his 
friends  exclaimed: 

"Why!  Is  that  you?  I  should  never 
have  known  you  again!" 

He  was  very  nearly  starting  off  again 
immediately;  he  even  telegraphed  orders 
to  Havre  to  get  the  steam-yacht  ready 
for  sea  directly,  when  he  heard  that 
Marie  Anne  had  married  again. 

He  saw  her  in  the  distance,  at  the 
Theatre  Frangais  one  Tuesday,  and 
when  he  noticed  how  pretty,  how  fair, 
how  desirable  she  was, — looking  so  mel- 
ancholy, with  all  the  appearance  of  an 
unhappy  soul  that  regrets  something, — 
his  determination  grew  weaker,  and  he 
delayed  his  departure  from  week  to 
week,  and  waited,  without  knowing  why, 
until,  at  last,  worn  out  with  the  strug- 
gle, watching  her  wherever  she  went, 
more  in  love  with  her  than  he  had  ever 
been  before,  he  wrote  her  long,  mad, 
ardent  letters  in  which  his  passion  over- 
flower  like  a  stream  of  lava. 

He  altered  his  handwriting,  as  he  re- 
membered her  restless  brain,  and  her 
many  whims.  He  sent  her  the  flowers 
which  he  knew  she  liked  best,  and  told 
her  that  she  was  his  life,  that  he  was 
dying  of  waiting  for  her,  of  longing  for 
her.  for  her  his  idol. 

At  last^  verv  much  puzzled  and  sur- 


268 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


prised,  guessing  —  who  knows?  —  from 
the  instinctive  beating  of  her  heart,  and 
her  general  emotion,  that  it  must  be  he 
this  time,  he  whose  soul  she  had  tor- 
tured with  such  cold  cruelty,  and  know- 
ing that  she  could  make  amends  for  the 
past  and  bring  back  their  former  love, 
she  replied  to  him,  and  granted  him  the 
meeting  that  he  asked  for.  She  fell 
into  his  arms,  and  they  both  sobbed  with 
joy  and  ecstasy.  Thier  kisses  were 
those  which  lips  give  only  when  they 
have  lost  each  other  and  found  each 
other  again  at  last,  when  they  meet  and 
exhaust  themselves  in  each  other's  looks, 


thirsting  for  tenderness,  love,  and  en- 
joyment. 


Last  week  Count  de  Baudemont  car- 
ried off  Marie  Anne  quietly  and  coolly, 
just  like  one  resumes  possession  of 
one's  house  on  returning  from  a  jour- 
ney, and  drives  out  the  intruders.  And 
when  Maitre  Garrulier  was  told  of  this 
unheard  of  scandal,  he  rubbed  his  hands 
— the  long,  delicate  hands  of  a  sensual 
prelate — and  exclaimed: 

'That  is  absolutely  logical,  and  I 
should  like  to  be  in  their  place/' 


The  Clown 


The  hawkers'  cottage  stood  at  the 
end  of  the  Esplanade,  on  the  little  prom- 
ontory where  the  jetty  is,  and  where 
all  the  winds,  all  the  rain,  and  all  the 
spray  met.  The  hut,  both  walls  and 
roof,  was  built  of  old  planks,  more  or 
less  covered  with  tar;  its  chinks  were 
stopped  with  oakum,  and  dry  wreckage 
was  heaped  up  against  it.  In  the  middle 
of  the  room  an  iron  pot  stood  on  two 
bricks,  and  served  as  a  stove,  when  they 
had  any  coal,  but  as  there  was  no  chim- 
ney, it  filled  the  room,  which  was  venti- 
lated only  by  a  low  door,  with  acrid 
smoke,  and  there  the  whole  crew  lived, 
eighteen  men  and  one  woman.  Some  had 
undergone  various  terms  of  imprison- 
ment, and  nobody  knew  what  the  others 
had  done,  but  though  they  were  all, 
more  or  less,  suffering  from  some  phys- 
ical defect  and  were  virtually  old  men, 
they  were  still  all   strong  enough   for 


hauling.  For  "Chamber  of  Commerce" 
tolerated  them  there,  and  allowed  them 
that  hovel  to  live  in,  on  condition  that 
they  should  be  ready  to  haul,  by  day 
and  by  night. 

For  every  vessel  they  hauled,  each 
got  a  penny  by  day,  and  twopence  by 
night.  It  was  not  certain,  however,  on 
account  of  the  competition  of  retired 
sailors,  fishermen's  wives,  laborers  who 
had  nothing  to  do,  people  who  were 
all  stronger  than  those  half-starved 
wretches  in  the  hut. 

And  yet  they  lived  there,  those 
eighteen  men  and  one  woman.  Were 
they  happy?  Certainly  not.  Hopeless? 
Not  that,  either;  for  they  occasionally 
got  a  little  beside  their  scanty  pay,  and 
then  they  stole  occasionally,  fish,  lumps 
of  coal,  things  without  any  value  to 
those  who  lost  them,  but  of  great  value 
to  the  poor,  beggarly  thievesv. 


IHE  CLOWN 


269 


The  eighteen  supported  the  woman, 
and  there  was  no  jealousy  on  her  ac- 
count! She  had  no  special  favorite 
among  them. 

She  was  a  fat  woman  of  about  Torty, 
chubby-faced  and  puffy,  of  whom  daddy 
La  Bretagne,  who  was  one  of  the 
eighteen,  used  to  say:  "She  does  us 
honor." 

If  she  had  had  a  favorite  among  them, 
daddy  La  Bretagne  would  certainly  have 
had  the  greatest  right  to  that  privilege, 
for  although  he  was  one  of  the  most 
crippled  among  them,  being  partially 
paralyzed  in  his  legs,  he  showed  himself 
as  skillful  and  strong-armed  as  any  of 
them,  and  in  spite  of  his  infirmities,  he 
always  managed  to  secure  a  good  place 
in  the  row  of  haulers.  None  of  them 
knew  as  well  as  he  how  to  inspire  visi- 
tors with  pity  during  the  season,  and 
to  make  them  put  their  hands  into  their 
pockets.  He  was  a  past  master  at  cadg- 
ing, so  that  among  those  empty  stom- 
achs and  penniless  rascals  he  had  wind- 
falls of  victuals  and  coppers  more  fre- 
quently than  fell  rightly  to  his  share. 
But  he  did  not  make  use  of  them  in  or- 
der to  monopolize  their  common  mis- 
tress. 

"I  am  just,"  he  used  to  say.  "Let 
each  of  us  have  his  spoonful  in  turn,  and 
no  more,  when  we  are  all  eating  out  of 
the  same  dish." 
r  With  the  coal  he  picked  up,  he  used 
to  make  a  good  fire  for  the  whole  band 
in  the  iron  pot,  over  which  he  cooked 
whatever  he  brought  home  with  him, 
without  anyone  complaining  about  it, 
for  he  used  to  say: 

"It  gives  you  a  good  fire  at  which  to 
warm  yourselves,  for  nothing,  and  the 
smell  of  my  stew  into  the  bargain." 


As  for  his  money,  he  spent  it  in 
drink  with  the  trollop,  and  afterward, 
what  was  left  of  it,  with  the  others. 

"You  see,"  he  used  to  say,  "I  am  just, 
and  more  than  just.  I  give  her  up  to 
you,  because  it  is  your  right." 

The  consequence  was,  that  they  all 
liked  daddy  La  Bretagne,  so  that  he 
gloried  in  it,  and  said  proudly: 

"What  a  pity  that  we  are  living  under 
the  Republic!  These  fellows  would 
think  nothing  of  making  me  king." 

And  one  day,  when  he  said  this,  his 
trollop  replied:  "The  king  is  here,  old 
fellow!"  And  at  the  same  time  she 
presented  a  new  comrade  to  them,  who 
was  no  less  ragged  or  wretched  looking 
than  the  eighteen,  but  quite  young  by 
the  side  of  him.  He  was  a  tall,  thin  fel- 
low of  about  forty,  and  without  a  gray 
streak  in  his  long  hair.  He  was  dressed 
only  in  a  pair  of  trousers  and  a  shirt, 
which  he  wore  outside  them,  like  a 
blouse,  and  the  trollop  said: 

"Here,  daddy  La  Bretagne,  you  have 
two  knitted  vests  on,  so  just  give  him 
one." 

"Why  should  I?"  the  hauler  asked. 

"Because  I  choose  you  to,"  the 
woman  replied.  "I  have  been  living 
with  you  set  of  old  men  for  a  long  time, 
so  now  I  want  to  have  a  young  one; 
there  he  is,  so  you  must  give  him  a  vest, 
and  keep  him  here,  or  I  shall  throw  you 
up.  You  may  take  it  or  leave  it,  as 
you  like;  do  you  understand  me?" 

The  eighteen  looked  at  each  other 
open-mouthed,  and  good  daddy  La 
Bretagne  scratched  his  head,  and  then 
said: 

"What  she  asks  is  quite  right,  and  we 
must  give  way,"  he  replied. 

Then  they  explained  themselves,  and 


270 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


came  to  aa  understanding.  The  poor 
devil  did  not  come  like  a  conqueror,  for 
he  was  a  wretched  clown  who  had  jusi 
been  released  from  prison,  where  he  had 
undergone  three  years'  hard  labor  for  an 
attempted  outrage  on  a  girl,  but  with 
one  exception,  the  best  fellow  in  the 
world,  so  people  declared. 

"And  something  nice  for  me,"  the 
trollop  said,  *'for  I  can  assure  you  that 
I  mean  him  to  reward  me  for  anything 
I  may  do  for  him." 

From  that  time,  the  household  of 
eighteen  persons  was  increased  to  nine- 
teen, and  at  first  all  went  well.  The 
dow^n  was  very  humble,  and  tried  not 
to  be  burdensome  to  them.  Fed, 
clothed,  and  supplied  with  tobacco,  he 
tried  not  to  be  too  exacting  in  the  other 
matter,  and  if  needful,  he  would  have 
hauled  like  the  others,  but  the  woman 
would  not  allow  it. 

"You  shall  not  fatigue  yourself,  my 
little  man,"  she  said.  'You  must  re- 
serve yourself  entirely  for  home." 

And  he  did  as  she  wished. 

And  soon  the  eighteen,  who  had  never 
been  jealous  of  each  other,  grsw  jealous 
of  the  favored  lover.  Some  tried  to 
pick  a  quarrel  with  him.  He  resisted. 
The  best  fellow  in  the  world,  no  doubt, 
but  he  was  not  going  to  be  taken  for  a 
mussel  shut  up  in  its  shell,  for  all  that. 
Let  them  call  him  as  lazy  as  a  priest  it 
they  liked;  he  did  not  mind  that,  but 
when  they  put  hairs  into  his  coffee, 
armfuls  of  rushes  among  his  wreckage, 
and  filth  into  his  soup,  they  had  better 
look  out! 

"None  of  that,  all  the  lot  of  you,  or 
you  will  see  what  I  can  do,"  he  used  to 
fay. 

They  repeated  their  practical  jokes, 


however,  and  he  thrashed  them.  He  did 
not  try  to  find  out  who  the  culprits 
were,  but  attacked  the  first  one  he  met, 
so  much  the  worse  for  him.  With  a 
kick  from  his  wooden  clog  (it  was  his 
specialty)  he  smashed  their  noses  into  a 
pulp,  and  having  thus  acquired  the 
knowledge  of  his  strength,  and  urged  on 
by  his  trollop,  he  soon  became  a  tyrant. 
The  eighteen  felt  that  they  were  slaves, 
r.nd  their  former  paradise,  where  con- 
cord and  perfect  equality  had  reigned, 
became  a  hell,  and  that  state  of  things 
could  not  last. 

"Ah!"  daddy  La  Bretagne  growled, 
"if  only  I  were  twenty  years  younger,  I 
would  nearly  kill  him!  I  have  my 
Breton's  hot  head  still,  but  my  con- 
founded legs  are  no  good  any  longer." 

And  he  boldly  challenged  the  clown  to 
a  duel,  in  which  the  latter  was  to  hav8 
his  hgs  tied,  and  then  both  of  them 
were  to  sit  on  the  ground  and  hack  at 
each  other  with  knives. 

"Such  a  duel,'*  he  said,  "would  be  per- 
fectly fair!"  he  replied,  kicking  him  in 
the  side  with  one  of  his  clogs,  and  the 
woman  burst  out  laughing,  and  said: 

"At  any  rate  you  cannot  compete  with 
h*m  on  equal  terms  as  regards  myself, 
so  do  not  worry  yourself  about  it." 

Daddy  La  Bretagne  was  lying  in  his 
corner  and  spitting  blood,  and  none  ot 
the  rest  spoke.  What  could  the  others 
do,  when  he,  the  blusterer  of  chem  all, 
had  been  served  so?  The  jade  had  been 
right  when  she  had  brought  in  the  in- 
truder, and  said: 

"The  king  is  here,  old  fellow." 

Only,  she  ought  to  have  remembered 
that,  after  all,  she  alone  keot  his  sub- 
jects in  check,  and  as  daddy  La 
Bretagne  said,  by  a  richt  object.    With 


THE  MAD  WOMAN 


271 


her  to  console  them,  they  would  no 
doubt  have  borne  anything,  but  she  was 
foolish  enough  to  cut  down  their  food, 
and  not  to  fill  their  common  dish  as  full 
as  it  used  to  be.  She  wanted  to  keep 
everything  for  her  lover,  and  that  raised 
the  exasperation  of  the  eighteen  to  its 
height.  So  one  night  when  she  and  the 
clown  were  asleep,  among  all  these  fast- 
ing men,  the  eighteen  threw  themselves 
on  them.  They  wrapped  the  despot^s 
arms  and  legs  up  in  tarpaulin,  and  in  the 


presence  of  the  woman  who  was  firmly 
bound,  they  flogged  him  till  he  was  black 
and  blue. 

*'Yes,"  old  Bretagne  said  to  me  him- 
self. "Yes,  Monsieur,  that  was  our  re- 
venge. The  king  was  guillotined  in 
1793,  and  so  we  guillotined  our  king 
also." 

And  he  concluded  with  a  sneer,  say- 
ing: "But  we  wished  to  be  just,  and  as 
it  was  not  his  head  that  had  made  him 
our  king,  by  Jove,  we  settled  him." 


The  Mad  Woman 


"I  CAN  tell  you  a  terrible  story  about 
the  Franco-Prussian  ^ar,"  Monsieur 
d'Endolin  said  to  some  friends  assem- 
bled in  the  smoking-room  of  Baron  de 
Ravot's  chateau.  "You  know  my  house 
in  the  Faubourg  de  Cormeil.  I  was 
living  there  when  the  Prussians  came, 
and  I  had  for  a  neighbor  a  kind  of  mad 
woman,  who  had  lost  her  senses  in  con- 
sequence of  a  series  of  misfortunes.  At 
the  age  of  seven  and  twenty  she  had 
lost  her  father,  her  husband,  and  her 
newly  born  child,  ail  in  the  space  of  a 
month. 

"When  death  has  cnce  entered  into  a 
house,  it  almost  invariably  returns  im- 
mediately, as  if  it  knew  the  way,  and  the 
young  woman,  overwhelmed  with  grief, 
took  to  her  bed  and  was  delirious  for 
six  weeks.  Then  a  species  of  calm  lassi- 
tude succeeded  that  violent  crisis,  and 
she  remained  motionless,  eating  next  to 
nothing,  and  only  moving  her  eyes. 
Every  time  they  tried  to  make  her  get 
up,  she  screamed  as  if  they  were  about 


to  kill  her,  and  so  they  ended  by  leav- 
ing her  continually  in  bed,  and  only  tak- 
ing her  out  to  wash  her,  to  change  her 
linen,  and  to  turn  her  mattress. 

"An  old  serv^ant  remained  with  her, 
to  give  her  something  to  drink,  or  a 
little  cold  meat,  from  time  to  time. 
What  passed  in  that  despairing  mind? 
No  one  ever  knew,  for  she  did  not  speak 
at  all  now.  Was  she  thinking  of  the 
dead?  Was  she  dreaming  sadly,  with- 
out any  precise  recollection  of  anything 
that  had  happened?  Or  was  her  mem- 
ory as  stagnant  as  water  without  any 
current?  But  however  this  may  have 
been,  for  fifteen  years  she  remained  thus 
inert  and  secluded. 

"The  war  broke  out,  and  in  the  begin- 
ning of  December  the  Germans  came  to 
Cormeil.  I  can  remember  it  as  if  it 
were  but  yesterday.  It  was  freezing 
hard  enough  to  split  the  stones,  and  I 
myself  was  lying  back  in  an  armchair, 
being  unable  to  move  on  account  of  the 
gout,  when  I  heard  their  heavy  and  reg- 


272 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ular  tread,  and  could  see  them  pass  from 
my  window. 

"They  defiled  past  interminably,  with 
that  peculiar  motion  of  a  puppet  on 
wires,  which  belongs  to  them.  Then  the 
officers  billeted  their  men  on  the  inhab- 
itants, and  I  had  seventeen  of  them. 
My  neighbor,  the  crazy  woman,  had  a 
dozen,  one  of  whom  was  the  Comman- 
dant, a  regular  violent,  surly  swash- 
buckler. 

"During  the  first  few  days,  everything 
went  on  as  usual.  The  officers  next  door 
had  been  told  that  the  lady  was  ill,  and 
they  did  not  trouble  themselves  about 
that  in  the  least,  but  soon  that  woman 
whom  they  never  saw  irritated  them. 
They  asked  what  her  illness  was,  and 
were  told  that  she  had  been  in  bed  for 
fifteen  years,  in  consequence  of  terrible 
grief.  No  doubt  they  did  not  believe 
it,  and  thought  that  the  poor  mad  crea- 
ture would  not  leave  her  bed  out  of 
pride,  so  that  she  might  not  come  near 
the  Prussians,  or  speak  to  them  or  even 
see  them. 

"The  Commandant  insisted  upon  her 
receiving  him.  He  was  shown  into  the 
room  and  said  to  her  roughly:  *I  must 
beg  you  to  get  up,  Madame,  and  come 
downstairs  so  that  we  may  all  see  you.* 
But  she  merely  turned  her  vague  eyes 
on  him,  without  replying,  and  so  lie 
continued:  *I  do  not  intend  to  tolerate 
any  insolence,  and  if  you  do  not  get  up 
of  your  own  accord,  I  can  easily  find 
means  to  make  you  walk  without  any 
assistance.' 

"But  she  did  not  give  any  signs  of 
having  heard  him,  and  remained  quite 
motionless.  Then  he  got  furious,  taking 
that  calm  silence  for  a  mark  of  supreme 
contempt;  so  he  added:    *If  you  do  not 


come    downstairs   to-morrow  —  *     And 

then  he  left  the  room. 

"The  next  day  the  terrified  old  serv- 
ant wished  to  dress  her,  but  the  mad 
woman  began  to  scream  violently,  and 
resisted  with  all  her  might.  The  officer 
ran  upstairs  quickly,  and  the  servant 
threw  herself  at  his  feet  and  cried: 
'She  will  not  come  down.  Monsieur,  she 
will  not.  Forgive  her,  for  she  is  so  un- 
happy." 

"The  soldier  was  embarrassed,  as  in 
spite  of  his  anger,  he  did  not  venture  to 
order  his  soldiers  to  drag  her  out.  But 
suddenly  he  began  to  laugh,  and  gave 
some  orders  in  German,  and  soon  a 
party  of  soldiers  was  seen  coming  out 
supporting  a  mattress  as  if  they  were 
carrying  a  wounded  man.  On  that  bed, 
which  had  been  unmade,  the  mad  wom- 
an, who  was  still  silent,  was  lying  quite 
quietly,  for  she  was  quite  indifferent  to 
anything  that  went  on,  as  long  as  they 
let  her  lie.  Behind  her,  a  soldier  was 
carrying  a  parcel  of  feminine  attire,  and 
the  officer  said,  rubbing  his  hands:  'We 
will  just  see  whether  you  cannot  dress 
yourself  alone,  and  take  a  little  walk.* 

"And  then  the  procession  went  off  in 
the  direction  of  the  forest  of  Imauville; 
in  two  hours  the  soldiers  came  back 
alone,  and  nothing  more  was  seen  of 
the  mad  woman.  What  had  they  done 
with  her?  Where  had  they  taken  iiei 
to?    No  one  knew. 

"The  snow  was  falling  day  and  night, 
and  enveloped  the  plain  and  the  wood- 
in  a  shroud  of  frozen  foam,  and  the 
wolves  came  and  howled  at  our  very 
doors. 

"The  thought  of  that  poor  lest  woman 


MADEMOISELLE 


273 


haunted  me,  and  I  made  several  applica- 
tions to  the  Prussian  authorities  in  or- 
der to  obtain  some  information,  and  was 
nearly  shot  for  doing  so.  When  spring 
returned,  the  army  of  occupation  with- 
drew, but  my  neighbor's  house  remained 
closed,  and  the  grass  grew  thick  in  the 
garden  walks.  The  old  servant  had  died 
during  the  winter,  and  nobody  troubled 
any  longer  about  the  occurrence ;  I  alone 
thought  about  it  constantly.  What  had 
they  done  with  the  woman?  Had  she 
escaped  through  the  forest?  Had  some- 
body found  her,  and  taken  her  to  a 
hospital,  without  being  able  to  obtain 
any  information  from  her?  Nothing 
happened  to  relieve  my  doubts;  but  by 
degrees,  time  assuaged  my  fears. 

"Well,  in  the  following  autumn  the 
woodcock  were  very  plentiful,  and  as 
my  gout  had  left  me  for  a  time,  I 
dragged  my  self  as  far  as  the  forest. 
I  had  already  killed  four  or  five  of  the 
long-billed  birds,  when  I  knocked  over 
one   which   fell   into   a   ditch    full   of 


branches,  and  I  was  obliged  to  get  into 
it,  in  order  to  pick  it  up,  and  I  found 
that  it  had  fallen  close  to  a  dead,  hu- 
man body.  Immediately  the  recollec- 
tion of  the  mad  woman  struck  me  like  a 
blow  in  the  chest.  Many  other  people 
had  perhaps  died  in  the  wood  during 
that  disastrous  year,  but  though  I  do 
not  know  why,  I  was  sure,  sure,  I  tell 
you,  that  I  should  see  the  head  of  that 
wretched  maniac. 

"And  suddenly  I  understood,  I  guessed 
everything.  They  had  abandoned  her 
on  that  mattress  in  the  cold,  deserted 
wood;  and,  faithful  to  her  fixed  idea, 
she  iiad  allowed  herself  to  perish  under 
that  thick  and  light  counterpane  of 
snow,  without  moving  either  arms  or 
legs. 

"Then  the  wolves  had  devoured  hei, 
and  the  birds  had  built  their  nests  witb 
the  wool  from  her  torn  bed,  and  I  took 
charge  of  her  bones.  I  only  pray  that 
our  sons  may  never  see  any  wars  again." 


Mademoiselle 


,  He  had  been  registered  under  the 
names  of  Jean  Marie  Mathieu  Valot, 
but  he  was  never  called  anything  but 
"Mademoiselle."  He  was  the  idiot  of 
the  district,  but  not  one  of  these 
wretched,  ragged  idiots  who  live  on  pub- 
lic charity.  He  lived  comfortably  on  a 
small  income  which  his  mother  had 
left  him,  and  which  his  guardian  paid 
him  regularly,  so  he  was  rather  envied 
than  pitied.  And  then,  he  was  not  one 
of  those  idiots  with  wild  looks  and  the 


manners  of  an  animal,  for  he  was  by  no 
means  an  unpleasing  object,  with  his 
half-open  lips  and  smiling  eyes,  and  es- 
pecially in  his  constant  makeup  in  fe- 
male dress.  For  he  dressed  like  a  girl, 
and  showed  by  th:it  how  httle  he  ob- 
jected to  being  called  Mademoiselle. 

And  why  should  he  not  like  the  nick- 
name which  his  mother  had  given  him 
affectionately,  when  he  was  a  mere  ch'ld, 
so  delicate  and  weak,  and  with  a  fair 
complexion— a  poor  little  diminutive  lad 


274 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


not  as  tall  as  many  girls  of  the  same 
age?  It  was  in  pure  love  that,  in  his 
earlier  years,  his  mother  whispered  that 
tender  Mademoiselle  to  him,  while  his 
old  grandmother  used  to  say  jokingly: 

"The  fact  is,  that  as  for  the  male  ele- 
ment in  him  it  is  really  not  worth  men- 
tioning in  a  Christian — no  offense  to 
God  in  saying  so."  And  his  grandfather, 
who  was  equally  fond  of  a  joke,  used  to 
add:  "I  only  hope  it  will  not  disappear 
as  he  grows  up." 

And  they  treated  him  as  if  he  had 
really  been  a  girl  and  coddled  him,  the 
more  sc  as  they  were  very  prosperous 
and  did  not  require  to  toil  to  -»,cp 
things  together. 

When  his  mother  and  grandparents 
were  dead.  Mademoiselle  was  almost  as 
happy  with  his  paternal  uncle,  an  un- 
married man,  who  had  carefully  at- 
tended the  idiot,  and  who  had  grown 
more  and  more  attached  to  him  by  dint 
of  looking  after  him;  and  the  worthy 
man  continued  to  call  Jean  Marie 
Mathieu  Valot,  Mademoiselle- 
He  was  called  so  in  all  the  country 
round  as  well,  not  with  the  slightest  in- 
tention of  hurting  his  feelings,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  because  all  thought  they 
would  please  the  poor  gentle  creature 
who  harmed  nobody  in  doing  so. 

The  very  street  boys  meant  no  harm 
by  it,  accustomed  as  they  were  to  call 
the  tall  idiot  in  a  frock  and  cap  by 
the  nickname;  but  it  would  have  struck 
them  as  very  extraordinary,  and  would 
have  led  them  to  rude  fun,  if  they  had 
seen  him  dressed  I'ke  a  boy. 

Mademoiselle,  however,  took  care  of 
chat,  for  his  dress  wis  as  dear  to  him 
as  his  nickname.  He  delighted  in  wear- 
Tig  it,  and,  in  fact,  cared  for  nothing 


else,  and  what  gave  it  a  particular  zest 
was  that  he  knew  that  he  was  not  a  girl, 
and  that  he  was  living  in  disguise.  And 
this  was  evident  by  the  exaggerated 
feminine  bearing  and  walk  he  put  on, 
as  if  to  show  that  it  was  not  natural 
to  him.  His  enormous,  carefully  filled 
cap  was  adorned  with  large  variegated 
ribbons.  His  petticoat,  with  numerous 
flounces,  was  distended  behind  by  many 
hoops.  He  walked  with  short  steps,  and 
with  exaggerated  swaying  of  the  hips, 
while  his  folded  arms  and  crossed  hands 
were  distorted  into  pretensions  of 
comical  coquetry. 

On  such  occasions,  if  anybody  wished 
to  make  friends  with  him.,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  say: 

*'Ah!  Mademoiselle,  what  a  nice  girl 
you  make." 

That  put  him  into  a  good  humor,  and 
he  used  to  reply,  much  pleased: 

"Don't  I?  But  people  can  see  I  only 
do  it  for  a  joke." 

But,  nevertheless,  when  they  were 
dancing  at  village  festivals  in  the  neigh* 
borhood,  he  would  always  be  invited  to 
dance  as  Mademoiselle,  and  would 
never  ask  any  of  the  girls  to  dance 
with  him;  and  one  evening  when  I 
somebody  asked  him  the  reason  for  this, 
he  opened  his  eyes  wide,  laughed  as  if 
the  man  had  said  something  very  stupid, 
and  replied: 

"I  cannot  ask  the  girls,  because  I  am 
not  dressed  like  a  lad.  Just  look  at 
my  dress,  you  fool!" 

As  his  interrogator  was  a  judicious 
man,  he  said  to  him: 

"Then  dress  like  one,  Mademoiselle." 

He  thought  for  a  moment,  and  then 
said  with  a  cunning  look: 

"But  if  I  dress  like  a  lad,  I  shall  no 


MADEMOISELLE 


575 


longer  be  a  girl;  and  then,  I  am  a  girl"; 
and  he  shrugged  his  shoulders  as  he 
said  it. 

But  the  remark  seemed  to  make  him 
thinL 

For  some  time  afterward,  when  he  met 
the  same  person,  he  would  ask  him 
abruptly: 

"If  I  dress  like  a  lad,  will  you  still 
call  me   Mademoiselle?" 

"Of  course,  I  shall,"  the  other  replied. 
**You  will  always  be  called  so." 

The  idiot  appeared  delighted,  for  there 
was  no  doubt  that  he  thought  more  of 
his  nictname  than  he  did  of  his  dress, 
and  the  next  day  he  made  his  appear- 
ance in  the  village  square,  without  his 
petticoats  and  dressed  as  a  man.  He 
had  taken  a  pair  of  trousers,  a  coat,  and 
a  hat  from  his  guardian's  clothespress. 
This  created  quite  a  revolution  in  the 
neighborhood,  for  the  people  who  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  smiling  at  him 
kindly  when  he  was  dressed  as  a  woman, 
looked  at  him  in  astonishment  and  al- 
most in  fear,  while  the  indulgent  could 
not  help  laughing,  and  visibly  making 
fun  of  him. 

The  involuntary  hostility  of  some,  and 
the  too  evident  ridicule  of  others,  the 
disagreeable  surprise  of  all,  were  too 
palpable  for  him  not  to  see  it,  and  to 
be  hurt  by  it,  and  it  was  still  worse 
when  a  street  urchin  said  to  him  in  a 
jeering  voice,  as  he  danced  round  him : 

"Oh!  oh!  Mademoiselle,  you  wear 
trousers!     Oh!   oh!   Mademoiselle!" 

And  it  grew  worse  and  worse,  when 
a  whole  band  of  these  vagabonds  were 
on  his  heels,  hooting  and  yelling  after 
him,  as  if  he  had  been  somebody  in  a 
masquerading  dress  during  the  Carnival. 

It  was  quite  certain  that  the  unfor- 


tunate creature  looked  more  in  disguise 
now  than  he  had  formerly.  By  dint  oi 
living  hke  a  girl,  and  by  even  exaggerat- 
ing the  feminine  walk  and  manners,  he 
had  totally  lost  all  masculine  looks  and 
ways.  His  smooth  face,  his  long  flax- 
like hair,  required  a  cap  with  ribbons, 
and  became  a  caricature  under  the  high 
chimney-pot  hat  of  the  old  doctor,  his 
grandfather. 

Mademoiselle's  shoulders,  and  espe- 
cially her  swelling  stern,  danced  about 
wildly  in  this  old-fashioned  coat  and 
wide  trousers.  And  nothing  was  as 
funny  as  the  contrast  between  his  quiet 
dress  and  slow  trotting  pace,  the  win- 
ning way  he  used  his  head,  and  the  con- 
ceited movements  of  his  hands,  with 
which  he  fanned  himself  like  a  girl. 

Soon  the  older  lads  and  the  girls,  the 
old  women,  men  of  ripe  age  and  even 
the  Judicial  Councilor,  joined  the  little 
brats,  and  hooted  Mademoiselle,  while 
the  astonished  idiot  ran  away,  and 
rushed  into  the  house  with  terror.  There 
he  took  his  poor  head  between  both 
hands,  and  tried  to  comprehend  the  mat- 
ter. Why  were  they  angry  with  him? 
For  it  was  quite  evident  that  they  were 
angry  with  him.  What  wrong  had  he 
done,  and  whom  had  he  injured,  by 
dressing  as  a  boy?  Was  he  not  a  boy, 
after  all?  For  the  first  time  in  his 
life,  he  felt  a  horror  for  his  nickname, 
for  had  he  not  been  insulted  through 
it?  But  immediately  he  was  seized  with 
a  horrible  doubt. 

"Suppose  that,  after  all,  I  am  a  girl?" 

He  would  have  liked  to  ask  his  guar- 
dian about  it  but  he  did  not  like  to,  for 
he  somehow  felt,  although  only  ob- 
scurely, that  he,  worthy  man,  might  not 
tell   him    the   truth,   out   of    kindness. 


I 


276 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSAN'i 


And,  besides,  he  preferred  to  find  out 
for  himself,  without  asking  anyone. 

All  his  idiot's  cunning,  which  had 
been  lying  latent  up  till  then,  because 
he  never  had  any  occasion  to  make  use 
of  it,  now  came  out  and  urged  him  to 
a  solitary  and  dark  action. 

The  next  day  he  dressed  himself  as 
a  girl  again,  and  made  his  appearance 
as  if  he  had  perfectly  forgotten  his 
escapade  of  the  day  before,  but  the  peo- 
ple, especially  the  street  boys,  had  not 
forgotten  it.  They  looked  at  him  side- 
ways, and,  even  the  best  of  them,  could 
not  help  smiling,  while  the  little  black- 
guards ran  after  him  and  said: 

"Oh!  oh!  Modemoiselle,  you  had  on 
a  pair  of  breeches!" 

But  he  pretended  not  to  hear,  or  even 
to  guess  to  what  they  were  alluding. 
He  seemed  as  happy  and  glad  to  look 
about  him  as  he  usually  did,  with  half- 
open  lips  and  smiling  eyes.  As  usual, 
he  wore  an  enormous  cap  with  varie- 
gated ribbons,  and  the  same  large  petti- 
coats; he  walked  with  short,  mincing 
steps,  swaying  and  wriggling  his  hips 
and  gesticulating  like  a  coquette,  and 
licked  his  lips  when  they  called  him 
Mademoiselle,  while  really  he  would 
have  liked  to  have  jumped  at  the  throat 
of  those  who  called  him  so. 

Days  and  months  passed,  and  by  de- 
grees those  about  him  forgot  all  about 
his  strange  escapade.  But  he  had  never 
left  off  thinking  about  it,  or  trying  to 
iind  out — for  which  he  was  ever  on  the 
..!ert — ^how  he  could  ascertain  his  quali- 
ucs  as  a  boy,  and  how  to  assert  them 
victoriously.  Really  innocent,  he  had 
reached  the  age  of  twenty  without  know- 
ing anything  or  without  ever  having  any 


natural  impulse,  but  being  tenacious  of 
purpose,  curious  and  dissembling,  he 
asked  no  questions,  but  observed  all  that 
was  said  and  done. 

Often  at  their  village  dances,  he  had 
heard  young  fellows  boasting  about  girls 
whom  they  had  seduced,  and  girls  prais- 
ing such  and  such  a  young  fellow,  and 
often,  also,  after  a  dance,  he  saw  the 
couples  go  away  together,  with  their 
arms  round  each  other's  waists.  They 
had  no  suspicions  of  him,  and  he  lis- 
tened and  watched,  until,  at  last,  he  dis- 
covered what  was  going  on. 

And  then,  one  night,  when  dancing 
was  over,  and  the  couples  were  going 
away  with  their  arms  round  each  other's 
waists,  a  terrible  screaming  was  heard  at 
the  corner  of  the  woods  through  which 
those  going  to  the  next  village  had  to 
pass.  It  was  Josephine,  pretty  Jose- 
phine, and  when  her  screams  v/ere 
heard,  they  ran  to  her  assistance,  and 
arrived  only  just  in  time  to  rescue  her, 
half  strangled,  from  Mademoiselle's 
clutches. 

The  idiot  had  watched  her  and  had 
thrown  n^mself  upon  her  in  order  to 
treat  her  as  the  other  young  fellows  did 
the  girls,  but  she  resisted  him  so  stoutly 
that  he  took  her  by  the  throat  and 
squeezed  it  with  all  his  might  until  she 
could  not  breathe,  and  was  nearly  dead. 

In  rescuing  Josephine  from  him,  they 
had  thrown  him  on  the  ground,  but  he 
jumped  up  again  immediately,  foaming 
at  the  mouth  and  slobbering,  and  ex- 
claimed: 

"I  am  not  a  girl  any  longer,  I  am  a 
young  man,  I  am  a  young  man,  I  telj 
vou." 


VOLUME  m 


A  Bad  Error 


I 


I  MADE  Mrs.  Jadelle's  acquaintance  in 
Paris,  this  winter.  She  pleased  me  in- 
finitely at  once.  You  know  her  as  well 
as  I — ^no — ^pardon  me — nearly  as  well  as 
I.  You  know  that  she  is  poetic  and  fan- 
tastic at  one  and  the  same  time.  You 
know  she  is  free  in  her  manner  and  of 
impressionable  heart,  impulsive,  cour- 
ageous, venturesome,  audacious — above 
all,  prejudiced,  and  yet,  in  spite  of  that, 
sentimental,  delicate,  easily  hurt,  tender, 
and  modest. 

She  was  a  widow,  and  I  adore  widows, 
from  sheer  laziness.  I  was  on  the  look- 
out for  a  wife,  and  I  paid  her  my  court. 
I  knew  her,  and  more  than  that,  she 
pleased  me.  The  moment  came  when  I 
believed  it  would  do  to  risk  my  proposal. 
I  was  in  love  with  her  and  in  danger  of 
becoming  too  much  so.  When  one  mar- 
ries, he  should  not  love  his  wife  too 
much,  or  he  is  likely  to  make  himself 
foolish;  his  vision  is  distorted,  and  he 
becomes  silly  and  brutal  at  the  same 
time.  A  man  must  assert  himself.  If 
he  loses  his  head  at  first,  he  risks  being 
a  nobody  a  year  later. 

So  one  day  I  presented  myself  at  her 
bouse  with  light  gloves  on,  and  I  said 
to  her;  "Madame,  I  have  the  honor  of 
loving  you,  and  I  have  come  to  ask  you 
if  there  is  any  hope  of  my  pleasing  you 
enough  to  warrant  your  placing  your 
happiness  in  my  care  and  taking  my 
name." 

She  answered  quietly:  ''What  a  ques- 
tion, sir!  I  am  absolutely  ignorant  of 
whether  you  will  please  me  sooner  or 
later,  or  whether  you  will  not ;  but  I  ask 
nothing  better  than  to  make  a  trial  of  it. 
As  a  man,  I  do  not  find  you  bad.  It 
remains   to   be  seen  how  you   are   at 


heart  and  in  character  and  habits.  For 
the  most  part  marriages  are  tempestuous 
or  criminal  because  people  are  not  care- 
ful enough  in  yokmg  themselves  to- 
gether. Sometimes  a  mere  nothing  to 
sufficient,  a  mania  or  tenacious  opinion 
upon  some  moral  or  religious  point,  no 
matter  what,  a  gesture  which  displeases, 
or  some  little  fault  or  disagreeable  qual- 
ity, to  turn  an  affianced  couple,  however 
tender  and  affectionate,  into  a  pair  o! 
irreconcilable  enemies,  incensed  with, 
but  chained  to,  each  other  until  death. 
I  will  not  marry  sir,  without  knowing 
the  depths  and  corners  and  recesses  of 
the  soul  of  the  man  with  whom  I  am 
to  share  my  existence.  I  wish  to  study 
him  at  leisure,  at  least  for  some  months. 

"Here  is  what  I  propose.  You  will 
come  and  pass  the  summer  in  my  house 
at  De  Lauville,  my  country  place,  and 
we  shall  see  then  if  we  are  fitted  to  live 
side  by  side — ^I  see  you  laugh!  You 
have  a  bad  thought.  Oh!  sir,  if  I  were 
not  sure  of  myself,  I  would  never  make 
this  proposition.  I  have  for  love,  what 
you  call  love,  you  men,  such  a  scorn 
such  a  disgust  that  a  fall  is  impossible 
for  me.    Well,  do  you  accept?" 

I  kissed  her  hand. 

"When  shall  we  start,  Madame?" 

"The  tenth  of  May." 

"It  is  agreed." 

A  month  later  I  was  installed  at  he 
house.  She  was  truly  a  singular  wo- 
man. From  morning  until  evening  she 
was  studying  me.  As  she  was  fond  of 
horses,  we  passed  each  day  in  riding 
through  the  woods,  talking  about  every- 
thing, but  she  was  always  trying  to  probe 
my  innermost  thoughts,  to  which  end 
she  observed  my  slightest  movement 


777 


::78 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


As  for  me,  I  became  foolishly  in  love, 
and  (lid  not  trouble  myself  about  the 
fitness  of  our  characters.  But  I  soon 
perceived  that  even  my  sleep  was  put 
under  inspection.  Some  one  slept  in  a 
little  room  adjoining  mine,  entering  very 
late  and  with  infinite  precaution.  This 
espionage  for  every  instant  finally  made 
me  impatient.  I  wished  to  hasten  the 
conclusion,  and  one  evening  thought 
of  a  way  of  bringing  it  about.  She 
had  received  me  in  such  a  way 
that  I  had  abstained  from  any 
new  essay,  but  a  violent  desire  in- 
vaded me  to  make  her  pay,  in  some 
fashion,  for  this  restricted  regime  to 
which  I  had  submitted,  and  I  thought 
I  knew  a  way. 

You  know  Cesarine,  her  chambermaid, 
a  pretty  girl  from  Granville,  where  all 
the  women  are  pretty,  and  as  blond  as 
her  mistress  was  brunette?  Well,  one 
afternoon  I  drew  the  little  soubrette  into 
my  room  and,  putting  a  hundred  francs 
in  her  hand,  I  said  to  her: 

**My  dear  child,  I  do  not  wish  you 
to  do  anything  villainous,  but  I  desire 
the  same  privilege  toward  your  mistress 
that  she  takes  toward  me." 

The  little  maid  laughed,  with  a  sly 
look,  as  I  continued: 

"I  am  watched  day  and  night,  I  know. 
I  am  watched  as  I  eat,  drink,  dress  my- 
self, shave,  and  put  on  my  socks,  and 
I  know  it." 

The  little  girl  stammered:  "Yes,  sir 
— "  then  she  was  silent.     I  continued: 

'You  sleep  in  the  room  next  to  mine 
to  see  if  I  snore,  or  if  I  dream  aloud, 
you  cannot  deny  it ! " 

"Yes,  sir — "  Then  she  was  silent 
again. 

I  became  excited:     "Oh!   welK  my 


girl,"  said  I,  "you  understand  that  it  is 
net  fair  for  everything  to  be  known 
about  me  while  I  know  nothing  of  the 
person  who  is  to  be  my  wife.  I  love  her 
with  all  my  soul.  She  has  the  face,  the 
heart,  and  mind  that  I  have  dreamed 
of,  and  I  am  the  happiest  of  men  on 
this  account;  nevertheless  there  are 
some  things  I  would  like  to  know  bet- 
ter—" 

Cesarine  decided  to  put  my  bank-note 
in  her  pocket.  I  understood  that  the 
bargain  was  concluded. 

"Listen,  my  girl,"  said  I.  "We  men— - 
we  care  much  for  certain — certain  dC' 
tails — ^physical  details,  which  do  not  hin- 
der a  woman  from  being  charming,  but 
which  can  change  her  price  in  our  eyes. 
I  do  not  ask  you  to  say  anything  bad 
of  your  mistress,  nor  even  to  disclose  to 
me  her  defects,  if  she  has  any.  Only 
answer  me  frankly  four  or  five  questions, 
which  I  am  going  to  put  to  you.  You 
know  Mrs.  Jadelle  as  well  as  you  do 
yourself,  since  you  dress  and  undress 
her  every  day.  Now  then,  tell  me  this: 
Is  she  as  plump  as  she  has  the  appear- 
ance of  being?" 

The  little  maid  did  not  answer. 

I  continued:  "You  cannot,  my  child, 
be  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  women  put 
cotton,  padding,  you  know,  where — 
where — ^where  they  nourish  their  infants 
and  also  where  they  sit.  Tell  me,  does 
she  use  padding?" 

Cesarine  lowered  her  eyes.  Finally 
she  said  timidly:  "Ask  whatever  you 
want  to,  sir,  I  will  answer  all  at  one 
time." 

"Well,  my  girl,  there  are  some  women 
whose  knees  meet,  so  much  so  that  they 
touch  with  each  step  that  they  take;  and 
there   are   others  who  have   them    far 


A  BAD  ERROR 


279 


apart,  which  maiics  their  limbs  like  the 
arches  ot  a  bridge,  so  that  one  might 
view  the  landscape  between  them.  This 
is  the  prettier  of  the  two  fashions.  Tell 
me,  how  are  your  mistress's  limbs?" 

Still  the  maid  said  nothing. 

I  continued:  "There  are  some  who 
have  necks  so  beautiful  that  they  form 
a  great  fold  underneath.  And  there  are 
some  that  have  large  arms  with  a  thin 
figure.  There  are  some  that  arc  very 
large  before  and  nothing  at  all  behind, 
and  there  are  some  large  behind  and 
nothing  at  all  in  front.  All  this  is  very 
pretty,  very  pretty,  but  I  wish  to  know 
just  how  your  mistress  is  made.  Tell  me 
frankly,  and  I  will  give  you  much  more 
money — " 

Cesarine  looked  at  me  out  of  the  cor- 
ner of  her  eye  and,  laughing  with  all  her 
heart,  answered:  "Sir,  aside  from  being 
dark,  mistress  is  made  exactly  like  me." 

Then  she  fled. 

I  had  been  made  sport  of.  This  was 
the  time  I  found  myself  ridiculous,  and 
I  resolved  to  avenge  myself,  at  least, 
upon  this  impertinent  maid. 

An  hour  later  I  entered  the  little  room 
with  precaution  where  she  listened  to 
my  sleeping,  and  unscrewed  the  bolts. 

Toward  midnight  she  arrived  at  her 
post  of  observation.  I  followed  her  im- 
mediately. On  perceiving  me,  she  was 
going  to  cry  out,  but  I  put  my  hand  over 
her  mouth,  and,  without  too  great  effort, 
I  convinced  myself  that,  if  she  had  not 
lied,  Mrs.  Jadelle  was  very  well  made. 

I  even  put  much  zest  into  this  authen- 
tication which,  though  pushed  a  little 
far,  did  not  seem  to  displease  Cesarine. 
She  was,  in  very  fact,  a  ravishing  speci- 
men of  the  Norman  peasant  race,  strong 
and  f\ne  at  the  same  time.     She  was 


wanting  perhaps  in  certain  delicate 
attentions  that  Henry  VI.  would  have 
scorned,  but  I  revealed  them  to  her 
quickly,  and  as  I  adore  perfumes,  I  gave 
her  a  box  the  next  evening,  with  a  flask 
of  lavender-water. 

We  were  soon  more  closely  bound  to 
each  other  than  I  could  have  believed, 
almost  friends.  She  became  an  exqui- 
site mistress,  naturally  spirituelle  and 
broken  to  pleasure.  She  had  been  a 
courtesan  of  great  merit  in  Paris. 

The  delights  which  she  brought  me 
enabled  me  to  await  Mrs.  Jadelle's  con- 
clusion of  proof  without  impatience.  I 
became  an  incomparable  character,  sup- 
ple, docile,  and  complacent.  My  fianceS 
found  me  delightful  beyond  a  doubt,  and 
I  judged,  from  certain  signs,  that  1  was 
soon  to  be  accepted.  I  was  certainly  the 
happiest  man  in  the  world,  awaiting  tran- 
quilly the  legal  kiss  of  the  woman  I 
loved,  in  the  arms  of  a  young  and  beau- 
tiful girl  for  whom  I  had  much  fond- 
ness. 

It  is  here,  Madame,  that  I  must  ask 
your  forbearance  a  little;  I  have  arrived 
at  a  delicate  point. 

One  evening,  as  we  were  returning 
from  a  horseback  ride,  Mrs.  Jadelle  com- 
plained sharply  that  her  grooms  had  not 
taken  certain  measures  prescribed  by 
her  for  the  horse  she  rode.  She  re- 
peated many  times:  "Let  them  take 
care,  I  have  a  way  of  surprising  them." 

I  passed  a  calm  night  in  my  bed.  I 
awoke  early,  full  of  ardor  and  energy. 
Then  I  dressed  msyelf. 

I  was  in  the  habit  of  going  up  on  the 
tower  of  the  house  each  morning  to 
smoke  a  cigarette.  This  was  reached  by 
a  limestone  staircase,  lightec*  by  a  large 
'window  at  the  top  of  the  first  story. 


280 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


I  advanced  without  noise,  my  feet 
encased  in  morocco  slippers  with  wadded 
soles,  and  was  climbing  the  £rst  steps 
wnen  I  perceived  Cesarine  bending  out 
the  window,  looking  down  below. 

Not  that  I  saw  Cesarine  entirely,  but 
only  a  part  of  Cesarine,  and  that  the 
lower  part.  I  loved  this  part  )ust  as 
much;  of  Mrs.  Jadelle,  I  would  have 
preferred,  perhaps  the  upper.  She  was 
thus  so  charming,  so  round,  this  part 
which  offered  itself  to  me,  and  only 
slightly  clothed  in  a  white  skirt. 

I  approached  so  softly  that  the  girl 
heard  nothing.  I  put  myself  on  my 
knees;  with  infinite  precaution  1"  took 
hold  of  the  two  sides  of  the  skirt  and, 
quickly,  1  raised  it.  I  recognized  there 
the  full,  fresh,  plump,  sweet,  ischial 
tuberosities  of  my  mistress,  and  threw 
there,  your  pardon,  Madame, — I  threw 
there  a  tender  kiss,  a  kiss  of  a  lover 
who  dares  anything, 

I  was  surprised.   It  was  verbena!  But 


I  had  no  time  for  reflection.  I  received 
a  sudden  blow,  or  rather  a  push  in  the 
face  which  seemed  to  break  my  nose.  I 
uttered  a  cry  that  made  my  hair  rise. 
The  person  had  turned  around — ^it  waa 
Mrs.  Jadelle! 

She  was  fighting  the  air  with  her 
hands,  like  a  woman  who  had  lost  con- 
sciousness. She  gasped  for  some  sec- 
onds, made  a  gesture  of  using  a  horse- 
whip, and  then  fled. 

Ten  minutes  later,  Cesarine,  stupe- 
fied, brought  me  in  a  letter.    I  read : 

"Mrs.  Jadelle  hopes  that  M.  de  Brives 
will  immediately  rid  her  of  his  presence." 

I  departed.  Well,  I  am  not  yet  con- 
soled. I  have  attempted  every  means 
and  all  explanations  to  obtain  a  pardon 
for  my  misunderstanding,  but  all  pro- 
ceedings have  been  nipped  in  the  bud. 

Since  that  moment,  you  see.  1  have  in 
my — in  my  heart  a  scent  of  verbena 
which  gives  me  an  immoderate  desire  to 
smell  the  perfume  again. 


The  Port 


I. 


Having  sailed  from  Havre  on  the 
ihird  of  May,  1882,  for  a  voyage  in  tb*; 
China  seas,  the  square-rigged  three- 
master,  "Notre  Dame  des  Vents,"  made 
her  way  back  into  the  port  of  Mar- 
seilles on  the  eighth  of  August,  1886, 
after  an  absence  of  four  years.  When 
she  had  discharged  her  first  cargo  in 
the  Chinese  port  for  which  she  was 
bound,  she  had  immediately  found  a 
^lew  freight  for  Buenos  Ayres,  and  from 
that  place  had  conveyed  goods  to 
Brazil 


Other  passages,  then  damage  repairs; 
calms  ranging  over  several  months,  gales 
which  knocked  her  out  of  her  course — 
all  the  accidents,  adventures,  and  mis- 
adventures of  the  sea,  in  short — had 
kept  far  from  her  country  this  Norman 
three-master,  which  had  come  back  to 
Marseilles  with  her  hold  full  of  tin 
boxes  containing  American  preserves. 

At  her  departure  she  had  on  board, 
besides  the  captain  and  the  mate,  four- 
teen sailors,  eight  Normans,  and  six 
Britons.  On  her  return  there  were  left 
onlv  five   Britons  and   four    Normans, 


THE  PORT 


281 


ihe  other  Briton  had  died  while  on  the 
way;  the  four  Normans,  having  dis- 
appeared under  various  circumstances, 
had  been  replaced  by  two  Americans,  a 
negro,  and  a  Norwegian  carried  off,  one 
evening,  from  a  tavern  in  Singapore. 

The  big  vessel,  with  reefed  sails  and 
yards  crossed  over  her  masts,  drawn 
by  a  tug  from  Marseilles,  rocking  over 
a  sweep  of  rolling  waes  which  sub- 
sided gently  into  calm  water,  passed  in 
front  of  the  Chateau  d'lf,  and  then  un- 
der all  the  gray  rockf  jf  the  roadstead, 
which  the  setting  sun  covered  with  a 
golden  vapor.  She  entered  the  ancient 
port,  in  which  are  packed  together,  side 
by  side,  ships  from  every  part  of  the 
world,  pellmell,  large  and  small,  of 
every  shape  and  every  variety  of  rig- 
ging, soaking  like  a  bouillabaisse  of  boats 
in  this  basin  toe  limited  in  extent,  full 
of  putrid  water  where  shells  touch  each 
other,  rub  against  each  other,  and  seem 
to  be  pickled  in  the  juice  of  the  vessels. 

"Notre  Dame  des  Vents"  took  up  her 
station  between  an  Italian  brig  and  an 
English  schooner,  which  made  way  to 
let  this  comrade  slip  in  between  them; 
then,  when  all  the  formalities  of  the 
customhouse  and  of  the  porf  had  been 
complied  with,  the  captain  authorized 
two-thirds  of  his  crew  to  spend  the  night 
on  shore. 

It  was  already  dark.  Marseilles  was 
lighted  up.  In  the  heat  of  this  sum- 
mer's evening,  a  flavor  of  cooking  with 
garlic  floated  over  the  noisy  city,  filled 
with  the  clamor  of  voices,  of  rolling 
vehicles,  of  the  crackling  of  whips,  and 
of  southern  mirth. 

As  soon  as  they  felt  themselves  on 
shore,  th"  ten  men.  whom  the  sea  had 
Heen  tossing  about  for  some  months  past. 


proceeded  along  quite  slowly  vrith  the 
hesitating  steps  of  persons  who  are  out 
of  their  element,  unaccustomed  to 
cities,  two  by  two,  in  procession. 

They  swayed  from  one  side  to 
another  as  they  walked,  looked  about 
them,  smelling  out  the  lanes  opening 
out  on  the  harbor,  rendered  feverish  by 
the  amorous  appetite  which  had  been 
growing  to  maturity  in  their  bodies  dur- 
ing their  last  sixty-six  days  at  sea.  The 
Normans  stiode  on  in  front,  led  by 
Celestin  Duclos,  a  tall  young  fellow, 
sturdy  and  waggish,  who  served  as  a 
captain  for  the  others  every  time  they 
set  forth  on  land.  He  divined  the  places 
worth  visiting,  found  out  byways  after 
a  fashion  of  his  own,  and  did  not  take 
much  part  in  the  squabbles  so  frequen' 
among  sailors  in  seaport  towns.  But» 
once  he  was  caught  in  one,  he  was 
afraid  of  nobody. 

After  some  hesitation  as  to  which  of 
the  obscure  streets  that  lead  down  to 
the  waterside,  and  from  which  arise 
heavy  smells,  a  sort  of  exhalation  from 
closets,  they  ought  to  enter,  Celestin  gave 
the  preference  to  a  kind  of  winding  pas- 
sage, where  gleamed  over  the  doors  pro- 
jecting lanterns  bearing  enormous  num- 
bers on  their  rough  colored  glass.  Un- 
der  the  narrow  arches  at  the  entrance  to 
the  houses,  women  wearing  aprons,  like 
servants,  seated  on  straw  chairs,  rose 
up  on  seeing  them  coming  near,  taking 
three  steps  toward  the  gutter  which  sepa- 
rated the  street  into  halves,  and  so  cut- 
ting off  the  path  from  this  file  of  men, 
who  sauntered  along  at  their  leisure, 
humming  and  sneering,  already  Retting 
excited  by  the  vicinity  of  those  dens  of 
prostitutes. 

Sometimes,  at  the  end  of  a  hall,  be« 


282 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MxWPASSANT 


hind  a  second  open  door,  which  pre- 
sented itself  unexpectedly,  covered  over 
with  dark  leather,  would  appear  a  big 
wench,  undressed,  whose  heavy  thighs 
and  fat  calves  abruptly  outlined  them- 
selves under  her  coarse  white  cotton 
wrapper.  Her  short  petticoat  had  the 
appearance  of  a  puffed-out  girdle;  and 
the  soft  flesh  of  her  breast,  her  shoul- 
ders, and  her  arms  made  a  rosy  stain  on 
a  black  velvet  corsage  with  edgings  of 
gold  lace.  She  kept  calling  out  from  her 
distant  corner,  "Will  you  come  here,  my 
pretty  boys?"  and  sometimes  she  would 
go  out  herself  to  catch  hold  of  one  of 
them,  and  to  drag  him  toward  her  door 
with  all  her  strength,  fastening  on  him 
like  a  spider  drawing  forward  an  insect 
bigger  than  itself.  The  man,  excited  by 
the  struggle,  would  offer  a  mild  re- 
sistance, and  the  rest  would  stop  to  look 
on,  undecided  between  the  longing  to  go 
in  at  once  and  that  of  lengthening  this 
appetizing  promenade.  Then  when  the 
woman,  after  desperate  efforts,  had 
brought  the  sailor  to  the  threshold  of 
her  abode,  in  which  the  entire  band 
would  be  swallowed  up  after  him,  Celes- 
tin  Duclos,  who  was  a  judge  of  houses 
of  this  sort,  suddenly  exclaimed:  Don't 
go  in  there,  Marchand!  That's  not  the 
place." 

The  man  thereupon,  obeying  this 
direction,  freed  himself  with  a  brutal 
shake;  and  the  comrades  formed  them- 
selves into  a  band  once  more,  pursued 
by  the  filthy  insults  of  the  exasperated 
wench,  while  other  women,  all  along  the 
alley  in  front  of  them,  came  out  past 
their  doors,  attracted  by  the  noise,  and 
in  hoarse  voices  threw  out  to  them  in- 
vitations coupled  with  promises.  They 
went  on,  then,  more  and  more  stimu- 


lated by  the  combined  effects  of  the 
coaxings  and  the  seductions  held  out  as 
baits  to  them  by  the  choir  of  portresses 
of  love  all  over  the  upper  part  of  the 
street,  and  the  ignoble  maledictions 
hurled  at  them  by  the  choir  at  the  lower 
end — the  despised  choir  of  disappointed 
wenches.  From  time  to  time,  they  met 
another  band — soldiers  marching  along 
with  spurs  jingling  at  their  heels — 
sailors  marching  again — isolated  citizens 
— clerks  in  business  houses.  On  all 
sides  might  be  some  fresh  streets,  nar- 
row, and  studded  all  over  with  those 
equivocal  lanterns.  They  pursued  their 
way  still  through  this  labyrinth  of  squa- 
lid habitation,  over  those  greasy  pave- 
ments through  which  putrid  water  was 
oozing,  between  those  walls  filled  with 
women's  flesh. 

At  last,  Duclos  made  up  his  mind,  and, 
drawing  up  before  a  house  of  rather 
attractive  exterior,  made  all  his  compan- 
ions follow  him  in  there. 

II. 

Then  followed  a  scene  of  thorough* 
going  revelry.  For  four  hours  the  six 
sailors  gorged  themselves  with  love  and 
wine.    Six  months'  pay  was  thus  wasted. 

In  the  principal  room,  in  the  tavern 
they  were  installed  as  masters,  gazing 
with  malignant  glances  at  the  ordinary 
customers,  who  were  seated  at  the  little 
tables  in  the  corners,  where  one  of  the 
gills,  who  was  left  free  to  come  and 
go,  dressed  like  a  big  baby  or  a  singer 
at  a  cafe  concert,  went  about  serving 
them,  and  then  seated  herself  near  them. 
Each  man,  on  coming  m,  had  selected  his 
partner,  whom  he  kept  all  the  evening, 
for  the  vulgar  taste  is  not  changeable. 


THE  PORT 


23; 


They  had  drawn  three  tables  close  up  to 
them;  and,  after  the  first  bumper,  the 
procession  divided  into  two  parts,  in- 
creased by  as  many  women  as  there  were 
seamen,  had  formed  itself  anew  on  the 
staircase.  On  the  wooden  steps  the 
four  feet  of  each  couple  kept  tramping 
from  time  to  time,  while  the  several 
files  of  lovers  were  swallowed  up  behind 
the  narrow  doors  leading  into  the  dif- 
ferent rooms. 

Then  they  came  down  again  to  have  a 
drink,  and  after  they  had  returned  to 
the  rooms,  descended  the  stairs  once 
more. 

Now,  almost  intoxicated,  they  began 
to  howl.  Each  of  them,  with  bloodshot 
eyes,  and  his  chosen  female  companion 
on  his  knee,  sang  or  bawled,  struck  the 
table  with  his  fist,  shouted  while  swilling 
wine  down  his  throat,  setting  free  the 
brute  within.  In  the  midst  of  them, 
Celestin  Duclos  pressing  close  to  him  a 
big  damsel  with  red  cheeks,  who  sat 
astirde  over  his  legs,  gazed  at  her  ar- 
dently. Less  tipsy  than  the  others,  not 
that  he  had  taken  less  drink,  he  was  as 
yet  occupied  with  other  thoughts,  and, 
more  tender  than  his  comrades,  he  tried 
to  get  up  a  chat.  His  thoughts  wan- 
dered a  little,  escaped  him,  and  then 
came  back,  and  disappeared  again,  with- 
out allowing  him  to  recollect  exactly 
what  he  meant  to  say. 

"What  time — ^what  time — ^how  long 
are  you  here?" 

"Six  months,"  the  girl  answered. 

He  seemed  to  be  satisfied  with  her,  as 
this  were  a  proof  of  good  conduct,  and 
he  went  on  questioning  her: 

"Do  you  like  this  life?" 

She  hesitated-  then  in  a  tone  of  resig- 
nation. 


"One  gets  used  to  it.  It  is  not  more 
worrying  than  any  other  kind  of  life. 
To  be  a  servant-girl  or  else  a  scrub  is 
always  a  nasty  occupation." 

He  looked  as  if  he  also  approved  of 
this  truthful  remark. 

"You  are  not  from  this  place?"  sai.I 
he. 

She  answered  merely  by  shaking  her 
head. 

"Do  you  come  from  a  distance?" 

She  nodded,  still  without  opening  her 
lips. 

"Where  is  it  you  come  from?" 

She  appeared  to  be  thinking,  to  be 
searching  her  memory,  then  said  fal- 
teringly : 

"From  Perpignan." 

He  was  once  more  perfectly  satisfies, 
and  said: 

"Ah!  yes." 

In  her  turn  she  asked: 

"And  you,  are  you  a  sailor?" 

"Yes,  my  beauty." 

"Do  you  come  from  a  distance?" 

"Ah!  yes.  I  have  seen  countries, 
ports,  and  everything." 

"You  have  been  round  the  world,  per- 
haps?" 

"I  believe  you,  twice  rather  than 
once." 

Again  she  seemed  to  hesitate,  to  search 
in  her  brain  for  something  that  she  had 
forgotten,  then,  in  a  tone  somewhat  dif- 
ferent, more  serious: 

"Have  you  met  many  ships  in  your 
voyages?" 

"I  believe  you,  my  beauty.*' 

"You  did  not  happen  to  see  the  'Notre 
Dame  des  Vents'?" 

He  chuckled: 

"No  later  than  l^st  week.'* 


2M 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANl 


She  turned  pale,  all  the  blood  leaving 
her  cheeks,  and  asked: 

*'Is  that  true,  perfectly  true?" 

"'Tis  true  as  I  tell  you." 

"Honor  bright!  you  are  not  telling 
me  a  lie?" 

He  raised  his  hand. 

"Before  God,  I'm  not!"  said  he. 

"Then  do  you  know  whether  Cclestin 
Duclos  is  still  on  her?" 

He  was  astonished,  uneasy,  and 
wished,  before  answering,  to  learn  some- 
thing further. 

"Do  you  know  him?" 

She  became  distrustful  in  turn. 

"Oh!  'tis  not  myself — 'tis  a  woman 
who  is  acquainted  with  him." 

"A  woman  from  this  place?" 

"No,  from  a  place  not  far  off." 

"In  the  street?  What  sort  of  a  wo- 
man?" 

"Why,  then,  a  woman — a  woman  like 
myself." 

"What  has  she  to  say  to  him,  this  wo- 
xnan?" 

"I  believe  she  is  a  countrywoman  of 
Ins." 

They  stared  into  one  another's  eyes, 
watching  one  another,  feeling,  divining 
that  something  of  a  grave  nature  was 
going  to  arise  between  them. 

He  resumed : 

"I  could  see  her  there,  this  woman.** 

"What  would  you  say  to  her?" 

"I  would  say  to  her — I  would  say  to 
her — that  I  had  seen  Celestin  Duclos." 

"He  is  quite  well— isn't  he?" 

"As  well  as  you  or  me — ^he  is  a  strap- 
ping young  fellow." 

She  became  silent  again,  trying  to  col- 
lect her  ideas ;  then  slowly. 

"Where  has  the  'Notre  Dame  des 
Vents'  eone  to?" 


"Why,  just  to  Marseilles." 

She  could  not  repress  a  start. 

"Is  that  really  true?" 

"'Tis  really  true." 

*'Do  you  know  Duclos?" 

"Yes,  I  do  know  him." 

She  still  hesitated;  then  in  a  very 
gentle  tone : 

"Good!  That^s  good!" 

"What  do  you  want  with  him?" 

"Listen! — ^you  will  tell  him — noth- 
ing!" 

He  stared  at  her,  more  and  more 
perplexed.  At  last  he  put  this  question 
to  her: 

"Do  you  know  him,  too,  yourself?" 

"No,"  said  she. 

"Then  what  do  you  want  with  him?" 

Suddenly,  she  made  up  her  mind  what 
to  do,  left  her  seat,  rushed  over  to  the 
bar  where  the  landlady  of  the  tavern 
presided,  seized  a  lemon,  which  ihe  tore 
open  and  shed  its  juice  into  a  glass, 
then  she  filled  this  glass  with  pure 
water,  and  carrying  it  across  to  him: 

"Drink  this!" 

"Why?" 

"To  make  it  pass  for  wine.  I  will 
talk  to  you  afterward." 

He  drank  it  without  further  protest, 
wiped  his  lips  with  the  back  of  his 
hand,  then  observed: 

"That's  all  right.  I  am  listening  to 
you." 

"You  will  promise  not  to  tell  him  you 
have  seen  me,  or  from  whom  you  learned 
what  I  am  going  to  tell  you.  You  must 
swear  not  to  do  so." 

He  raised  his  hand. 

"All  right.    I  swear  I  will  not." 

"Before  God?" 

"Before  God." 

"Well,  you  will  tell  him  that  his  father 


THE  PORT  * 


285 


I 


died,  that  his  mother  died,  that  his 
brother  died,  the  whole  three  in  one 
month,  of  typhoid  fever,  in  January, 
1883 —  three  years  and  a  half  ago." 

In  his  turn  he  felt  all  his  blood  set 
in  motion  through  his  entire  body,  and 
for  a  few  seconds  he  was  so  much  over- 
powered that  he  could  make  no  reply; 
then  he  began  to  doubt  what  she  had 
told  him,  and  asked: 

"Are  you  sure?" 

*'I  am  sure." 

"Who  told  it  to  you?" 

She  laid  her  hands  on  his  shoulders, 
and  looking  at  him  out  of  the  depths  of 
her  eyes: 

"You  swear  not  to  blab?" 

"I  swear  that  I  will  not." 

"I  am  his  sister!'' 

He  uttered  that  name  in  spite  of  him- 
self: 

"Frangoise?" 

She  contemplated  him  once  more  with 
a  fixed  stare,  then,  excited  by  a  wild 
feeling  of  terror,  a  sense  of  profound 
horror,  she  faltered  in  a  very  low  tone, 
almost  speaking  into  his  mouth: 

"Oh!  oh!  it  is  you,  Celestin." 

They  no  longer  stirred,  their  eyes 
riveted  in  one  another. 

Around  them,  his  comrades  were  still 
yelling.  The  sounds  made  by  glasses,  by 
fists,  by  heels  keeping  time  to  the 
choruses,  and  the  shrill  cries  of  the  wo- 
men, mingled  with  the  roar  of  their 
songs. 

He  felt  her  leaning  on  him,  clasping 
him,  ashamed  and  frightened,  his  sister. 
Then,  in  a  whisper,  lest  anyone  might 
hear  him,  so  hushed  that  she  could 
scarcely  catch  bis  words: 

"What  a  misfortune!  I  have  made  a 
nice  piece  of  work  of  it!" 


The  next  moment  her  eyes  were  filled 
with  tears,  and  she  faltered: 

"Is  that  my  fault?" 

But,  all  of  a  sudden,  he  said: 

"So  then,  they  are  dead?" 

"They  are  dead." 

"The  father,  the  mother,  and  the 
brother?" 

"The  three  in  one  month,  as  I  told 
you.  I  was  left  by  myself  with  nothing 
but  my  clothes,  for  I  was  in  debt  to  the 
apothecary  and  the  doctor  and  for  the 
funeral,  of  the  three,  and  had  to  pay 
what  I  owed  with  the  furniture. 

"After  that  I  went  as  a  servant  to 
the  house  of  Maitre  Cacheux,  —  you 
know  him  well, —  the  cripple.  I  was 
just  fifteen  at  the  time,  for  you  went 
away  when  I  was  not  quite  fo'arteen.  I 
tripped  with  bim.  One  is  so  senseless 
when  one  is  young.  Then  J  went  as  a 
nursery-maid  to  the  notaiy,  who  de- 
bauched me  also,  and  brought  me  to 
Havre,  where  he  took  a  room  for  mc 
After  a  little  while  he  gave  up  coming 
to  see  me.  For  three  days  I  lived  with- 
out eating  a  morsel  of  lood;  and  then, 
not  being  able  to  get  emplv^yment,  I 
went  to  a  house,  like  many  others.  I, 
too,  have  seen  different  places — ah!  and 
dirty  places!  Rouen,  Evreux,  Lill*,  Bor- 
deaux. Perpignan,  Nice,  and  then  Mar- 
seilles, where  I  am  now!'* 

The  tears  started  fiom  her  eyes,' 
flowed  over  her  nose,  wet  her  checks, 
and  trickled  into  her  mouth. 

She  went  on : 

"I  thought  you  were  dead,  too: — my 
poor  Celestin." 

He  said: 

"I  would  not  have  recognized  you  my- 
self— ^you  were  such  a  little  thing  then, 


286 


WORKS  OF*GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


tnd  here  you  are  so  big! — ^but  how  is  it 
that  you  did  not  recognize  me?" 

She  answered  with  a  despairing  move- 
ment of  her  bands: 

**I  sec  so  many  men  that  they  all  seem 
to  me  alike." 

He  kept  his  eyes  still  fixed  on  her  in- 
tently, oppressed  by  an  emotion  that 
dazed  him  and  filled  him  with  such  pain 
as  to  make  him  long  to  ciy  like  a 
little  child  that  has  been  whipped.  He 
still  held  her  in  his  arms,  while  she  sat 
astride  on  his  knees,  with  his  open  hands 
against  the  girl's  back ;  and  now  by  sheer 
dint  of  looking  continually  at  her,  he  at 
length  recognized  her,  the  little  sister 
left  behind  in  the  country  with  all  those 
whom  she  had  seen  die,  while  he  had 
been  tossing  on  the  seas.  Then,  sud- 
denly taking  between  his  big  seaman's 
paws  this  head  found  once  more,  he  be- 
gan to  kiss  her,  as  one  kisses  kindred 
.flesh.  And  after  that,  sobs,  a  man's  deep 
sobs,  heaving  like  great  billows,  rose  up 
in  his  throat,  resembling  the  hiccoughs 
of  drunkenness. 

He  stammered: 

"And  this  is  you — this  is  you,  Fran- 
^oise— my  little  Frangoise!" 


Then,  all  at  once,  he  sprang  up,  be- 
gan swearing  in  an  awful  voice,  and 
struck  the  table  such  a  blow  with  his 
fist  that  the  glasses  were  knocked  down 
and  smashed.  After  that,  he  advanced 
three  steps,  staggered,  stretched  out  his 
arms,  and  fell  on  his  face.  And  he  rolled 
on  the  floor,  crying  out,  beating  the 
boards  with  his  hands  and  feet,  and 
uttering  such  groans  that  they  seemed 
like  a  death  rattle. 

All  those  comrades  of  his  stared  at 
him,  and  laughed. 

"He's  not  a  bit  drunk,"  said  one. 

"He  ought  to  be  put  to  bed,"  said 
another. 

"If  he  goes  out,  we'll  all  be  run  in  to- 
gether." 

Then,  as  he  had  money  in  his  poc- 
kets, the  landlady  offered  to  let  him  have 
a  bed,  and  his  comrades,  themselves  so 
much  intoxicated  that  they  could  not 
stand  upright,  hoisted  him  up  the  nar- 
row stairs  to  the  apartment  of  the  wo- 
man who  had  just  been  in  his  company, 
and  who  remained  sitting  on  a  chair,  at 
the  foot  of  that  bed  of  crime,  weeping 
quite  as  freely  as  he  had  wept,  until  the 
morning  dawned. 


Chali 


Admiral  de  la  Vallee,  who  seemed 
to  be  half  asleep  in  his  armchair,  said  in 
a  voice  which  sounded  like  an  old  wo- 
man's • 

"I  had  a  very  singular  little  love  ad- 
venture once;  would  you  like  to  hear 
It?" 

He  spoke  from  the  depths  of  his  great 


armchair,  with  that  everlasting  dry, 
wrinkled  smile  on  his  lips,  that  smile  d 
la  Voltaire,  which  made  people  take 
for  a  terrible  sceptic. 

I. 

"I  was  thirty  years  of  age  and  a  first 
lieutenant  in  the  navy,  when  I  was  in- 


CHALI 


287 


trusted  wii^  an  astronomical  expedition 
to  Central  India.  The  English  Govern- 
ment provided  me  with  all  the  necessary 
means)  for  carrying  out  my  enterprise, 
and  I  was  soon  busied  with  a  few  fol- 
lowers in  that  vast,  strange,  surprising 
country. 

"It  would  take  me  ten  volumes  to 
relate  that  journey.  I  Vv^ent  through 
wonderfully  magnificent  regions,  was  re- 
ceived by  strangely  handsome  princes, 
and  was  entertained  with  incredible  mag- 
nificence. For  two  months  it  seemed  to 
me  as  if  I  were  walking  in  a  fairy  king- 
dom, on  the  back  of  imaginary  elephants. 
In  the  midst  of  wild  forests  I  discovered 
extraordinary  ruins,  delicate  and  chiseled 
like  jewels,  fine  as  lace  and  enormous 
as  mountains,  those  fabulous,  divine 
monuments  which  are  so  graceful  that 
one  falls  in  love  with  their  form  as  with 
a  woman,  feeling  a  physical  and  sensual 
pleasure  in  looking  at  them.  As  Vic- 
tor Hugo  says,  'Whilst  wide-awake,  I 
was  walking  in  a  dream.' 

"Toward  the  end  of  my  journey  I 
reached  Ganhard,  which  was  formerly 
one  of  the  most  prosperous  towns  in 
Central  India,  but  is  now  much  decayed. 
It  is  governed  by  a  wealthy,  arbitrary, 
violent,  generous,  and  cruel  prince.  His 
name  is  Rajah  Maddan,  a  true  Oriental 
potentate,  delicate  and  barbarous,  affa- 
ble and  sanguinary,  combining  feminine 
grace  with  pitiless  ferocity. 

"The  city  lies  at  the  bottom  of  a  val- 
ley, on  the  banks  of  a  little  lake  sur- 
rounded by  pagodas,  which  bathe  their 
walls  in  the  water.  At  a  distance  the 
city  looks  like  a  white  spot,  which  grows 
larger  as  one  approaches  it,  and  by 
degrees  you   discover    the    domes   and 


spires,  the  slender  and  graceful  sum- 
mits of  Indian  monuments. 

"At  about  an  hour  s  distance  from  the 
gates,  I  met  a  superbly  caparisoned  ele- 
phant, surrounded  by  a  guard  of  honor 
which  the  sovereign  had  sent  me,  and  I 
was  conducted  to  the  palace  with  great 
ceremony. 

"X  should  have  liked  to  have  taken 
the  time  to  put  on  my  gala  uniform,  but 
royal  impatience  would  not  admit  of  it. 
He  was  anxious  to  make  my  acquain- 
tance, to  know  what  he  might  expect 
from  me. 

"I  was  ushered  into  a  great  hall  sur- 
rounded by  galleries,  in  the  midst  of 
bronze-colored  soldiers  in  splendid  uni- 
forms, while  all  about  were  standing  men 
dressed  in  striking  robes,  studded  with 
precious  stones. 

"I  saw  a  shining  mass,  a  kind  of  set- 
ting sun  reposing  on  r  bench  like  our 
garden  benches,  without  a  back;  it  was 
the  rajah  who  was  waiting  for  me,  mo- 
tionless, in  a  robe  of  the  purest  canary 
color.  He  had  some  ten  or  fifteen  mil- 
lion francs'  worth  of  diamonds  on  him, 
and  by  itself,  on  his  forehead,  glistened 
the  famous  star  of  Delhi,  which  has  al- 
ways belonged  to  the  illustrious  dynasty 
of  the  Pariharas  of  Mundore,  from 
v/hom  my  host  was  descended. 

"He  was  a  man  of  about  five-and- 
twenty,  who  seemed  to  have  some  negro 
blood  in  his  veins,  although  he  belonged 
to  the  purest  Hindoo  race.  He  had 
large,  almost  motionless,  rather  vague 
eyes,  fat  lips,  a  curly  beard,  low  fore- 
head, and  dazzling  sharp  white  teeth, 
which  he  frequently  showed  with  a  me- 
chanical smile.  He  got  up  and  gave  me 
his  hand  in  the  English  fashion,  and  then 
made  me  sit   down  beside  him  on  a 


288 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


bench  which  was  so  hig'i  that  my  feet 
hardly  touched  the  ground,  and  on 
which  I  was  very  uncomfortable. 

*'He  immediately  proposed  a  tiger 
hunt  for  the  next  day;  war  and  hunting 
were  his  chief  occupations,  and  he  could 
hardly  understand  how  one  could  care 
for  anything  else.  He  was  evidently 
fully  persuaded  that  I  had  only  come  all 
that  distance  to  amuse  him  a  little,  and 
to  be  the  companion  of  his  pleasures. 

"As  I  stood  greatly  in  need  of  his 
assistance,  I  tried  to  flatter  his  tastes, 
and  he  was  so  pleased  with  me  that  he 
Sirmedialely  wished  to  show  me  how 
his  trained  boxers  fought,  and  led  the 
way  into  a  kind  of  arena  situated  with- 
in the  palace. 

"At  his  command  two  naked  men 
appeared,  their  hands  covered  with  steel 
claws.  They  immediately  began  to 
attack  each  other,  trying  to  strike  one 
another  wilh  these  sharp  weapons,  which 
left  long  cuts,  from  which  the  blood 
flowed  f-*ccly  down  their  dark  skins. 

"It  lasted  for  a  long  time,  till  their 
bodies  were  a  mass  of  wounds,  and  the 
combatants  were  tearing  each  other's 
flesh  with  these  pointed  blades.  One  of 
them  had  his  jaw  smashed,  while  the 
ear  of  the  other  was  split  into  three 
pieces. 

"The  prince  looked  on  with  ferocious 
pleasure,  uttei.d  grunts  of  delight,  and 
imitated  all  iheir  movements  with 
careless  gestures,  crying  out  constantly: 

"'Strike,  strike  hard!' 

•'One  fell  down  unconscious  and  had 
to  be  carried  out  of  the  arena,  covered 
with  blood,  while  ^hc  rajah  uttered  a  sigh 
of  regret  because  it  \/as  over  so  soon. 

"He  turned  to  me  to  know  my  c  pin- 
ion; I  was  distrusted,  but  I  congratulated 


him  loudly.  He  then  gave  oraers  thai 
I  'vas  to  be  conducted  to  Kuch-Mahal 
(the  palace  of  pleasure),  where  I  was 
to  be  lodged. 

'This  bijou  palace  was  situated  at  the 
extremity  of  the  royal  park,  and  one  of 
its  walls  was  built  into  the  sacred  lake  of 
Vihara.  It  was  square,  with  three  rows 
of  galleries  with  colonnades  of  most 
beautiful  workmanship.  At  each  angle 
there  were  light,  lofty,  or  low  towers, 
standing  either  singly  or  in  pairs;  no  two 
were  alike,  and  they  looked  like  flowers 
growing  cut  of  that  graceful  plant  of 
Orienial  architecture.  All  were  sur- 
mounted by  fantastic  roofs,  like  coquet- 
tish ladies'  caps. 

"In  the  middle  of  the  edifice  a  large 
dome  raised  its  round  cupola,  like  a 
woman's  bosom,  besiie  a  beautiful 
clock-tower. 

"The  whole  building  was  covered  with 
sculpture  from  top  to  bottom,  with  ex- 
quisite arabesques  which  delighted  the 
eye,  motionless  processions  of  delicate 
figures  whose  attitudes  and  gestures  in 
stone  told  the  story  of  Indian  manners 
and  customs. 

"The  rooms  were  lighted  by  windows 
with  dcntelated  arches,  looking  on  to 
the  gardens.  On  the  marble  floor  were 
designs  of  graceful  bouquets  in  onyx, 
lapis-lazuli,  and  agat?. 

"I  had  scarcely  had  time  to  finish  my 
toilette  when  Haribada,  a  co^rt  digni« 
tary  who  was  specially  'charged  to  com* 
municate  between  the  princj  and  me, 
announced  his  sovereign's  v'  It. 

"The  saffron-colored  rajah  appeared, 
agaJn  shook  hands  with  me,  and  began 
to  lell  me  l  thouiand  different  things, 
constantly  asking  me  lor  my  opinion, 
which  I  had  great  difficulty  in  giving  him 


CHALI 


28ft 


Then  he  wished  to  show  me  the  ruins  of 
the  former  palace  at  the  other  extremity 
oi  the  gardens. 

"It  was  a  real  forest  of  stones  in- 
habited by  a  large  tribe  of  apes.  On  our 
approach  the  males  began  to  run  along 
the  walls,  making  the  most  hideous  faces 
at  us,  while  the  females  ran  away,  carry- 
ing off  their  young  in  their  arms.  The 
rajah  shouted  with  laughter  and  pinched 
my  arm  to  draw  my  attention,  and  to 
testify  his  own  delight,  and  sat  down  in 
the  midst  of  the  ruins,  while  around  us, 
squatting  on  the  top  of  the  walls,  perch- 
ing on  every  eminence,  a  number  of 
animals  with  white  whiskers  put  out 
their  tongues  and  shook  their  fists  at  us. 

"When  he  had  seen  enough  of  this,  the 
yellow  rajah  rose  and  began  to  walk 
sedately  on,  keeping  me  always  at  his 
side,  happy  at  having  shown  me  such 
things  on  the  very  day  of  my  arrival, 
and  reminding  me  that  a  grand  tiger- 
hunt  was  to  take  place  the  next  day,  in 
my  honor. 

"I  was  present  at  it,  at  a  second,  a 
third,  at  ten.  twenty  in  succession.  We 
hunted  all  the  animals  which  the  country 
produces  in  turn ;  the  panther,  the  bear, 
elephant,  antelope,  and  the  crocodile — 
half  the  beasts  in  creation  I  should  say. 
I  was  disgusted  at  seeing  so  much  blood 
flow,  and  tired  of  this  monotonous  plea- 
sure. 

"At  length  the  prince's  ardor  abated 
and,  at  my  urgent  request,  he  left  me 
a  little  leisure  for  work,  contenting  him- 
self by  loading  me  with  costly  presents. 
He  sent  me  jewels,  magnificent  stuffs, 
and  well-broken  animals  of  all  sorts, 
which  Haribada  presented  to  me  with 
apparently  as  grave  respect  as  if  I  had 
been    the    sun    himself,    although    he 


heartily  despised  me  at  the  bottom  of 
his  heart. 

"Every  day  a  procession  of  servants 
brought  me,  in  covered  dishes,  a  portion 
of  each  course  that  was  served  at  the 
royal  table.  Every  day  he  seemed  to 
take  an  extreme  pleasure  in  getting  up 
some  new  entertainment  for  me — dances 
by  the  bayaderes,  jugglers,  reviews  of 
the  troops,  and  I  was  obliged  to  pretend 
to  be  most  delighted  with  it,  so  as  not  to 
hurt  his  feelings  when  he  wished  to 
show  me  his  wonderful  country  in  all  its 
charm  and  all  its  splendor. 

"As  soon  as  I  was  left  alone  for  a 
few  moments  I  either  worked  or  went 
to  see  the  monkeys,  whose  company 
pleased  me  a  great  deal  better  tLan  that 
of  their  royal  master. 

"One  evening,  however,  on  coming 
back  from  a  walk,  I  found  Haribada 
outside  the  gate  of  my  palace.  He  told 
me  in  mysterious  tones  that  a  gift  from 
the  king  was  waiting  for  me  in  my  abode, 
and  he  said  that  his  master  begged  me  to 
excuse  him  for  not  having  sooner 
thought  of  offering  me  that  of  which  I 
had  been  deprived  for  such  a  long  time. 

"After  these  obscure  remarks  the  am* 
bassador  bowed  and  withdrew. 

"When  I  went  in  I  saw  six  little  girls 
standing  against  the  wall,  motionless, 
'side-by-side,  like  smelts  on  a  skewer. 
The  eldest  was  perhaps  ten  and  the 
youngest  eight  years  old.  For  the  first 
moment  I  could  not  understand  why  this 
girls'  school  had  taken  up  its  abode  in 
my  rooms;  then,  however,  I  divined 
the  prince's  delicate  attention:  he  had 
made  me  a  present  of  a  harem,  and  had 
chosen  it  very  young  from  an  excess  of 
generosity.    There,  the  more  unripe  tli6 


290 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


fruit  is,  in  the  higher  estimation  it  is 
held. 

"For  some  time  I  remained  confused, 
embarrassed,  and  ashamed  in  the  pres- 
ence of  these  children,  who  looked  at  me 
with  great  grave  eyes  which  seemed  al- 
ready to  divine  what  I  might  want  of 
them. 

"I  did  not  know  what  to  say  to  them; 
I  felt  inclined  to  send  them  back;  but 
I  could  not  return  the  presents  of  a 
prince;  it  would  have  been  a  mortal  in- 
sult. I  was  obliged,  therefore,  to  install 
this  troop  of  children  in  my  palace. 

"They  stood  motionless,  looking  at 
me,  waiting  for  my  orders,  trying  to 
read  my  thoughts  in  my  eyes.  Con- 
found such  a  present!  How  absurdly  it 
was  in  my  way.  At  last,  thinking  that 
I  must  be  looking  rather  ridiculous,  I 
asked  the  eldest  her  name. 

"  'Chali,'  she  replied. 

"This  Httle  creature,  with  her  beauti- 
ful skin,  which  was  slightly  yellow,  like 
old  ivory,  was  a  marvel,  a  perfect  statue, 
with  her  face  and  its  long  and  severe 
lines. 

"I  then  asked,  in  order  to  see  what 
she  would  reply,  and  also,  perhaps,  to 
embarrass  her: 

"  'What  have  you  come  here  for?' 

"She  replied  in  her  soft,  harmonious 
voice:  'I  have  come  to  be  altogether  at 
my  lord's  disposal,  and  to  do  whatever 
he  wishes.*  She  was  evidently  quite 
resigned. 

"1  put  the  same  question  to  the 
youngest,  who  answered  immediately  in 
her  shrill  voice: 

"  'I  am  here  to  do  whatever  you  ask 
me,  my  master.* 

"This  one  was  like  a  little  mouse,  and 
was  very  taking,  just  as  they  all  were, 


so  I  took  her  in  my  arms  and  kissed  her. 
The  others  made  a  movement  to  go 
away,  thinking,  no  doubt,  that  I  had 
made  my  choice;  but  I  ordered  them  to 
stay,  and  sitting  down  in  the  Indian 
fashion,  I  made  them  all  sit  round  me 
and  began  to  tell  them  fairy-tales,  for  I 
spoke  their  language  tolerably  well. 

"They  listened  very  attentively,  and 
trembled,  wringing  cheir  hands  in  agony. 
Poor  little  things,  they  were  not  thinking 
any  longer  of  the  reason  why  they  were 
sent  10  me. 

"When  I  had  finished  my  story,  1 
called  Latchman,  my  confidential  ser- 
vant, and  made  him  bring  sweetmeats 
and  cakes,  of  which  they  ate  enough  to 
make  themselves  ill.  Then,  as  I  be- 
gan to  find  the  adventure  rather  funny, 
I  organized  games  to  amuse  my  wives. 

"One  of  these  diversions  had  an  enor- 
mous success.  I  made  a  bridge  of  my 
legs  and  the  six  children  ran  under- 
neath, the  smallest  beginning  and  the 
tallest  always  knocking  againsf:  them  a 
little,  because  she  did  not  stoo])  enough. 
It  made  them  shout  with  laughter,  and 
these  young  voices  sounding  through  the 
low  vaults  of  my  sumptuous  palace 
seemed  to  wake  it  up  and  to  people  it 
with  childlike  gaiety  and  life. 

"Next  I  took  great  interest  in  seeing 
to  the  sleeping  apartments  of  my  inno- 
cent concubines,  and  in  the  end  I  saw 
them  safely  locked  up  under  the  surveil- 
lance of  four  female  servants,  whom  the 
prince  had  sent  me  at  the  same  time  in 
order  to  take  care  of  my  sultanas. 

"For  a  week  I  took  the  greatest  plea- 
sure in  acting  the  part  of  a  father  to- 
ward these  living  dolls.  We  had  capital 
games  of  hide-and-seek  and  puss-in-the- 
corner,  which  gave  them  the  greatest 


CHALI 


29: 


pleasure.  Every  day  I  taught  them  a 
new  game,  to  their  intense  delight. 

"My  house  now  seemed  to  be  one 
large  nursery,  and  my  little  friends, 
dressed  in  beautiful  silk  stuffs,  and  in 
materials  embroidered  with  gold  and  sil- 
ver, ran  up  and  down  the  long  galleries 
and  the  quiet  rooms  like  little  human 
animals. 

"Chali  was  an  adorable  little  creature, 
timid  and  gentle,  who  soon  got  to  love 
me  ardently,  with  some  degree  of  shame, 
with  hesitation  as  if  afraid  of  European 
morality,  with  reserve  and  scruples,  and 
yet  with  passionate  tenderness.  I  cher- 
ished her  as  if  I  had  been  her  father. 

"The  others  continued  to  play  in  the 
palace  like  a  lot  of  happy  kittens,  but 
Chali  never  left  me  except  when  I  went 
to  the  prince. 

"We  passed  delicious  hours  together 
in  the  ruins  of  the  old  castle,  among  the 
monkeys,  who  had  become  our  friends. 

"She  used  to  lie  on  my  knees,  and  re- 
main there,  turning  all  sorts  of  things 
over  in  her  little  sphinx's  head,  or  per- 
haps not  thinking  of  anything,  retain- 
ing that  beautiful,  charming,  hereditary 
pose  of  that  noble  and  dreamy  people, 
the  hieratic  pose  of  the  sacred  stacues. 

"In  a  large  brass  dish  I  had  one  day 
brought  provisions,  cakes,  fruits.  The 
apes  came  nearer  and  nearer,  followed 
by  their  young  ones,  who  were  more 
timid;  at  last  they  sat  down  round  us 
in  a  circle,  without  daring  to  come  any 
nearer,  waiting  for  me  to  distribute  my 
delicacies.  Then,  almost  invariably,  a 
male  more  daring  than  the  rest  would 
come  to  me  with  outstretched  hand,  like 
a  beggar,  and  I  would  give  him  some- 
thing, which  he  would  take  to  his  wife. 
All   the   others   immediately  began   to 


utter  furious  cries,  cries  of  rage  and 
jealousy;  and  I  could  not  make  the 
terrible  racket  cease  except  by  throwing 
each  one  his  share. 

"As  I  was  very  comfortable  in  the 
ruins  I  had  my  instruments  brought 
there,  so  that  I  might  be  able  to  work. 
As  soon,  however,  as  they  saw  the  copper 
fittings  on  my  scientific  instruments,  the 
monkeys,  no  doubt  taking  them  for 
some  deadly  engines,  lied  on  all  bides, 
uttering  the  most  piercing  cries. 

"I  often  spent  my  evenings  with 
Chali  on  one  of  the  external  galleries 
that  looked  on  to  the  lake  of  Vihara. 
One  night  in  silence  we  looked  at  the 
bright  moon  gliding  over  the  sky,  throw- 
ing a  mantle  of  trembling  silver  over  the 
v/ater,  and,  on  the  further  shore,  upon 
the  row  of  small  pagodas  like  carved 
mushrooms  with  their  stalks  in  the 
v/ater.  Taking  the  thoughtful  head  of 
my  little  mistress  between  my  hands, 
I  printed  a  long,  soft  kiss  on  her  polished 
brow,  on  her  great  eyes,  which  were  full 
of  the  secret  of  that  ancient  and  fabu- 
lous land,  and  on  her  calm  lips  which 
opened  to  my  caress.  I  felt  a  confused, 
powerful  above  all  a  poetical,  sensa- 
tion, the  sensation  that  I  possessed  a 
whole  race  in  this  little  girl,  that  mys- 
terious race  from  which  all  the  others 
seem  to  have  taken  their  origin. 

"The  prince,  however,  continued  to 
load  me  with  presents.  One  day  he  sent 
me  a  very  unexpected  object,  which  ex- 
cited a  passionate  admiration  in  Chali, 
It  was  merely  one  of  those  cardboard 
boxes  covered  with  shells  stuck  on  out- 
side, which  can  be  bought  at  any  Euro- 
pean seasitle  resort  for  a  penny  or  twa 
But  there  it  was  a  jewel  beyond  price, 
and   no   doubt   was   the   firpt   that    bad 


292 

found  its  way  into  the  kingdom.  I  put 
it  on  a  table  and  left  it  there,  wonder- 
ing at  the  value  which  was  sel  upon  this 
trumpery  article  out  of  a  bazaar. 

"But  Chali  never  got  tired  of  looking 
at  it,  of  admiring  it  ecstatically.  From 
time  to  time  she  would  say  to  me,  'May 
I  touch  it?'  And  when  I  had  given  her 
permission  she  raised  the  lid,  closed  it 
again  with  the  greatest  precaution, 
touched  the  shells  very  gently,  and  the 
contact  seemed  to  give  her  real  physical 
pleasure. 

"However,  I  had  finished  my  scientific 
work,  and  it  was  time  for  me  to  return. 
I  was  a  long  time  in  making  up  my 
mind,  kept  back  by  my  tenderness  for 
my  little  friend,  but  at  last  I  was  obliged 
to  fix  the  day  of  my  departure. 

"The  prince  got  up  fresh  hunting  ex- 
cursions and  fresh  wrestling  matches, 
and  after  a  fortnight  o^  these  pleasures 
I  declared  that  I  could  stay  no  longer, 
and  he  gave  me  my  liberty. 

"My  farewell  from  Chali  was  heart- 
rending. She  wept,  lying  beside  me,  with 
her  head  on  my  breast,  shaken  with 
sobs.  I  did  not  know  how  to  console 
her;  my  kisses  were  no  good. 

"All  at  once  an  idea  struck  me,  and 
getting  up  I  went  and  got  the  shell-box, 
-and  putting  it  into  her  hands,  I  said, 
'That  is  for  you;  it  is  yours.' 

"Then  I  saw  her  smile  at  first.  Her 
whole  face  was  lighted  up  with  internal 
joy,  with  that  profound  joy  which  comes 
when  impossible  dreams  are  suddenly 
realized,  and  she  embraced  me  ardently. 

"All  the  same,  she  wept  bitterly  when 
1  bade  her  a  last  farewell 

"I  gave  paternal  kisses  and  cakes  to 
all  the  rest  of  my  wives,  and  then  I  left 
for  home 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


n. 

"Two  years  had  passed  when  mv 
duties  again  called  me  to  Bombay,  and 
because  I  knew  the  country  and  the 
language  well,  I  was  left  there  to  undei- 
take  another  mission. 

"I  finished  what  I  had  to  do  as 
quickly  as  possible,  and  as  I  had  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  spare  time  on  my 
hands  I  determined  to  go  and  see  my 
friend  Rajah  Maddan  and  my  dear  httle 
Chali  once  more,  though  I  expected  to 
find  her  much  changed. 

*'The  rajah  received  me  with  every 
demonstration  of  pleasure,  and  hardly 
left  me  for  a  moment  during  the  firsi 
day  of  my  visit.  At  night,  however, 
when  I  was  alone,  I  sent  for  Haribada 
and  after  several  misleading  questions 
I  said  to  him: 

"Do  you  know  what  has  become  of 
little  Chali,  whom  the  rajah  gave  me?' 

"He  immediately  assumed  a  sad  and 
troubled  look,  and  said,  in  evident  em- 
barrassment : 

"  'We  had  better  not  speak  of  her.' 

"  'Why?  She  was  a  dear  little  wo- 
man.* 

"  'She  turned  out  badly,  sir.' 

"'What  —  Chali?  What  has  be- 
come of  her?    Where  is  she?' 

"  'I  mean  to  say  that  she  came  to 
a  bad  end.' 

"'A  bad  end!     Is  she  dead?' 

"  'Yes.  She  committed  a  very  dread- 
ful action.' 

"I  was  very  much  distressed.  T  felt 
my  heart  beat ;  my  breast  was  oppressed 
with  grief  and  I  insisted  on  knowing 
what  she  had  done  and  what  had  hap- 
pened to  her. 

"The  man  became  more  and  more  em- 


JEROBOAM 


293 


faarrassed.    and  murmured:      'You  had 
better  not  ask  about  it.' 
"  'But  I  want  to  know.' 
"  'She  stole—' 

"  'Who— Chali?    What  did  she  steal?* 
*'  'Something  that  belonged  to  you.' 
"  'To  me?    What  do  you  mean?' 
"  'The   day  you   left   she   stole   that 
little  box  which   the  prince  had  given 
you;  it  was  found  in  her  hands.' 
"  'What  box  are  you  talking  about?' 
"  'The  box  covered  with  shells.* 
"  'But  I  gave  it  to  her.* 
"The  Hindoo  looked  at  me  with  stupe- 
faction, and  then  replied:  'Well,  she  de- 
clared with  the  most  sacred  oaths  that 
you  had  given   it  to  her,   but  nobody 
could  believe  that  you  could  have  given 
a  king's  present  to  a  slave,  and  so  the 
rajah  had  her  punished,* 


"  'How  was  she  punished?  What  was 
done  to  her?' 

"  'She  was  tied  up  in  a  sack  and 
thrown  into  the  lake  from  this  window, 
from  the  window  of  the  room  in  which 
we  are,  where  she  had  committed  the 
theft.' 

"I  felt  the  most  terrible  grief  that  I 
ever  experienced,  and  made  a  sign  to 
Haribada  to  go  away  so  that  he  might 
not  see  my  tears.  I  spent  the  night  on 
the  gallery  which  looked  on  to  the  lake, 
on  the  gallery  where  I  had  so  often 
held  the  poor  child  on  my  knees,  and 
pictured  to  myself  her  pretty  little  body 
lying  decomposed  in  a  sack  in  the  dark 
waters  beneath  me. 

"The  next  day  I  left  again,  in  spite 
cf  the  rajah's  entreaties  and  evident 
vexation;  and  I  now  still  feel  as  if  I  had 
never  loved  any  woman  but  Chali." 


Jeroboam 


Anyone  who  said,  or  even  insinuated, 
that  the  Reverend  William  Greenfield, 
vicar  of  St.  Sampson's,  Tottenham,  did 
not  make  his  wife  Anna  perfectly  happy, 
would  certainly  have  been  very  mali- 
cious. In  their  twelve  years  of  married 
life  he  had  honored  her  with  twelve 
children,  and  could  anybody  ask  more 
of  a  saintly  man? 

Saintly  even  to  heroism,  in  truth! 
For  his  wife  Anna,  who  was  endowed 
with  invaluable  virtues,  which  made  her 
a  model  among  wives  and  a  paragon 
among  mothers,  had  not  been  equally  en- 
dowed physically.  In  one  word,  she 
was  hideous-     Her  hair,  which  though 


thin  was  coarse,  was  the  color  ot  the 
national  half-and-half,  but  of  thick  half- 
and-half  which  looked  as  if  it  had  been 
already  swallowed  several  times.  Her 
complexion,  which  was  muddy  and  pim- 
ply, looked  as  if  it  were  covered  with 
sand  mixed  with  brick-dust.  Her  teeth, 
which  were  long  and  protruding  seemed 
to  start  out  of  their  sockets  in  order  to 
escape  from  that  almost  lipless  mouth 
whose  sulphurous  breath  had  turned 
them  yellow.  Evidently  Anna  suffered 
from  bile. 

Her  china-blue  eyes  looked  different 
ways,  one  very  much  to  the  right  and 
the  other  very  much  to  the  bft,  with  a 


294 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


frightened  squint;  no  doubt  in  order  that 
they  might  not  see  her  nose,  of  which 
they  felt  ashamed.  They  were  quite 
right!  Thin,  soft,  long,  pendent,  sallow, 
and  ending  in  a  violet  knob,  it  irresisti- 
bly reminded  those  who  saw  it  of  some- 
thing  both  ludicrous  and  indescribable. 
Her  body,  through  the  inconceivable 
irony  of  nature,  was  at  the  same  time 
thin  and  flabby,  wooden  and  chubby, 
without  either  the  elegance  of  slimness 
or  the  rounded  curves  of  stoutness.  It 
might  have  been  taken  for  a  body  which 
had  form.erly  been  fat,  but  which  had 
now  grown  thin,  while  the  covering  had 
remained  stretched  on  the  framework. 

She  was  evidently  nothing  but  skin 
and  bone,  but  had  too  much  bone  and 
too  little  skin. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  reverend  gen- 
tleman had  done  his  duty,  his  whole 
duty,  in  fact  more  than  his  duty,  m 
sacrificing  a  dozen  times  dh  this  altar. 
Yes,  a  dozen  t^raes  biavely  and  loyally! 
His  vnfe  £oald  not  deny  it,  or  dispute 
the  number,  because  the  children  were 
there  to  prove  it-  A  dozen  times,  and 
not  one  less! 

And,  alas!  not  once  more.  This  was 
the  reason  why,  in  spite  of  appearances, 
Mrs.  Anna  Greenfield  ventured  to  think, 
in  the  depths  of  her  heart,  that  the 
Reverend  William  Greenfield,  vicar  of 
St.  Sampson's,  Tottenham,  had  not  made 
her  perfectly  happy.  She  thought  so  all 
the  more  as,  for  four  years  now,  she 
had  been  obliged  to  renounce  all  hope  of 
that  annual  sacrifice,  which  had  been 
so  easy  and  so  regular  formerly,  but 
which  had  now  fallen  into  disuse.  In 
fact,  at  the  birth  of  her  twelfth  child, 
Ihe  reverend  gentleman  had  expressly 
^id  to  ber: 


"God  has  greatly  blessed  our  union, 
my  dear  Anna.  We  have  reached  the 
sacred  number  of  the  Twelve  Tribes  of 
Israel.  Were  we  now  to  persevere  in 
the  works  of  the  flesh  it  would  be  mere 
debauchery,  and  I  cannot  suppose  that 
you  would  wish  me  to  end  my  exem- 
plary life  in  lustful  practices." 

His  wife  blushed  and  looked  down, 
and  the  holy  man,  with  that  legitimate 
pride  of  virtue  which  is  its  own  reward, 
audibly  thanked  Heaven  that  he  was 
"not  as  other  m^en  are." 

A  model  among  wives  and  a  paragon 
of  mothers,  Anna  lived  with  him  for 
four  years  on  those  terms,  without  com- 
plaining to  anyone.  She  contented  her- 
self by  praying  fervently  to  God  that 
He  would  inspire  her  husband  with  the 
desire  to  begin  a  second  series  of  the 
Twelve  Tribes.  At  times  even,  in  or- 
der to  make  her  prayers  more  efficacious, 
she  tried  to  compass  that  end  by  culi- 
nary means.  She  spared  no  pains,  and 
gorged  the  reverend  gentleman  with 
highly  seasoned  dishes — ^hare  soup,  ox- 
tails stewed  in  sherry,  the  green  fat  in 
turtle  soup,  stewed  mushrooms,  Jeru- 
salem artichokes,  celery,  and  horse- 
radish; hot  sauces,  truffies,  hashes  with 
wine  and  cayenne  pepper  in  them,  cur- 
ried lobsters,  pies  made  of  cocks'  combs, 
oysters,  and  the  soft  roe  of  fish.  These 
dishes  were  washed  down  by  strong 
beer  and  generous  wines,  Scotch  ale, 
Burgundy,  dry  champagne,  brandy, 
whisky,  and  gin — in  a  word,  by  that 
numberless  array  of  alcholic  drinks  with 
wnich  the  English  people  love  to  heat 
their  blood. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  reverend 
gentleman's  blood  became  very  heated, 
as  was  shown  by  his  nose  and  cheeks. 


JEROBOAM 


295 


But  in  spite  of  this,  the  powers  above 
were  inexorable,  and  he  remained  quite 
indifferent  as  regards  his  wife,  who  was 
unhappy  and  thoughtful  at  the  sight  of 
that  protruding  nasal  appendage,  which, 
alas!  was  alone  in  its  glory. 

She  became  thinner,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  flabbier  than  ever.  She  almost 
began  to  lose  her  trust  in  God,  when, 
suddenly,  she  had  an  inspiration:  was 
it  not,  perhaps,  the  work  of  the  devil? 

She  did  not  care  to  inquire  too  closely 
into  the  matter,  as  she  thought  it  a 
very  good  idea.    It  was  this: 

"Go  to  the  Universal  Exhibition  in 
Paris,  and  there,  perhaps,  you  will  dis- 
cover how  to  make  yourself  loved." 

Decidedly  luck  favored  her,  for  her 
iiusband  immediately  gave  her  permis- 
sion to  go.  As  soon  as  she  got  into 
the  Esplanade  des  Invalides  she  saw  the 
Algerian  dancers  and  said  to  herself: 

"Surely  this  would  inspire  William 
with  the  desire  to  be  the  father  of  the 
thirteenth  tribe!" 

But  how  could  she  manage  to  get  him 
to  be  present  at  such  abominable  orgies? 
For  she  could  not  hide  from  herself  that 
it  was  an  abominable  exhibition,  and  she 
knew  how  scandalized  he  would  be  at 
■^heir  voluptuous  movements.  She  had 
no  doubt  that  the  devil  had  led  her  there, 
but  she  could  not  take  her  eyes  off  the 
scene,  and  it  gave  her  an  idea.  So  for 
nearly  a  fortnight  you  might  have  seen 
the  poor,  unattractive  woman  sitting  and 
attentively  and  curiously  v/atching  the 
swaying  hips  of  the  Algerian  women. 
She  was  learning. 

The  eveiiing  ot  her  return  to  London 
she  rushed  inco  her  husband's  bedroom, 
disrobed  herself  in  an  instant,  retaining 
only  a  thin  gauze  covering.,  and  for  the 


first  time  in  her  life  appeared  before  him 
in  all  the  ugliness  of  semi-nudity. 

"Come,  come,"  the  saintly  man  stam- 
mered ou*,,  "are  you — are  you  mad, 
Anna!  What  demon  possesses  you? 
Why  inflict  the  disgrace  of  such  a  spec- 
tacle on  me?" 

But  she  did  not  listen  to  him,  did  not 
reply,  and  suddenly  began  to  sway  her 
hips  about  like  an  almah.'^  The  rev^ 
erend  gentleman  could  not  believe  his 
eyes;  in  his  stupefaction,  he  did  not 
think  of  covering  them  with  his  hands 
or  even  of  shutting  them.  He  looked  at 
her  stupefied  and  dumfounded,  a  prey 
to  the  hypnotism  of  ugliness.  He 
watched  her  as  she  advanced  and  re- 
tired, as  she  swayed  and  skipped  and 
wriggled  and  postured  in  extraordinary 
attitudes.  For  a  long  time  he  sat  mo- 
tionless and  almost  unable  to  speak.  He 
only  said  in  a  low  voice : 

"Oh,  Lord!  To  think  that  twelve 
times — twelve  times- -a  whole  dozen!" 

Then  she  fell  into  a  chair,  panting 
and  worn  out,  and  saying  to  herself: 

**Thank  Heaven!  \Villiam  looks  as 
he  used  to  do  formerly  on  the  days 
that  he  honored  me.  Thank  Heaven! 
There  will  be  a  thirteenth  tribe,  and 
then  a  fresh  series  of  tribes,  for  WiUiam 
is  very  methodical  in  all  that  he  does!" 

But  William  merely  took  a  blanket  off 
the  bed  and  threw  it  over  her,  saying  in 
a  voice  of  thunder: 

"Your  name  is  no  longer  Anna,  Mrs. 
Greenfield;  for  the  future  you  shall  be 
called  Jezebel.  I  only  regret  that  I 
have  twelve  times  mingled  my  blood 
with  your  impure  blood."  And  then, 
seized  by  pity,  he  added :    *'If  you  were 


♦Egyptian  dancing-  girl. — (Translator.) 


296 

only  in  a  state  of  inebriety,  of  intoxica- 
tion, 1  could  excuse  you." 

"Oh,  William!"  she  exclaimed,  repen- 
tantly, *'I  am  in  that  state.  Forgive  me, 
William— forgive  a  poor  drunken  wo- 
man!" 

"I  will  forgive  you,  Anna,"  he  re- 
plied, and  he  pointed  to  a  wash-basin, 
saying:  "Cold  water  will  do  you  good, 
and  when  your  head  is  clear,  remember 
the  lesson  which  you  must  learn  from 
this  occurrence." 

"What  lesson?"  she  asked,  humbly. 

"That  people  ought  never  to  depart 
from  their  usual  habits." 

"But  why,  then,  William,"  she  asked, 
timidly,  "have  you  changed  your 
habits?" 

"Hold  your  tongue!"  he  cried,  "hold 
your  tongue,  Jezebel !  Have  you  not  got 
over  your  intoxication  yet?  For  twelve 
years  I  certainly  followed  the  divine 
precept:  'increase  and  multiply,'  once  a 
year.  But  since  then,  I  have  grown 
accustomed  to  something  else,  and  I  do 
not  wish  to  alter  my  habits." 

.\nd   the   Reverend   William   Green- 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


field  vicar  of  St.  Sampson's,  Totten- 
ham, the  saintly  man  whose  blood  was 
inflamed  by  heating  food  and  liquor, 
whose  ears  were  like  full-blown  poppies, 
and  who  had  a  nose  like  a  tomato,  left 
his  wife  and,  as  had  been  his  habit  for 
four  years,  went  to  make  love  to  Polly, 
the  servant. 

"Now,  Polly,"  he  said,  "you  are  a 
clever  girl,  and  I  mean,  through  you, 
to  teach  Mrs.  Greenfield  a  lesson  she 
will  never  forget.  I  will  try  and  see 
what  I  can  do  for  you." 

And  to  accomplish  this,  he  took  her 
to  Mrs.  Greenfield,  called  the  latter  his 
little  Jezebel,  and  said  to  her,  with  an 
unctuous  smile: 

**Call  me  Jeroboam!  You  don't  un- 
derstand why?  Neither  do  I,  but  that 
does  not  matter.  Take  off  all  your 
things,  Polly,  and  show  yourself  to  Mrs. 
Greenfield." 

The  servant  did  as  she  was  bidden, 
and  the  result  was  that  Mrs.  Greenfield 
never  again  hinted  to  her  husband  the 
desirability  of  laying  the  foundations 
of  a  thirteenth  tribe. 


Virtue  in  the  Ballet 


It  is  a  strange  feeling  of  pleasure  that 
*he  writer  about  the  stage  and  about 
theatrical  characters  in  general  feels 
when  he  occasionally  discovers  a  good, 
honest  human  heart  in  the  twilight  be- 
hind the  scenes.  Of  all  the  witches  and 
semi-witches  of  that  eternal  Walpurgis 
Night,  whose  boards  represent  the 
world,  the  ladies  of  the  ballet  have  at 
all  tiroes  and  in  all  places  been  regarded 
as  least  like  saints,  although  Hacklan- 


der  repeatedly  tried  in  vain,  in  his 
earlier  novels,  to  convince  us  that  true 
virtue  appears  in  tights  and  short  petti- 
coats, and  is  only  to  be  found  in  ballet 
girls.  I  fear  that  the  popular  voice  is 
right  as  a  general  rule,  but  it  is  equally 
true  that  here  and  there  one  finds  a  pearl 
in  the  dust,  and  even  in  the  dirt.  The 
short  story  that  I  am  about  to  tell  will 
best  justify  my  assertion. 

Whenever    a    new.    youthful    dancei 


VIRTUE  IN  THE  BALLET 


297 


appeared  at  the  Vienna  Opera  House, 
the  habitues  began  to  go  after  her,  and 
did  not  rest  until  the  fresh  young  rose 
had  been  plucked  by  some  hand  or  other 
though  often  it  was  old  and  trembling. 
For  how  could  those  young  and  pretty, 
sometimes  even  beautiful,  girls — with 
every  r^ght  to  life,  love,  and  pleasure, 
but  poor  and  on  a  very  small  salary — 
resist  the  seduction  of  the  smell  of 
flowers  and  of  the  flash  of  diamonds? 
And  if  one  resisted  it,  it  was  love,  some 
real,  strong  passion,  that  gave  her  the 
strength;  generally,  however,  only  to 
go  after  luxury  all  the  more  shamelessly 
and  selfishly,  when  her  lover  forsook 
her. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  winter  sea- 
son of  185 —  the  pleasing  news  was 
spread  among  the  habitues,  that  a  girl 
of  dazzling  beauty  was  going  to  appear 
very  shortly  in  the  ballet  at  the  Court 
Theater.  When  the  evening  came,  no- 
body had  yet  seen  the  much  discussed 
phenomenon,  but  report  spread  her 
name  from  mouth  to  mouth:  it  was 
Satanella.  The  moment  the  troop  of 
slactic  figures  in  fluttering  petticoats 
jumped  on  to  the  stage,  every  opera- 
glass  in  the  boxes  and  stalls  was  directed 
on  the  stage,  and  at  the  same  instant  the 
new  dancer  was  discovered,  although  she 
timidly  kept  in  the  background. 

She  was  one  of  those  girls  who  seem 
crowned  with  the  bright  halo  of  vir- 
ginity, but  at  the  same  time  present 
a  splendid  type  of  womanhood.  She 
had  the  voluptuous  form  of  Ruben's 
second  wife,  whom  they  called,  not  im- 
truly,  a  reincarnated  Helen,  and  her 
head  with  its  delicate  nose,  its  small,  full 
mouth,  and  its  dark,  enquiring  eyes  re- 
minded people  of  the  celebrated  picture 


of  the  Flemish  Venus  in  the  Belvedere 
in  Vienna. 

She  took  the  old  guard  of  the  Vienna 
Court  Theater  by  storm,  and  the  very 
next  morning  a  perfect  shower  of  billets^ 
doux,  jewels,  and  bouquets  fell  into  the 
poor  ballet-girl's  attic.  For  a  moment 
she  was  dazzled  by  all  this  splendor,  and 
looked  at  the  gold  bracelets,  the  brooches 
set  with  rubies  and  emeralds,  and  at  the 
sparkling  earrings,  with  flushed  cheeks. 
Then  an  unspeakable  terror  of  being 
lost  and  of  sinking  into  degradation 
seized  her,  and  she  pushed  the  jewels 
away  and  was  about  to  send  them  back. 
But  as  is  usual  in  such  cases,  her  mother 
intervened  in  favor  of  the  generous 
gentlemen,  and  so  the  jewels  were 
accepted,  but  the  notes  which  accom- 
panied them  were  not  answered.  A 
second  and  a  third  discharge  of  Cupid's 
artillery  followed  without  making  any 
impression  on  that  virtuous  girl ;  in  con- 
sequence a  great  number  of  her  admirers 
grew  quiet,  though  some  continued  to 
send  her  presents  and  to  assail  her  with 
love  letters.  One  had  the  courage  to 
go  still  further. 

He  was  a  wealthy  banker  who  had 
called  on  the  mother  of  Henrietta,  as 
we  will  call  the  fair-haired  ballet-girl, 
and  then  one  evening,  quite  unexpect- 
edly, on  the  girl  herself.  He  by  no 
means  met  with  the  reception  which  he 
had  expected  from  the  pretty  girl  in  the 
faded,  cotton  gown.  Henrietta  treated 
him  with  a  certain  amount  of  good- 
humored  respect,  which  had  a  much 
more  unpleasant  effect  on  him  than  that 
coldness  and  prudery  which  is  often  co- 
existent with  coquetry  and  selfish  specu- 
lation among  a  certain  class  of  women. 
In  spite  of  everything,  however,  he  soon 


2Q8 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


went  to  see  her  daily,  and  lavished  his 
wealth  on  the  beautiful  dancer,  without 
request  on  her  pan  and  gave  her  no 
chance  of  refusing,  for  he  relied  on  the 
mother  for  everything.  The  mother 
took  pretty,  small  apartments  for  her 
daughter  and  herself  in  the  Kiirntner- 
strasse  and  furnished  them  elegantly, 
hired  a  cook  and  housemaid,  made  an 
arrangement  with  a  fly-driver,  and  lastly 
clothed  her  daughter's  lovely  lines  in 
silk,  velvet,  and  valuable  lace. 

Henrietta  persistently  held  her 
tongue  at  all  this;  only  once  she  said  to 
her  mother,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Stock  Exchange  Jupiter: 

"Have  you  won  a  prize  in  the  lot- 
tery?" 

"Of  course,  I  have,"  her  mother  re- 
plied with  a  laugh. 

The  girl,  however,  had  given  away 
her  heart  long  before,  and,  contrary  to 
all  precedent,  to  a  man  of  whose  very 
name  she  was  ignorant,  who  sent  her 
no  diamonds,  and  not  even  flowers.  But 
he  was  young  and  good-looking,  and 
stood,  so  retiringly  and  so  evidently  in 
love,  at  the  small  side  door  of  the  Opera 
House  every  night,  when  she  got  out  of 
her  antediluvian  and  rickety  fly,  and  also 
when  she  got  into  it  again  after  the  per- 
formance, that  she  could  not  help  notic- 
ing him.  Soon,  he  began  to  follow  her 
wherever  she  went,  and  once  he  sum- 
moned up  courage  to  speak  to  her,  when 
she  had  been  to  see  a  friend  in  a  remote 
suburb.  He  was  very  nervous,  but  she 
thought  all  that  he  said  very  clear  and 
logical,  and  she  did  not  hesitate  for  a 
moment  to  confess  that  she  returned 
his  love. 

*Tou  have  made  me  the  happiest,  and 


at  the  same  time,  the  most  wretched 
of  men,"  he  said  after  a  pause. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  said  inno- 
cently. 

"Do  you  not  belong  to  another  man?" 
he  asked  her  in  a  sad  voice. 

She  shook  her  abundant,  light  curls 

"Up  till  now  I  have  belonged  to  my- 
self alone,  and  I  will  prove  it  to  you,  by 
requesting  you  to  call  upon  me  fre- 
quently and  without  restraint.  Every- 
one shall  know  that  we  are  lovers.  I 
am  not  ashamed  of  belonging  to  an 
honorable  man,  but  I  will  not  sell  my- 
self." 

"But  your  splendid  apartments,  and 
your  dresses,"  her  lover  interposed 
shyly;  "you  cannot  pay  for  them  out 
of  your  salary." 

"My  mother  has  won  a  large  prize 
in  the  lottery,  or  made  a  hit  on  the 
Stock  Exchange."  And  with  these 
words,  the  determined  girl  cut  short  all 
further  explanations. 

That  same  evening  the  young  man 
paid  his  first  visit,  to  the  horror  of  the 
girl's  mother,  who  was  so  devoted  to 
the  Stock  Exchange,  and  he  came  again 
the  next  day,  and  nearly  every  day. 
Her  mother's  reproaches  wero  of  no 
more  avail  than  Jupiter's  furious  looks, 
and  when  the  latter  one  day  asked  for 
an  explanation  as  to  certain  visits,  the 
girl  said  proudly: 

"That  is  very  soon  explained.  He 
loves  me  as  I  love  him,  and  I  presume 
you  can  guess  the  rest." 

And  he  certainly  did  guess  the  rest 
and  disappeared,  and  with  him  the 
shower  of  gold  ceased. 

The  mother  cried  and  the  daughter 
laughed.  "I  never  gave  the  wornout 
old  rake  any  hopes,  and  what  does  it 


VIRTUE  IN   THE   BALLET 


matter  to  me  what  bargain  you  made 
with  him?  I  always  thought  that  you 
had  been  lucky  on  the  Stock  Exchange. 
Now,  however,  we  must  seriously  con- 
sider about  giving  up  our  apartments, 
and  make  up  our  minds  to  live  as  we 
did  before." 

"Are  you .  really  capable  of  making 
such  a  sacrifice  for  me,  to  renounce  lux- 
ury and  to  have  my  poverty?"  her  lover 
said. 

"Certainly  I  aiii'  Is  not  that  a 
matter  of  course  when  one  loves?"  the 
ballet-girl  replied  in  surprise. 

"Then  let  me  inform  you,  my  dear 
Henrietta,"  he  said,  "that  I  am  not  so 
poor  as  you  think;  I  only  wished  to 
find  out  whether  I  could  make  myself 
loved  for  my  own, sake,  and  I  have  done 

so.     I  am  Count  L ,  and  though  I 

am  a  minor  and  dependent  on  my 
parents,  yet  I  have  enough  to  be  able 
to  retain  your  pretty  rooms  for  you, 
and  to  offer  you,  if  not  a  luxurious,  at 
any  rate  a  comfortable  existence." 

On  hearing  this  the  mother  dried  her 
tears  immediately.  Count  L be- 
came the  girl's  acknowledged  lover,  and 
they  passed  the  happiest  hours  together. 
Unselfish  as  the  girl  was,  she  was  yet 
such  a  thoroughly  ingenuous  Viennese, 
that,  whenever  she  saw  anything  that 
took  her  fancy,  whether  it  was  a  dress,  a 
cloak,  or  one  of  those  pretty  little  orna- 
ments for  a  side  table,  she  used  to  ex- 
press her  admiration  in  such  terms  as 
forced  her  lover  to  make  her  a  present 
of  the  object  in  question.    In  this  way 

Count  L incurred  enormous  debts, 

vhich  his  father  paid  repeatedly;  at  last, 
however,  he  inquired  into  the  cause  of 
all  this  extravagance,  and  when  he  dis- 
covered it  he  gave  his  son  the  choice 


of  giving  up  his  connection  with  the 
dancer,  or  of  relinquishing  all  claims  on 
the  paternal  money  box. 

It    was    a    sorrowful    evening,    when 

Count  L told  his  mistress  of  his 

father's  determination. 

'*If  I  do  not  give  you  up  I  shall  bt 
able  to  do  nothing  for  you,"  he  said 
at  last,  "and  I  shall  not  even  know 
how  I  should  manage  to  live  myself,  foi 
my  father  is  just  the  man  to  allow  me 
to  want,  if  I  defy  him.  That,  however, 
is  a  very  secondary  consideration;  but  as 
a  man  of  honor,  I  cannot  bind  you,  who 
have  every  right  to  luxury  and  enjoy- 
ment, to  myself,  from  the  moment  when 
I  cannot  even  keep  you  from  want,  and 
so  I  must  set  you  at  liberty." 

"But  I  will  not  give  you  up,"  Hen- 
rietta said  proudly. 

The  young  Count  shook  his  head 
sadly. 

"Do  you  love  me?"  the  ballet-girl  said 
quickly. 

"More  than  my  life." 

"Then  we  will  not  separate,  as  long 
as  I  have  anything,"  she  continued. 

And  she  would  not  give  up  her  con- 
nection with  him,  and  when  his  father 

actually  turned  Count  L into  the 

street,  she  took  her  lover  into  her  own 
lodgings.  He  obtained  a  situation  as  a 
copying  clerk  in  a  lawyer's  office,  and 
she  sold  her  valuable  dresses  and  jewels. 
Thus  they  lived  for  more  than  a  year. 

The  young  man's  father  did  not  appear 
to  trouble  his  head  about  them,  but 
nevertheless  he  knew  everything  that 
went  on  in  their  small  home,  and  knew 
every  article  that  the  ballet-girl  sold.  At 
last,  softened  by  such  love  and  strength 
of  character,  he  himself  made  the  first 


300 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


advances  to  a  reconciliation  with  his  son.  she  was  a  ballet-girl.    Now  she  sits  hy 

At   the  present  time  Henrietta  wears  the  side  of  her  husband  in  a  carriage  on 

the  diamonds  which  formerly  belonged  whose  panels  their  armorial  bearings  are 

to  the  old  Countess,  and  it  is  long  since  painted 


The  Double  Pins 


Ah!  my  dear  fellow,  \^at  jades  wo- 
men are!" 

"What  makes  you  say  that?" 

'Because  they  have  played  me  an 
ibominaDle  trick." 

"You?" 

"Yes,  me." 

"Women,  or  a  woman?" 

"Two  women." 

"Two  women  at  once?" 

"Yes." 

"What  was  the  trick?" 

The  two  young  men  were  sittirig  out- 
side a  cafe  on  the  Boulevards,  and  drink- 
ing liqueurs  mixed  with  water,  those 
aperients  which  look  hke  infusions  of  all 
the  tints  in  a  box  of  water-colors.  They 
were  nearly  the  same  age:  twenty-five 
to  thirty.  One  v/as  dark  and  the  other 
fair,  and  they  had  the  same  semi-ele- 
gant look  of  stockjobbers,  of  men  who 
go  to  the  Stock  Exchange,  and  into 
drawing-rooms,  who  are  to  be  seen 
everywhere,  who  live  everywhere,  and 
love  everywhere.  The  dark  one  con- 
tinued. 

"I  have  told  you  of  my  connection 
with  that  little  woman,  a  tradesman's 
wife,  whom  I  met  on  the  beach  at 
Dieppe?" 

'Tes" 

"My  dear  fellow,  you  know  how  it  is. 
I  bad  a  mistress  in  Paris  whom  I  \ow9 


dearly,  an  old  friend,  a  good  friend, 
who  is  virtually  a  habit,  in  fact — one 
I  value  very  much." 

"Your  habit?" 

"Yes,  my  habit,  and  hers  also.  She 
is  married  to  an  excellent  man,  whom 
I  also  value  very  moch,  a  very  cordial 
fellow  and  a  capital  companion !  I  may 
say  that  my  life  is  bound  up  with  that 
house." 

"Well?" 

"Well!  they  could  not  manage  to 
leave  Paris,  and  I  found  myself  a 
widower  at  Dieppe." 

"Why  did  you  go  to  Dieppe?" 

"For  change  of  air.  One  cannot  re- 
main on  the  Boulevards  the  whole  time." 

"And  then?" 

"ITien  I  met  the  little  woman  I  men* 
tioned  to  you  on  the  beach  there." 

"The  wife  of  that  head  of  a  public 
office?" 

"Yes,  she  was   dreadfully  dull;    her 
husband  only  came  every  Sunday,  and 
he  is  horrible!     I  understood  her  per- 
fectly, and  we  laughed  and  danced  to 
gether." 

"And  the  rest?" 

"Yes,  but  that  came  later.  However, 
we  met,  and  we  liked  each  other.  I  told 
her  I  liked  her,  and  she  made  me  repeat 
it,    so    that    .she    might    understand   i* 


THE  DOUBLE  PIN: 


301 


better,  and  she  put  no  obstacles  in  my 
way." 

"Did  you  love  her?" 
** Yes  a  little !  she  is  very  nice." 
*'And  what  about  the  other?'' 
"The  other  was  in  Paris!     Well,  for 
six  weeks  it  was  very  pleasant,  and  we  re- 
turned here  on  the  best  of  terms.     Do 
you  know  how  to  break  with  a  woman, 
when  that  woman  has  not  wronged  you 
in  any  way?" 

"Yes,   perfectly  well." 
"How  do  you  manage  it?" 
"I  give  her  up." 
"How  do  you  do  it?" 
"I  do  not  see  her  any  longer." 
•'But  supposing  she  comes  to  you?" 
"I  am  not  at  home." 
"And  if  she  comes  again?" 
"I  say  I  am  not  well." 
"If  she  looks  after  you?" 
"I  play  her  some  dirty  trick." 
"And  if  she  puts  up  with  it?" 
"I  WTite  her  husband  anonymous  let- 
ters, so  that  he  may  look  after  her  on 
the  days  that  I  expect  her." 

"That  is  serious !  I  cannot  resist,  and 
do  not  know  how  to  bring  about  a  rup- 
ture, and  so  I  have  a  collection  of  mis- 
tresses. There  are  some  whom  I  do 
not  see  more  than  once  a  year,  others 
every  ten  months,  others  on  those  days 
when  they  want  to  dine  at  a  restaurant, 
those  whom  I  have  put  at  regular  inter- 
vals do  not  worry  me,  but  I  often  have 
great  difficulty  with  the  fresh  ones,  so  as 
to  keep  them  at  proper  intervals." 
"And  then?" 

"And  then — ^then,  this  little  woman 
was  all  iire  and  flame,  without  any  fault 
<ot  mine,  as  I  told  you !  As  her  husband 
spends  all  the  whole  day  at  the  office,  she 
began  to  come  to  me  unexpectedly,  and 


twice  she  nearly  met  my  regular  one 
on  the  stairs." 

"The  devil!" 

"Yes;  so  I  gave  each  of  them  her 
days,  regular  days,  to  avoid  confusion, 
Saturday  and  Monday  for  the  old  one, 
Tuesday,  Friday,  and  Sunday  for  the 
new  one." 

"Why  did  you  show  her  the  prefer- 
ence?" 

"Ah !  My  dear  friend,  she  is  younger." 

"So  that  only  gave  you  two  days  to 
yourself  in  a  week." 

"That  is  enough  for  one." 

"Allow  me  to  compliment  you  on 
that." 

"Well,  just  fancy  that  the  most  ridic- 
ulous and  most  annoying  thing  in  the 
world  happened  to  me.  For  four  months 
everything  had  been  going  on  per- 
fectly ;  I  felt  quite  safe,  and  I  was  leally 
very  happy,  when  suddenly,  last  Mon- 
day, the  crash  came. 

"I  was  expecting  my  regular  one  at 
the  usual  time,  a  quarter  past  one,  and 
was  smoking  a  good  cigar,  dreaming, 
very  well  satisfied  with  myself,  when 
I  suddenly  saw  that  it  was  past  the  time. 
I  was  much  surprised  for  she  is  very 
punctual,  but  I  thought  that  something 
might  have  accidentally  delayed  her. 
However,  half  an  hour  passed,  then  an 
hour,  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  then  I 
knew  that  something  must  have  de- 
tained her — a  sick  headache,  perhaps,  or 
some  annoying  visitor.  That  sort  of 
waiting  is  very  vexatious,  very  annoying, 
and  enervating.  At  last  I  made  up  my 
mind  to  go  out,  and  not  knowing  what 
to  do,  I  went  to  her  and  found  her 
reading  a  novel. 

"  'Well,'  I  said  to  her.  And  she  rcw 
plied  quite  calmlv. 


302 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"  *My  dear,  1  could  not  come,  I  was 

hindered.' 

**  'How?' 

*•  'By  something  else/ 

*•  'What  was  it?' 

"  'A  very  annoying  visit.* 

*'I  saw  she  would  not  tell  me  the 
true  reason,  anc  as  she  was  very  calm, 
I  did  not  trouMe  myself  any  more  about 
it,  hoping  to  mak^  up  for  lost  time  with 
the  other  next  day.  On  the  Tuesday  I 
was  very  excited  and  amorous  in  expec- 
tation of  the  public  official's  little  wife, 
and  I  was  surprised  that  she  did  not 
come  before  the  appointed  time.  I 
looked  at  the  clock  every  moment,  and 
watched  the  hands  impatiently,  but  the 
quarter  parsed,  then  the  half  hour,  then 
two  o'clock.  I  could  not  sit  still  any 
longer,  and  walked  up  and  down  very 
soon  in  great  strides,  putting  my  face 
against  the  window,  and  my  ears  to 
the  door,  to  listen  whether  she  was  not 
coming  upstairs. 

"Half  past  two,  three  o'clock!  I 
seized  my  hat,  rushed  to  her  house.  She 
was  reading  a  novel,  my  dear  fellow! 
'Well!'  I  said  anxiously,  and  she  replied 
as  calmly  as  usual: 

"  1  was  hindered,  and  could  not 
come.' 

"  'By  what?' 

"  'An  annoying  visit.* 

"Of  course  I  immediately  thought 
that  they  both  knew  everything,  but 
she  seemed  so  calm  and  quiet  that  I  set 
aside  my  suspicions,  and  thought  it  was 
only  some  strange  coincidence,  as  I 
jould  not  believe  in  such  dissimulation 
on  her  part.  And  so,  after  half-an- 
hour's  friendly  talk,  which  was,  however, 
interrupted  a  dozen  times  by  her  little 
!<irl  coming  in  and  out  of  the  room,  I 


went  away  very  n\uch  annoyed.    Just 
imagine  the  next  day." 

"The  same  thing  happened?" 

"Yes,  and  the  next  also.  And  that 
went  on  for  three  weeks  without  any 
explanation,  without  anything  explaining 
such  strange  conduct  to  me,  the  secret 
of  which  I  suspected,  however." 

"They  knew  everything?" 

"I  should  think  so,  by  George.  But 
how?  Ah!  I  had  a  great  deal  of  anx- 
iety before  I  found  it  out." 

"How  did  you  manage  it  at  last?" 

"From  their  letters,  for  on  the  same 
day  they  both  gave  me  their  dismissal 
in  identical  terms." 

"Well?" 

"This  is  how  it  wfis:  You  know  that 
women  always  have  an  array  of  pins 
about  them.  I  knciv  hairpins,  I  doubt 
them,  and  look  after  them,  but  the 
others  are  much  more  treacherous,  those 
confounded  little  black-headed  pins 
which  look  all  alike  to  us,  great  fools 
that  we  are,  but  which  they  can  distin- 
guish, just  as  we  can  distinguish  a 
horse  from  a  dog. 

"Wei!,  it  appears  that  one  day  my 
official's  little  wife  left  one  of  those 
telltale  instruments  pinned  to  the  paper, 
close  to  my  looking-glass.  My  usual  one 
had  immediately  seen  this  little  black 
speck,  no  bigger  than  a  flea,  had  taken 
it  out  without  saying  a  word  and  had 
left  one  of  her  pins,  which  was  also 
black,  but  of  a  different  pattern,  in  the 
same  place. 

"The  next  day,  the  official's  wife 
wished  to  recover  her  property,  and  im- 
mediately recognized  the  substitution. 
Then  her  suspicions  were  aroused,  and 
she  put  in  two  and  crossed  them.  My 
original  one  replied  to  this  telegraphic 


HOW  HE  GOT  THE  LEGION  OF  HONOR 


303 


signal  by  three  black  pellets,  one  on  the 
top  01  the  other,  and  as  soon  as  this 
method  had  begun,  they  continued  to 
communicate  with  one  another,  without 
saying  a  word,  just  to  spy  on  each  other. 
Then  it  appears  that  the  regular  one, 
being  bolder,  wrapped  a  tiny  piece  of 
paper  round  the  little  wire  point,  and 
wrote  upon  it: 

"*C.  D.,  Poste  Rcstante,  Boulevard 
Alalherbes/ 

"Then  they  wrote  to  each  other.  You 
understand  that  was  not  everything  that 
passed  between  them.  They  set  to 
work  with  precaution,  with  a  thousand 
stratagems,  with  all  the  prudence  that 
is  necessary  in  such  cases,  but  the  regu- 
lar one  made  a  bold  stroke,  and  made 
&n  appointment  with  the  other.   I  do  not 


know  what  they  said  to  each  other,  all 
that  I  know  is  that  I  had  to  pay  the 
costs  of  their  interview.  There  you 
have  it  all!" 

"Is  that  all?" 

"Yes." 

"And  you  do  not  see  them  any  more?*' 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  I  see  them  as 
friends,  for  we  have  not  quarreled  alto- 
gether." 

"And  have  they  met  again?" 

"Yes,  my  dear  fellow,  they  have  be- 
come intimate  friends." 

"And  has  not  that  given  you  ax^ 
idea?" 

"No,  what  idea?" 

"You  great  booby!  The  idea  of  mak- 
ing them  put  back  the  pins  where  they 
found  them.*** 


How  He  Got  the  Legion  of  Honor 


Some  people  are  born  with  a  predom- 
inant instinct,  with  some  vocation  or 
some  desire  which  demands  recognition 
as  soon  as  they  begin  to  speak  or  to 
think. 

Ever  since  he  was  a  child  Monsif»ur 
Caillard  had  only  had  one  idea  in  his 
head — to  be  decorated.  When  he  was 
still  quite  a  small  boy  he  used  to  wear 
a  zinc  Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  in 
his  tunic,  just  like  other  children  wear 
a  soldier's  cap,  and  he  vook  his  mother's 
hand  in  the  street  with  a  proud  look, 
sticking  out  his  little  chest  with  its  red 
ribbon  and  metal  star  so  that  it  might 
show  to  advantage, 
r    Kis  studies  were  not  a  succe.«s,  and 


he  failed  in  his  examination  for  Bache* 
lor  of  Arts  so,  not  knowing  what  to  do, 
he  marrieA  a  pretty  girl,  for  he  had 
plenty  of  money  of  his  own. 

They  *ived  in  Paris,  like  many  rich 
middle-class  people  do,  mixing  with 
their  own  particular  set,  without  going 
amont  other  people,  proud  of  knowing  a 
Deputy,  who  might  perhaps  be  a  Min- 
ister some  day,  while  two  Chiefs  of  Di- 
vision were  among  their  friends. 

But  Monsieur  Caillard  could  not  get 
rid  of  his  one  absorbing  idea,  and  he 
felt  constantly  unhappy  because  he  had 
not  the  right  to  wear  a  little  bit  ol 
colored  ribbon  in  his  buttonhole. 

When  he  met  anv  men  who  were 


io4 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


decorated  on  the  Boulevards,  he  looked 
at  them  askance,  with  intense  jealousy. 
Sometimes,  when  he  had  nothing  to  do 
in  the  afternoon,  he  would  count  them, 
and  say  to  himself:  "Just  let  me  see 
how  many  I  shall  meet  between  the 
Madeleine  and  the  Rue  Drouot." 

Then  he  would  walk  slowly,  looking 
at  every  coat,  with  a  practiced  eye, 
for  the  little  bit  of  red  ribbon,  and 
when  he  had  got  to  the  end  of  his  walk 
he  always  said  the  numbers  oui  loud. 
"Eight  officers  and  seventeen  krnghts. 
As  many  as  that!  It  is  stupid  to  sow 
the  Cross  broadcast  in  that  fashion.  I 
wonder  how  many  I  shall  meet  going 
back?" 

And  he  returned  slowly,  unhappy 
when  the  crowd  of  passers-by  inter- 
fered with  his  seeing  them. 

He  knew  the  places  where  most  of 
them  were  to  be  found.  They  swarmed 
in  the  Palais  Royal.  Fewer  were  seen 
in  the  Avenue  de  TOpera  than  in  the 
Rue  de  la  Paix,  while  the  right  side  of 
the  Boulevard  was  more  frequented  by 
them  than  the  left. 

They  also  seemed  to  prefer  certain 
cafes  and  theaters.  Whenever  he  saw 
a  group  of  white-haired  old  gentlemen 
standing  together  in  the  middle  of  the 
pavement,  interfering  with  the  traffic, 
he  used  to  say  to  himself:  "They  are 
officers  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,"  and 
he  felt  inclined  to  take  off  his  hat  to 
them. 

He  had  often  remarked  that  the  of- 
ficers had  a  different  bearing  from 
mere  knights.  They  carried  their 
heads  higher,  and  you  felt  that  they 
enjoyed  greater  official  consideration, 
\nd  a  more  widely-extended  impor- 
Cance. 


Somtimes  again  the  worthy  man 
would  be  seized  with  a  furious  hatred 
for  everyone  who  was  decorated;  he 
felt  like  a  Socialist  toward  them.  Then, 
when  he  got  home,  excited  at  meeting 
so  many  Crosses, — just  like  a  poor 
hungry  wretch  is  on  passing  some 
dainty  provision-shop, — ^he  used  to  ask 
in   a  loud  voice: 

"When  shall  we  get  rid  of  this 
wretched  government?"  And  his  wife 
would  be  surprised,  and  ask: 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you  to- 
day?'* 

"I  am  indignant,"  he  would  reply, 
"at  the  injustice  I  see  going  on  around 
us.  Oh!  the  Communards  were  cer- 
tainly  right!" 

After  dinner  he  would  go  out  again 
and  look  at  the  shops  where  all  the 
decorations  were  sold,  and  examine  all 
the  emblems  of  various  shapes  and  col- 
ors. He  would  have  liked  to  possess 
them  all,  and  to  have  walked  gravely  at 
the  head  of  a  procession  with  his 
crush-hat  under  his  arm  and  his  breast 
covered  with  decorations,  radiant  as  a 
star,  amid  a  buzz  of  admiring  whis- 
pers and  a  hum  of  respect.  But,  alas! 
he  had  no  right  to  wear  any  decoration 
whatever. 

He  used  to  say  to  himself:  "It  is 
really  too  difficult  for  any  man  to  ob- 
tain the  Legion  of  Honor  unless  he  is 
some  public  functionary.  Suppose  I 
try  to  get  appointed  an  officer  of  the 
Academy!" 

But  he  did  not  know  how  to  set  about 
it,  and  spoke  to  his  wife  on  the  sub- 
ject, who  was  stupefied. 

"Officer  of  the  Academy!  What  ha\e 
you  done  to  deserve  it?" 

He  got  angry.     "I  know  what  I  am 


HOW  HE  GOT  THE  LEGION  OF  HONOk 


305 


talking  about;  T  only  want  to  know 
how  to  set  about  it.  You  are  quite  stu- 
pid at  times." 

She  smiled.  "You  are  quite  right;  I 
don't  understand  anything  about  it." 

An  idea  struck  him:  "Suppose  you 
were  to  speak  to  M.  Rosselin,  the  Dep- 
uty, he  might  be  able  to  advise  me. 
You  understand  I  cannot  broach  the 
subject  to  him  directly.  It  is  rather 
difficult  and  delicate,  but  coming  from 
you  it  might  seem  quite  natural." 

Mme.  Caillard  did  what  he  asked  her, 
and  M.  Rosselm  promised  to  speak  to 
the  Minister  about  it.  Then  Caillard 
began  to  worry  him,  till  the  Deputy  told 
him  he  must  make  a  formal  applica- 
tion and  put  forward  his  claims. 

"What  were  his  claims?"  he  said. 
"He  was  not  even  a  Bachelor  of 
Arts." 

However,  he  set  to  work  and  pro- 
duced a  pamphlet,  with  the  title,  "The 
People's  Right  to  Instruction,"  but  he 
could  not  finish  it  for  want  of  ideas. 

He  sought  for  easier  subjects,  and  be- 
gan several  in  succession.  The  first 
was,  "The  Instruction  of  Children  by 
Means  of  the  Eye."  He  wanted  gratui- 
tous theaters  to  be  established  in  every 
poor  quarter  of  Paris  for  little  chil- 
dren. Their  parents  were  to  take  them 
there  when  they  were  quite  young,  and 
■by  means  of  a  magic-lantern,  all  the  no- 
tions of  human  kno^vledge  were  to  be 
imparted  to  them.  There  were  to  be 
regular  courses.  The  sight  would  edu- 
cate the  mind,  while  the  pictures  would 
remain  impressed  on  the  brain,  and  thus 
science  would,  so  to  say,  be  made  vis- 
ible. What  could  be  more  simple  than 
to  teach  universal  history,  natural  his- 


tory, geography,  botany,  zoology,  anat- 
omy, etc.,  etc.,  thus? 

He  had  his  ideas  printed  in  tract 
form,  and  sent  a  copy  to  each  Deputy, 
ten  to  each  Minister,  fifty  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Republic,  ten  to  each  Paris- 
ian, and  five  to  each  provincial  news- 
paper. 

Then  he  wrote  on  "Street  Lending- 
Libraries."  His  idea  was  to  have  little 
carts  full  of  books  drawn  about  the 
streets,  like  orange-carts  are.  Every 
householder  or  lodger  would  have  a 
right  to  ten  volumes  a  month  by  means 
of  a  half-penny  subscription. 

*The  people,"  M.  Caillard  said,  "will 
only  disturb  itself  for  the  sake  of  its 
pleasures,  and  since  it  will  not  go  to 
instruction,  instruction  must  come  to 
it,"  etc.,  etc. 

His  essays  attracted  no  attention,  but 
he  sent  in  his  application,  and  iie  got 
the  usual  formal  official  reply.  He 
thought  himself  sure  of  success,  but 
nothing  came  of  it. 

Then  he  made  up  his  mind  to  apply 
personally.  He  begged  for  an  inter- 
view with  the  Minister  of  Public  In- 
struction, and  he  v/as  received  by  a 
young  subordinate,  already  very  grave 
and  important,  who  kept  touching  the 
buttons  of  electric-bells  to  summon 
ushers,  and  footmen,  and  officials  in- 
ferior to  himself.  He  declared  to 
M.  Caillard  that  his  matter  was  go- 
ing on  quite  favorably,  and  advised  him 
to  continue  his  remarkable  labors.  So 
M.  Caillard  set  at  it  again. 

M.  Rosselin,  the  Deputy,  seemed 
now  to  take  a  rrea"-  interest  in  his  suc- 
cess, and  gave  him  a  lot  cf  excellent, 
practical  advice.  Rosselin  was  deco- 
rated,   although    nobody  knew    exactly 


•C6 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


what  he  had  done  to  deserve  such  a 
distinction. 

He  told  Caillard  what  new  studies  he 
ought  to  undertake;  he  introduced  him 
to  learned  Societies  which  took  up  par- 
ticularly obscure  points  of  science,  in 
the  hope  of  gaining  credit  and  honors 
thereby;  and  he  even  took  him  under 
his  wing  at  the  Ministry. 

One  day,  when  he  came  to  lunch  with 
his  friend  (for  several  months  past  he 
had  constantly  taken  his  meals  there), 
he  said  to  him  in  a  whisper  as  he  shook 
hands:  "I  have  just  obtained  a  great 
favor  for  you.  The  Committee  on  His- 
torical Works  is  going  to  intrust  you 
with  a  commission.  There  are  some 
researches  to  be  maae  in  various  libra- 
ries in  F'-ance." 

Caillard  was  so  delighted  that  he 
could  scarcely  eat  or  drink,  and  a  week 
later  he  set  out.  He  went  from  town 
to  town,  studying  catalogues,  rummag- 
ing in  lofts  full  of  dusty  volumes,  and 
was  a  bore  to  all  the  librarians. 

One  day,  happening  to  be  at  Rouen, 
he  thought  he  should  like  to  embrace 
his  wife,  whom  he  had  not  seen  for 
more  than  a  week,  so  he  took  the  nine 
o'clock  train,  which  would  land  him  at 
home  by  twelve  at  night. 

He  had  his  latchkey,  so  he  went  in 
without  making  any  noise,  delighted  at 
the  idea  of  the  surprise  he  was  going 
to  give  her.  She  had  locked  herself  in. 
How  tiresome!  However,  he  cried  out 
through  the  door: 

"Jeanne,  it  is  I." 

She  must  have  been  very  frightened, 
for  he  heard  her  jump  out  of  bed  and 
speak  to  herself,  as  if  she  were  in  a 
dream.  Then  she  went  to  her  dressing- 
room,  opened  and  closed  the  door,  and 


went  quickly  up  and  down  her  room 
barefoot  two  or  three  times,  shaking  the 
furniture  till  the  vases  and  glasses 
sounded.     Then  at  last  she  asked: 

*'Is  it  you,  Alexander?" 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  replied;  "make  haste 
and  open  the  door." 

As  soon  as  sh^  had  done  so  she  threw 
herself  into  his  arms,  exclaiming: 

"Oh!  what  a  fright!  What  a  sur- 
prise!    What  a  pleasure!" 

He  began  to  undress  himself  method- 
ically, like  he  did  everything,  and  from 
a  chair  he  took  his  overcoat,  which  he 
v/as  in  the  habit  of  hanging  up  in  the 
hall.  Cut,  suddenly,  he  remained  mo- 
tionless, struck  dumb  wi*h  astonish- 
ment— there  was  a  red  ribbon  in  the 
buttonhole! 

"Why,"  he  stammered,  "this— this— 
th's  overcoat  has  got  the  rose'te  in  it!*' 

In  a  second  his  wife  threw  herself  on 
him,  and,  taking  it  from  his  hands,  sht 
said: 

"No!  you  have  made  a  mistake — 
give  it  to  me.'* 

But  he  still  held  it  by  one  of  tht 
sleeves,  wi'hout  letting  it  go,  repeating, 
in  a  half-dazed  manner: 

"Oh!  Why?  Just  explain.  Whose 
overcoat  is  it?  It  is  not  mine,  as  it 
has  the  Legion  of  Honor  on  it.'* 

She  tried  to  take  it  from  him,  terri- 
fied, and  hardly  able  to  say: 

"Listen — listen — give  it  me — I  must 
not  tell  you — it  is  a  secret — listen  to 
me." 

But  he  grew  angry,  and  turned  pale: 
"I  want  to  know  how  this  overcoat  .1 

comes  to  be  here?    It  does  noi  belong  ' 

to  me.** 

Then  she  almost  screamed  at  him- 


A  CRISIS 


30? 


**Yes  it  does;  listen — sv/ear  to  me — 
well — ^you   are   decorated." 

She  did  not  intend  to  joke  at  his 
expense. 

He  was  so  overcome  that  he  let  the 
overcoat  fall,  and  dropped  into  an 
armchair. 

"I  am — ^you  say  I  am — decorated?" 

*'Yes,  but  it  is  a  secret,  a  great  se- 
cret." 

She  had  put  the  glorious  garment  into 
a  cupboard,  and  came  to  her  husband 
pale  and  trembling. 

"Yes,"  she  continued,  *'it  is  a  new 
overcoat  that  I  have  had  made  for  you. 
But  I  swore  that  I  would  not  tell  you 
anything  about  it,  as  it  will  not  be  offi- 
cially announced  for  a  month  cr  six 
p/eeks,  and  you  were  not  to  have  known 


till  your  return  from  your  business 
journey.  M.  Rosselin  managed  it  lor 
you." 

"Rosselin!"  he  contrived  to  utter  in 
his  joy;  "he  has  obtained  the  decora- 
tion for  me?     He—    Oh!" 

And  he  was  obliged  to  drink  a  glass 
of  water. 

A  little  piece  of  white  paper  had 
fallen  to  the  floor  out  of  the  pocket  of 
the  overcoat.  Caillard  picked  it  up;  it 
was  a  visiting-card,  and  he  read  out: 

"Rosselin — Deputy." 

"You  see  how  it  is,"  said  his  wife. 

He  almost  cried  with  joy,  and.  a  week 
later,  it  was  announced  in  the  "Journal 
Officiel"  that  M.  Caillard  had  been 
awarded  the  Legion  of  Honor  on  ac- 
count of  his  exceptional  services. 


A  Crisis 


A  BIG  fire  was  burning  and  the  tea- 
labJe  was  set  for  two.  The  Count  de 
Sallure  threw  his  hat,  gloves,  and  fur 
coat  on  a  chair,  while  the  Countess,  who 
had  removed  her  opera-cloak,  was 
smiling  amiably  at  herself  in  the  glass 
and  arranging  a  few  stray  curls  with 
her  jeweled  fingers.  Her  husband  had 
been  looking  at  her  for  the  past  few 
minutes,  as  if  on  the  point  of  saying 
something,  but  hesitating;  finally  he 
said: 

"You  have  flirted  outrageously  to- 
night!" She  looked  him  straight  in  the 
eyes,  with  an  expression  of  triumph  and 
defiance  on  her  face. 

"Why,  C'^rlainly,"  she  answered.  She 
sat  down,  pnured  out  the  tea  and  hec 


husband  took     his     seat    opposite  her. 

"It  made  me  look  quite — ridiculous!" 

"Is  this  a  scene?"  she  asked,  arching 
her  brows.  "Do  you  mean  to  criticise 
my  conduct?" 

"Oh,  no,  I  only  meant  to  say  that 
M.  Burel's  attentions  to  you  were  posi- 
tively improper  and  if  I  had  the  right — 
I — would  not  tolerate  it." 

"Why,  my  dear  boy,  what  has  come 
over  you?  You  must  have  changed 
your  views  since  last  year.  You  did  not 
seem  to  mind  who  courted  me  and  who 
did  not  a  year  ago.  When  I  found  out 
that  you  had  a  mistress,  a  mistress 
whom  you  loved  passionately,  T  pointed 
out  to  you  then,  as  you  did  me  to-nigh*, 
(but  I  had  good  reasons),    that    you 


308 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


were  compromising  yourself  and  Mrae. 
de  Servy,  that  your  conduct  grieved 
me,  and  made  me  look  ridiculous,  what 
did  you  answer  me?  That  I  was  per- 
fectly free,  that  marriage  between  two 
intelligent  people  was  simply  a  partner- 
ship, a  sort  of  social  bond,  but  not  a 
moral  bond.  Is  it  not  true?  You  gave 
me  to  understand  that  your  mistress 
was  far  more  captivating  than  I,  that 
she  was  more  womanly;  that  k  what 
you  said:  'more  womanly.'  Of  course, 
you  said  all  this  in  a  very  nice  way 
and  I  acknowledge  that  you  did  your 
very  best  to  spare  my  feelings,  for 
which  I  am  very  grateful  to  you,  I  as- 
sure you;  but  I  understand  perfectly 
what  you  meant. 

"We  then  decided  to  live  practically 
separated;  that  is,  under  the  same  roof, 
but  apart  from  each  other.  We  had  a 
child,  and  it  was  necessary  to  keep  up 
appearances  before  the  world,  but  you 
intimated  that  if  I  chose  to  take  a  lover 
you  would  not  object  in  the  least,  pro- 
viding it  was  kept  secret.  You  even 
made  a  long  and  very  interesting  dis- 
course on  the  cleverness  of  women  in 
such  cases ;  how  well  they  could  manage 
such  things,  etc.,  etc.  I  understood  per- 
fectly, my  dear  boy.  You  loved  Mme. 
de  Servy  very  much  at  that  time  and 
my  conjugal — ^legal — affection  was  an 
impediment  to  your  happiness ;  but  since 
then,  we  have  lived  on  the  very  best 
of  terms.  We  go  out  in  society  to- 
gether, it  is  true,  but  here  in  our  own 
house  we  are  complete  strangers.  Now, 
for  the  past  month  or  two,  you  act  as 
if  you  were  jealous,  and  I  do  not  under- 
stand it/' 

"I  am  not  jealous,  my  dear,  but  you 
are  so  young:,  so  impulsive,  that  I  am 


afraid  you  will  expose  yourself  to  the 
world's  criticisms." 

"You  make  me  laugh!  Your  con- 
duct would  not  bear  a  very  close  scru' 
tiny.  You  had  better  not  preach  what 
you  do  not  practice." 

"Do  not  laugh,  I  pray.  This  is  no 
laughing  matter.  I  am  speaking  as  a 
friend,  a  true  friend.  As  to  your  re* 
marks,  they  are  very  much  exagger- 
ated." 

"Not  at  all.  When  you  confessed  to 
me  your  infatuation  for  Mme.  de  Servy, 
I  took  it  for  granted  that  you  author- 
ized me  to  imitate  you.  I  have  not 
done  so — " 

"Allow  me  to — ■" 

"Do  not  interrupt  me.  I  have  not 
done  so.  I  have  no  lover — as  yet.  I 
am  looking  for  one,  but  I  have  not 
found  one  to  suit  me.  He  must  be  very 
nice — nicer  than  you  are — that  is  a 
compliment,  but  you  do  not  seem  to 
appreciate  it." 

"This  joking  is  entirely  uncalled  for." 

"I  am  not  joking  at  all;  I  am  in  dead 
earnest.  I  have  not  forgotten  a  single 
word  of  what  you  said  to  me  a  year 
ago  and  when  it  pleases  me  to  do  so,  no 
mattei'  what  you  may  say  or  do,  I  shall 
take  a  lover.  I  shall  do  it  without  your 
even  suspecting  it — ^you  will  be  none 
the  wiser — like  a  great  many  others." 

"How  can  you  say  such  things!" 

"How  can  I  say  such  things?  But, 
my  dear  boy,  you  were  the  first  one  to 
laugh  when  Mme.  de  Gers  joked  about 
poor,  unsuspecting  M.  de  Servy." 

"That  might  be,  but  it  is  not  becom- 
ing language  for  you." 

"ladeed!  You  thought  it  a  good 
joke  when  it  concerned  M.  de  Servy, 
but  you  do  not  find  it  so  aDoropriate 


A  CRISIS 


309 


when  it  concerns  you.  What  a  queer 
lot  men  are!  However,  I  am  not  fond 
of  talking  about  such  things;  I  simply 
mentioned  it  to  see  if  you  were  ready." 

"Ready— for  what?" 

"Ready  to  be  deceived.  When  a  man 
gets  angry  on  hearing  such  things  he  is 
lOt  quite  ready.  I  wager  that  in  two 
months  you  will  be  the  first  one  to 
laugh  if  I  mention  a  deceived  husband 
to  you.  It  is  generally  the  case  when 
you  are  the  deceived  one." 

"Upon  my  word  you  are  positively 
rude  to-night;  I  have  never  seen  you 
that  way." 

"Yes — I  have  changed  —  for  the 
worse,  but  it  is  your  fault." 

"Come,  my  dear,  let  us  talk  seriously. 
I  beg  of  you,  I  implore  you  not  to  let 
M.  Burel  court  you  as  he  did  to-night." 

"You  are  jealous;  I  knew  it." 
'  "No,  no;  but  I  do  not  wish  to  be 
looked  upon  with  ridicule,  and  if  I  catch 
that  man  devouring  you  with  his  eyes, 
like  he  did  to-night — I — I  will  thrash 
him!" 

"Could  it  be  possible  that  you  are  in 
love  with  me?" 

"Why  not?  I  am  sure  I  could  do 
much  worse." 

"Thanks.     I  am  sorry  for  you — ^be 
cause  I  do  not  love  you  any  more." 

The  Count  gets  up,  walks  around  the 
tea-table,  and  going  behind  his  wife,  he 
kisses  her  quickly  on  the  neck.  She 
springs  up  and  with  flashing  eyes  says: 

"How  dare  you  do  that?  Remember, 
we  are  absolutely  nothing  to  each  other; 
we   are   complete  strangers." 

"Please  do  not  get  angry,  I  could  not 
help  it;  you  look  so  lovely  to-night." 

"Then  I  must  have  improved  won- 
derfullv." 


"You  look  positively  charming;  your 
arms  and  shoulders  are  beautiful  and 
your  skin — " 

"Would  captivate  M.  Burel — " 

"How  mean  you  are! — but  really,  I 
do  not  recall  ever  having  seen  a  woman 
as  captivating  as  you  are." 

"You  must  have  been  fasting  lately." 

"What's   that?" 

"I  say,  you  must  have  been  fasting 
lately." 

"Why — what  do  you  mean?" 

"I  mean  just  what  I  say.  You  must 
have  fasted  for  some  time  and  now 
you  are  famished.  A  hungry  man  will 
cat  things  which  he  will  not  eat  at  any 
other  time.  I  am  the  neglected — dish, 
which  you  would  not  mind  eating  to- 
night." 

"Marguerite!  Who  ever  taught  you 
to  say  those  things?" 

"You  did.  To  my  knowledge,  you 
have  had  four  mistresses.  Actresses, 
society  women,  gay  women,  etc.,  so  how 
can  I  explain  your  sudden  fancy  for  me, 
except  by  your  long  fast?" 

"You  will  think  me  rude,  brutal,  but 
I  have  fallen  in  love  with  you  for  the 
second  time.    I  love  you  madly!" 

"Weil,  well!     Then  you— wish  to—" 

"Exactly." 

"To-night?" 

''Oh,  Marguerite!*' 

*There,  you  are  scandalized  again. 
My  dear  boy,  let  us  talk  quietly.  We 
are  strangers,  are  we  not?  I  am  your 
wife,  it  is  true,  but  I  am — free.  I  in- 
tended to  engage  my  affection  elsewhere, 
but  I  will  give  you  the  preference;  pro- 
viding— I  re.eive  the  same  compensa- 
tion." 

"I  do  not  understand  you;  what  do 
you  mean?" 


3!0 


VvORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"I  Will  speak  more  clearly.  Am  I  as 
good-looking  as  your  mistresses?" 

"A  thousand  times  better." 

"Better  than  the  nicest  one?" 

"Yesi,  a  thousand  times." 

■'How  much  did  she  cost  you  in  three 
months?" 

'Really — what  on  earth  do  you 
mean?" 

'I  mean,  how  much  did  you  spend  on 
the  costliest  of  your  mistresses,  in  jew- 
elry, carriages,  suppers,  etc.,  in  three 
months?" 

"How  do  I  know!" 

"You  ought  to  know.  Let  us  say  for 
instance,  fivp  thousand  francs  a  month 
— is  that  aoout  right?" 

"Yes— about  that." 

"Well,  my  dear  boy.  give  me  five 
thousand  francs  and  I  will  be  yours  for 
a  month,  beginning  from  to-night." 

"Marguerite!     Are  you  crazy?" 

"No,  I  am  not;  but  just  as  you  say. 
Good  night!" 

The  Countess  entered  her  boudoir. 
A  vague  perfume  permeated  the  whole 
room.  The  Count  appeared  in  the  door- 
way: 

"How  lovely  it  smells  in  here!" 

"Do  you  think  so?  I  always  use 
Peau  d'Espagne;  I  never  use  any  other 
oerfume." 

"Really?  I  did  not  notice — it  is 
lovely." 

"Possibly,  but  be  kind  enough  to  go; 
[  want  to  go  to  bed." 

"Marguerite!" 

"Will  you  please  p'o?" 

The  Count  came  in  and  sat  on  a  chair. 

Said  the  Countess:  "You  will  not 
go?    Verv  well." 

She  slr«\vly  takes  off  her  waist,  re- 
vealing her  white  arms  and  neck,  then 


she  lifts  her  arms  above  her  head  to 
loosen  her  hair. 

The  Count  took  a  step  toward  her. 

The  Countess:  "Do  not  come  near 
me  or  I  shall  get  real  angry,  do  you 
hear?" 

He  caught  her  in  his  arms  and  tried 
to  kiss  her.  She  quickly  took  a  tum- 
bler of  perfumed  water  standing  on  the 
toilette-table  and  dashed  it  into  his  face. 

He  was  terribly  angry.  He  stepped 
Dack  a  few  paces  and  murmured: 

'How  stupid  of  you!" 

■  Perhaps — but  you  know  my  condi- 
tions— five  thousand  francs!" 

"Preposterous!" 

"Why,  pray?" 

"Why?  Because — ^who  ever  heard  of 
a  man  paying  his  wife!" 

"Oh! — hew  horribly  rude  you  are!" 

"I  suppose  I  am  rude,  but  I  repeat, 
(he  idea  of  paying  one's  wife  is  pre- 
posterous!    Positively  stupid!" 

"la  it  not  much  worse  to  pay  a  gay 
woman?  It  certainly  would  be  stupid 
when  you  have  a  wife  at  home." 

"That  may  be,  but  I  do  not  wish  to 
be  ridiculous." 

The  Countess  sat  down  on  the  bed 
and  took  off  her  stockings,  revealing  her 
bare,  pink  feet. 

The  Count  approached  a  little  nearer 
and  said  tenderly: 

"What  an  odd  idea  of  yours,  Mar- 
guerite ! " 

"What  idea?" 

"To  ask  me  for  five  thousand 
francs!" 

"Odd?  Why  should  it  be  odd?  Are 
we  not  strangers?  You  say  you  are  in 
love  with  me;  all  well  and  good.  You 
cannot  marry  me,  as  I  am  already  your 
wife,  so  you  buy  me.    Mon  dieu!  have 


GRAVEYARD  SIRENJ 


oil 


you  not  bought  other  women?  Is  it 
not  much  better  to  give  me  that  money 
than  to  a  strange  woman  who  would 
squander  it?  Come,  you  will  acknowl- 
edge that  it  is  a  novel  idea  to  actually 
pay  your  own  wife !  An  intelligent  man 
like  you  ought  to  see  how  amusing  it 
is;  besides,  a  man  never  really  loves 
anything  unless  it  costs  him  a  lot  of 
money.  It  would  add  new  zest  to  our — 
conjugal  love,  by  comparing  it  with 
your — illegitimate  love.  Am  I  not 
right?'^ 

She  goes  toward  the  bell. 

"Now  then,  sir,  if  you  do  not  go  I 
will  ring  for  my  maid!" 


The  Count  stands  perplexed,  dis- 
pleased, and  suddenly,  taking  a  handful 
of  bank-notes  out  of  his  pocket,  he 
throws  them  at  his  wife  saying: 

"Here  are  six  thousand,  you  witch, 
but  remember — " 

The  Countess  picked  up  the  money, 
counted  it,  and  said: 

''What?" 

"You  must  not  get  used  to  it." 

She  burst  out  laughing  and  said  to 
him: 

"Five  thousand  francs  each  month, 
or  else  I  shall  send  you  back  to  your 
actresses,  and  if  you  are  pleased  vnih 
me — I  shall  ask  for  more." 


Graveyard  Sirens 


The  five  friends  had  fmished  their 
dinner;  there  were  two  bachelors  and 
three  married  men,  all  middle-aged  and 
wealthy.  They  assembled  thus  once  a 
month,  in  memory  of  old  times,  and 
lingered  to  gossip  over  their  coffee  till 
late  at  night.  Many  a  happy  evening 
was  spent  in  this  way,  for  they  were 
fond  of  one  another's  society,  and  had 
remained  closely  united.  Conversation 
among  them  was  a  sort  of  review  of  the 
daily  papers,  commenting  on  everything 
that  interests  and  amuses  Parisians. 
One  of  the  cleverest,  Joseph  de  Bardon, 
was  a  bachelor.  He  lived  the  life  of  a 
boulevardier  most  thoroughly  and  fan- 
tastically, without  bemg  debauched  or 
depraved.  It  interested  him,  and  as  ho 
was  still  young,  being  barely  forty,  he 
enjoyed  it  keenly,  b'  man  of  the  world 
Id  the  broadest  and  best  sense  of  the 


word,  he  possessed  a  greai  deal  of  wit 
without  much  depth,  a  general  knowl- 
edge without  real  learning,  quick  per- 
ception without  serious  penetration; 
but  his  adventures  and  observations  fur* 
r.ished  him  many  amusing  stories,  which 
h?  told  with  so  much  philosophy  and 
humor  that  society  voted  him  very  in- 
tellectual. 

He  was  a  favorite  after-dinner 
speaker,  always  having  some  story  to 
relate  to  which  his  friends  looked  for- 
ward. Presently  he  began  to  tell  a 
story  without  being  asked.  Leaning  on 
the  table  with  a  half-filled  glass  of 
brandy  in  front  of  his  plate,  in  the 
smoky  atmosphere  filled  with  the  fra- 
grance of  coffee,  he  seemed  perfectly 
at  ease,  just  as  some  beings  are  entirely 
at  home  in  certain  places  and  under 
certain  conditions — as  a  goldfish  in  its 


312 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


aquarium,  for  instance,  or  a  nun  in  her 
cloister. 

Puffing  at  his  cigar,  he  said: 

"A  rather  curious  thing  happened  to 
me  a  little  while  ago." 

All  exclaimed  at  once:  "Tell  us 
about  it!" 

Presently  he  continued: 

"You  all  know  how  I  love  to  roam 
around  the  city,  like  a  collector  in  search 
of  antiquities.  I  enjoy  watching  people 
and  things.  About  the  middle  of  Sep- 
tember, the  weather  being  very  fine,  I 
went  for  a  walk  one  afternoon,  without 
a  definite  purpose.  Why  do  we  men 
always  have  the  vague  impulse  to  call 
on  some  pretty  woman?  W'e  review 
them  in  our  mind,  compare  their  re- 
spective charms,  the  interest  they 
arouse  in  us,  and  finally  decide  in  favor 
of  the  one  that  attracts  us  most. 

"But  when  the  sun  shines  brightly 
and  the  air  is  balmy,  sometimes  we  al- 
together lose  the  desire  for  calling. 

'That  day  the  sun  was  bright  and 
the  air  balmy,  so  I  simply  lighted  a 
cigar  and  started  for  the  Boulevard  Ex- 
terieur.  As  I  was  sauntering  along,  I 
thought  I  would  take  a  look  around 
the  cemetery  at  Montmartre.  Now,  I 
have  always  liked  cemeteries  because 
they  sadden  and  rest  me;  and  I  need 
that  influence  at  times.  Besides,  many 
of  my  friends  are  laid  to  rest  there,  and 
I  go  to  see  them  once  in  a  while. 

"As  it  happens,  I  once  buried  a  ro- 
mance in  this  particular  cemetery, — an 
old  love  of  mine,  a  charming  little 
woman  whose  memory  awakens  all 
kinds  of  regrets  in  me — ^I  often  dream 
beside  her  grave.  All  is  over  for  her 
Tiow! 

**I  like  CTaveyards  because  they  are 


such  immense,  densely  populated  cities. 
Just  think  of  all  the  bodies  buried  in 
that  small  space,  of  the  countless  gener- 
ations of  Parisians  laid  there  forever, 
eternally  entombed  in  the  little  vault? 
of  their  little  graves  m.arked  by  a  cros? 
or  a  stone,  while  the  living — fools  that 
they  are! — take  up  so  much  room  and 
make  such  a  fuss. 

"Cemeteries  have  some  monuments 
quite  as  interesting  as  those  to  be  seen 
in  the  museums.  Cavaignac's  tomb  I 
liken,  without  comparing  it,  to  that 
masterpiece  of  Jean  Gonjon,  the  tomb- 
stone of  Louis  de  Breze  in  the  subter- 
ranean chapel  in  the  cathedral  of 
Rouen.  My  friends,  all  so-called  mod- 
em and  realistic  art  originated  there. 
That  reproduction  of  Louis  de  Breze  is 
more  life-like  and  terrible,  more  con- 
vulsed with  agony,  than  any  one  of  the 
statues  that  decorate  modern  tombs. 

"In  Montmartre  is  Baudin's  monu- 
ment, and  it  is  quite  imposing;  also  the 
tombs  of  Gautier  and  Miirger,  where 
the  other  day  I  found  a  solitary  wreath 
of  yellow  immortelles,  laid  there — ^by 
whom  do  you  suppose?  Perhaps  by 
the  last  grisette,  grown  old,  and  pos- 
sibly become  a  janitress  in  the  neigh- 
borhood! It's  a  pretty  little  statue  by 
Millet,  but  it  is  ruined  by  neglect  and 
accumulated  filth.  Sing  of  youth,  O 
Miirger! 

"Well,  I  entered  the  cemetery,  filled 
with  a  certain  sadness,  not  too  poignant, 
a  feeling  suggesting  such  thoughts  as 
this:  The  place  is  not  very  cheerful, 
but  I'm  not  to  be  put  here  yet. 

"The  impression  of  autumn,  a  warm 
dampness  smelling  of  dead  leaves,  the 
pale,  ansemic  rays  of  the  sun,  intensified 
and  poetized  the  solitude  of  this  place» 


GRAVEYARD  SIRENS 


3X5 


which  reminds  one  of  death  and  of  the 
end  of  all  things. 

**I  walked  slowly  along  the  alleys  of 
graves  where  neighbors  no  longer  visit, 
no  longer  sleep  together,  nor  read  the 
papers.  I  began  reading  the  epitaphs. 
There  is  nothing  more  amusing  in  the 
world.  Labiche  and  Meilhac  have  never 
made  me  laugh  as  much  as  some  of  these 
tombstone  inscriptions.  I  tell  you  these 
crosses  and  marble  slabs  on  which  the 
relatives  of  the  dead  have  poured  out 
tbeir  regrets  and  their  v/ishes  for  the 
happiness  of  the  departed,  their  hopes 
of  reunion — the  hypocrites! — ^make  bet- 
ter reading  than  Balzac's  funniest  tales! 
But  what  I  love  in  Montmartre  are  the 
abandoned  plots  filled  with  yewtrees  and 
cypress,  the  resting-place  of  those  de- 
parted long  ago.  However,  the  green 
trees  no-jrished  by  the  bodies  will  soon 
be  felled  to  make  room  for  those  that 
have  recently  passed  away,  whose  graves 
will  be  there,  under  little  marble  slabs. 

"After  loitering  awhile,  I  felt  tired, 
and  decided  to  pay  my  faithful  tribute 
to  my  little  friend's  memory.  When  I 
reached  the  grave,  my  heart  was  very 
sad.  Poor  child!  she  was  so  sweet  and 
loving,  so  fair  and  white — and  now — 
should  her  grave  be  reopened — 

"Bending  over  the  iron  railing  I  mur- 
mured a  prayer,  which  she  probably 
never  heard,  and  I  turned  to  leave, 
when  I  caught  sight  of  a  woman  in  deep 
mourning  kneeling  beside  a  neighboring 
grave.  Her  crape  veil  was  thrown  back, 
disclosing  her  blond  hair,  which  seemed 
illumined  under  the  darkness  of  her  hat. 
I  forgot  to  leave. 

"She  seemed  bowed  with  sorrow.  She 
had  buried  her  face  in  her  hands,  ap- 
parently  lost  in   deep  thought.     With 


closed  lids,  as  rigid  as  a  statue,  she  was 
living  over  torturing  memories  and 
seemed  herself  a  corpse  mourning  a 
corpse.  Presently  I  saw  that  she  was 
weeping,  as  there  was  a  convulsive 
movement  of  her  back  and  shoulders. 
Suddenly  she  uncovered  her  face.  Her 
eyes,  brimming  with  tears,  were  charm- 
ing. For  a  mom.ent  she  gazed  around 
as  if  awakening  from  a  nightmare.  She 
saw  me  looking  at  her  and  quickly  hid 
her  face  again,  greatly  abashed.  Now, 
with  convulsive  sobs  she  bent  her  head 
slowly  over  the  tombstone.  She  rested 
her  forehead  against  it,  and  her  veil, 
faUing  around  her,  covered  the  white- 
ness of  the  beloved  sepulcher  with  a 
dark  shroud.  I  heard  her  moan  and 
then  saw  her  fall  to  the  ground  in  a 
faint. 

"I  rushed  to  her  side  and  began  slap- 
ping her  hands  and  breathing  on  her 
temples,  while  reading  this  simple  in- 
scription on  the  tombstone: 

"  'Here  lies  Louis-Theodore  Carrel, 
Captain  in  the  Marine  Infantry,  killed  by 
the  enemy  in  Tonkin.    Pray  for  his  soul.' 

"This  death  was  quite  recent.  I  was 
moved  almost  to  tears,  and  renewed  my 
efforts  to  revive  the  poor  girl.  At  last 
she  came  to.  I  am  not  so  very  bad- 
looking,  and  my  face  must  have  shown 
how  upset  I  was,  for  her  very  first 
glance  showed  me  that  she  was  likely  to 
be  grateful  for  my  care.  Between  sobs 
she  told  me  of  her  marriage  to  the  of- 
ficer who  had  been  killed  in  Tonkin 
within  a  year  after  their  v:edding.  He 
had  married  her  for  love,  she  being  an 
orphan  and  possessing  nothing  above 
the  required  dowry. 


314 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"T  consuled  her,  comforted  her,  and 
assisted  her  to  her  feet,  saying: 

"  'You  must  not  stay  here.  Come 
away.* 

"  'I  am  unable  to  walk/  she  whis- 
pered. 

"  'Let  me  help  you,'  I  said. 

'*  'Thank  you,  you  are  very  kind,'  she 
murmured.  'Did  you  also  come  to 
mourn  some  one?' 

'"Yes,  Madame/ 

"  'A  woman?' 

"  'Yes,  Madame.' 

'•  'Your  wife?' 

"'A  friend.* 

"  'One  may  love  a  friend  ji!st  as 
much  as  a  wife,  for  passion  knows  no 
law,'  said  the  lady. 

"  'Yes,  ^ladame,'  I  replied. 

"And  so  we  left  the  spot  together,  she 
leaning  on  me  and  I  almost  carrying  her 
through  the  alleys.  As  we  came  out, 
she  murmured: 

"  I'm  afraid  that  I'm  going  to  faint.' 

"  'Wouldn't  you  like  to  take  some- 
thing, Madame?'  I  inquired. 

"  'Yes,'  she  said,  1  would.' 

"I  discovered  a  restaurant  near  at 
hand,  where  tho  friends  of  the  dead 
gather  to  celebrate  the  end  of  their 
painful  duty.  We  went  in,  and  I  made 
her  drink  a  cup  of  hot  tea,  which  ap- 
pearea  to  give  her  renewed  strength. 

"A  faint  smile  dawned  on  her  lips 
and  she  began  telling  me  about  herself: 
how  terrible  it  was  to  go  through  life 
all  alone,  to  be  alone  at  home  day  and 
night,  to  hnve  no  one  on  whom  to  lavish 
love,  confidence,  and  intimacy. 

"It  all  sermed  sincere  and  sounded 
well  cominsr  from  her.  I  wa?>  softened. 
She  was  very  young,  perhaps  twenty. 
I  paid  her  several  compliments  that  ap- 


peared to  please  her,  and  as  it  was  grow- 
ing  dark  I  offered  to  take  her  home  ia 
a  cab.  She  accepted.  In  the  carriage 
we  were  so  close  to  each  other  tha^ 
v;e  could  feel  the  warmth  of  our  bodies 
through  our  clothing,  which  really  is 
the  most  intoxicating  thing  in  the 
v/orld. 

"When  the  cab  stopped  in  front  of 
her  home  she  said: 

"  'I  hardly  feel  able  to  walk  upstairs, 
for  I  live  on  the  fourth  floor.  You  have 
already  been  so  kind,  that  I  am  going 
to  ask  you  to  assist  me  to  my  rooms.' 

"I  consented  gladly.  She  walked  up 
slowly,  breathing  heavily  at  each  step. 
In  iront  of  her  door  she  added: 

"  'Do  come  in  for  a  few  minutes,  so 
that  I  can  thank  you  again  for  your 
kindness.' 

"And  I,  of  course,  followed  her. 

"Her  apartment  "«vas  modest,  even  a 
trifle  poor,  but  well-kept  and  in  good 
taste. 

"We  sat  down  side  by  side  on  a  small 
divan,  and  she  again  began  to  speak  of 
her  loneliness. 

"Then  she  rang  fcr  the  maid,  so  as 
to  cffcr  me  some  refreshments.  But 
the  girl  failed  to  appear,  and  I  joyfully 
concluded  that  this  maid  probably  came 
only  in  the  morning,  and  was  a  sort  of 
ccrub-woman. 

"She  had  taken  off  her  hat.  How 
pretty  she  was!  Her  clear  eyes  looked 
steadily  at  me,  so  clear  and  so  steady 
that  a  great  temptation  came  to  me,  to 
which  I  promptly  ^Melded.  Clasping  her 
in  my  arms,  I  kissed  her  again  and 
again  on  her  half-closed  lids. 

"She  repelled  me,  struggling  to  free 
herself  and  repeating: 

"  'Do  stop— do  end  it—* 


GRAVEYARD  SIRENS 


31> 


"What  did  she  mean  to  imply  by  this 
word?  Under  such  conditions,  to  'end' 
could  have  at  least  two  meanings.  In 
order  to  silence  her,  I  passed  from  her 
eyes  to  her  lips,  and  gave  to  the  word 
'end'  the  conclusion  I  preferred.  She 
did  not  resist  Vcry  much,  and  as  our 
eyes  met  after  this  insult  to  the  memory 
of  the  departed  captain,  I  saw  that  her 
expression  was  one  of  tender  resignation, 
which  quickly  dispelled  my  misgivings. 

"Then  I  grew  attentive  and  gallant. 
After  an  hour's  chat  I  asked  her: 

"  'Where  do  you  dine?* 

**  *In  a  small  restaurant  near  by.' 

"'All  alone?' 

"  'Why,  yes.* 

"  'Will  you  take  dinner  "with  me?* 

"  'Where?" 

"  'In  a  good  restaurant  on  the  Boule- 
vard.* 

"She  hesitated  a  little,  but  at  last 
consented,  consoling  herself  with  the 
argument  that  she  was  so  desperately 
lonely,  and  adding,  'I  must  put  on  a 
lighter  gown.* 

"She  retired  to  her  room,  and  when 
she  emerged  she  was  dressed  in  a  sim- 
ple gray  frock  that  made  her  look  ex- 
quisitely slender.  She  apparently  had 
different  costumes  for  street  and  for 
cemetery  wear! 

"Our  dinner  was  most  pleasant  and 
cordial.  She  drank  some  champagne, 
thereby  becoming  very  animated  and 
lively,  and  we  returned  to  her  apart- 
ment together. 

"This  liaisofty  begun  among  tomb- 
stones, lasted  about  three  weeks.  But 
man  tires  of  everything  and  especially 
of  women.  So  I  pleaded  an  urgent  trip 
and  left  her.  Of  course,  I  managed  to 
be  generous,  for  which  she  was  duly 


thankful,  makin^^;  rn.-t  r.'j.;Mse  and  even 
swear  that  I  would  come  back,  for  she 
really  seemed  to  care  a  little  for  me. 

"In  the  meantime  I  formed  other  at- 
tachments, and  a  month  or  so  went  by 
without  the  memory  of  this  love  being 
vivid  enough  to  bring  me  back  to  her. 
Still,  I  had  not  forgotten  her.  She 
haunted  me  like  a  mystery,  a  psycho- 
log'cal  problem,  an  unsclved  question. 

"I  can't  tell  why,  but  one  day  I  im- 
agined that  I  should  find  her  in  the 
cemetery.  So  I  went  back.  I  walked 
around  a  long  time  without  meeting  any- 
one but  the  usual  visitors  of  the  place, 
mourners  who  had  not  broken  off  all 
relations  with  their  dead.  The  grave 
of  the  captain  killed  in  Tonkin  was  de- 
serted, without  flowe.s,  or  wreaths. 

"As  I  was  passing  through  anotht- 
part  of  this  great  ci'.y  of  Death,  I  sud- 
denly saw  a  couple  in  deep  mournin,^ 
coming  toward  me  through  one  of  the 
narrow  paths  hedged  with  crosses. 
When  they  drew  near,  Oh,  surprise!  I 
recognized — ^her!  She  saw  ine  and 
blushed.  As  I  brushed  past  her,  she 
gave  me  a  little  wink  that  meant  clearly: 
Don't  recognize  me,  and  also  seemed  to 
say:     Do  come  back. 

"The  man  who  accompanied  her  was 
about  fifty  years  old,  fine-looking  and 
distinguished,  an  ofiicer  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor.  He  was  leading  her  just  as 
I  had,  when  we  left  the  cemetery  to- 
gether. 

"I  was  utterly  nonplussed,  reluctant 
to  believe  what  my  eyes  had  just  seen, 
and  I  wondered  to  what  strange  tribe 
of  creatures  this  graveyard  huntress  be- 
longed. Was  she  merely  a  clever 
courtesan,  an  inspired  prostitute,  who 
haunted  cemeteries  for  men  disconsolate 


316 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


at  the  loss  of  some  woman,  a  mistress 
or  a  wife,  and  hungering  for  past  ca- 
resses? Is  it  a  profession?  Are  the 
cemeteries  worked  like  the  streets?  Are 
there    graveyard    sirens?     Or   had    she 


alone  the  idea — wonderful  for  its  deep 
philosophy — to  profit  by  the  amorous 
regrets  awakened  in  these  awful  places? 
I  would  have  given  a  great  deal  to 
know  whose  widow  she  was  that  day!" 


Growing  Old 


The  two  friends  had  finished  dinner. 
From  the  window  of  the  caje  they  saw 
the  Boulevard  full  of  people.  They  felt 
the  warm  zephyrs  which  prevail  in 
Paris  on  sweet  summer  nights  and  make 
travelers  raise  their  heads  and  desire  to 
go  out,  to  go  down,  one  knows  not 
where,  under  the  leaves,  and  dream  of 
rivers  lighted  by  the  moon,  of  glow- 
worms, and  of  nightingales. 

One  of  them,  Henry  Simon,  sighed 
profoundly  and  said: 

"Ah!  I  am  getting  old.  It  is  sad. 
Formerly  on  evenings  like  this  I  felt 
the  devil  in  my  body.  Now,  I  feel  only 
regrets.    How  quickly  life  goes!" 

He  was  already  a  little  stout  and 
very  bald;  he  was  perhaps  forty-five 
years  old. 

The  other,  Peter  Carnier,  was  older, 
but  thinner  and  more  lively ;  he  replied : 

"As  for  me,  my  friend,  I  have  grown 
old  without  perceiving  it  the  least  in 
the  world.  I  was  always  gay,  a  jolly 
fellow,  vigorous  and  all  the  rest.  Now, 
as  one  looks  at  himself  each  day  in  the 
mirror,  he  does  not  perceive  the  work 
that  age  is  accomplishing,  because  it  is 
slow  and  regular,  and  modifies  his  vis- 
age so  gradually  that  the  transition  is 
unseen.  Only  for  this  we  should  die  of 
chagrin  after  but  two  or  three  years* 


ravages.  But  we  are  not  able  to  appre- 
ciate them.  In  order  to  take  a  reckon- 
ing it  would  be  necessary  to  go  six 
months  without  looking  at  ourselves; 
and  then,  what  a  blow! 

"And  the  women,  my  dear,  how  1 
pity  them,  the  poor  beings.  All  their 
happiness,  all  their  power,  all  their  life 
is  in  their  beauty,  which  lasts  but  ten 
years. 

"I,  then,  grew  old  without  suspecting 
it;  I  believed  myself  a  young  man,  al- 
though I  was  nearly  fifty  years  old. 
Never  having  felt  an  infirmity  of  any 
sort,  T  went  along  happy  and  tranquil. 

"The  revelation  of  my  decadence 
came  to  me  in  a  simple  but  terrible 
fashion,  which  made  me  downcast  for 
nearly  six  months.  Since  then  I  have 
accepted  the  part. 

"I  have  often  been  in  love,  like  all 
men,  but  once  in  particular.  I  met  her 
at  the  seashore  at  Etretat,  about  twelve 
years  ago,  a  little  after  the  war.  There 
is  nothing  so  pretty  as  this  shore  in  the 
morning  at  the  bathing  hour.  It  is  small, 
rounded  like  a  horseshoe,  incased  in 
those  high,  white  cliffs,  pierced  with 
those  singular  holes  they  call  ports,  one 
enormous  one,  extending  into  the  sea 
like  a  giant's  leg,  the  other  opposite 
squat  and  round.     A  crowd  of  women 


GROWING  OLD 


317 


assembles  here  on  the  right  side  of  the 
shuffleboard,  which  they  cover  like  a 
bright  garden  with  their  brilliant  cos- 
tumes— this  box  between  the  high  rocks. 
The  sun  falls  full  upon  the  coast,  upon 
umbrellas  of  all  shades,  upon  the  sea  of 
a  greenish  blue.  And  all  is  gay,  charm- 
ing, smiling  to  the  eyes.  You  seat  your- 
self near  the  water  to  watch  the  bathers. 
They  descend  in  a  bathrobe  of  flannel 
which  they  throw  off  with  a  pretty  mo- 
tion upon  reaching  the  fringe  of  the 
foam  from  the  short  waves;  they  go 
into  the  sea  with  a  little  rapid  step 
which  is  arrested  sometimes  by  a  deli- 
cious cold  shiver,  or  a  slight  suffocation. 

"Few  can  stand  this  trial  of  the  bath. 
It  is  there  that  one  can  judge  them 
from  the  calf  to  the  throat.  The  going 
out  especially  reveals  the  weak,  although 
salt  water  may  be  a  powerful  help  to 
flabby  flesh. 

'The  first  time  that  I  saw  this  young 
woman  thus,  I  was  delighted,  ravished. 
She  held  good,  she  held  firm.  Then 
there  are  some  faces  whose  charm  enters 
into  us  suddenly,  invades  us  at  a  single 
blow.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  found 
the  woman  that  I  was  born  to  love.  I 
had  that  sensation  and  it  was  like  a 
shock. 

"I  had  myself  presented  and  was  im- 
mediately captured  as  I  never  was  be- 
fore. She  ravaged  my  heart.  It  is  a 
frightful  and  delicious  thing,  the  under- 
going thus  the  domination  of  a  woman. 
It  is  almost  a  punishment,  and  at  the 
same  time,  an  unbelievable  happiness. 
Her  look,  her  smile,  her  hair  at  the  nape 
of  the  neck  when  the  breeze  moved  it, 
all  the  little  lines  of  her  face,  the  least 
movement  of  her  features  delighted  me, 
and  made  me  extremelv  fond  of  her. 


She  took  possession  of  me  through  all 
my  being,  by  her  gestures,  her  attitudes, 
even  by  the  things  she  carried,  which 
became  bewitching  to  me.  I  would  wait 
to  see  her  veil  thrown,  upon  some  piece 
of  furniture,  her  gloves  upon  an  arm- 
chair. Her  costumes  seemed  to  me  in- 
imitable.    No  one  had  hats  like  hers. 

"She  was  married  and  the  husband, 
came  every  Saturday  to  remain  until 
Monday.  He  seemed  to  me  very  in- 
different. I  was  not  at  all  jealous  of 
him;  I  know  not  why,  but  never  a  be- 
ing seemed  to  have  less  importance  in 
life,  or  attract  less  of  my  attention  than 
this  man. 

"How  I  loved  her!  And  how  beauti- 
ful she  was,  and  gracious  and  young! 
She  was  youth,  elegance,  and  freshness, 
even.  Never  before  had  I  felt  what  a 
pretty  being  a  woman  is,  so  distin- 
guished and  delicate,  so  full  of  charm 
and  grace!  Never  had  I  understood 
what  a  seducing  beauty  there  is  in  the 
curve  of  her  cheek,  in  the  movement 
of  her  lips,  in  the  round  folds  of  her 
little  ear,  in  the  form  of  that  simple 
organ  which  we  call  the  nose. 

"This  lasted  three  months  and  then  I 
departed  for  America,  my  heart  bruised 
and  full  of  despair.  But  the  thought 
of  her  remained  in  me  persistent,  tri- 
umphant. She  possessed  me  at  a  dis- 
stance  as  she  had  when  I  was  near  her. 

"Some  years  passed.  I  had  not  for- 
gotten her.  Her  charming  im^age  re- 
mained before  my  eyes  and  in  my  heart. 
My  tenderness  remained  faithful  to  her, 
a  tranquil  tenderness  now,  something 
like  a  much-loved  memory  of  the  most 
beautiful,  most  attractive  thing  I  had 
met  in  life. 


518 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPAS3ANT 


"T'velve  years  are  such  a  little  thing 
in  a  man  s  existence!  One  scarcely  feels 
them  pass!  They  go  one  after  aaother 
these  years,  gently  and  quickly,  slowly 
or  hurriediy,  each  long  but  so  soon 
finished!  And  they  add  so  rapidly  and 
leave  so  little  trace  behind  them;  they 
vanish  so  completely  that  in  looking 
back  over  the  time  passed  one  cannot 
perceive  anything,  and  cannot  compre- 
hend how  it  is  that  they  have  made  him 
old.  It  seemed  to  me  truly,  that  only  a 
few  months  separated  me  from  that 
charming  season  on  the  beach  at  Etretat. 

''Last  spring  I  went  to  dine  at 
Maisons-Lafitte  at  the  house  of  some 
friends.  Just  as  the  train  was  starting, 
a  large  woman  got  into  my  car,  fol- 
lowed by  four  little  girls.  I  scarcely 
glanced  at  this  large,  round  mother, 
with  a  face  like  a  full  moon  incased  in 
a  be-ribboned  hat. 

"She  breathed  heavily,  being  out  of 
breath  from  a  quick  walk.  The  children 
began  to  babble.  I  opened  my  news- 
paper and  began  to  read. 

"We  were  just  passing  Asnieres,  when 
my  neighbor  said  to  me  suddenly: 

"  'Pardon  me,  sir,  but  are  you  not 
Mr.  Carnicr?' 

"  'Yes,  Madame.* 

"Then  she  began  to  laugh,  the  laugh 
of  a  contented,  brave  woman,  but  a 
little  sad,  nevertheless. 

"  'You  do  not  recognize  me?*  said 
she. 

"I  hesitated.  I  fully  believed  that  I 
had  somewhere  seen  that  face;  but 
where?     and  when?    I  answered: 

"  'Yes — and  no — ^I  certainly  do  recog- 
nize you,  but  cannot  recall  your  name.* 

"She  blushed  a  little  as  she  said: 
"Mrs.  Julie  Lefevre.* 


"Never  have  I  received  such  a  blow. 
For  a  second  it  seemed  to  me  that  all 
was  finished  for  me.  I  felt  that  a  veil 
had  been  torn  away  from  before  my 
eyes  and  that  I  was  about  to  discover 
something  frightful  and  wounding. 

"It  was  she!  That  great,  gross,  com- 
mon woman,  she?  And  she  had  borne 
these  four  girls  since  I  had  seen  her. 
And  these  four  beings  astonished  me  as 
much  as  the  mother  herself.  They  had 
come  from  her;  they  were  tall  already, 
had  taken  her  place  in  life.  She  no 
longer  counted,  she,  that  marvel  of  co- 
quettish, refined  grace.  I  had  seen  her 
yesterday,  it  seemed  to  me,  and  I  found 
her  again  like  this!  Was  it  possible?  A 
violent  grief  attacked  my  heart,  and 
also  a  revolt  against  Nature,  even,  an 
unreasonable  indignation  against  her 
brutal  work,  so  infamous  and  destruc- 
tive. 

"I  looked  at  her  aghast.  Then  I  took 
her  by  the  hand,  and  the  tears  mounted 
to  my  eyes.  I  wept  for  her  young,  I 
wept  for  her  dead.  For  I  was  not  ac- 
quainted with  this  large  lady. 

"She,  also  affected,  stammered: 

"  'I  am  much  changed,  am  I  not? 
What  can  we  expect  after  so  long?  Yo'j 
see  I  have  become  a  mother,  nothing 
but  a  mother,  a  good  mother.  Adieu  to 
all  else,  it  is  finished.  Oh!  I  never 
thought  that  you  would  not  recognize 
me  if  we  met!  And  you,  too,  are 
changed;  it  took  me  some  time  to  be 
sure  that  I  was  not  deceived.  You  are 
quite  gray  Think  of  it.  Twelve  years! 
twelve  years !  My  eldest  daughter  is  al- 
ready ten  years  old.' 

"1  looked  at  the  child.  I  found  in 
her  something  of  the  former  charm  ot 
her  mother,  but  something  still  unded 


A  FRENCH  ENOCH  ARDEN 


319 


sive,  not  yet  formed,  but  near  at  hand. 
And  life  appeared  as  rapid  to  me  as  a 
train  which  passes. 

"We  arrived  at  Masions-Lafitte.  I 
kissed  the  hand  of  my  old  friend.  I 
had  found  nothing  to  say  to  her  but  the 
most  frightful  commonplaces.  I  was 
too  upset  to  talk. 


"That  evening,  all  alune  in  my  room, 
I  looked  at  myself  for  a  long  time  in  my 
glass.  And  I  ended  by  recalling  my- 
self as  I  was,  of  looking  back  in  thought 
to  my  brown  mustache  and  my  black 
hair  and  the  physiognomy  of  my  young 
face.    Now  I  was  old.    Adieu!" 


A  French  Enoch  Arden 


The  sea  lashes  the  shore  with  its  short 
and  monstrous  waves.  Little  white 
clouds  are  scudding  quickly  across  the 
great  blue  sky,  swept  by  a  rapid  wind, 
like  birds;  and  the  village,  in  the  fold 
of  the  valley  which  runs  down  to  the 
ocean,  lies  broiling  in  the  sun. 

Quite  at  the  entrance  is  the  house  of 
the  Martin-Levesques,  alone,  at  the  side 
of  the  road.  It  is  a  little  fisherman's 
cottage,  with  clay  walls  and  a  thatched 
roof  adorned  with  blue  iris  flowers.  A 
garden  as  big  as  a  hai.dkerchief,  where 
sprout  some  onions,  a  few  cabbages, 
some  parsley,  some  chervil,  squares  it- 
self before  the  door.  A  hedge  hems  it 
in  along  the  roadside. 

The  man  has  gone  fishing:,  and  the  wo- 
man, before  the  lodge,  is  repairing  the 
meshes  of  a  big  brown  net  hung  on  the 
wall  like  a  great  spider's  web.  A  little 
girl  of  fourteen  at  the  garden  entrance, 
seated  in  a  cane  chair,  leaning  backward 
and  resting  her  arm  on  the  fence,  is 
mending  linen,  the  linen  of  the  poor,  al- 
ready pieced  and  patched. 

Another  small  girl,  a  year  younger,  is 
rocking  in  her  arms  a  very  little  baby, 
yet  without  gestures  or  words;  and  the 


two  youngsters  of  two  or  three  yeai'S 
sitting  on  the  ground  are  playing  gar- 
den with  their  clumsy  hands  and  throw- 
ing fistfuls  of  dust  in  each  other's  face. 

No  one  speaks.  Only  the  little  rascal 
whom  the  girl  is  trying  to  put  to  sleep 
cries  steadily,  with  a  sharp,  weak  little 
voice.  A  cat  is  sleeping  at  the  window, 
and  some  blooming  gillyflowers  make,  at 
the  foot  of  the  wall,  a  fine  cushion  of 
white  blossoms,  over  which  flies  are 
buzzing. 

The  little  girl  who  is  sewing  near  the 
entrance  calls  suddenly: 

''Mamma." 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you?"  re- 
plied the  mother. 

*'There  he  is  again.'* 

She  had  been  uneasy  since  morning 
because  there  was  a  man  prowling  about 
the  house;  an  old  man  who  seemed  to 
be  poor.  They  had  observed  him  as 
they  were  going  with  their  father  to  the 
boat  to  see  him  embark.  He  was  seated 
on  the  edge  of  the  ditch  opposite  their 
gate,  and  when  they  came  back  they 
found  him  still  there,  looking  at  the 
house. 

He  seemed  ill  and  very  wretched.    He 


320 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


had  not  stirred  for  more  than  an  hour; 
then,  seeing  he  would  be  considered  a 
malefactor  he  had  risen  and  departed, 
dragging  one  leg. 

But  soon  they  had  seen  him  return 
with  his  slow  and  weary  step;  and 
again  he  had  sat  down,  a  little  further 
away  this  time,  as  if  to  watch  them. 

The  mother  and  daughters  were 
afraid.  The  mother  especially  because 
she  was  of  a  timorous  nature,  and  be- 
cause her  husband  Levesque  was  not 
expected  to  come  from  the  sea  until 
nightfall. 

Her  husband's  name  was  Levesque, 
hers  was  Martin,  and  they  were  called 
the  Martin-Levesques.  This  is  why: 
she  had  married  for  her  first  husband 
a  man  named  Martin,  who  went  to  New- 
foundland every  summei  fishing  for  cod. 

After  two  years  of  married  life  she 
had  a  little  girl  by  him,  and  another 
three  months  after  the  craft  which  car- 
ried her  husband,  the  "Two  Sisters,"  a 
three-masted  bark  from  Dieppe,  dis- 
appeared. 

No  news  was  ever  received  from  it; 
none  of  its  crew  ever  came  back;  it  was 
considered  to  be  a  total  wreck. 

The  Martin  woman  waited  for  her 
second  husband  ten  years,  bringing  up 
her  children  with  great  difficulty;  then, 
as  she  was  a  good,  strong  woman,  a 
fisherman  of  the  neighborhood,  Leves- 
que, a  widower  with  a  boy,  asked  her  in 
marriage.  She  married  him  and  had  two 
children  by  him  in  three  years. 

They  lived  painfully,  laboriously. 
Bread  was  dear,  and  meat  almost  un- 
known in  the  household.  They  ran  in 
debt  at  times  with  the  baker,  in  winter, 
during  the  stormy  months.     The  little 


ones  were  well,  nevertheless.  Peopie 
said: 

"They  are  brave  folk,  the  Martin- 
Levesques.  The  wife  is  a  hard  worker 
and  Levesque  has  not  his  equal  for 
fishing." 

The  little  girl  seated  at  the  gate  re- 
peated: "You  would  think  that  he 
knew  us.  Perhaps  it  is  some  poor  man 
from  Eprevllle  or  from  Auzebogo." 

But  the  mother  was  not  deceived.  No, 
no,  it  wasn't  anyone  of  the  country, 
surely! 

As  he  moved  no  more  than  a  stake, 
and  as  he  kept  his  eyes  glued  to  the 
Martin-Levesques'  cottage,  the  woman 
became  furious,  and  fear  making  her 
brave  she  seized  a  shovel  and  went  out 
of  the  door. 

"What  are  you  doing  there?"  she  called 
to  the  vagabond. 

He  answered  in  a  gruff  voice: 

"I  am  taking  the  fresh  air!  Does 
that  do  you  any  harm?" 

She  replied: 

"Why  are  you  spying  like  this  on 
my  house?" 

The  man  replied: 

"I  am  not  injuring  anybody.  Isn't  it 
permitted  to  sit  down  by  ths  roadside?" 

Not  finding  an  answer  ready,  she  went 
back  into   'he  house. 

The  -f'iv  passed  slowly.  Toward  noon 
the  map  lisappeared,  but  he  came  by 
again  rcv^ard  five  o'clock.  They  did  not 
see  any  more  ot  him  during  the  eve- 
ning. 

Levesqii*^  returned  at  dusk.  They  told 
him  about  it.    He  remarked: 

"It  is  some  skulker  or  good-for-noth- 
ing." 

He  went  to  bed  undisturbed,  while  liis 


A  FRENCH  ENOCH  ARDEN 


621 


wife  dreamed  of  this  prowler  who  had 
looked  at  her  so  strangely. 

When  day  came,  there  was  a  great 
wind,  and  the  sailor,  seeing  that  he  could 
not  start  out  to  sea,  helped  his  wife 
at  mending  nets. 

About  nine  o'clock,  the  eldest  daugh- 
ter, a  Martin,  who  had  gone  out  to  get 
some  bread,  came  back  running  with 
a  frightened  air,  and  cried: 

"Ma,  there  he  is  again!" 

The  mother  was  startled  and,  very 
pale,  said  to  her  husband: 

"Go,  and  speak  to  him.,  Levesque,  so 
that  he  won't  watch  us  like  this,  be- 
cause it  worries  me  to  death." 

And  Levesque,  a  big  sailor  with  a 
complexion  like  a  brick,  a  thickened 
beard,  blue  eyes,  strong  neck,  always 
wearing  woolen  garments,  on  account 
of  the  wind  and  rain  at  sea,  walked 
out  quietly  and  approached  the  strag- 
gler. 

And  they  began  to  talk. 

The  mother  and  the  children  looked 
on  from  the  distance,  anxious  and 
trembling. 

Suddenly  the  unknown  rose  and 
came  toward  the  house  with  Levesque. 

The  wife,  terrified,  drew  back. 

Her  husband  said  to  her: 

"Give  him  a  piece  of  bread  and  a 
glass  of  cider.  He  hasn't  eaten  any- 
thing since  the  day  before  yesterday." 

They  both  entered  the  house,  fol- 
lowed by  the  woman  and  the  children. 
Vhe  vagabond  sat  down  and  began  to 
eat,  with  his  head  lowered  beneath  the 
prlances. 

The  mother,  standing  up,  scrutinized 
him.  The  two  big  girls,  the  Martins, 
leaning  against  the  door,  one  of  them 
holding  the  latest  baby  fixed  their  eager 


eyes  upon  him,  and  the  two  boys,  seated 
in  the  ashes  of  the  fireplace,  had  stopped 
playing  with  the  black  kettle  to  look 
at  this  stranger,  too. 

Levesque,  having  taken  a  chair,  asked 
him: 

"Do  ycu  come  from  a  distance?" 

"I  have  come  from  Cette." 

"On  foot  as  far  as  that?" 

"Yes,  on  foot.  A  man  has  to  walk 
when  he  cannot  afford  to  ride." 

"And  where  are  you  going?" 

"I  was  coming  here." 

"You  know  some  one  here?" 

"That  might  be." 

They  were  silent.  He  ate  slowly,  al- 
though he  was  famished,  and  he  took 
a  sip  of  cider  after  each  mouthful  of 
bread.  He  had  a  worn,  wrinkled  face 
and  seemed  to  have  suffered  much. 

Levesque  brusquely  asked  him: 

"What  is  your  name?" 

"My  name  is  Martin." 

A  strange  shudder  shook  the  mother. 
She  took  a  step  forward,  as  if  to  scan 
the  vagabond  more  closely,  and  stood 
opposite  him,  with  her  arms  hanging 
down  and  her  mouth  open.  Nobody 
said  anything  further.  Levesque  finally 
resumed: 

"Are  you  from  here?" 

He  answered :  "I  am  from  here."  And 
as  he  raised  his  head  the  woman's  eyes 
and  his  met  and  remained  fixed  upon 
each  other,  as  if  their  glances  were  fas- 
tened. 

She  suddenly  said,  in  a  changed  voice, 
low  and  trembling: 

"It  is  you,  my  husband?'* 

He  slowly  replied: 

"Yes,  it  is  L" 

He  did  not  move,  continuing  to  mas- 
ticate the  bread. 


^22 


WORKS  OF  GUY    DE  MAUPASSANT 


Levcsque  more  surprised  than  moved 
stammered: 

"ll  is  you,  Martin?" 

The  other  man  said  simply: 

"Yes,  it  is  I." 

And  the  second  husband  asked: 

"Where  have  you  come  from?" 

He  first  told  his  story. 

"From  the  coast  to  Africa,  I  was 
wrecked  on  a  reef.  Three  of  us  were 
saved,  Picard,  Vatinel,  and  me.  And 
then  we  were  captured  by  savages  who 
held  us  twelve  years.  Picard  and  V'a- 
tinel  are  dead.  An  English  traveler 
passing  that  way  took  me  and  broughi 
me  to  Cette,  and  here  I  am." 

The  woman  began  to  weep,  her  face 
in  her  apron. 

Levesque  said: 

"What  shall  we  do  now?" 

Martin  asked: 

"You  are  her  husband?" 

Levesque  replied: 

"Yes,  I  am." 

They  looked  at  each  other  ma  were 
silent. 

Then  Martin  gazing  at  the  children  in 
a  circle  around  him  nodded  toward  two 
little  girls. 

"Those  are  mine." 

Levesque  said: 

"They  are  yours." 

He  did  not  rise,  he  did  not  kiss  them; 
he  merely  remarked: 

"Good  God!  how  tall  they  are." 

Levesque  repeated: 

"What  shall  we  do?" 

Martin  perplexed,  could  not  tell. 
Finally  he  decided: 

"I  will  do  as  you  wish.  I  don't  want 
to  injure  you.  It  is  vexing  all  the 
same,  considering  the  house.  I  have 
two  children,  you  have  three,  each  his 


own.  But  the  mother,  is  she  yours  or 
mine?  I  will  consent  to  whatever  you 
wish,  but  the  house  is  mine,  since  my 
father  left  it  to  me,  since  I  was  bom 
here,  and  since  there  are  papers  for  it 
at  the  notary's." 

The  woman  still  wept,  with  little  sobs 
stifled  in  the  blue  cloth  of  her  apron. 
The  two  tall  girls  drew  near  and  looked 
at  their  father  with  uneashiess. 

He  had  finished  eating.  But  Levesque 
had  an  idea: 

"We  must  go  the  the  priest,  he  will 
decide." 

Martin  rose,  and  as  he  approached  his 
wife,  she  threw  herself  sobbing  upon  his 
breast. 

My  husband!  yc\i  are  here!  Martin^ 
my  poor  Martin,  you  are  here!" 

And  she  held  him  in  her  arms,  sud- 
denly pierced  by  a  breath  of  olden  times, 
by  a  great  shock  of  memories  which 
recalled  to  her  the  days  when  she 
was  twenty  and  their  first  embraces. 

Martin,  himself  moved,  kissed  her  on 
the  cap.  The  two  children,  in  the 
corner,  began  to  howl  together,  seeing 
their  mother  weep,  and  the  last  born, 
in  the  arms  of  the  second  Martin  girl, 
shrieked  v;ith  the  sharp  sound  of  a 
cracked  fife. 

Levesque,  standing  up,  waited : 

"Come,"  he  said,  "we  must  get  this 
straightened  out." 

Martin  released  his  wife,  and  as  he 
looked  at  his  two  daughters,  theii 
mother  said  to  them: 

"Kiss  your  father,  at  least." 

They  approached  him  together,  aston- 
ished, and  a  little  afraid.  And  he  kissed 
ihem  one  after  the  other,  on  both 
cheeks,  with  a  big  peasant's  smack.  And 
seeing  this  unknown  approach,  the  little 


JULIE  ROMAIN 


322 


child  uttered  such  piercing  cries  that 
it  almost  went  into  convulsions. 

Then  the  two  men  went  out  together. 

As  they  passed  the  Caje  du  Com- 
merce, Levesque  asked: 

"Shall  we  have  a  little  drop?" 

"I  would  like  it  very  much,"  said 
Martin. 

They  entered  and  sat  down  in  a  room 
which  was  vacant. 


"Ho!  Chicot,  two  bottles  of  wine, 
good  wine.  This  is  Martin  who  ha^ 
come  back,  Martin  of  the  'Two  Sisters,' 
which  was  lost." 

And  the  tavern-keeper,  thre3  glasse? 
in  one  hand  and  a  carafe  in  the  other, 
approached,  large  of  paunch,  ruddy,  fat, 
and  asked  with  a  quiet  air: 

"What,  you  here,  Martin?" 

Martin  replied:    "I  am  here," 


Julk  Romain 


In  the  springtime  two  years  ago,  I 
was  walking  along  the  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean.  What  is  more  charming 
than  to  dream  while  walking  over  a  lone- 
ly road?  One  enjoys  the  sunlight  and 
the  caressing  wind  when  climbing  the 
mountains,  or  strolling  by  the  seashore. 
And  in  his  day-dreams,  what  illusions, 
what  love-poems,  what  adventures  pass 
in  two  hours  through  the  mind  of  one 
who  idles  along  a  road.  Every  possible 
hope,  confused  and  joyous,  penetrates 
him  with  the  warm,  light  air,  he  inhales 
them  with  the  breeze,  and  they  give 
uirth  in  his  being  to  an  appetite  for 
happiness  that  increases  like  the  hunger 
he  acquires  in  walking.  Sweet  and  fleet- 
ing thoughts  sing  in  his  soul  as  he  comes 
closer  to  nature. 

I  followed  the  road  that  leads  from 
Saint  Raphael  to  Italy,  or  rather,  I  made 
my  way  through  that  superb  and  chang- 
ing scenery  which  seems  made  to  be 
celebrated  in  all  the  love-poems  of  the 
earth.  It  seemed  to  me  a  pity  to  think 
that,  from  Cannes  to  Monaco,  scarcely 
anyone  comes  into  this  part  of  country 


save  to  make  trouble,  to  juggle  with 
money,  or  to  display,  under  this  deli- 
cious sky  and  in  this  garden  of  roses  and 
oranges,  base  vanities,  stupid  preten- 
sions, and  vile  covetousness,  and  to  show 
the  human  mind  as  it  is — servile,  igno- 
rant, arrogant,  and  grasping. 

Suddenly,  in  one  of  the  curves  ci  the 
ravishing  bays  I  saw  a  group  of  villas, 
four  or  five  only,  fronting  on  the  sea 
at  the  loot  of  the  mountain.  Behind 
them  was  a  wild  forest  of  pines,  which 
covered  two  great  valleys  apparently 
without  roads  or  outlet.  Involuntarily 
I  stopped  in  front  of  the  gate  of  one  of 
these  chalets,  so  pretty  was  it, — a  little 
white  cottage  with  brown  decorations^ 
covered  with  roses  that  climbed  to  the 
roof.  The  garden  was  filled  with  flowers 
of  all  colors  and  every  size,  coquettishly 
arranged  in  studied  disorder.  The  lawn 
was  dotted  with  flower-beds;  a  vase  with 
trailing  vines  stood  on  the  step  of  the 
veranda,  and  over  the  windows  hung 
clusters  of  purple  grapes,  while  the  stone 
ballustrade  that  surrounded  this  charm- 
ing dwelling  was  covered  with  enormous 


i24 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


red  morning-glories,  that  looked  like 
spots  of  bli^od.  Behind  the  house 
stretched  a  ioi;g  alley  of  orange-trees  in 
flower,  which  reached  as  far  as  the  foot 
of  the  mountain. 

On  the  door  of  the  villa,  in  small,  gilt 
letters,  I  read  this  name;  "Villa  d'An- 
tan."  I  asked  myself  what  poet  or  fairy 
inhabited  the  place,  what  inspired 
recluse  had  discovered  it  and  created 
this  dream  of  a  dwelling,  that  appeared 
to  spring  from  masses  of  fiov/ers. 

A  workman  was  breaking  stones  on 
the  road  at  a  short  distance.  I  asked 
liim  the  name  of  the  proprietor  of  the 
chalet.  He  replied  that  it  belonged  to 
the  famous  Madame  JuHe  Romain. 

Julie  Romain!  In  my  childhood  I 
had  often  heard  her  spoken  of, — the 
^reat  actress,  the  rival  of  Rachel!  No 
wom.an  had  been  more  applauded,  or 
more  ioved, — more  loved,  above  all! 
How  many  duels  had  been  fought  and 
how  many  suicides  had  been  committed 
because  of  her,  and  how  many  wild  ad- 
ventures had  been  undertaken  for  her 
sake!  What  was  her  age  now,  that  se- 
ductress? Sixty, — no,  seventy — seventy- 
■ave  years.  Julie  Romain!  Here,  in  this 
house!  I  recalled  again  the  emotion 
created  throughout  France  (I  was 
twelve  years  old  then)  by  her  flight  to 
Sicily  with  one  lover,  a  poet,  after  her 
notorious  quarrel  with  another  adorer. 

She  fled  with  her  new  love  one  eve- 
ning, after  a  first-night  representation, 
during  which  the  audience  had  applauded 
her  for  half  an  hour  and  called  her  out 
eleven  times  in  succession.  She  went 
away  with  the  poet  in  a  post-chaise,  as 
was  the  custom  then;  they  had  crossed 
the  sea  in  order  to  love  in  that  antique 
island,   daughter  of  Greece,  under  the 


immense  grove  of  orange-trees  that  sur« 
rounds  Palermo,  which  is  called  the 
"Conque  d'Ov." 

Their  ascent  of  ^tna  was  gossiped 
about,  and  also  how  they  hung  over  the 
immense  crater,  arm  in  arm,  cheek 
against  cheek,  as  if  they  desired  to  throw 
themselves  into  the  gulf  of  fire. 

He  was  dead  now,  the  writer  of  affect- 
ing  verses,  of  poems  so  brilliant  that 
they  dazzled  a  whole  generation,  and  so 
subtle  and  mysterious  that  they  openefi 
a  new  world  to  other  poets. 

The  other  lover  was  dead  also,  the 
abandoned  one,  who  created  for  her 
those  musical  expressions  that  remain  in 
all  hearts, — expressions  of  triumph  and 
despair  that  are  at  once  intoxicating  and 
heartrending. 

She  lived  here,  in  this  house  veiled 
with   flowers ! 

I  hesitated  no  longer.  T  range  the  bell. 
A  domestic  came  to  open  the  door,  a 
boy  of  eighteen  years,  awkward  and  shy, 
with  hands  that  appeared  to  be  in  his 
way.  I  wrote  on  my  card  a  gallant 
compliment  to  the  old  actress,  and  an 
ardent  prayer  that  she  would  receive  me. 
Perhaps  she  might  know  my  name  and 
allow  me  to  see  her. 

The  young  valet  disappeared,  but  soon 
returned  and  asked  me  to  follow  him. 
He  showed  me  into  a  neat  drawing-room, 
correct  in  every  detail  m  the  style  of 
Louis  Philippe,  with  furniture  of  a  cold 
and  cumbersome  fashion,  the  coverings 
of  which  were  being  removed  in  my 
honor  by  a  little  maid  of  about  sixteen 
years,  with  a  slender  figure  but  not 
much  beauty. 

Then  the  servants  left  me  alone.  I 
looked  around  the  room  with  interest. 
On  the  walls  hung  three  portraits,  one 


JULIE  ROMAIN 


325 


was  of  the  actress  in  a  celebrated  role, 
another  was  of  the  poet-lover,  wearing  a 
long  frock-coat,  tight  at  the  waist,  and 
the  ruffled  shirt  of  those  days,  and  the 
third  was  of  the  musician,  seated  before 
a  clavichord.  The  lady  was  blond  and 
charming  in  her  portrait,  but  her  pose 
was  a  little  affected,  as  was  the  fashion 
of  that  day.  Her  charming  mouth  and 
blue  eyes  smiled  graciously;  and  the 
technique  of  the  painting  v/as  of  a  high 
degree  of  excellence.  Those  three  re- 
markable faces  seemed  to  be  looking 
already  at  the  next  generation,  and  their 
surroundings  had  an  air  of  a  day  that 
was  past  and  of  individualities  that 
were  no  more. 

A  door  opened  and  a  little  woman  en- 
tered. She  was  very  old,  very  small, 
with  eyebrows  and  bands  of  white  hair. 
Som.ehow  she  reminded  me  of  a  white 
mouse,  quick  and  furtive  in  her  move- 
ments. She  gave  me  her  hand,  and,  with 
a  voice  that  was  still  fresh,  vibrating, 
and  sonorous,  she  said  graciously: 
"Thank  you,  Monsieur.  It  is  very  kind 
of  the  men  of  to-day  to  remember  the 
women  of  yesterday!    Be  seated!" 

I  told  her  that  her  house  had  attracted 
me,  that  I  had  tried  to  learn  the  name 
of  the  proprietor,  and,  having  learned 
it,  I  could  not  resist  the  desire  to  ring 
her  bell. 

"Your  visit  gives  me  the  greater  plea- 
sure. Monsieur,"  she  said,  *'as  it  is  the 
first  time  such  an  event  has  happened. 
When  your  card  was  handed  to  me,  with 
the  gracious  compliment  it  carried,  I 
was  as  startled  as  if  some  one  had  an- 
nounced an  old  friend  who  had  been 
gone  these  twenty  years.  I  am  forgotten, 
truly  forgotten,  no  one  i  ^members  me, 
no  one  will  think  of  me  Hntil  the  day 


of  my  death;  then,  all  the  papers  will 
talk  for  three  days  of  Julie  Romain, 
telling  anecdotes,  giving  details,  and 
souvenirs  and  scandals,  and,  perhaps, 
pompous  eulogies.  Then  that  will  be 
the  end  of  me!" 

She  was  silent  a  moment  and  then  re- 
sumed: ''And  that  will  not  be  long 
now.  In  a  few  months,  in  a  few  days, 
perhaps,  the  little  woman  who  is  now 
alive  will  be  nothing  but  a  corpse!" 

She  raised  her  eyes  to  her  portrait 
which  met  her  gaze  as  if  smiling  at  that 
withered  caricature  of  itself;  then  she 
looked  at  the  two  men,  the  scornful 
poet  and  the  inspired  musician,  both  of 
whom  seemed  to  say:  "What  does  that 
ruin  ask  of  us?" 

An  indescribable,  keen,  irresistible 
sadness  seized  my  hearty  the  sadness  that 
overwhelms  those  whose  lives  are 
finished  and  who  struggle  still  with 
memories  as  a  drowning  man  struggles 
in  deep  water. 

From  the  place  where  I  sat  I  could  see 
brilliant  and  swiftly  moving  carriages 
passing  along  the  road,  going  from  Nice 
to  Monte  Carlo.  And  seated  inside 
were  beautiful  young  women,  rich  and 
happy,  and  men,  smiling  and  satisfied. 
She  followed  my  glance,  and,  compre- 
hending my  thought,  murmured  with  a 
resigned  smile:  "It  is  not  possible  to 
be  and  to  have  been  at  the  same  time." 

"How  beautiful  life  must  have  been 
for  you!"    I  said. 

She  sighed  deeply:  "Yes,  beautiful 
and  sweet !  It  is  for  that  reason  that  I 
regret  it  so  much." 

I  saw  that  she  w^as  disposed  to  talk 
of  herself;  so,  softly  and  with  delicate 
precautions,  as  one  would  touch  a  pain- 
ful  wound,    I   began   to   question   her 


326 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


She  spoke  of  her  success,  of  her  in- 
toxicaiing  joys,  of  her  friends,  of  her 
whole  triumphant  existence. 

"Your  greatPs.  joy  and  your  deepest 
happiness — did  you  owe  ihem  to  the 
theater,  Madame?"  I  asked. 

"Oh!  no,"  she  replied  quickly. 

I  smiled  and  she  added,  raising  her 
eyes,  with  a  sad  look,  to  the  portraits 
of  the  two  men: 

"I  owed  my  greatest  happiness  to 
them." 

I  could  not  refrain  from  asking  her 
to  which  one  she  owed  it. 

"To  both.  Monsieur!  I  even  confuse 
them  in  my  mind  sometimes,  and  be- 
sides, I  feel  remorse  toward  one  of  them 
to  this  day." 

"Then,  Madame,  it  is  not  to  them  but 
to  the  act  of  love  itself  that  you  owe 
your  gratitude.  They  have  merely  been 
love's  instruments." 

"That  is  possible.  But,  ah!  what  won- 
derful instruments!" 

"Are  you  certain  that  you  have  not 
been  loved — that  you  would  not  have 
been  loved  as  well,  and  perhaps  better, 
by  a  simple  man,  one  who  was  net  great, 
but  who  would  have  offered  you  his 
whole  lifj,  his  whole  heart,  his  whole 
being,  every  thought  and  every  hour? 
With  those  two  you  had  two  formidable 
rivals — m-usic  and  poetry." 

She  cried  out  with  force,  with  that 
youthful  voice,  which  could  still  thrill 
the  soul:  "No,  Monsieur,  no!  A  simpler 
man  might  have  loved  me  better,  per- 
haps, but  he  would  not  have  loved  me  as 
those  two  did.  Ah!  but  they  knew  how 
to  sing  the  music  of  love,  as  no  other 
m;in  in  the  world  could  have  sung  it. 

"How  they  intoxicated  me !  Is  it  pos- 
Mble  that  any  other  man  could  have 


found  that  which  they  found  in  words 
and  in  sounds?  Is  it  enough  to  love, 
if  one  does  not  know  how  to  put  into 
love  all  the  poetry  and  all  the  music  of 
the  sky  and  the  earth?  They  knew, 
those  two,  how  to  make  a  woman  ec- 
static with  joy  and  with  their  songs  and 
their  words  as  well  as  with  their  deeds. 
Yes,  there  was  perhaps  more  of  illusion 
than  reality  in  our  passion;  but  those 
illusions  Hft  you  to  the  clouds,  whereas 
realities,  alone,  always  leave  you  on  the 
earth.  If  others  loved  me  more,  it  was 
through  them  alone  that  I  learned,  felt, 
and  adored  love!" 

Suddenly  she  began  to  weep,  noise- 
lessly.  tears  of  bitter  sorrow.  I  appeared 
not  to  notice  it  and  looked  far  away 
out  of  the  window.  After  a  few  mo- 
ments she  went  on : 

"You  see.  Monsieur,  with  most  people 
the  heart  grows  old  with  the  body.  With 
me  that  has  not  happened.  My  poor 
body  is  sixty  nine  years  old,  but  my 
heart  is  only  twenty.  And  that  is  the 
reason  why  1  live  all  alone,  with  my 
flowers  and  my  vlreams." 

Again  a  long  ulence  fell  between  us 
After  a  time  sh  *  calmed  herself,  and 
again  spoke  smili.  >gly: 

"How  you  woui  i  laugh  at  me,  Mon- 
sieur, if  you  kne'w   how  I  pass  my  eve 
nings  when  the  wt ither  is  fire!     I  am 
ashamed  of  my  foL  v  and  pity  myself  at 
the  same  time." 

It  was  useless  fo  •  me  to  bog  her  to 
tell  me;  she  would  lot  do  so;  then  I 
rose  to  go,  at  which  %he  cried,  "What! 
so  soon?" 

I  told  her  that  I  had  intended  to 
dine  at  Monte  Carlo,  «rid  at  once  she 
asked,  a  little  timidly;    'Wonld  you  not 


JULIE  ROMAIN 


327 


like  to  dine  with  me?    It  would  give  me 
very  much  pleasure." 

I  accepted  her  invitation  immediately. 
She  appeared  dehghted  and  rang  the 
bell;  then,  when  she  had  given  a  few 
orders  to  the  little  maid,  she  said  she 
would  hke  to  show  me  her  house. 

A  kind  of  glass-covered  veranda,  fuU 
of  plants,  opened  from  the  dining-room, 
and  permitted  one  to  see,  from  one 
end  to  the  other,  the  long  alley  of 
orange-trees,  extending  to  the  foot  of 
the  mountains.  A  low  seat,  hidden  un- 
der the  shrubbery,  indicated  that  the 
aged  actress  often  came  to  sit  there. 

Then  we  went  into  the  garden  to 
look  at  the  flowers.  Evening  came  on 
softly,  one  of  those  calm,  warm  e*^enings 
that  bring  forth  all  the  perfumes  of 
the  earth.  It  was  almost  dark  when  we 
placed  ourselves  at  the  tabh.  Th3  din- 
ner was  excellent  and  we  sat  long  over 
it.  We  became  quite  intimate  friends. 
A  profound  sympathy  for  her  had 
sprung  up  in  my  heart.  She  drank  a 
glass  of  w!r.e  and  became  more  friendly 
and  confidential. 

"Let  U3  10  out  and  look  at  the  moon," 
she  said  at  last.  "I  adore  tl:e  moon, 
the  lovely  moon!  It  has  been  the  wit- 
ness of  n:y  greatest  joys.  It  seems  to 
me  that  all  my  sv/ee.est  memories  are 
treasured  tlierc,  anJ  that  I  have  only  to 
look  at  it  in  order  to  have  them  rome 
back  to  me.  And  sometimes,  in  the 
evening,  I  arrange  for  myself  a  pretty 
scene,  so  pretly — If  you  only  knew! 
But  no,  you  would  laugh  at  me  too 
much — I  cannot  tell  you — I  don't  dare 
— no, — ^no,  I  cannot  tell  you!" 

"Ah,  JMadarr.e,  continue,  I  "Dray!"  I 
begged   of  her.     "What  is  your  little 


secret?     Tell  me  I     i  promise  you  not 
to  laugh — I  swear  it!" 

She  hesitated;  I  took  lier  hands,  her 
Door  little  hands,  so  thin  and  cold,  and 
kissed  them  one  after  the  other  many 
times,  as  her  lovers  weie  wont  to  do 
in  former  days.  She  was  moved,  though 
she  still  hesitated. 

"You  promise  me  not  to  laugh?*'  she 
said  timidly. 

"Yes,  I  swear  it,  Madame!'* 

"Well,  then  come!"  she  said  with  a 
smile. 

We  rose  from  the  table,  and  as  the 
awkward  youth  in  green  livery  drew 
back  the  chair  behind  her,  she  spoke  a 
few  low,  quick  words  in  his  ear. 

He  repHed,  respectfully,  "Yes,  Ma» 
dame,  immediately." 

She  took  my  arm  and  led  me  upon  the 
veranda.  The  crange-tree  walk  was  a 
beautiful  sight.  The  moon  cast  a  slen* 
der  line  of  silver  among  the  trees,-  -a 
long  line  of  light  that  fell  on  the  yel- 
lew  sand  between  the  dense  and  rounded 
branches.  As  the  trees  were  in  bloom, 
their  delicious  and  penetrating  perfume 
Cllcd  the  air,  and  among  the  dark  foliage 
were  thousands  of  fireflies,  whose  tiny 
flames  looked  like  the  seed  of  stars. 

"Oh,  what  an  ideal  environment  for  a 
scene  of  love!"  I  cried. 

She  smiled.  "Is  it  not?  Is  it  not? 
You  will  see  presently!" 

She  made  me  sit  down  beside  her, 
and  murmured: 

"The  memory  of  such  scenes  is  what 
makes  me  regret  life.  But  you  hardly 
dream  of  those  things,  you  men  of  to- 
day. You  are  merely  money-makers, 
business  men.  You  don't  know  how  to 
talk  to  us  even.  When  I  say  'us,*  I 
mean   women   who   are   yoiiiig.     Love 


328 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


affairs  have  become  merely  liaisons, 
which  originate  often  in  an  unacknow- 
ledged bill  of  the  dressmaker.  I^  you 
find  the  bill  more  important  than  the 
woman,  you  disappear;  but  if  you 
esteem  the  woman  of  greater  value  than 
the  bill,  you  pay!  Nice  manners,  and 
charming  affections!" 

She  took  my  hand.    "Look!"  she  said. 

I  was  astonished  and  transported  with 
pleasure  at  the  charming  picture  that 
appeared.  Below  us,  at  the  end  of  the 
alley  and  in  the  full  moonlight,  a  youth 
and  a  maiden  were  coming  toward  us, 
clasping  each  other  around  the  waist. 
They  advanced,  their  arms  entwined', 
walking  slowly  in  the  moon's  rays,  the 
soft  effulgence  of  which  bathed  them 
completely. 

They  disappeared  in  the  darkness  for 
a  moment,  then  reappeared  further 
down  the  avenue. 

The  youth  was  dressed  in  a  white 
satin  costume  of  the  last  century,  with 
a  broad  hat,  over  which  hung  an  ostrich 
feather.  The  maiden  wore  a  skirt  with 
wide  hoops,  and  her  head  was  dressed 
with  the  high,  powdered  coiffure  affected 
by  beautiful  dames  in  the  days  of  the 
Regency, 


At  last  they  came  to  a  halt,  about  a 
hundred  steps  away  from  us,  and,  stand- 
ing in  the  middle  of  the  alley,  they  em- 
braced, after  saluting  each  other  grace- 
fully. 

Suddenly  I  recognized  the  two  little 
servants!  Then  I  was  seized  with  one 
of  those  irresistible  desires  to  laugh  that 
shake  one  all  over.  I  did  not  laugh, 
however.  I  resisted  the  impulse,  and 
waited  to  see  the  next  scene  in  this  ex- 
traordinary comedy. 

The  lovers  now  returned  toward  the 
end  of  the  alley,  and  distance  again 
made  them  appear  charming.  They 
withdrew  farther  and  farther  away,  and 
at  last  disappeared  like  figures  in  a 
dream.  The  alley  seemed  lovely  with- 
out them. 

I  took  my  departure  also.  I  left 
immediately,  so  that  I  should  not  see 
them  again;  for  I  thought  it  probable 
that  the  spectacle  was  made  to  last  a 
long  time,  in  order  to  recall  all  the  past, 
— that  past  of  love  and  scenic  effect; 
that  fictitious  past,  deceiving  and  seduc- 
tive, falsely  yet  truly  charming,-— tc 
cause  the  tender  heart  to  throb  again  in 
the  romantic  breast  of  the  old  actress, 
and  to  use  me  as  a  final  instrument. 


An  Unreasonable  Woman 


A  GREAT  wind  was  whistling  outside, 
an  autumn  wind,  groaning  and  gallop- 
ing; one  of  those  winds  which  kill  the 
last  leaves  and  carry  them  away  to  the 
clouds. 

The  hunters  had  finished  their  din- 
ner and  were  still  booted,  red,  animated 


and  lighted  up.  They  v;ere  those  demi- 
Norman  lords,  half  country  squire,  haK 
peasant,  rich  and  vigorous,  shaped  foi 
cutting  the  horns  of  beeves  when  they 
stopped  them  in  the  market. 

They   had   hunted    all    day   on    Mr. 
Blondel's  estate,  Mr.  Blondel,  the  may^f 


AN  UNREASONABLE  WOMAN 


;29 


of  Eparville,  and  they  were  eating  now 
around  the  great  table,  in  a  kind  of 
farm-villa  of  which  their  host  was  the 
proprietor. 

They  were  talking  like  a  whirlwind, 
laughing  like  a  roar  of  wild  animals,  and 
drinking  like  cisterns,  their  legs  stretched 
out,  their  elbows  on  the  cloth,  their 
eyes  shining  under  the  flame  of  the 
lamps,  heated  by  a  hearth  fire  so  for- 
midable  as  to  send  to  the  ceiling  its 
ruddy  glow.  They  :hatted  of  hunting 
and  dogs.  But  they  had  come  to  the 
hour  when  other  ideas  come  to  men  half 
tipsy,  and  all  eyes  followed  the  strong 
girl  with  plump  cheeks  who  carried  at 
the  end  of  her  r-ed  wrists  great  platters 
filled  with  food. 

Suddenly  a  devil  of  a  fellow,  who 
had  become  a  veterinary  after  having 
studied  for  a  priest,  and  who  looked 
after  all  the  animals  of  the  district,  by 
name  Sejour,  said: 

"My  eyes!  Monsieur  Blondel,  you 
have  a  girl  there  who  is  not  starved." 

And  a  laugh  made  the  echoes  ring. 
Then  an  old  nobleman,  declassed,  ruined 
by  alcohol,  M.  de  Varnetot,  raised  his 
voice. 

"I  once  had  a  droll  adventure  with  a 
girl  like  that.  Wait,  I  must  tell  it  to 
you.  Every  time  I  think  of  her  it  re- 
calls Mirza,  my  dog  which  I  sold  to 
Count  d'Haussonel  and  which  returned 
every  day  when  she  was  let  out,  because 
she  was  unable  to  leave  me.  Finally, 
I  got  angry  and  begged  the  Count  to 
keep  her  chained.  Do  you  know  what 
the  beast  did?    She  died  of  grief. 

''But,  to  return  to  my  maid;  here  is 
the  story: 

"I  was  then  twenty-five  years  old, 
and  lived  as  a  bachelor  in  my  castle  at 


Villebon.  You  know  that  when  one  is 
young  and  has  an  income,  and  makes 
a  beast  of  himself  every  evening,  he 
has  his  eye  on  all  sides. 

"I  discovered  a  young  girl  who  was  in 
service  at  the  house  of  Deboultot  of 
Cauville.  You  know  Deboultot  well, 
you,  Blondel.  To  be  brief,  she  pleased 
me  so  much,  the  hussy,  that  I  went  one 
day  to  her  master  and  made  l  business 
proposition  to  him.  He  gave  me  his  ser- 
vant and  I  sold  him  my  black  mare, 
Cocotte,  which  he  had  sought  of  me  for 
two  years.  He  extended  his  hand  to  me 
and  said:  Tt  is  agreed  M.  De  Varnetot.' 
It  was  a  bargain.  The  little  one  came 
to  the  castle  and  I  took  my  black  mare 
to  Cauville  myself,  and  I  let  him  have 
her  for  three  hundred  crowns. 

"At  first  everything  went  as  if  on 
wheels.  No  one  mistrusted  anything. 
Only  Rose  loved  me  a  little  too  much 
for  my  taste.  The  child,  you  see,  was 
not  a  nobody.  She  had  something  out 
of  the  common  in  her  veins.  She  came 
from  some  girl  who  committed  some 
error  with  her  master. 

"Briefly,  she  adored  me.  There  were 
cajolings,  endearments,  little  pet  names, 
and  heaps  of  caresses — enough  to  make 
it  a  matter  of  reflection. 

*T  said  to  myself:  'This  cannot  last, 
or  I  would  allow  myself  to  be  caught' 
'But  they  do  not  catch  me  easily.  I 
am  not  one  of  those  to  be  taken  in  with 
a  couple  of  kisses.  So,  I  had  my  eyes 
opened  when  she  announced  to  me  that 
she  was  large. 

"Pif!  Pif!  it  was  as  if  some  one 
had  put  two  shots  from  a  gun  into  my 
breast.  And  she  embraced  me,  she  em- 
braced me,  I  say,  and  laughed  and 
danced  as  if  she  were  mad.     What!     I 


330 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


said  nothing  the  first  day;  but  at  night 
I  reasoned  with  myself;  I  thought:  'It 
is  just  here;  it  is  necessary  to  parry  the 
blow  and  cut  the  thread;  it  ic  the  only 
time.'  You  understand,  I  had  my  father 
and  mother  at  Barneville,  and  my  sister 
married  to  the  Marquis  of  Yspare,  at 
Rollebec,  two  leagues  from  Villebon. 
There  must  not  be  any  stories. 

"But  how  was  I  to  draw  myself  out 
of  t^ae  affair?  If  she  left  the  house, 
something  would  be  suspected  and  peo- 
ple would  talk.  If  I  kept  here  there, 
the  condition  would  soon  be  recognized, 
and  then  I  could  not  turn  her  away. 

"I  spoke  to  my  uncle  about  it,  the 
Baron  de  Creteuil,  an  old  buck  who  has 
known  more  than  one  such  case,  and 
asked  his  advice.  He  responded  tran- 
quilly: 

"  'You  must,  marry,  my  boy.* 

"I  made  a  leap.  'Marry,  uncle,*  said 
I,  'marry  whom?' 

"He  shrugged  his  shoulders  gently  as 
he  replied: 

"  'Whom  you  wish;  that  is  your  affair, 
not  mine.  If  one  is  not  stupid  there  is 
Always  somebody  to  be  found.' 

"I  reflected  for  two  weeks  upon  this 
Idea,  and  ended  by  saying  to  myself: 
*My  uncle  is  right.' 

Then  I  commenced  to  rack  my  brain 
to  think  of  some  one,  when  one  eve- 
ning the  justice  of  the  peace,  with  whom 
I  was  dining,  said  to  me: 

*'  'Mother  Paumelle's  son  is  into  mis- 
chief again;  it  is  true  that  a  good  dog 
shows  his  race.' 

"This  Mother  Paumelle  was  a  sly  old 
gypsy  of  whom  the  youth  could  have  all 
they  desired.  For  six  francs  she  would 
certainly  have  sold  her  soul,  and  her 
rake  of  q  9.cz\  f-^'lowed  '"n  her  lootsteps. 


"I  went  and  found  her,  and  very  gen- 
tly made  her  understand  the  state  of 
affairs.  As  I  was  somewhat  embarrassed 
in  my  explanations,  she  demanded,  all 
at  once: 

"  'Well,  how  much  will  you  give  to 
this  little  one?' 

"She  was  malicious,  this  old  woman, 
but  as  I  was  not  stupid,  I  was  prepared 
for  business.  I  owned  three  pieces  of 
waste  land  beyond  Sasseville,  which 
belong  to  my  three  farms  in  Villebon. 
The  farmers  were  always  complaining 
that  it  was  too  far  away;  in  short,  I  took 
back  the  three  fields,  six  acres  in  all, 
and,  as  my  farmers  found  fault,  I  re- 
turned to  them,  up  to  the  end  of  each 
lease,  all  their  rents  in  poultry.  In 
this  way  the  thing  was  settled.  Then, 
having  bought  a  piece  on  one  side  from 
my  neighbor,  M.  Aumonte,  I  had  a 
little  house  constructed  iown  there,  the 
whole  thing  for  about  fifteen  hundred 
francs  in  all.  In  this  way  I  had  got  to- 
gether a  little  farm  which  had  not  cost 
me  very  much,  that  I  could  give  to 
the  little  girl  for  a  marriage  portion. 

"The  old  woman  cried  out :  "It  is  not 
enough;  but  I  will  wait;  we  will  leave  it 
without  deciding  anything.' 

"The  next  day  at  daybreak  the  lad 
came  to  find  me.  I  could  scarcely  re- 
call his  face,  but  when  I  saw  him  I  was 
reassured ;  he  was  not  bad  for  ?  peasant, 
but  had  the  air  of  a  rude  fellow. 

"He  looked  at  the  affair  from  a  dis- 
tance, as  if  he  were  buying  a  cow.  When 
we  had  agreed,  he  wished  to  see  the 
property,  and  we  set  out  together  over 
the  fields.  The  scamp  kept  me  going 
for  three  hours  over  the  land:  he  sur- 
veyed it,  measured  it.  took  up  the  earth 
and  crumbled  it  in  hi:  hands,  as  if  he 


AN  UNREASONABLE  WOMAN 


:;3i 


were  afraid  of  being  deceived  in  the 
merchandise.  The  house  was  not  yet 
roofed;  he  exacted  slate  instead  of 
thatch,  because  it  needed  less  repairs! 
Then  he  said  to  me: 

"'And  the  furniture;  you  must  give 
that.' 

"I  protested:  'No.  It  is  enough  to 
give  you  a  farm.' 

"He  sneered:  *Yes,  a  farm  and  a 
child.' 

"I  colored,  in  spite  of  myself.  He 
went  on: 

"  'Come,  now,  you  must  give  a  bed, 
a  table,  the  chest  of  drawers,  three 
chairs,  and  the  kitchen  dishes,  or  noth- 
ing can  be  done.' 

"I  consented  to  it. 

"Then  we  started  to  return.  He  had 
not  yet  said  a  word  about  the  girl.  But 
suddenly,  with  a  sly,  constrained  air,  he 
asked : 

"  'But  if  she  should  die,  who  would 
it  go  to,  this  farm?' 

*'I  answered:  'To  you,  naturally.* 

"That  was  what  he  had  wanted  to 
know  since  morning.  Immediately  he 
extended  his  hand  to  m'^  with  a  satis- 
fied appearance.  We  were  of  ons  accord. 

"Oh!  but  I  had  difficulty  in  making 
Rose  consent.  She  dragged  herielf  at 
my  feet,  sobbed,  and  kept  repeating: 
*It  was  you  proposed  it  to  me!  It  was 
you!  it  was  you!'  For  moro  than  a 
week  she  resisted  in  spite  of  my  reason- 
ing and  my  prayers.  They  a:e  stupid, 
these  women!  As  soon  as  they  get 
love  into  their  heads,  they  understand 
nothing  else.  Wisdom  is  nothing;  it  is 
love  above  r^l.  and  all  for  love! 

*\  inally,  I  got  angry  and  threatened 
to  throw  her  out.  Then  she  yielded, 
little  by  little,  on  the  condition  that  I 


would  allow  her  to  come  and  see  lae 
from  time  to  time, 

*  I  myself  conducted  1  3r  to  the  altar, 
paid  for  the  ceremony,  and  c^ve  the 
wedding  dinner.  I  did  the  tb.ln[^  up 
Crandly,  in  short.  Then,  'Good-bye,  my 
children!'  I  went  to  pass  si^:  months 
with  my  brother  in  Touraine. 

"When  I  returned  I  learned  that  she 
had  been  at  the  house  every  week  askinr; 
for  me.  And  I  had  scarcely  been  home 
an  hour  before  I  saw  her  coming  with  a 
baby  in  her  arms.  Believe  me  if  you 
v/ill,  but  it  affected  me  in  some  way 
to  see  this  little  monkey.  I  believe  I 
even  embraced  it. 

"As  for  the  mother,  she  was  a  wreck, 
a  skeleton,  a  shadow.  She  looked  thin 
and  old.  Ye  gods!  it  was  evident  this 
marriage  was  not  to  her  liking.  I  said 
to  her  mechanically: 

"  'Are  you  happy?' 

"  'Then  she  began  to  weep  like  d 
fountain,  and,  with  hiccoughs  and  sobs, 
she  cried: 

"  'I  can  never,  never  leave  you  now 
I  would  rather  die;  I  cannot.' 

"She  made  a  devil  of  a  noise.  I  con- 
soled her  as  well  as  I  could  and  con- 
ducted her  back  to  the  gate. 

"I  learned  that  her  husband  beat  her, 
and  that  her  mother-in-law  made  life 
hard  for  her,  the  old  cabbage-head. 

"Two  days  later  she  returned.  She 
took  me  in  her  arms  and  dragged  her- 
self upon  the  earth.  'Kill  me,'  she  said, 
'but  I  •vill  never  go  back  down  there.* 

"This  is  exactly  what  Mirza  would 
have  said  could  she  have  sDoken !  These 
stories  began  to  be  very  tiresome  to  me 
and  I  went  away  again  for  another  six 
months. 

"When  I  returned —when  I  returnee'. 


332 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


I  learned  that  she  had  died  three  weeks 
before,  having  visited  the  castle  every 
Sunday— just  like  Mirza.  The  child  had 
^Iso  died  eight  days  before. 

"As  for  the  husband,  the  cunning  ras- 
cal, he  inherited  the  property.  He  has 
turned  out  well  since,  it  appears,  and  is 
now  municipal  counselor." 


M.  de  Varnetot  added,  laughing. 

'Tt  is  a  fact  that  I  made  the  fortune 
of  that  man!" 

And  M  Sejour,  the  veterinary,  con- 
cluded gravely,  carrying  a  glass  of 
brandy  to  his  lips: 

"Say  what  you  will,  but  with  women 
like  that,  such  things  should  not  be." 


Rosalie  Prudent 


There  was  a  mystery  in  that  affair 
about  Rosalie  Prudent,  which  neither 
the  jury,  nor  the  judge,  nor  the  prose- 
cuting attorney  of  the  republic  himself 
could  understand. 

The  girl  Rosalie  was  a  servant  at  the 
house  of  the  Varambot  family,  of 
Mantes.  She  became  enceinte,  and,  un- 
known to  her  employers,  had  given  birth 
to  a  child  m  the  garret,  during  the 
night,  and  had  then  killed  the  child  and 
buried  it  in  the  garden. 

It  was  the  ordinary  story  of  most  of 
the  infanticides  commited  by  servants. 
But  one  act  remained  inexplicable.  The 
examination  of  the  girl's  room  had  re- 
sulted in  the  discovery  of  a  complete 
layette  for  an  infant,  made  by  Rosalie 
herself,  who  had  passed  her  nights  dur- 
ing three  months  in  cutting  out  the  gar- 
ments and  sewing  them.  The  grocer 
where  she  had  bought  her  candles  (paid 
for  out  of  her  wages),  in  order  to  per- 
form this  long  task,  came  forward  and 
testified  to  the  fact  of  their  purchase. 
In  addition  it  was  learned  that  the  mid- 
wife of  the  town,  informed  by  Rosalie  of 
her  condition,  had  given  her  all  the 
'dvice  and  information  necessary  in  case 


the  child  should  be  born  at  a  time  when 
aid  was  impossible  to  obtain.  She  had 
found  a  place  also,  at  Poissy,  for  Rosalie 
Prudent,  who  foresaw  her  loss  of  situa- 
tion, as  the  Varambots  were  severe  on 
the  subject  of  morality. 

They  appeared  in  court,  the  man  and 
his  wife,  small  provincials  of  moderate 
means,  exasperated  against  the  vulgar 
creature  who  had  besmirched  the  imma- 
culateness  of  their  house.  They  would 
have  liked  to  see  her  guillotined  at  once, 
without  trial,  and  they  overwhelmed  her 
with  insults  which  in  their  mouths  be- 
came accusations. 

The  guilty  one,  a  tall,  handsome  girl 
of  lower  Normandy,  fairly  well  educated 
for  her  station,  wept  without  ceasing, 
and  made  no  reply  to  them  or  to  any- 
one. The  Court  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  she  had  accomplished  that  act  of 
barbarity  in  a  moment  of  despair  and 
insanity,  since  everything  indicated  that 
she  had  hoped  to  keep  her  infant  and 
bring  it  up. 

The  judge  tried  once  more  to  make 
her  speak,  to  get  her  to  acknowledge 
her  crime,  and  having  asked  her  with 
great  kindness  to  do  so.  be  made  her  un- 


ROSALIE  PRUDENT 


333 


ierstand  at  last  that  the  jury  sitting 
there  to  judge  her  did  not  wish  her 
death,  but  were  ready  to  pity  her. 

The  girl  appeared  to  be  making  up 
her  mind  to  speak  at  last. 

"Tell  us  now  at  first  who  is  the  father 
of  that  child,"  said  the  judge. 

Until  that  moment  she  had  refused 
obstinately  to  divulge  this  fact.  Now 
she  replied  suddenly,  looking  straight  at 
her  employers,  who  had  come  there  in 
a  rage  to  calumniate  her. 

*'It  is  Monsieur  Joseph,  the  nephew 
of  Monsieur  Varambot!" 

Varambot  and  his  wife  started,  and 
both  cried  at  the  same  time: 

"It  is  false!  She  lies!  It  is  infa- 
mous!" 

The  judge  bade  them  be  silent,  and 
said: 

"Continue,  I  beg  of  you,  and  tell  us 
how  it  happened." 

Then  the  girl  began  to  speak  hur- 
riedly, seeming  to  find  some  comfort  for 
her  poor,  solitary,  bruised  heart  in  giv- 
ing vent  to  her  sorrow  before  these 
severe-looking  men,  whom  she  had  taken 
until  then  for  enemies  and  inflexible 
judges. 

"Yes  it  was  Monsieur  Joseph  Varam- 
bot— ^it  happened  when  he  came  for  his 
vacation  last  summer." 

"What  is  the  occupation  of  this  Mon- 
sieur Joseph  Varambot?" 

"He  is  underothcer  in  the  artillery, 
Monsieur.  He  was  two  months  at  the 
house — two  months  of  the  summer.  I 
wasn't  thinking  of  anything  when  he 
began  to  look  at  me,  and  then  to  say 
things  to  me,  and  finally  to  make  love 
to  me  the  whole  day  long.  I  was  easy, 
Monsieur!  He  told  me  I  was  a  hand- 
some p:irl.  that  I  pleased  him.  that  X  was 


to  his  taste.  For  m3rself,  he  pleased 
me,  to  be  sure.  What  would  you  have? 
Anyone  listens  to  those  things,  when 
one  is  alone — as  I  am.  I  am  alone  on 
the  earth.  Monsieur.  There  is  no  one 
to  whom  I  can  talk — ^no  one  to  whom 
I  can  tell  my  troubles.  I  have  neithei 
father,  nor  mother,  nor  brother;  nor  sis- 
ter— no  one!  He  seemed  like  a 
brother  who  had  come  to  me  when  he 
began  to  talk  to  me.  And  then  he 
asked  me  to  go  down  to  the  river  one 
evening,  so  that  we  might  talk  without 
making  so  much  noise.  And  I  went 
down  there.  Could  I  have  known  what 
would  happen?  He  put  his  arms 
around  my  waist — of  course  I  didn't 
want  to, — no,  no!  I  couldn't  help  it. 
I  wanted  to  cry,  the  air  was  so  soft  and 
warm — it  was  clear  moonlight  —  I 
couldn't  help  it!  No,  I  swear  it  to  you, 
I  couldn't  help  it — ^he  did  what  he 
pleased.  That  lasted  three  weeks,  as 
long  as  he  remained.  I  would  have  fol- 
lowed him  to  the  end  of  the  world.  But 
he  went  away,  and  I  didn't  know  that 
I  was  enceinte — ^I  didn't  I  I  didn't  know 
it  until  the  month  afterward." 

She  began  to  weep  so  violently  that 
they  were  obliged  to  give  her  time  to 
compose  herself.  Then  the  judge  spoke, 
in  the  tone  of  a  father  confessor:  "Go 
on,  my  girl,  go  on." 

She  continued:  "When  I  knew  that  I 
was  enceinte,  I  told  Madame  Boudin, 
the  midwife,  to  whom  one  can  tell  these 
things;  and  I  asked  her  whav.  to  do  in 
case  that  happened  without  her.  And 
then  I  made  the  clothes,  night  after 
night,  until  one  o'clock  in  the  morning; 
and  then  I  looked  for  another  place,  for 
I  knew  very  well  I  should  be  dis- 
charged: but  I  wished  to  remain  in  thai-- 


334 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


house  until  the  end,  in  order  to  econo- 
mize the  pennies,  seeing  that  I  had  no 
money  and  that  I  would  need  it  for 
the  little  one." 

"Then  you  did  not  wish  to  kill  him?" 
"Oh!  surely  not,  Monsieur." 
"Why  did  you  kill  him,  then?" 
"Here's  how  it  happened.  It  came 
sooner  than  I  thought  it  would.  It 
took  me  in  the  kitchen  as  I  was  wash- 
ing my  dishes.  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Varambot  had  retired  already,  so  I 
went  ups'.airs,  without  trouble,  holding 
to  the  banisters.  I  lay  down  on  the  floor 
in  my  room,  so  as  not  to  soil  the  bed. 
That  lasted  perhaps  one  hour— but  it 
may  have  been  two  or  three — I  can't 
tell,  so  much  pain  did  I  have, — and 
then — and  then  it  was  over,  and  I  took 
up  my  baby ! 

"Oh,  yes!  I  was  happy,  for  sure!  I 
did  everything  that  Madame  Boudin 
told  me,  everything!  Then  I  laid  him 
on  the  bed, — and  then  another  pain  be- 
gan, and  it  was  a  pain  to  kill  anyone. 
Tf  you  knew  what  that  was,  you  others, 
you  wouldn't  do  as  much  I'm  sure!  I 
fell  on  my  knees,  and  then  on  my  back 
on  the  floor,  and  then  it  began  all  over 
again,  and  that,  too,  lasted  one  hour,  or 
perhaps  two  and  there  I  was  all  alone. 
Finally  there  came  another  little  one, 
yes,  another,  two  of  them,  like  that! 
I  took  it  up  as  I  took  the  first  one,  and 
I  put  it  on  the  bed  by  the  side  of  the 
other.  One — two!  Can  it  be  possible, 
I  said?  Two  babies!  And  I,  who  earn 
twenty  francs  a  month!  Say — ^was  it 
possible  for  me  to  take  care  of  them? 
To  care  for  one — yes,  I  might  do  that 
by  depriving  myself,  but  not  two! 

"The  thought  of  that  turned  my  head. 


What  do  I  know  about  it,  I?  Could  ) 
choose,  say?  Do  I  know?  I  saw  my- 
self come  to  my  last  day!  I  couldn't 
keep  two,  so  I  put  the  piilow  on  them 
without  knowing  what  I  was  doing — 
and  I  threw  myself  on  the  bed  and 
upon  them,  too.  And  I  stayed  there, 
rolling  and  crying,  until  daylight,  which 
I  saw  through  the  window.  I  looked 
at  them — they  were  both  dead  under 
the  pillow,  quite  dead.  Then  I  took 
them  under  my  arm,  I  went  down  the 
stairs,  and  out  in  the  garden;  I  took 
the  gardener's  spade  and  I  buried  them 
in  the  ground,  as  deep  as  I  could,  one 
here  and  the  other  there,  not  together, 
so  that  they  could  not  talk  of  their 
mother,  if  they  do  talk,  the  little  dead 
children.    Do  I  know? 

"And  then  I  went  back  to  my  bed, 
and  I  was  so  sick  that  I  could  not  get 
up.  They  made  the  doctor  come,  and 
he  understood  everything.  That  is  the 
truth,  Monsieur  the  judge.  Do  what 
you  want  to  me.    I  am  ready." 

During  her  speech  half  of  the  jury- 
men had  been  wiping  their  eyes  over 
and  over  again,  trying  to  hide  their 
emotion.  All  the  women  in  the  court 
room  were  sobbing. 

"At  what  spot  in  the  garden  did  you 
bury  the  other  infant?"  asked  the 
judge. 

"Which  one  did  you  find?'*  Rosalie 
inquirea. 

"The  one  that  was  under  the  arti- 
chokes." 

"Ah!  the  ether  is  buried  under  the 
strawberries  beside  the  well!"  The  poor 
girl  began  again  to  sob  so  loud  that  it 
was  enough  to  break  one's  heart  to  hear 
her.    The  jury  acquitted  her. 


Wppolyte's  Claim 


The  fat  Justice  of  the  Peace,  with 
one  eye  closed  and  the  other  half-open, 
is  listening  with  evident  displeasure  to 
the  plaintiffs.  Once  in  a  while  he  gives 
a  sort  of  grunt  that  foretells  his  opinion, 
and  in  a  thin  voice  resembling  that  of 
a  child,  he  interrupts  them  to  ask  ques- 
tions. He  has  just  rendered  judgment 
in  the  case  of  Monsieur  Joly  against 
Monsieur  Petitpas,  the  contestants  hav- 
ing come  to  court  on  account  of  the 
boundary  of  a  field  which  had  been  ac- 
cidentally over-stepped  by  Monsieur 
Petitpas's  farmhand,  while  the  latter 
was  plowing. 

Now  he  calls  the  case  of  Hippolj^e 
Lacour,  vestryman  and  ironmonger, 
against  Madame  Celeste  C6sarine 
Luneau,  widow  of  Anthime  Isidore 
Luneau. 

Hippolyte  Lacour  is  forty-five  years 
old;  he  is  tall  and  gaunt,  with  a  clean- 
shaven face  and  long  hair,  and  he  speaks 
in  a  slow,  singsong  voice. 

p  Madame  Luneau  appears  to  be  about 
forty  years  of  age.  She  is  built  like  a 
prize-fighter,  and  her  plain  dress  is 
stretched  tightly  over  her  portly  form. 
Her  enormous  hips  hold  up  her  over- 
flowing bosom  in  front,  while  in  the 
back  they  support  the  great  rolls  of 
flesh  that  cover  her  shoulders.  Her 
face,  with  strong!y-cut  features,  rests  on 
a  short,  fat  neck,  and  her  strong  voice 
is  pitched  at  a  key  that  makes  the  win- 
dows and  the  eardrums  of  her  auditors 
vibrate.  She  is  about  to  become  a 
mother  and  her  huge  form  protrudes 
like  a  mountain. 

The  witnesses  for  the  defense  are 
waiting  to  be  called. 


His  Honor  begins :  Hippolyte  Lacoux^ 
state  your  complaint. 

The  plaintiff  speaks:  Your  Honor, 
it  will  be  nine  months  on  Saint- 
Michael's  day  that  the  defendant  came 
to  me  one  evening,  after  I  had  rung  the 
Angelus,  and  began  an  explanation  re- 
lating to  her  barrenness. 

The  Justice  of  the  Peace:  Kindly  he 
more  explicit. 

Hippulyte:  Very  well,  your  Honor. 
Well,  she  wanted  to  have  a  child  and 
desired  my  participation.  I  didrJt  raise 
any  objection,  and  she  promised  to  give 
me  one  hundred  francs.  The  thing  was 
all  cut  and  dried,  and  now  she  refuses 
to  acknowledge  my  claim,  which  1  renew 
before  your  Honor. 

The  Justice:  I  don't  understand  in 
the  least.  You  say  chat  she  wanted  a 
child!  What  kind  of  child?  Did  she 
wish  to  adopt  one? 

Hippolyte:  No,  your  Honor,  she 
wanted  a  new  one. 

The  Justice:  What  do  you  mean  by 
a  new  one? 

Hippolyte:  I  mean  a  newborn  child, 
one  that  we  were  to  beget  as  if  we  were 
mar«,  and  wife. 

The  Justice:  You  astonish  me.  To 
what  end  did  she  make  this  abnormal 
proposition? 

Hippolyte:  Your  Honor,  at  first  I 
could  not  make  out  her  reasons,  and 
was  taken  a  little  aback.  But  as  I  don't 
do  anything  without  thoroughly  investi- 
gating beforehand,  I  called  on  her  to 
explain  matters  to  me,  which  she  did. 
You  see,  her  husband,  Anthime  Isidore, 
whom  you  knew  as  well  as  you  know 
me,  had  died  the  week  before,  and  his 


335 


336 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


money  reverted  to  his  family.  This 
greatly  displeased  her  on  account  of  the 
loss  it  meant,  so  she  went  to  a  lawyer 
who  told  her  all  about  what  might  hap- 
pen if  a  child  should  be  born  to  her 
after  ten  months.  I  mean  by  this  that 
if  she  gave  birth  to  a  child  inside  of 
the  ten  months  following  the  death  of 
Anthime  Isidore,  her  offspring  would 
be  considered  legitimate  and  would  en- 
title her  to  the  inheritance.  She  made 
up  her  mind  at  once  to  run  the  risk, 
and  came  to  me  after  church,  as  I  have 
already  had  the  honor  of  telling  you, 
seeing  that  I  am  the  father  of  eight 
living  children,  the  eldest  of  whom  is 
a  grocer  in  Caen,  department  of  Calva- 
dos, and  legitimately  married  to  Vic- 
toire-Elisabeth   Rabou — 

The  Justice:  These  details  are  super- 
fluous.    Go  back  to  the  subject. 

Hippolyte:  I  am  getting  there,  your 
Honor.  So  she  said  to  me:  "If  you 
succeed,  I'll  give  you  one  hundred 
francs  as  soon  as  I  get  the  doctor's 
report."  Well,  your  Honor,  I  made 
ready  to  give  entire  satisfaction,  and 
after  eight  weeks  or  so  I  learned  with 
pleasure  that  I  had  succeeded.  But 
when  I  asked  her  for  the  hundred  francs 
she  refused  to  pay  me.  I  renewed  my 
demands  several  times,  never  getting  so 
much  as  a  pin.  She  even  called  me  a 
liar  and  a  weakling,  a  libel  which  can 
be  destroyed  by  glancing  at  her. 

The  Justice:  Defendant,  what  have 
you  to  say? 

Madame  Luneau:  Your  Honor,  I  say 
that  this  man  is  a  liar. 

The  Justice:  How  can  you  prove 
this  assertion? 

Madame  Lufieau  [red  in  the  face, 
choking  and  stammering] :     How  can  I 


prove  it?  What  proofs  have  I?  I 
haven't  a  single  real  proof  that  the 
child  isn't  his.  But,  your  Honor,  it 
isn't  his,  I  swear  it  on  the  head  of  my 
dead  husband. 

The  Justice:  Well,  whose  is  it,  then? 

Madame  Luneau  [stammering  with 
rage] :  How  do  I  know?  How  do — 
do  I  know?  Everybody's,  I  suppose. 
Here  are  my  witnesses,  your  Honor, 
they're  all  here,  the  six  of  them.  Now 
make  them  testify,  make  them  testify. 
They'll  tell— 

The  Justice:  Collect  yourself,  Ma- 
dame Luneau,  collect  yourself  and  reply 
calmly  to  my  questions.  What  reasons 
have  you  to  doubt  that  this  man  is  the 
father  of  the  child  you  are  carrying? 

Madame  Luneau:  What  reasons?  I 
have  a  hundred  to  one,  a  hundred?  No, 
two  hundred,  five  hundred,  ten  thou- 
sand, a  million  and  more  reasons  to  be- 
lieve he  isn't.  After  the  proposal  I 
made  to  him,  with  the  promise  of  one 
hundred  francs,  didn't  I  learn  that  he 
wasn't  the  father  of  his  own  children, 
your  Honor,  not  the  father  of  one  of 
'em? 

Hippolyte  [calmly]  :    That's  a  lie. 

Madame  Luneau  [exasperated] :  A 
lie!  A  lie,  is  it?  I  guess  his  wife  has 
been  seen  by  everybody  around  here. 
Call  my  witnesses,  your  Honor,  and 
make  them  testify? 

Hippolyte  [calmly]  :    It's  a  lie. 

Madame  Luneau:     It's  a  lie,  is  it? 
How  about  the  red-haired  ones,  then?  i 
I  suppose  they're  yours,  too?  ; 

The  Justice:  Kindly  refrain  from  j 
personal  attacks,  or  I  shall  be  obliged! 
to  call  you  to  order. 

Madame  Luneau:  Well,  your  Honor  J 
I  had  my  doubts  about  him,  and  said  I 


HIPPOLYTE'S  CLAIM 


537 


to  myself,  two  precautions  are  better 
than  one,  so  I  explained  my  position  to 
Cesaire  Lepic,  the  witness  who  is  pres- 
ent. Says  he  to  me,  "At  your  disposal, 
Madame  Luneau,"  and  he  lent  me  his 
assistance  in  case  Hippolyte  should 
turn  out  to  be  unreliable.  But  as  soon 
as  the  other  witnesses  heard  that  I 
wanted  to  make  sure  against  any  dis- 
appointment, I  could  have  had  more 
than  a  hundred,  your  Honor,  if  I  had 
wanted  them.  That  tall  one  over  there, 
Lucas  Chandelier,  swore  at  the  time 
that  I  oughtn't  to  give  Hippolyte  La- 
cour  a  cent,  for  he  hadn't  done  more 
than  the  rest  of  them  who  had  obliged 
me  for  nothing. 

Hippolyte:  What  did  you  promise 
for?  I  expected  the  money,  your 
Honor.  No  mistake  with  me, — a  prom- 
ise given,  a  promise  kept. 

Madame  Luneau  [beside  herself] : 
•'One  hundred  francs!  One  hundred 
francs!  One  hundred  francs  for  that, 
you  liar!  The  others  there  didn't  ask 
a  red  cent!  Look  at  *em,  all  six  of  'em! 
Make  them  testify,  your  Honor,  they'll 
tell  sure.  [To  Hippolyte.]  Look  at 
*em,  you  liar!  they're  as  good  as  you. 
They're  only  six,  but  I  could  have  had 
one,  two,  three,  five  hundred  of  'em  for 
nothing,  too,  you  robber! 

Hippolyte:     Well,  even  if  you'd  had 
a  hundred  thousand — 
^      Madame   Luneau:      I   could,    if   I*d 
''  wanted  'em. 

Hippolyte:  I  did  my  duty,  so  it 
doesn't  change  matters. 

Madame  Luneau  [slapping  her  pro- 
tuberant form  with  both  hands]  :  Then 
prove  that  it's  you  that  did  it,  prove  it, 
you  robber!    I  defy  you  to  prove  it! 


Hippolyte  [calmly]  :  Maybe  I  didn't 
do  any  more  than  anybody  else.  But 
you  promised  me  a  hundred  francs  for 
it.  What  did  you  ask  the  others  foi', 
afterward?  You  had  no  right  to.  I 
guess  I  could  have  done  it  alone. 

Madame  Luneau:  It  is  not  true, 
robber!  Call  my  witnesses,  your 
Honor;  they'll  answer,  sure. 

The  Justice  called  the  witnesses  in 
behalf  of  the  defense.  Six  red,  awk- 
ward individuals  appeared. 

The  Justice:  Lucas  Chandelier,  have 
you  any  reason  to  suppose  that  you  are 
the  father  of  the  child  Madame  Luneau 
is  carrying. 

Lucas  Chandelier:    Yes,  sir. 

The  Justice:  Celestin-Pierre  Sidoine, 
have  you  any  reason  to  suppose  that 
you  are  the  father  of  the  child  Madame 
Luneau  is  carrying? 

Celestin-Pierre  Sidoine:     Yes,  sir. 

The  four  other  witnesses  testified  tc 
the  same  effect. 

The  Justice,  after  a  pause,  pro- 
nounced judgment:  Whereas  the  plain- 
tiff has  reasons  to  believe  himself  the 
father  of  the  child  which  Madame 
Luneau  desired,  Lucas  Chandelier,  Ce- 
lestin-Pierre Sidoine,  and  others,  have 
similar,  if  not  conclusive  reasons  to  lay 
claim  to  the  child. 

But  whereas  Mme.  Luneau  had  pre- 
viously asked  the  assistance  of  Hippo- 
lyte Lacour  for  a  duly  stated  con- 
sideration : 

And  whereas  one  may  not  question 
the  absolute  good  faith  of  Hippolyte 
Lacour,  though  it  is  questionable 
whether  he  had  a  perfect  right  to  enter 
into  such  an  agreement,  seeing  that  the 


333  WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 

plaintiff  is  marr'ed.  nnd  compelled  by  dame  Luneau  to  pay  an  indemnity  of 

the  law  to  remain  faithful  to  his  law-  twenty-five  francs  to  Hippolyte  Lacour 

ful  spouse:  ^o^  ^oss  of  time  and  unjustifiable  ab- 

Therefore  the  Court   condemns  Ma-  duction. 


Benoist 


It  all  came  over  him  one  Sunday 
after  mass.  He  went  out  of  church  and 
followed  the  crossroad  that  led  to  his 
house,  when  he  found  himself  behind 
the  Martin  girl  who  was  also  returning 
home. 

The  father  walked  beside  his  daugh- 
ter with  the  important  step  of  a  rich 
/armer.  Disdaining  the  blouse,  he  wore 
a  kind  of  waistcoat  of  gray  cloth,  and 
had  on  his  head  a  melon-shaped  hat 
with  a  wide  brim.  She,  laced  in  a  cor- 
set which  she  only  wore  once  a  week, 
walked  very  straight,  her  waist  drawn 
in,  her  shoulders  large,  hips  projecting, 
switching  a  little.  Her  hat  was  all 
flowers,  the  confection  of  an  V^vetot 
milliner,  and  she  showed  her  round, 
strong,  supple  neck,  where  little  tendrils 
of  hair  were  fluttering,  moistened  by 
the  air  and  sun. 

Benoist  saw  only  her  back;  but  he 
knew  her  face  well,  which  was  the  rea- 
son he  had  noticed  her  still  further. 
Suddenly  he  said  to  himself:  "My!  but 
she  is  pretty,  just  the  same,  that  Mar- 
tin girl!" 

He  looked  at  her  as  she  walked  along, 
admiring  her  crudely,  and  feeling  him- 
self moved  with  desire.  He  had  no  need 
of  .seeing  her  face,  none  at  all.  He 
planted  his  eyes  upon  her  figure,  re- 
peating to  himself,  as  if  he  were  speak- 
ing:   "She  is  a  pretty  girl!" 


The  Martin  girl  turned  to  the  right  to 
enter  "Martmere"  the  farm  of  John 
Martin,  her  father.  As  she  turned,  she 
looked  back  and  saw  Benoist  who 
looked  queer  to  her.  She  cried  out: 
"Good  morning,  Benoist.  He  answered: 
"Good  morning,  Miss  Martin,  good 
morning,  Mr.  Martin,"  and  passed  oa 

When  he  entered  his  house,  the  soup 
was  on  the  table.  He  seated  himself  op- 
posite his  mother,  beside  the  hired  man 
and  boy,  while  the  maidservant  went  to 
draw  the  cider.  He  ate  a  few  spoon- 
fuls, then  pushed  his  plate  aside.  His 
mother  asked: 

"What  is  the  matter,  don't  you  fee) 
well?" 

He  answered:  "No,  I  have  some- 
thing like  a  burning  in  my  stomach 
and  I  have  no  appetite." 

He  -watched  the  others  eat,  breaking 
off  from  time  to  time  a  mouthful  of 
bread  which  he  carried  slowly  to  his 
lips  and  masticated  a  long  time.  He 
kept  thinking  of  the  Martin  girl:  "All 
the  same,  she  is  a  pretty  girl."  And 
strange  to  say,  he  had  never  perceived 
it  until  this  time,  and  now  it  had  come 
to  him  so  suddenly  and  so  strongly 
that  he  was  unable  to  eat  any  more. 
He  scarcely  touched  the  stew. 

His  mother  said  to  him:  "Come, 
now,  Benoist,  do  eat  a  little;  it  is  a 
side  of  mutton,  and  very  good.    When 


BENOIST 


339 


one  has  no  appetite,  it  is  well  to  force 
oneself  a  little  sometimes." 

He  swallowed  a  mouthful,  then 
pushed  back  his  plate:  "No,  I  cannot, 
decidedly." 

Upon  rising,  he  made  a  tour  of  the 
farm  and  gave  the  boy  a  half-holiday, 
promising  to  drive  up  the  cattle  in  pass- 
ing. The  country  was  empty,  it  was  a 
day  of  repose.  From  place  to  place, 
in  a  field  of  clover,  the  cows  moved 
slowly,  with  bodies  expanded,  ruminat- 
ing under  the  full  sun.  Some  de'.ached 
plows  were  standing  in  a  corner  of  a 
plowed  field;  and  the  upturned  earth, 
ready  for  the  seed,  displayed  its  large 
brown  ridges  in  the  midst  of  patches  of 
yellow  where  bits  of  wheat  and  oat 
straw  were  left  to  decay  after  a  late 
reaping. 

An  autumn  wind,  somewhat  dry,  was 
blowing  over  the  plain,  announcing  a 
cool  evening  after  sunset.  Benoist  sat 
down  beside  a  ditch,  put  his  hat  on  his 
knees  as  if  he  needed  the  air  on  his 
head,  and  said  aloud,  in  the  silence  of 
the  field:  "When  it  comes  to  pretty 
girls,  there  is  a  pretty  girl!" 

He  thought  of  her  still  in  the  eve- 
ning in  his  bed,  and  again  on  waking  the 
next  day.  He  was  ret  sad,  he  was  not 
discontented;  he  could  not  have  told 
what  was  the  trouble  with  him.  But 
there  was  something  which  held  him, 
something  that  fastened  to  his  soul,  an 
idea  which  would  not  leave  him  and 
which  made  a  kind  of  tickling  in  his 
fcieart. 

Sometimes  we  find  a  large  fly  shut  up 
in  a  room.  We  hear  it  flying  around  and 
buzzing  until  the  noise  possesses  us, 
irritates  us.  Suddenly  it  stops;  we 
forget    about   it:   but   again    it   starts. 


forcing  our  attention.    We  can  neither 

catch  it  nor  kill  it  nor  m.ake  it  stay  in 
place.  Finally,  we  resign  ourselves  to 
its  humming.  So  the  remembrance  of 
the  Martin  girl  agitated  Benoist's  mind; 
it  was  like  an  imprisoned  fly. 

Then  a  desire  to  see  her  again  took 
possession  of  him,  and  he  passed  and 
repassed  before  the  Martin  farm.  He 
saw  her  at  last,  hanging  some  linen  upon 
a  line  between  two  apple-trees. 

It  was  warm  and  she  was  only  pro- 
tected by  a  short  skirt  and  a  chemise, 
which  showed  to  advantage  the  white 
arch  made  by  her  arms,  as  she  pinned 
up  the  napkins.  He  lay  flat  beside  the 
ditch  for  more  than  an  hour  after  she 
had  gone.  He  returned  to  find  himseli 
more  haunted  than  before. 

For  a  month  his  mind  was  full  of 
her,  so  that  he  trembled  when  her  name 
v;as  mentioned  before  h:m.  He  could 
not  eat,  and  had  night  sweats  which  hin- 
dered his  sleeping.  On  Sunday,  at  mass, 
he  could  not  keep  h:s  eyes  away  from 
her.  She  perceived  it  and  smiled  at 
him,  flattered  at  being  appreciated. 

Then  one  evening,  he  suddenly  met 
her  in  the  road.  She  stopped  on  see- 
ing him  approach.  He  walked  straight 
to  her,  suffocated  by  a  fear  that  seized 
him,  but  resolved  to  speak  to  her.  He 
commenced  stammering: 

"See  here,  Miss  Martin,  I  can't  en- 
dure this  any  longer." 

And  she  answered  him,  mockingly: 
"What  is  it  that  you  cannot  endure, 
Benoist?" 

He  replied:  "That  I  think  about  you 
as  long  as  there  are  hours  in  the  day." 

Placing  her  hands  on  her  hips,  she 
answered:  "It  is  not  I  who  force  you 
to." 


I 


340 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


He  murmured:  "Yes,  it  is  you;  and 
(  can  neither  sleep  nor  eat,  nor  rest, 
tior  nothing." 

Very  low  she  said:  "What  do  you 
think  is  necessary  to  cure  you  of  it?" 

He  was  struck  dumb,  his  arms  twitch- 
ing, his  eyes  round,  his  mouth  open. 
She  struck  him  a  sharp  blow  in  the 
chest  and  ran  away  as  fast  as  she  could. 

From  this  day  they  often  met  by  the 
ditches  or  in  the  crossroad,  generally  at 
the  close  of  day,  when  he  was  return- 
ing with  his  horses  and  she  was  driving 
the  cows  to  the  stable.  He  felt  him- 
self drawn,  thrown  toward  her,  by  some 
great  impulse  of  heart  and  body.  He 
felt  a  desire  to  press  her  close,  to 
strangle  her,  to  eat  her  and  make  her  a 
part  of  himself.  And  he  had  tremblings 
from  powerlessness,  from  impatience, 
and  rage,  from  the  fact  that  she  was 
his  complement,  making  together  but 
one  being. 

There  began  to  be  gossip  in  the 
country.  It  was  said  they  were  prom- 
ised to  one  another.  Indeed,  he  had 
asked  her  if  she  would  be  his  wife,  and 
she  had  answered:  "Yes."  They  were 
only  waiting  for  an  opportunity  to  speak 
of  it  to  their  parents. 

Then,  suddenly,  she  no  longer  came 
at  certain  hours  to  meet  him.  He  could 
only  get  a  glimpse  of  her  at  mass,  on 
Sunday.  And  then,  one  Sunday,  after 
the  sermon,  the  curate  announced  from 
the  high  pulpit  that  there  was  a  prom- 
ise of  marriage  between  Victoire  Ade- 
laide Martin  and  Joseph  Isidore  Vallin. 

Benoist  felt  as  if  he  had  raised  blood. 
His  ears  buzzed;  he  could  no  longer 
hear  anything,  and  he  perceived,  after 
some  time,  that  he  was  weeping  into 
bis  prayer  boo2 


For  a  month  he  kept  his  room.  Tlicp 
he  began  to  work  again.  But  he  was 
not  cured  and  still  thought  of  her  al- 
ways. He  shunned  passing  along  the 
roads  that  surrounded  bar  dwelling,  not 
wishing  to  see  even  the  trees  of  her 
yard,  and  this  forced  him  to  make  a 
large  circuit  morning  and  evening. 

She  was  now  married  to  Vallin,  the 
richest  farmer  in  the  district.  Benoist 
no  longer  spoke  to  him,  although  they 
had  been  comrades  since  infancy. 

Then,  one  evening,  as  Benoist  was 
passing  across  the  common,  he  learned 
that  she  was  enceinte.  Instead  of  :1e- 
senting  this,  or  its  affecting  him  with  a 
great  grief,  he  found  in  it  a  kind  of  sol- 
ace. It  was  finished  now,  well  finished. 
They  were  more  separated  by  this  than 
by  marriage.    Truly,  it  was  best  so. 

Some  months  passed,  and  still  some 
months.  He  saw  her  sometimes,  walk- 
ing to  the  village  with  slow  step.  She 
blushed  on  seeing  him,  lowered  her  head, 
and  hastened  her  steps.  And  he  turned 
out  of  his  way  in  order  not  to  cross  her 
and  look  into  her  eyes. 

But  he  thought,  with  the  same  ter- 
ror as  on  that  first  morning,  of  finding; 
himself  face  to  face  with  her  and  obliged 
to  speak  to  her.  What  could  he  say, 
after  all  he  had  said  to  her  in  former 
times  holding  her  hands  and  kissing  the 
locks  about  her  cheeks?  He  still  often 
thought  of  their  meeting  place  by  the 
side  of  the  ditch.  It  was  villainous  to 
do  as  she  did,  after  so  many  promises. 

However,  little  by  little,  anger  left 
his  heart;  there  was  no  longer  anything 
but  sadness.  And,  one  day,  he  took  his 
old  way  by  the  farm  where  she  Hved. 
He  saw  the  roof  of  the  house  from  afar. 
She  was  in  there!     Living  there  with 


BENOIST 


34  i 


another!  The  apple-trees  were  in  blos- 
som, the  fowls  were  singing  about  the 
barnyard.  The  whole  place  seemed 
empty,  the  fclk  having  gone  to  the  tields 
for  the  spring  work.  He  stopped  near 
the  fence  and  looked  into  the  yard.  The 
dog  lay  sleeping  before  his  kennel. 
Three  calves  were  walking  slowly,  one 
behind  the  other,  toward  the  pool.  A 
large  turkey-cock  was  wheeling  about 
before  the  door,  parading  before  the  poul- 
try after  the  manner  of  a  stage  singer. 

Benoist  leaned  against  a  post  and 
suddenly  felt  himself  seized  with  a  de- 
.sire  to  weep.  But  just  then  he  heard  a 
cry,  a  great,  appealing  cry  coming  from 
the  house.  He  stood  lost  in  amaze- 
ment, his  hands  clinched  upon  the  bars, 
ever  listening.  Another  cry,  prolonged, 
piercing,  came  to  his  ears,  and  entered 
his  soul  and  his  flesh.  It  was  she  who 
;vas  in  trouble!     She! 

Finally  he  started  hurriedly  across 
he  inclosure,  pushed  open  the  door  and 
iaw  her  stretched  out  upon  the  floor, 
n  agony,  her  face  livid,  her  eyes  hag- 
gard, seized  with  the  pains  of  childbirth. 

He  stood  there,  paler  and  trembling 
L.iore  than  she,  murmuring: 

*T  am  here,  my  friend;  here  I  am." 

And  she  replied,  in  gasps :  "Oh,  do  not 
leave  me,  Benoist,  do  not  leave  me!" 

He  looked  at  her,  not  knowing  what 
to  say  or  what  to  do.  She  began  to  cry 
out  again:  "Oh!  oh!  this  tears  me  in 
two!    Oh!  Benoist!" 

And  she  seemed  frightfully  tortured. 

Suddenly  a  furious  desire  to  help  her 

came  over  Benoist;  he  must  appease  her 

P      suffering,  free  her  from  this  agony.   He 

bent  over  and  took  her  up  and  carried 

K       her    to    her    bed.     And,    although    she 

r      groaned  continually,  he  then  undressed 


her,  taking  off  her  kerchief,  her  frock, 
and  her  skirt.  She  began  to  bite  her 
hands  in  order  not  to  cry  out.  Then  he 
did  for  her  as  he  was  accustomed  to  do 
for  beasts,  cows,  sheep,  and  mares:  he 
aided  her  and  received  into  his  hands  a 
large  infant,  which  began  to  squall. 

He  wiped  it  and  wrapped  it  in  a  cloth 
which  was  drying  before  the  fire,  then 
placed  it  on  a  pile  of  linen  that  lay  on 
the  table  and  returned  to  the  mother. 
He  put  her  on  the  floor  again,  changed 
the  bed,  and  put  her  in  it.  She  whis- 
pered: "Thanks,  Benoist,  you  have  a 
brave  heart."  And  she  wept  a  little,  as 
if  some  regret  had  seized  her. 

As  for  him,  he  loved  her  no  longer, 
not  at  all.  It  was  finished.  Why?  How? 
He  could  not  have  told.  What  had 
come  to  pass  had  cured  him  better  than 
ten  years  of  absence. 

She  asked,  weak  and  trembling: 
"What  is  it?" 

He  answered  in  a  calm  voice:  "It  is 
a  girl,  and  a  handsome  one." 

They  were  again  silent.  At  the  end 
of  a  few  seconds,  the  mother,  in  a  feeble 
voice,  said:  "Show  her  to  me,  Ben- 
oist." 

He  went  and  got  the  little  one  and 
was  presenting  it  to  her  as  if  it  were 
bread  that  had  been  blessed,  when  the 
door  opened  and  Isidore  Vallin  ap- 
peared. He  could  not  understand  at 
first,  then  suddenly,  he  guessed  it  all. 

Benoist,  somewhat  disconcerted,  mur- 
mured: "I  was  passing,  I  was  just 
passing  when  I  heard  a  cry — ^and  I 
came — ^here  is  your  child,  Vallin!" 

Then  the  husband,  with  tears  in  his 
eyes,  took  the  frail  little  monkey  that 
was  held  out  to  him,  embraced  it,  and 
stood  for  some  seconds  overcome;  then 


34:  WORKS  OF  GUY  DD  MAUPASSANT 

he  placed  the  child  on  the  bed,  and  ex-  from  this  time  be  friends;  just  that,  a 

tendei  both  hands  to  Benoist,  saying:  pair  of  friends— " 

"Done  now,  Benoist;  you  see,  between  And  Benoist  replied:     "I  am  willmg, 

•js  all  is  said.     If  you  wish,  we  shall  certainly—I  am  willing." 


li 


They  were  walking,  these  two  old 
friends,  in  the  garden  all  in  blossom, 
where  the  gay  springtime  stirred  with 
(ife. 

One  was  a  senator  and  the  other  a 
member  of  the  French  Academy,  grave, 
both  of  ihem,  full  of  reason  and  logic, 
but  solemn, — people  of  mark  and  repu- 
tation. 

They  were  speaking  at  first  of  poli- 
tics, exchanging  thoughts,  not  upon 
ideas  but  men,  personalities,  which  in 
these  matters,  always  precede  reason. 
Then  they  rose  to  reminiscences,  then 
they  were  silent,  rontinuing  to  walk  side 
Sv  side,  both  softened  by  the  sweetness 
of  the  air. 

A  great  basket  of  radishes  sent  forth 
their  odor,  fresh  and  delicate.  A  heap 
of  flowers,  of  every  kind  and  color, 
threw  their  sweetness  to  the  breeze, 
while  a  radiant  ebony-tree  full  of  yel- 
low berries,  scattered  to  th^  wind  its 
fine  powder,  a  golden  smoke  which  re- 
minded one  of  honey,  and  which  carried, 
like  the  caressing  powder  of  the  per- 
fumer, its  embalmed  seed  across  space. 

The  senator  stopped,  breathed  in  the 
fertile  sweetness  that  was  floating  by 
him,  looked  at  the  blossoming  tree,  re- 
splendent as  a  sun  from  which  the 
pollen  was  now  escaping.    And  he  said: 

"When  one  thinks  that  these  imper- 


ceptiblc  atoms,  which  smell  good,  can 
bring  into  existence  in  a  hundred  places, 
miles  from  here,  plants  of  their  own 
kind,  can  start  the  sap  and  fiber  of  the 
female  trees,  creating  from  a  germ,  as 
we  mortals  do,  they  seem  mortal,  and 
they  will  be  replaced  by  other  beings 
of  the  same  essence  forever,  like  usT' 

Then,  planted  before  the  radiant 
ebony-tree  whose  vivifying  perfume 
perm.eated  every  breath  of  air,  the  sen- 
ator added,  as  if  addressing  it: 

"Ah!  my  jolly  fellow,  if  you  were  to 
count  your  children  you  would  be  woe- 
fully embarrassed.  And  behold!  here  is 
one  that  accomplishes  them  easily,  who 
lets  himself  go  without  remorse  and 
disturbs  himself  little  about  it  after- 
ward." 

The  Academician  replied:  "We  do» 
as  much,  my  friend." 

The  senator  answered:  "Yes,  I  do 
not  deny  that;  we  do  forget  ourselves 
sometimes,  but  we  know  it,  at  least,  and 
that   constitutes  our  superiority." 

The  other  man  shock  his  head : ,  "No, 
that  is  not  what  I  mean;  you  see,  my 
dear,  there  is  scarcely  a  man  who  does 
not  possess  some  unknown  children, 
those  children  labeled  oj  unknown 
father,  whom  he  has  created,  as  this 
tree  reproduces  itself,  almost  uncon- 
sciously. 


FECUNDITY 


343 


**If  it  became  necessary  to  establish 
the  count  oi  the  women  we  have  had, 
we  should  be,  should  we  not,  as  embar- 
rassed as  this  ebony-tree,  which  you  call 
upon  to  enumerate  his  descendants? 

"From  eighteen  to  forty  perhaps, 
bringing  into  line  all  our  passing  en- 
counters and  contacts  of  an  hour,  it  can 
easily  be  admitted  that  we  have  had 
intimate  relations  with  two  or  three 
hundred  women.  Ah,  well!  my  friend, 
among  this  number  are  vou  sure  that 
you  have  not  made  fruitful  at  least  one, 
and  that  you  have  not,  upon  the  streets 
or  in  prison,  some  blackguard  son,  who 
robs  and  assassinates  honest  people, 
that  is  to  say,  people  like  us?  or  per- 
haps a  daughter,  in  some  bad  place?  or 
perhaps,  if  she  chanced  to  be  abandoned 
by  her  mother,  a  cook  in  somebody's 
kitchen? 

"Think  further  that  nearly  all  women 
that  we  call  'public'  possess  one  or  two 
children  whose  father  they  do  not  know, 
children  caught  in  the  hazard  of  their 
embraces  at  ten  or  twenty  francs.  In 
every  trade,  there  is  profit  and  loss. 
These  castaways  constitute  the  'loss'  of 
their  profession.  Who  were  their  gen- 
erators? You — I — all  of  us,  the  men 
who  are  'all  right!'  These  are  the  re- 
sults of  our  joyous  dinners  to  friends, 
of  our  evenings  of  gaiety,  of  the  hours 
when  our  flesh  contents  us  and  pushes 
us  on  to  the  completion  of  adventure. 

"Robbers,  rovers,  all  these  miserable 
creatures,  in  short,  are  our  children. 
And  how  much  better  that  is  for  us 
than  if  we  were  theirs,  for  they  repro- 
duce also,  these  beggars! 

"For  my  part  I  have  a  villainous 
story  upon  my  conscience,  which  I 
would  like  to  tell  you.     It  brings  me 


incessant  remorse,  and  more  than  that, 
continual  doubt  and  an  unappeasable 
uncertainty  which  at  times  tortures  me 
horribly. 

"At  the  age  of  twenty-five  I  had 
undertaken,  with  one  of  my  friends, 
now  counselor  of  state,  a  journey 
through  Brittany,  on  foot. 

"After  fifteen  or  twenty  days  of 
forced  march,  after  having  visited  the 
coasts  of  the  north,  and  a  part  of 
Finisterre,  we  arrived  at  Douarnenez; 
from  there,  in  a  day's  march,  we 
reached  the  wildest  point  of  the  Raz,  by 
the  bay  of  Trepasses,  where  we  slept  in 
some  village  whose  name  ends  in  of. 
When  the  morning  came  a  strange  fa- 
tigue held  my  comrade  in  bed.  I  say 
bed  from  habit,  since  our  bed  was  com- 
posed simply  of  two  boxes  of  straw. 

"It  was  impossible  to  remain  in  such 
a  place.  I  forced  him  to  get  up,  and 
we  came  into  Audierne  toward  four  or 
five  o'clock  in  the  evening.  The  next 
day  he  was  a  little  better.  We  set  out 
again,  but  on  the  way  he  was  taken  v/ith 
intolerable  weariness,  and  it  was  with 
great  diflxulty  that  we  were  able  to 
reach  Pont-Labbe. 

"There  at  least  there  was  an  inn.  My 
friend  went  to  bed.  and  the  doctor, 
whom  we  called  from  Quimper,  found 
a  high  fever  without  quite  determining 
the  nature  of  it. 

"  'Do  you  know  Pont-Labbe?  No.* 
Well,  it  is  the  most  characteristic  Bre- 
ton town  from  Point  Raz  to  Morbihan 
— a  region  w^hich  contains  the  essence 
of  Breton  morals,  and  legends,  and  cos- 
tumes. To-day,  even,  this  corner  of 
the  country  has  scarcely  changed  at  all. 
I  say  'to-day,  rven.'  because  I  return 
there  now  every  year,  alas! 


?44 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"An  old  castle  bathes  the  foot  of  its 
towers  in  a  dismal  pond,  sad  with  the 
call  of  wild  birds.  A  river,  deep  enough 
for  coasters,  comes  up  to  the  town.  In 
the  streets,  narrowed  by  the  old  houses, 
the  men  wear  great  hats  and  embroi- 
dered waistcoats  and  the  four  coats,  one 
above  the  other;  the  first,  about  the 
size  of  the  hand,  covers  at  least  the 
shoulder  blades,  while  the  last  stops 
just  below  the  breeches. 

"The  girls,  who  are  large,  pretty,  and 
fresh  looking,  wear  a  bodice  of  thick 
cloth  which  forms  a  breast-plate  and 
corset,  constraining  and  leaving  scarcely 
a  suspicion  of  their  swelling,  martyr- 
ized busts.  Their  headdresses  are  also 
of  strange  fashion:  over  the  temples 
two  embroidered  bands  in  color  frame 
the  face,  binding  the  hair  v/hich  falls  in 
a  sheet  behind  the  head  and  is  mounted 
by  a  singular  bonnet  on  the  very  sum- 
mit, often  of  tissue  of  gold  or  silver. 

"The  servant  at  our  inn  was  eighteen 
years  old  or  more,  with  blue  eyes,  a 
pa^e  blue  which  were  pierced  with  the 
two  little  black  dots  of  the  pupils;  and 
with  teeth  short  and  white,  which  she 
showed  always  in  laughing  and  which 
seemed  made  for  biting  granite. 

"She  did  not  know  a  word  of  French, 
speaking  only  the  Breton  patois,  as  do 
most  of  her  compatriots. 

"Well,  my  friend  was  no  better,  and, 
although  no  malady  declared  itself,  the 
doctor  forbade  his  setting  out,  ordering 
complete  rest.  I  spent  the  days  near 
him,  the  little  maid  coming  in  frequent- 
ly, bringing  perhaps  my  dinner  or  some 
drink  for  him. 

"I  teased  her  a  little,  which  seemed 
to  amuse  her,  but  we  did  not  talk,  natur- 


ally, since  we  could  not  understand  each 
other. 

"But  one  night,  when  I  had  remained 
near  the  sick  man  very  late,  I  met,  in 
going  to  my  chamber,  the  girl  entering 
hers.  It  was  just  opposite  my  open 
door.  Then  brusquely,  v/ithout  reflect- 
ing upon  what  I  was  doing,  and  more  in 
the  way  of  a  joke  than  anything,  I 
seized  her  around  the  waist,  and  before 
she  was  over  her  astonishment  I  had 
taken  her  and  shut  her  in  my  room. 
She  looked  at  me,  startled,  excited, 
terrified,  not  daring  to  cry  out  for  fear 
of  scandal,  and  of  being  driven  out  by 
her  master  at  first  and  her  father  after- 
ward. 

"I  had  done  this  in  laughter;  but 
when  I  saw  her  there,  the  desire  to  pos- 
sess her  carried  me  away.  There  was 
a  long  and  silent  struggle,  a  struggle  of 
body  against  body  after  the  fashion  of 
athletes,  with  arms  drawn,  contracted^ 
twisted,  respiration  short,  skin  moist 
with  perspiration.  Oh!  she  fought  val- 
iantly; and  sometimes  we  would  hit  a 
piece  of  furniture,  a  partition,  or  a 
chair;  then  always  clutching  each  other 
we  would  remain  immovable  for  some 
seconds  in  the  fear  of  some  noise  that 
would  awaken  some  one;  then  we  would 
commence  again  our  exciting  battle,  I 
attacking,  she  resisting.  Exhausted, 
finally,  she  fell;  and  I  took  her  bru- 
tally, upon  the  ground,  upon  the  floor. 

"As  soon  as  she  was  released,  she 
ran  to  the  door,  drew  the  bolts,  and 
fled.  I  scarcely  met  her  for  some  days 
following.  She  would  not  allow  me  to 
approach  her.  Then,  when  my  comrade 
was  strong  and  we  were  to  continue  our 
journey,  on  the  eve  of  our  departure, 
she  entered  my  apartment  at  midnight. 


FECUNDITY 


AS 


barefooted,  in  her  chemise,  just  as  I 
was  about  to  retire. 

"She  threw  herself  in  my  arms,  drew 
me  to  her  passionately,  and,  until  day- 
light, embraced  me,  caressed  me,  weep- 
ing and  sobbing  giving  me  all  the  assur- 
ances of  tenderness  and  despair  that  a 
woman  can  give  when  she  does  not 
know  a  word  of  our  language. 

"A  week  after  this  I  had  forgotten 
this  adventure,  so  common  and  frequent 
when  on  a  journey,  the  servants  of  the 
inns  being  generally  destined  to  divert 
travelers  thus. 

"Thirty  years  passed  without  my 
thinking  of,  or  returning  to,  Pont-Labbe. 
Then,  in  1876,  in  the  course  of  an  ex- 
cursion through  Brittany,  I  happened  to 
go  there,  as  I  was  compiling  a  document 
which  required  statistics  from  the  vari- 
ous parts  of  the  country. 

"Nothing  seemed  to  have  changed. 
The  castle  still  soaked  its  gray  walls  in 
the  pond  at  the  entrance  of  the  little 
town;  the  inn  was  there,  too,  although 
repaired,  remodeled,  with  a  modern  air. 
On  entering  I  was  received  by  two 
young  Bretons,  of  about  eighteen,  fresh 
and  genteel,  enlaced  in  their  straight  gir- 
dles of  cloth,  and  encapped  with  silver 
embroidery  over  their  ears. 

It  was  about  six  o'clock  in  the  eve- 
ning. I  had  sat  down  to  dine  when,  the 
host  coming  to  serve  me  himself,  fatal- 
ity, without  doubt,  led  me  to  ask  him: 
'Did  you  know  the  former  master  of  this 
house?  I  passed  a  fortnight  here  once, 
thirty  years  ago.  I  seem  to  be  speak- 
ing to  you  from  afar.' 

"He  answered:  'Those  were  my  par- 
ents, sir.' 

"Then  I  recounted  the  occasion  of  my 
stopping  there,  recalling  mv  being  de- 


tained Dy  the  illness  of  my  comrade. 
He  did  not  allow  me  to  finish: 

"  *0h !  I  remember  that  perfectly,* 
said  he;  T  was  fifteen  or  sixteen  then. 
You  slept  in  the  room  at  the  end  of  the 
hall  and  your  friend  in  the  one  that  is 
now  mine,  upon  the  street.' 

"Then  for  the  first  time,  a  lively  re- 
membrance of  the  pretty  maid  comes 
back  to  me.  I  asked:  'You  recall  a  gen^ 
teel,  pretty  servant  that  your  father 
had,  who  had,  if  I  remember,  sparkling 
eyes  and  fine  teeth?' 

"He  replied:  *Yes,  sir;  she  died  in 
childbed  some  time  after.' 

"And,  pointing  toward  the  courtyard 
where  a  thin,  lame  man  was  taking  out 
some  manure,  he  added:  'That  is  her 
son.' 

"I  began  to  laugh.  'He  is  not 
beautiful,  and  does  not  resemble  his 
mother  at  all.  Takes  after  his  father, 
no  doubt.' 

"The  inkeeper  replied:  'It  may  be; 
but  they  never  knew  who  his  father  was. 
She  died  without  telling,  and  no  one 
here  knew  she  had  a  lover.  It  was  a 
famous  surprise  when  we  found  it  out. 
No  one  v/as  willing  to  believe  it.* 

"A  kind  of  disagreeable  shiver  went 
over  me,  one  of  those  painful  sugges- 
tions that  touch  the  heart,  like  the 
approach  of  a  heavy  vexation.  I  looked 
at  the  man  in  the  yard.  He  came  now 
to  draw  some  water  for  the  horses  and 
carried  two  pails,  limping,  making  griev- 
ous effort  with  the  limb  that  was  shorter. 
He  was  ragged  and  hideously  dirty,  with' 
long  yellow  hair,  so  matted  that  it  hung 
in  strings  on  his  cheeks. 

"The  innkeeper  added:  'He  doesn't 
amount  to  anything,  but  is  taken  care 
of  by  charity  in  the  house.    Perhaps  he 


346 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


would  have  turned  out  better  if  he  had 
been  brought  up  like  anybody.  But,  you 
tee  how  it  is,  sir?  No  father,  no  mother, 
no  money!  My  parents  took  pity  on 
him  as  a  child,  but  after  all — ^he  was 
not  theirs,  you  see.* 

**I  said  nothing. 

"I  went  to  bed  in  my  old  room,  and 
all  night  I  could  think  of  nothing  but 
that  frightful  hostler,  repeating  to  my- 
self: 'What  if  that  were  my  son!  Could 
I  have  killed  that  girl  and  brought  that 
creature  into  existence?* 

**It  was  possible,  surely.  I  resolved  to 
speak  to  this  man  and  to  find  out  ex- 
actly the  date  of  his  birth.  A  differ- 
ence of  two  months  would  arrest  my 
doubts. 

"I  had  him  come  to  me  the  next  day. 
But  he  could  not  speak  French  at  all. 
He  had  the  appearance  of  understanding 
nothing.  Besides,  he  was  absolutely  ig- 
norant of  his  age,  which  one  of  the 
maids  asked  him  for  me.  And  he  held 
himself  with  the  air  of  an  idiot  before 
me,  rolling  his  cap  in  his  knotty  paws, 
laughing  stupidly,  with  something  of  the 
old  laugh  of  the  mother  in  the  comers 
of  his  mouth  and  eyes. 

"But  the  host,  becoming  interested. 
Went  to  look  up  his  birth  on  the  records. 
He  entered  into  life  eight  months  and 
twenty-six  days  after  my  departure  from 
Pont-Labbe,  because  I  recalled  perfectly 
arriving  at  Lorient  on  the  fifteenth  of 
August.  The  record  said:  'Father  un- 
known.* The  mother  was  called  Jeanne 
Karradec. 

"Then  my  heart  began  to  beat  with 
pressing  blows.  I  could  not  speak,  so 
suffocated  did  I  feel.  And  I  looked  at 
^hat  brute,  whose  long  yellow  hair 
seemed  dirty  and  more  tangled  than  th2t 


of  beasts.  And  the  beggar,  constrained 
by  my  look,  ceased  to  laugh,  turned  his 
head,  and  took  himself  off. 

"Every  day  I  would  wander  along 
the  little  river,  sadly  reflecting.  But  to 
what  good?  Nothing  could  help  me. 
For  hours  and  hours  I  would  weigh  all 
the  reasons,  good  and  bad,  for  and 
against  the  chances  of  my  paternity, 
placing  myself  in  inextricable  positions, 
only  to  return  again  to  the  horrible  sus- 
picion, then  to  the  conviction,  more 
atrocious  still,  that  his  man  was  my 
son. 

"I  could  not  dine  and  I  retired  to  my 
room.  It  was  a  long  time  before  I 
could  sleep.  Then  sleep  came,  a  sleep 
haunted  with  insupportable  visions.  I 
could  see  this  ninny  laughing  in  my  face 
and  calling  me  'Papa.*  Then  he  would 
change  into  a  dcg  and  bite  me  in  the  calf 
of  my  leg,  in  vain  I  tried  to  free  myself, 
he  would  follow  me  always,  and,  in 
place  of  barking,  he  woulu  speak,  abus- 
ing  me.  Then  he  would  go  before  my 
colleagues  at  the  Academy  called  to- 
gether for  the  purpose  of  deciding 
whether  I  was  his  father.  And  one  of 
them  cried:  *It  is  indubitable!  See 
how  he  resembles  him!* 

"And  in  fact,  I  perceived  that  the 
monster  did  resemble  me.  And  1  awoke 
with  this  idea  planted  in  my  brain,  and 
with  the  foolish  desire  to  see  the  man 
again  and  decide  whether  he  did  or  did 
not  have  features  in  common  with  my 
own. 

*T  joined  him  as  he  was  going  to  mass 
(it  was  on  Sunday)  and  gave  him  a 
hundred  sous,  scanning  his  face  anxious- 
ly. He  began  to  laugh  in  ignoble  fash- 
ion, took  the  money,  then,  again  con- 
strained by  my  eye,  he  fled,  alter  h^y* 


FECUNDITY 


347 


Ing  blurteu  out  a  word  almost  inarticu- 
late, which  meant  to  say  'Thank  you,* 
ivithout  doubt, 

"That  day  passed  for  me  in  the  same 
agony  as  the  preceding.  Toward  eve- 
ning I  went  to  the  proprietor  and,  with 
much  caution,  clothing  of  words,  finesse, 
and  roundabout  conversation,  I  old  him 
that  I  had  become  interested  in  this 
poor  being  so  abandoned  by  everybody 
and  so  deprived  of  everything,  and  that 
I  wished  to  do  something  for  him. 

*The  man  replied:  'Oh,  don't  worry 
about  him,  sir.  He  wants  nothing;  you 
will  only  make  trouble  for  yourself.  I 
employ  him  to  clean  the  stable,  and  it 
is  all  that  he  can  do.  For  that,  I  feed 
him  and  he  sleeps  with  the  horses.  He 
needs  nothing  more.  If  you  have  some 
old  clothes,  give  them  to  him,  but  they 
\/ill  be  in  pieces  in  a  week.* 

*T  did  not  insist,  reserving  iny  opin- 
ion. 

"The  beggar  returned  that  evening, 
horribly  drunk,  almost  setting  fire  to  the 
house,  striking  one  of  the  horses  a  blow 
with  a  pickax,  and  finally  ended  the 
score  by  going  to  sleep  in  the  mud  out 
in  the  rain,  thanks  to  my  generosity. 
They  begged  me,  the  next  day,  not  to 
give  him  any  more  money.  Liquor 
made  him  furious,  and  when  he  had 
two  sous  in  his  pocket  he  drank  it.  The 
innkeeper  added:  'To  give  him  money 
is  the  same  as  wishing  to  kill  him.*  This 
man  had  absolutely  never  had  any 
aioney,  save  a  few  centimes  thrown  to 
him  by  travelers,  and  he  knew  no  other 
destination  for  it  but  the  alehouse. 

"Then  I  passed  some  hours  in  my 
room  with  an  open  book  which  I  made 
a  semblance  of  reading,  but  without 
accomplishin?:  anything  except  to  look 


at  this  brute.  My  son  1  my  son !  I  was 
trying  to  discover  if  he  was  anything 
like  me.  By  force  of  searching  I  be- 
lieved I  recognized  some  similar  lines 
in  the  brow  and  about  the  nose.  And 
I  was  immediately  convinced  of  a  re- 
semblance which  only  different  clothing 
and  the  hideous  mane  of  the  man  dis- 
guised. 

"I  could  not  stav  there  very  long 
without  becoming  suspected,  and  I  set 
out  with  breaking  heart,  after  having 
left  with  the  innkeeper  some  money  to 
sweeten  the  existence  of  his  valet. 

"For  six  years  I  lived  with  this 
thought,  this  horrible  uncertainty,  this 
abominable  doubt.  And  each  year  I 
condemned  myself  to  the  punishment  of 
seeing  this  brute  wallow  in  his  filth, 
imagining  that  he  resembles  me,  and  of 
seeking,  always  in  vain,  to  be  helpful  to 
him. 

"And  each  year  I  come  back  more  un- 
decided, more  tortured,  more  anxious, 
I  have  tried  to  have  him  instructed,  but 
he  is  an  idot  without  resource.  1  have 
tried  to  render  life  less  painful  to  him, 
but  he  is  an  irremediable  drunkard  and 
uses  all  the  money  that  is  given  him  for 
drink.  And  he  knows  very  well  how 
to  sell  his  clothes  and  procure  liquor. 

"I  have  tried  to  arouse  pity  in  his 
employer  for  him,  that  he  might  treat 
him  more  gently,  offering  him  money  aj- 
ways.  The  innkeeper,  astonished,  fi- 
nally remarked  very  sagely:  'All  this 
that  you  would  like  to  do  for  him  only 
ruins  him.  He  must  be  kept  like  % 
prisoner.  As  soon  as  he  has  time  given 
him  or  favors  shown,  he  becomes  un- 
manageable. If  you  wish  to  do  ^ood  to 
abandoned  children,  choose  one  that  wiU 
respond  to  your  trouble.' 


348 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"What  could  I  say  to  that? 

"And  if  1  should  disclose  a  suspicion 
of  the  doubts  which  torture  me,  this 
creature  would  certainly  turn  rogue  and 
exploit  me,  compromise  me,  ruin  me. 
He  would  cry  out  to  me  'Papa/  as  in  my 
dream. 

"And  I  tell  myself  that  I  have  killed 
the  mother  and  ruined  this  atrophied 
being,  larva  of  the  stable,  hatched  and 
bred  of  vileness,  this  man  who,  treated 
as  others  are,  might  have  been  like 
others. 

"And  you  will  not  understand  the 
sensation  strange,  confused,  and  intol- 
erable, the  fear  I  have  in  his  presence, 
from  thinking  that  this  has  come  from 
me,  that  he  belongs  to  me  by  that  in- 
timate bond  which  binds  father  to  son, 
that,  thanks  to  the  terrible  lav;s  of 
heredity,  he  is  a  part  of  me  in  a  thou- 
sand things,  by  his  blood  and  his  hair 
and  his  flesh,  and  that  he  has  the  same 


germs  of  sickness  and  the  same  fer- 
ments of  passion. 

"And  I  have  ever  an  unappeasable 
need  of  seeing  him,  and  the  sight  of 
him  makes  me  suffer  horribly;  and  from 
my  window  down  there  I  look  at  him  as 
he  works  in  the  dung-hill  of  the  beasts, 
repeating  to  myself:  That  is  my  son!' 

"And  I  feel,  sometimes,  an  intolerable 
desire  to  embrace  him.  But  I  have 
never  even  touched  his  sordid  hand.'* 

The  Academician  was  silent.  And  his 
companion,  the  political  man,  mur- 
mured: "Yes,  indeed;  we  ought  to 
occupy  ourselves  a  little  more  with  the 
children  who  have  no  father." 

Then  a  breath  of  wind  traversing  the 
great  tree  shook  its  berries,  and  envel- 
oped with  a  fine,  odorous  cloud  the  twc 
old  men,  who  took  long  draughts  of  the 
sweet  perfume. 

And  the  senator  added:  "It  is  good 
to  be  twenty-five  years  old,  and  it  is 
even  good  to  have  children  like  that." 


A  Way  to  Wealth 


"Do  you  know  what  has  become  of 
Leremy?" 

"He  is  captain  of  the  Sixth 
Dragoons." 

"And  Pinson?" 

"Subprefect." 

"And  RacoUet-' 

"Dead." 

We  hunted  up  other  names  which  re- 
called to  us  young  figures  crowned  with 
caps  trimmed  with  gold  braid.  Later, 
^e    found    some    of    these    comrades,, 


bearded,  bald,  married,  the  fathers  ot 
many  children;  and  these  meetings, 
these  changes,  gave  us  some  disagreeable 
shivers,  as  they  showed  us  how  short 
life  is,  how  quickly  everything  changes 
and  passes  away. 

My  friend  asked:  "And  Patience,  the 
great  Patience?" 

I  roared. 

*'0h!  If  you  want  to  hear  abou*^  hini» 
listen  to  me:  Four  or  five  weeks  ago, 
as    traveling   inspector   at    Limoe^^,    I 


A  WAY  TO  WEALTH 


34<J 


I 


was  awaiting  the  dinner  hour.  Seated 
before  the  Grand  Cafe  in  Theater 
Square,  I  closed  my  eyes  wearily.  The 
tradesmen  were  coming  in,  in  twos,  or 
threes,  or  fours,  taking  their  absinthe 
or  vermouth,  talking  in  a  loud  voice  of 
their  business  and  that  of  others,  laugh- 
ing violently,  or  lowering  their  voices 
when  they  communicated  something  im- 
portant or  delicate. 

"I  said  to  myself:  'What  am  I  go- 
ing to  do  after  dinner?*  And  I  thought 
of  the  long  evening  in  this  provincial 
town,  of  the  slow,  uninteresting  walks 
^:hrough  the  unknown  streets,  of  the  over- 
whelming sadness  which  takes  possession 
of  the  solitary  traveler,  of  the  people 
who  pass,  strangers  in  all  things  and 
through  all  things,  the  cut  of  their  pro- 
vincial coats,  their  hats,  their  trousers, 
their  customs,  local  accent,  their  houses, 
shops  and  carriages  of  singular  shape. 
And  then  the  ordinary  sounds  to  which 
one  is  not  accustomed;  the  harassing 
sadness  which  presses  itself  upon  you 
little  by  little  until  you  feel  as  if  you 
were  lost  in  a  dangerous  country,  which 
oppresses  you  and  makes  you  wish  your- 
self back  at  the  hotel,  the  hideous  hotel, 
where  your  room  preserves  a  thousand 
suspicious  odors,  where  the  bed  makes 
one  hesitate  and  the  basin  has  a  hair 
glued  in  the  dirt  at  the  bottom. 

*T  thought  about  all  this  as  I  watched 
them  light  the  gas,  feeling  my  isolated 
distress  increase  by  the  falling  of  the 
shadows.  What  was  I  going  to  do  after 
dinner?  I  was  alone,  entirely  alone,  and 
lamentably  lonesome. 

"A  big  man  came  in,  seated  himself 
at  a  neighboring  table,  and  commanded 
in  a  formidable  voice: 

"  'Waiter,  my  bitters.* 


"The  'my'  in  the  phrase  sounded  like 
the  report  of  a  cannon.  I  understood 
immediately  that  everything  in  existence 
was  his,  belonged  to  him  and  not  to  any 
other,  that  he  had  his  character,  and, 
by  Jove!  his  appetite,  his  pantaloons, 
his  no  matter  what,  after  his  own  fash- 
ion, absolute,  and  more  complete  than 
important.  Ke  looked  about  him  with  a 
satisfied  air.  They  brought  him  his  bit- 
ters and  he  called; 

"  'My  paper.' 

*'I  asked  myself :  *Which  is  his  paper, 
I  wonder?'  The  name  of  that  would 
certainly  reveal  to  me  his  opinions,  hi§ 
theories,  his  hobbies,  and  his  nature. 

'The  writer  brought  the  Times.'  1 
was  surprised.  Why  the  'Times,'  a 
grave,  comber,  doctrinal,  heavy  journal? 
I  thought: 

"  'He  is  then  a  wise  man,  of  serious 
ways,  regular  habits,  in  short,  a  good 
commoner.* 

"He  placed  on  his  nose  some  gold  eye- 
glasses, turned  around  and,  Defore  com- 
mencing to  read,  cast  another  glance  all 
around  the  room.  He  noticed  me  and 
immediately  began  to  look  at  me  in  a 
persistent,  uneasy  foshion.  I  was  on  the 
point  of  asking  h.m  the  reason  for  his 
attention,  when  he  cried  out  from  where 
he  sat: 

"  'By  my  pipe,  if  it  is  not  Gontran 
Lardois!' 

"I  answered:  'Yes,  sir,  you  have  not 
deceived  yourself.' 

'Then  he  got  up  brusquely  and  came 
toward  me  with  outstretched  hands. 

"'Ah!  my  old  friend,  how  are  you?' 
asked  he. 

"My  greeting  was  constrained,  not 
knowing  him  at  all.  Finally  I  stam- 
mered : 


350 


\V0RK3  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPAS3ANT 


"'Why — ^^very  well — and  you?' 

"He  began  to  laugh:  It  appears  that 
you  do  not  know  me.* 

**  'No,  not  quite —  It  seems  to  me— 
however — ' 

*7fe  tapi)cd  me  on  the  shoulder: 

•"There,  there!  Not  to  bother  you 
any  longer,  I  am  Patience,  Robert  Pa- 
lieri:e,  your  chum,  your  comrade/ 

"I  recognized  him.  Yes,  Robert  Pa- 
tience, my  comrade  at  college.  It  was 
DO  other.  I  pressed  the  hand  he  ex- 
f^nded  to  me  and  said: 

*'  'Everything  going  well  with  you?' 

"  'With  me?    Like  a  charm.' 

"His  laugh  rang  with  triumph.  He 
Inquired : 

"  'What  has  brought  you  here?' 

"I  explained  to  him  that  I  was  in- 
spector of  finances,  making  the  rounds. 

"He  replied,  observing  my  badge: 
Then  you  are  successful?' 

"I  replied:  'Yes,  rather;  and  you?* 

"'Oh!     I?    Very,  very!' 

"  'What  are  you  doing  now?' 

"  *I  am  in  business.* 

"'Then  you  are  making  money?* 

"  'Lots  of  it.  I  am  rich.  But,  come 
to  lunch  with  me  to-morrow  at  noon, 
No.  1 7  Coq-qui-chante  street ;  then  you 
will  see  my  place.' 

"He  appeared  to  hesitate  a  second, 
then  continued: 

"  'You  are  s'ill  the  good  rounder  of 
former  tim^^s?' 

"  'Yes —I  hope  so.* 

"  'Not  married?' 

"  'No.' 

"  'So  much  the  better.  And  you  are 
still  as  fond  of  fun  and  potatoes?' 

"I  commenced  to  find  him  deplorably 
commonplace.  I  answered,  neverthe- 
icss:  'Yes/ 


"  'And  pretty  girls?' 

"  'As  to  thai,  yes/ 

"He  began  to  laugh,  with  a  gooc^ 
hearty  laugh: 

"  'So  much  the  better,  so  much  the 
better/  said  he.  'You  recall  our  first 
farce  at  Bordeaux,  when  we  had  supper 
at  the  Roupie  coffeehouse?  Ha!  what 
a  night!* 

"I  recalled  that  night,  surely;  and  the 
memory  of  it  amused  rne.  Other  facts 
were  brought  to  mind,  and  still  others. 
One  would  say: 

"Do  ;,ou  remembei  the  time  we  shut 
up  the  fawn  in  Father  Latoque's  cellar?' 

"And  he  \70uld  laugh,  striking  his 
fist  upon  the  table,  repeating: 

"  'Yes — ^yes — ^yes — and  you  remember 
the  mouth  of  the  professor  in  geography, 
M.  Marin,  when  we  sent  off  a  cracker 
on  the  map  of  the  world  just  as  he  was 
orating  on  the  principal  volcanoes  of  the 
earth?' 

"Then  brusquely,  I  asked  him: 

"  'And  you,  are  you  married?* 

"He  cried:  'For  ten  years,  my  deal 
fellow,  and  I  have  four  childien  most 
astonishing  monkeys;  but  you  will  see 
them  and  their  mother.* 

"We  were  talking  loud;  the  neigh- 
bors were  looking  around  at  us  in  as- 
tonishment. Suddenly  my  friend  looked 
at  his  watch,  a  chronometer  as  large  as 
a  citron,  and  cried  out : 

"Thunder!  It  is  rude,  but  I  shall 
have  to  leave  you:  I  am  not  free  this 
evening.' 

"H2  rose,  took  both  nv  hands  and 
shook  them  as  if  he  wished  to  break 
off  my  arms,  and  said: 

"  'To-morrow  at  noon,  you  remem- 
ber?' 

"*I  remember/ 


A  WAY  TO  WEALTH 


35> 


"I  passed  the  morning  at  work  at  the 
house  of  the  General-Treasurer.  He 
wished  to  keep  me  for  luncheon,  but  I 
told  him  that  I  had  an  appointment  with 

friend.  He  accompanied  me  out.  I 
asked  him: 

"  *Do  you  know  where  Coq-qui-chante 
street  is?* 

"He  answered:  *Yes,  it  is  five  minutes 
from  here.  As  I  have  nothing  to  do, 
I  will  conduct  you  there.' 

"And  we  set  out  on  the  way.  Soon, 
I  noticed  the  street  we  sought.  It  was 
wide,  pretty  enough,  at  the  border  of 
the  town  and  the  country.  I  noticed 
the  houses  and  perceived  number  17. 
It  was  a  kind  of  hotel  with  a  garden  at 
the  back.  The  front,  ornamented  with 
frescoes  in  the  Italian  fashion,  appeared 
to  me  in  bad  taste.  There  were  god- 
desses hanging  to  urns,  and  others  whose 
secret  beauties  a  cloud  concealed.  Two 
stone  Cupids  held  up  the  number. 

"I  said  to  the  Treasurer:  'Here  is 
where  I  am  going.* 

"And  I  extended  my  hand  by  way  of 
leaving  him.  He  made  a  brusque  and 
singular  gesture,  but  said  nothing,  press- 
ing the  hand  held  out  to  him.  I  rang. 
A  maid  appeared.    I  said: 

"  'M.  Patience,  if  you  please.  Is  he 
at  home?* 

"She  replied:  'He  is  here,  sir — ^Do 
you  wish  to  speak  with  him?* 

"  'Yes.* 

"The  vestibule  was  ornamented  with 
paintings  from  the  brush  of  some  local 
artist.  Paul  and  Virginia  were  embrac- 
ing under  some  palms  drowned  in  a 
rosy  light.  A  hideous  Oriental  lantern 
hung  from  the  ceiling.  There  were  many 
doors,  masked  by  showy  hangings.  But 
that  which  struck  me  particularly  was 


the  odor — a  permeating,  perfumed  odor, 
recallmg  rice  powder  aim  tne  moiamess 
of  cellars — an  indefinable  odor  in  a 
heavy  atmosphere,  as  overwhelming  as 
stifling,  in  which  the  human  body  be* 
comes  petrified.  I  ascended,  behind  the 
naid,  a  marble  staircase  which  was 
covered  by  a  carpet  of  some  Oriental 
kind,  and  was  led  into  a  sumptuous 
drawing-room. 

"Left  alone,  I  looked  ab^ut  me. 

"The  room  was  richly  furnished,  but 
with  the  pretension  of  an  ill-bred  par 
venu.  The  engravings  of  the  last  cen- 
tury were  pretty  enough,  representing 
women  with  high,  powdered  hair  and 
very  low-cut  bodices  surprised  by  gal- 
lant gentlemen  in  interesting  postures. 
Another  lady  was  lying  on  a  great  bed, 
toying  with  her  foot  with  a  little  dog 
drowned  in  draperies.  Another  resisted 
her  lover  complacently,  whose  hand 
was  in  a  suspicious  place.  One  design 
showed  four  feet  whose  bodies  could  be 
divined,  although  concealed  behind  a 
curtain.  The  vast  room,  surrounded  by 
soft  divans,  was  entirely  impregnated 
with  this  enervating  odor,  which  had 
already  taken  held  of  me.  There  was 
something  suspicious  about  these  walls, 
these  stuffs,  this  exaggerated  luxury,  in 
short,  the  whole  place. 

"I  approached  the  window  to  look 
into  the  garden,  of  which  I  could  see 
but  the  trees.  It  was  large,  shady, 
superb.  A  broad  path  was  outlined  on 
the  turf,  where  a  jet  of  water  was  play- 
ing in  the  air,  brought  in  under  some 
masonry  some  distance  off.  And  sud- 
denly three  women  appeared  down  there, 
at  the  end  of  the  garden,  between  two 
shapely  shrubs.  They  were  walkinj? 
slowly,  taking  hold  of  each  other's  arms^ 


352 

clothed  in  long  white  dresses  clouded 
with  lace.  Two  of  them  were  blonde  and 
the  other  a  brunette. 

"They  disappeared  immediately  among 
the  trees.  I  remained  transfixed, 
charmed,  before  this  short  but  delightful 
apparition,  which  brought  surging  to  my 
mind  a  whole  poetic  world.  They  were 
scarcely  to  be  seen  at  all  in  that  bower 
of  leaves,  at  the  end  of  the  park,  so 
secluded  and  delicious.  I  must  have 
dreamed,  and  these  were  the  beautiful 
ladies  of  the  last  century  wandering  un- 
der the  elmtree  hedge,  the  ladies  whose 
light  loves  the  clever  gravures  on  the 
walls  recalled.  And  I  thought  of  those 
happy  times,  flowery,  incorporeal,  ten- 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


der,  when  customs  were  so  sweet  and 
lips  so  easy — 

"A  great  voice  behind  me  made  me 
leap  back  into  the  room.  Patience  had 
come  in,  radiant,  extending  both  his 
hands. 

"He  looked  at  me  out  of  the  end  of 
his  eyes  with  the  sly  air  of  some  amor- 
ous confidence  and,  with  a  large,  com- 
prehensive gesture,  a  Napoleonic  ges- 
ture, pointed  out  his  sumptuous  draw- 
ing-room, his  park,  with  the  three  wo- 
men passing  again  at  the  back,  and  in  a 
triumphant  voice  that  sang  of  pride, 
said: 

"  'And  when  you  think  that  I  com- 
menced with  nothing — my  wife  and  my 
sisters-in-law!*" 


Am  I  Insane 


Am  I  insane  or  jealous?  I  know  not 
which,  but  I  suffer  horribly.  I  com- 
mitted a  crime  it  is  true,  but  is  not 
insane  jealousy,  betrayed  love,  and  the 
terrible  pain  I  endure  enough  to  make 
anyone  commit  a  crime,  without  actually 
being  a  criminal? 

I  have  loved  this  woman  to  madness 
— and  yet,  is  it  true?  Did  I  love  her? 
No,  no!  She  owned  me  body  and  soul, 
I  was  her  plaything,  she  ruled  me  by 
her  smile,  her  look,  the  divine  form  of 
her  body.  It  was  all  those  things  that 
I  loved  but  the  woman  contained  in  that 
body,  I  despise  her;  hate  her.  I  always 
have  hated  her,  for  she  is  but  an  im- 
pure, perfidious  creature,  in  whom  there 
was  no  soul;  even  less  than  that,  she  is 


but  a  mass  of  soft  flesh  in  which  dwells 
infamy ! 

The  first  few  months  of  our  union 
were  deliciously  strange.  Her  eyes  were 
three  different  colors.  No,  I  am  not 
insane,  I  swear  they  were.  They  were 
gray  at  noon,  shaded  green  at  twilight, 
and  blue  at  sunrise.  In  moments  of  love 
they  were  blue;  the  pupils  dilated  and 
nervous.  Her  lips  trembled  and  often 
the  tip  of  her  pink  tongue  could  be 
seen,  as  that  of  a  reptile  ready  to  hiss. 
When  she  raised  her  heavy  lids  and  I 
saw  that  ardent  look,  I  shuddered,  not 
only  for  the  unceasing  desire  to  pos- 
sess her,  but  for  the  desire  to  kill  this 
beast. 

When  she  walked  across  the  room 
each  step  resounded  in  my  heart.  When 


Am  I  INSANE? 


353 


she  disrobed  and  emerged  infamous  but 
radiant  from  the  white  mass  of  linen  and 
lace,  a  sudden  weakness  seized  me,  my 
limbs  gave  way  beneath  me,  and  my 
chest  heaved;  I  was  faint,  coward  that 
I  was! 

Each  morning  when  she  awakened  I 
waited  for  that  first  look,  my  heart 
filled  with  rage,  hatred,  and  disdain  for 
this  beast  whose  slave  I  was;  but  when 
she  fixed  those  limpid  blue  eyes  on  me, 
that  languishing  look  showing  traces  of 
lassitude,  it  was  like  a  burning,  un- 
quenchable fire  within  me,  inciting  me 
to  passion. 

When  she  opened  her  eyes  that  day 
.1  saw  a  dull,  indifferent  look;  a  look 
devoid  of  desire,  and  I  knew  then  she 
was  tired  of  me.  I  saw  it,  knew  it,  felt 
right  away  that  it  was  all  over,  and 
each  hour  and  minute  proved  to  me  that 
I  was  right.  When  I  beckoned  her  with 
my  arms  and  lips  she  shrank  from  me. 

"Leave  me  alone,"  she  said.  "You  are 
horrid!" 

Then  I  became  suspicious,  insanely 
jealous;  but  I  am  not  insane,  no  in- 
deed! I  watched  her  slyly;  not  that 
she  had  betrayed  me,  but  she  was  so 
cold  that  I  knew  another  would  soon 
take  my  place. 

At  times  she  would  say: 

"Men  disgust  me!"  Alas!  it  was 
too  true. 

Then  I  became  jealous  of  her  indiffer- 
ence, of  her  thoughts,  which  I  knew  to 
be  impure,  and  when  she  awakened 
sometimes  with  that  same  look  of  lassi- 
tude I  suffocated  with  anger,  and  an 
irresistible  desire  to  choke  her  and  make 
her  confess  the  shameful  secrets  of  her 
heart  took  hold  of  me. 

Am  I  insane?    No, 


One  night  I  saw  that  she  was  happy. 
I  felt,  in  fact  I  was  convinced,  that 
a  new  passion  ruled  her.  As  of  old,  her 
eyes  shone,  she  was  feverish  and  her 
whole  self  fluttered  with  love. 

I  feigned  ignorance,  but  I  watched 
her  closely.  I  discovered  nothing  how- 
ever. I  waited  a  week,  a  month,  almost 
a  year.  She  was  radiantly,  ideally 
happy;  as  if  soothed  by  some  ephe- 
meral caress. 

At  last  I  guessed.  No,  I  am  not  in- 
sane, I  swear  I  am  not.  How  can  I  ex- 
plain this  inconceivable,  horrible  thing? 
How  can  I  make  myself  understood? 
This  is  how  I  guessed. 

She  came  in  one  night  from  a  long 
ride  on  horseback  and  sank  exhausted 
in  a  seat  facing  me.  An  unnatural  flush 
tinted  her  cheeks  and  her  eyes, — those 
eyes  that  I  knew  so  well, — ^had  such  a 
look  in  them.  I  was  not  mistaken,  1 
had  seen  her  look  like  that;  she  loved! 
But  whom?  What?  I  almost  lost  my 
head,  and  so  as  not  to  look  at  her  I 
turned  to  the  window.  A  valet  was 
leading  her  horse  to  the  stable  and  she 
stood  and  watched  him  disappear;  then 
she  fell  asleep  almost  immediately.  X 
thought  and  thought  all  night.  My 
mind  wandered  through  mysteries  too 
deep  to  conceive.  Who  can  fathom 
the  perversity  and  strange  caprices  of 
a  sensual  woman? 

Every  morning  she  rode  madly 
through  hills  and  dales  and  each  time 
came  back  languid;  exhausted.  At  last 
I  understood.  It  was  of  the  horse  I 
was  jealous — of  the  wind  which  caressed 
her  face,  of  the  drooping  leaves  and  of 
the  dewdrops,  of  the  saddle  which 
carried  her!  I  resolved  to  be  revenged. 
I  became  very  attentive.    Every  time 


I 


354 


WOr.KS  OF  GUV  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ihe  cam€  back  from  her  ride  I  helped  her 
down  and  the  horse  made  a  vicious  rush 
at  me.  She  would  pat  him  on  the  neck, 
kiss  nis  quivering  nostrils,  without  even 
wiping  ber  lips.  I  watched  my  chance. 
One  morning  I  got  up  before  dawn 
and  went  to  the  path  in  the  woods  she 
loved  so  well.  I  carried  a  rope  with 
me,  and  my  pistols  were  hidden  in  my 
breast  as  if  I  were  going  to  fight  a  duel. 
I  drew  the  rope  across  the  path,  tying 
it  to  a  tr^e  on  each  side,  and  hid  my- 
self  in  th€  grass.  Presently  I  heard 
her  horse's  hoofs,  then  I  saw  her  coming 
at  a  furious  pace;  her  cheeks  flushed,  an 


insane  look  in  her  eyes.  She  seeMcd 
enraptured;  transported  into  another 
sphere. 

As  the  animal  approached  the  rope 
he  struck  it  with  his  fore  feet  and  fell. 
Before  she  had  struck  the  ground  1 
caught  her  in  my  arms  and  helped  her  to 
her  feet.  I  then  approached  the  horse, 
put  my  pistol  close  to  his  ear,  and  shot 
him — as  I  would  a  man. 

She  turned  on  me  and  dealt  me  two 
terrific  blows  across  the  face  with  her 
riding-whip  which  felled  me,  and  as  she 
rushed  at  me  again,  I  shot  her! 

Tell  me,  Am  I  insane? 


Forbidden  Fruit 


Before  marriage  they  had  loved  each 
other  cnastely,  in  the  starlight.  At  first 
there  was  a  charming  meeting  on  the 
shore  of  the  ocean.  He  found  her  deli- 
cious, the  rosy  young  girl  who  passed 
him  with  her  bright  umbrellas  and  fresh 
costumes  on  the  marine  background. 
He  loved  this  blond,  fragile  creature  in 
her  setting  of  blue  waves  and  immense 
skies.  And  he  confounded  the  tender- 
ness which  this  scarcely  fledged  woman 
caused  to  be  born  in  him  with  the  vague 
and  povvcrful  emotion  awakened  in  his 
soul,  in  his  heart,  and  in  his  veins  by 
the  lovely  salt  air  and  the  great  sea- 
scape full  of  sun  and  waves. 

She  loved  him  because  he  paid  her 
attention,  because  he  was  young  and  rich 
enou?rh,  genteel  and  delicate.  She  loved 
him  because  it  is  natural  for  young 
ladies  to  love  young  men  who  say  ten- 
der words  to  them. 


Then  for  three  months  they  lived  side 
by  side,  eye  to  eye,  and  hand  to  hand. 
The  greeting  which  they  exchanged  in 
the  morning,  before  the  bath,  in  the 
freshness  of  the  new  day,  and  the  adieu 
of  the  evening,  upon  the  sand  under  the 
stars,  in  the  warmth  f  the  calm  night, 
murmured  low  and  still  lower,  had  al- 
ready the  taste  of  kisses,  although  their 
lips  had  never  met. 

They  dreamed  of  each  other  as  soon 
as  they  were  asleep,  thought  of  each 
other  as  soon  as  they  awoke,  and,  with- 
out yet  saying  so,  called  for  and  desired 
each  other  with  their  whole  soul  ani 
body. 

After  marriage  they  adored  each  other 
above  everything  on  earth.  It  was  at 
first  a  kind  of  sensual,  indefatigable 
rage;  then  an  exalted  tenderness  made 
of  palpable  poesy,  of  caresses  already 
refined,  and  of  inventions  both  gentec) 


FORBIDDEN  FRUIT 


355 


£nd  ungenteel.  All  their  looks  signified 
something  impure,  and  all  their  gestures 
recalled  to  them  the  ardent  intimacy  of 
the  night. 

Now,  without  confessing  it,  without 
realizing  it,  perhaps,  they  commenced 
to  weary  of  one  another.  They  loved 
each  other,  it  is  true;  but  there  was 
nothing  mere  to  reveal,  nothing  more  to 
do  that  had  not  often  been  done,  noth- 
ing'more  to  learn  from  each  other,  not 
even  a  new  word  of  love,  an  unforeseen 
motion,  or  an  intonation,  which  some- 
times is  more  expressive  than  a  known 
word  too  often  repeated. 

They  forced  themselves,  however,  to 
rel'ght  the  flame,  enfeebled  from  the 
first  embraces.  They  invented  some  new 
and  tender  artifice  each  day,  some  sim- 
ple or  complicated  ruse,  in  the  vain 
attempt  to  renew  in  their  hearts  the 
unappeasable  ardor  of  the  first  days,  and 
in  their  veins  the  flame  of  the  nuptial 
month. 

From  time  to  time,  by  dint  of  whip- 
ping their  desire,  they  again  found  an 
hour  of  factitious  excitement  which  was 
immediately  followed  by  a  disgusting 
lassitude. 

I'hey  tried  moonliglit  walks  under  the 
leaves  in  the  sweetness  of  the  night,  the 
poesy  cf  the  cliffs  bathed  in  mist,  the 
excitement  of  public  festivals. 

Then,  one  morning,  Henrietta  said  to 
Paul: 

"Will  you  take  me  to  dine  at  an  inn?'* 

"Why,  yes,  my  dearie." 

"In  a  very  well-known  inn?" 

"Yes." 

He  looked  at  her,  questioning  with 
his  eye,  understanding  well  that  she  had 
something  in  mind  which  she  had  not 
«poken. 


She  continued:  "You  know,  an  inn — 
how  shall  I  explain  it? — in  a  gallant 
inn,  where  people  make  appointments  to 
meet  each  other?" 

He  smiled:  "Yes.  I  understand,  a  pri- 
vate room  in  a  large  caje^" 

"That  is  it.  But  in  a  large  cafe  where 
you  are  known,  where  you  have  already 
taken  supper — ^no,  dinner — that  is  —  I 
mean — I  want — ^no,  I  do  not  dare  say 
it!" 

"Speak  out,  cherie;  between  us  what 
can  it  matter?  We  are  not  like  those 
who  have  little  secrets  from  each  other." 

"No,  I  dare  not." 

"Oh!  come,  now!  Don't  be  so  inno- 
cent.   Say  it." 

"Well— oh!  well— I  wish— I  wish  to 
be  taken  for  your  mistress — and  that 
the  waiters,  who  do  not  know  that  you 
are  married,  may  look  upon  me  as  your 
mistress,  and  you  too — that  for  an  hour, 
you  believe  me  your  mistress,  in  that 
very  place  where  you  have  remem- 
brances of — ^That's  all!  And  I  myself 
will  believe  that  I  am  your  mistress — 
— I  want  to  commit  a  great  sin — to  de- 
ceive you — with  yourself — there!  It  is 
very  bad  but  that  is  what  I  want  to  do— 
Do  not  make  me  blush — ^I  feel  that  I 
am  blushing — imagine — my  wanting  to 
take  the  trouble  to  dine  with  you  in  a 
place  not  quite  the  thing — in  a  private 
room  where  people  devote  themselves  to 
love  every  evening — every  evening —  It 
is  very  bad — I  am  as  red  as  a  peony! 
Don't  look  at  me!" 

He  laughed,  very  much  amused,  and 
responded : 

"Yes,  we  will  go,  this  evening,  to  4 
very  chic  place  where  I  am  known." 

Toward  seven  o'clock  they  mounted 


356 

the  staircase  of  a  large  cafe  on  the 
Boulevard,  he,  smUing,  with  the  air  of  a 
conqueror,  she  timid,  veiled,  but  de- 
lighted. When  they  were  in  a  little 
room  furnished  with  four  armchairs  and 
a  large  sofa  covered  with  red  velvet,  the 
steward,  in  black  clothes,  entered  and 
presented  the  bill  of  fare.  Paul  passed 
it  to  his  wife. 

"What  do  you  wish  to  eat?'  said  he. 

"I  don't  know;  what  do  they  have 
that  is  good  here?" 

Then  he  read  off  the  list  of  dishes 
while  taking  off  his  overcoat,  which  he 
handed  to  a  waiter.    Then  he  said  : 

"Serve  this  menu:  Bisque  soup — 
deviled  chicken — sides  of  hare — duck, 
American  style, — vegetable  salad,  and 
dessert.    We  will  drink  champagne." 

The  steward  smiled  and  looked  at  the 
young  lady.  He  took  the  card,  murmur- 
ing. "Will  M.  Paul  have  a  cordial  or 
some  champagne?" 

"Champagne,  very  dry." 

Henrietta  was  happy  to  find  that 
this  man  knew  her  husband's  name. 
They  sat  down  side  by  side  upon  the 
i»ofa  and  began  to  eat. 

Ten  candles  lighted  the  room,  re- 
flected in  a  great  mirror,  mutilated  by 
the  thousands  of  names  traced  on  it 
with  a  diamond,  making  on  the  clear 
crystal  a  kind  of  huge  cobweb. 

Henrietta  drank  glass  after  glass  to 
animate  her,  although  she  felt  giddy 
from  the  first  one.  Paul,  excited  by  cer- 
tain memories,  kissed  his  wife's  hand  re- 
peatedly.   Her  eyes  were  brilliant. 

She  felt  strangely  moved  by  this  sus- 
picious situation;  she  was  excited  and 
happy,  although  she  felt  a  little  defiled. 
Two  grave  waiters,  mute,  accustomed  to 
seeing  everything  and  forgetting  all,  en- 


VVORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


tered  only  when  it  was  necessary,  and 
going  out  in  the  moments  of  overflow, 
going  and  coming  quickly  and  softly. 

Toward  the  middle  of  the  dinner, 
Henrietta  was  tipsy,  completely  tipsy, 
and  Paul,  in  his  gaiety,  pressed  her  knee 
with  all  his  force.  She  prattled  now, 
boldly,  her  cheeks  red,  her  look  lively 
and  dizzy. 

"Oh!  come  Paul,"  she  said,  "confess 
now,  won't  you;  I  want  to  know  all." 

"What  do  you  mean,  cherie?" 

"I  dare  not  say  it." 

"But  you  must  always — " 

"Have  you  had  mistresses — many  of 
them — ^before  me?" 

He  hesitated,  a  little  perplexed,  noi 
knowing  whether  he  ought  to  conceal 
his  good  fortunes  or  boast  of  them. 

She  contmued:  "Oh!  I  beg  you  to  tell 
me,  have  you  had  many?" 

"Why  some." 

"How  many?" 

"I  don't  know.  How  can  one  know 
F.uch  things?" 

"You  cannot  count  them?" 

"Why,  no!" 

"Oh!  then  you  have  had  very  many?" 

"Yes." 

"How  many,  do  you  suppose — some 
where  near — " 

"I  don't  know  at  all,  my  dear.  Some 
years  I  had  many  and  some  only  a  few." 

"How  many  a  year,  should  you 
say?" 

"Sometimes  twenty  or  thirty,  some- 
times four  or  five  only." 

"Oh !  that  makes  more  than  a  hundred 
women  in  all." 

"Yes,  somewhere  near." 

"Oh!  how  disgusting!" 

"Why  disgusting?" 

"Because  it  is  disgusting — when  on* 


FORBIDDEN  FRUIT 


tbinks  of  all  those  women — bare — and 
always — ^always  the  same  thing —  Chi 
it  is  disgusting  all  the  same — more  than 
a  hundred  women." 

He  was  shocked  that  she  thought  it 
disgusting,  and  responded  with  that 
superior  air  which  men  assume  to  make 
women  understand  that  they  have  said 
something  foolish: 

'Well,  that  is  curious!  If  it  is  dis- 
gusting to  have  a  hundred  women,  it 
is  equally  disgusting  to  have  one.'* 

"Oh,  no,  not  at  all!" 

''Why  not?" 

"Because  with  one  woman  there  is 
intrigue,  there  is  a  love  that  attaches 
you  to  her,  while  with  a  hundred  wo- 
men there  is  filthiness,  misconduct.  I 
cannot  understand  how  a  man  can  med- 
dle with  all  those  girls  who  are  so 
foul—" 

"No,  they  are  very  neat." 

"One  cannot  be  neat  carrying  on  a 
trade  like  that." 

"On  the  contrary,  it  is  because  of 
their  trade  that  they  are  seat." 

"Oh!  pshaw!  when  one  thinki.  of  the 
nights  they  pass  with  others!  It  is  ig- 
noble!" 

"It  is  no  more  ignoble  than  drinking 
from  a  glass  from  which  I  know  not 
who  drank  this  morning,  and  that  has 
been  less  thoroughly  washed — ^you  may 
be  certain  of  it — " 

"Oh!  be  still,  you  are  revolting." 

"But  why  ask  me  then  if  I  have  had 
mistresses?" 

"Then  tell  me,  were  your  mistresses 
all  girls,  all  of  them — ^the  whole  hun 
dred?" 


35; 

some—  -women    of 


"Why, 
"Some 


no — ^no— '* 
were    actresses — some 


little 


working    girls — and 
the  world — " 

"Hov/  many  of  them  were  women  oi 
the  world?" 

"Six." 

"Only  six?' 

"Yes." 

"Were  they  pretty?" 

"Yes,  of  course." 

"Prettier  than  the  girls?" 

"No." 

"Which  did  you  prefer,  girls  or  v/o- 
men  of  the  world?" 

"Girls." 

"Oh!  how  filthy!     Why?" 

"Because  I  do  not  care  much  for  ama- 
teur talent." 

"Oh!  horror!  You  are  abominable, 
do  you  know  it?  But  tell  me,  is  it  very 
amusing  to  pass  from  one  to  another 
like  that?" 

"Yes,  rather." 

"Very?" 

"Very." 

"What  is  there  amusing  about  it?  Is 
it  because  they  do  not  resemble  each 
other?" 

"They  do  not." 

"Ah !  the  women  do  not  resemble  each 
other." 

"Not  at  all." 

"In  nothing?" 

"In  nothing." 

"That  is  strange!  In  what  respect  do 
they  differ r' 

"In  every  respect." 

"In  body?" 

"Yes,  in  body." 

"In  the  whole  body?" 

"Yes,  in  the  whole  body." 

"And  in  what  else?" 

"Why,  in  the  manner  of— of  embrac- 


358  WORKS  OF  GUY 

!ng,  of  speaking,  of  saying  the  least 
thing." 

"Ah!  and  it  is  very  amusing,  this 
<-hanging?" 

"Yes." 

"And  are  men  different  too?*' 

"That  I  do  not  know." 

"You  do  not  know?" 

"No." 

"They  must  bf;  different." 

"Yes,  without  doubt." 

She  remained  pensive,  her  glass  of 
champagne  in  her  hand.  It  was  full  and 
she  drank  it  at  a  draught;  then  placing 
the  glass  upcn  the  table,  she  threw  both 


DZ  MAUPASSANT 

arms  around  her  husband's  neck,  and 
murmured  in  his  mouth: 

"Oh!  my  dear,  how  I  love  you!"  He 
seized  her  in  a  passionate  embrace — 

A  waiter  who  was  entering,  drew 
back,  closing  the  door;  and  the  service 
was  interrupted  for  about  five  minutes. 

When  the  steward  again  appeared, 
with  a  grave,  dignified  air,  bringing  in 
the  fruits  for  the  dessert,  she  was  hold- 
ing another  glassful  between  her  fin- 
gers and,  looking  to  the  bottom  of  the 
yellow,  transparent  liquid,  as  if  to  see 
there  things  unknown  and  dreamed  of, 
she  r^urmured,  with  a  thoughtful  voice: 

"Oh!  yes!  It  must  be  very  amusing, 
cll  the  same!" 


The  Charm  Dispelled 


The  boat  was  filled  with  people.  As 
the  passage  promised  to  be  good,  many 
people  of  Havre  were  making  a  trip  to 
Trouville. 

They  loosed  the  moorings,  a  last  whis- 
tle announced  the  departure,  and  imme- 
diately the  entire  body  of  the  vessel 
shook,  while  a  sound  of  stirring  water 
'  as  heard  all  along  the  sides.  The 
wheels  turned  for  some  seconds, 
stopped,  and  then  started  gently.  The 
captain,  upon  his  bridge,  having  cried, 
"Go  ahead!"  through  the  tube  which 
extends  into  the  depths  of  the  ma- 
chinery, they  nov;  began  to  beat  the 
waves  with  great  rapidity. 

We  passed  along  the  pier,  covered 
with  people.  Some  that  were  on  the 
boat  waved  their  handkerchiefs,  as  if 
they  were  setf-ng  '^ut  for  America,  and 


the  friends  who  remained  behind  re* 
sponded  in  the  same  fashion. 

The  great  July  sun  fell  upon  the  red 
umbrellas,  the  bright  costumes,  the  joy- 
ous faces,  and  upon,  the  ocean,  scarcely 
moved  by  any  undulations.  As  soon  as 
they  had  left  the  port,  the  little  vessel 
made  a  sharp  turn,  pointing  its  nose  di- 
rectly for  the  far-off  coast  rising  to  meet 
the  foam. 

On  our  left  was  the  mouth  of  the 
Seine,  more  than  twelve  miles  wide. 
Here  and  there  great  buoys  pointed  out 
banks  of  sand,  and  one  could  see  at  a 
distance  the  fresh,  muddy  water  of  the 
river,  which  had  not  yet  mingled  with 
the  salt  brine,  outlined  in  broad,  yellow 
stripes  upon  the  immense,  pure  green 
sheet  of  the  open  sea. 

As  soon  as  I  boarded  the  boat  I  felt 


THE  CHARM  DISPELLED 


359 


the  need  of  walking  up  and  down,  like  a 
sailor  on  his  wacth.  Why?  That  I 
cannot  say.  But  I  began  to  circulate 
among  the  crowd  of  pas^scngers  on  deck. 

Suddenly  some  one  called  my  name. 
I  turned  around.  It  was  Henry  Sidonie, 
whom  I  had  not  seen  for  ten  years. 

After  we  had  shaken  hands  we  re- 
sumed the  walk  of  a  bear  in  his  cage 
which  I  had  been  taking  alone,  while  we 
talked  of  people  and  things.  And  we 
looked  at  the  two  lines  of  travelers 
seated  on  both  sides  of  the  boa',  chatting 
all  the  while. 

All  at  once,  Sidonie  exclaimed,  with  a 
veritable  expression  of  rage:  "It  is 
crowded  with  English  here !  Nasty  peo- 
ple!" 

The  boat  was  full  of  English,  in  fact. 
Men  standing  about  scanned  the  horizon 
with  an  important  air  which  seemed  to 
say:  *Tt  is  the  English  who  are  masters 
of  the  sea!   Boom!  boom!  here  we  are!" 

And  the  white  veils  upon  their  white 
hats  had  the  air  of  flags  in  their  self- 
sufficiency. 

The  thin  young  girls,  whose  boots  re- 
called the  naval  construction  of  their 
country,  wrapping  their  straight  figures 
and  thin  arms  in  multicolored  shawls, 
smiled  vaguely  at  the  radiant  landscape. 
Their  little  heads,  perched  on  the  top  of 
their  long  bodies,  wearing  the  peculiarly 
shaped  English  hat,  were  finished,  at  the 
back  of  the  neck,  by  their  thin  hair, 
coiled  around  to  resemble  sleeping  ad- 
ders. 

And  the  old  spinsters,  still  more 
lank,  opening  to  the  wind  their  national 
jaw,  appeared  to  threaten  space  with 
their  enormous  yellow  teeth.  In  passing 
near  them,  one  smells  an  odor  of  caout- 
chouc or  some  kind  of  dentifrice. 


Sidonie  repeated,  with  an  increasing 
anger : 

"Nasty  people!  Why  couldn't  they 
be  hindered  from  coming  to  France?" 

I  inquired,  laughingly:  ''Why,  what 
do  you  care?  As  for  me,  I  am  per* 
fectly  indifferent  to  them." 

He  answered:  "Yes,  you  are,  in- 
deed! But  I — I  married  an  Englishwo- 
man.   And  there  you  have  it!'* 

I  stopped  and  laughed  in  his  face. 
"The  devil!"  said  I;  "tell  me  about  it. 
Has  she  made  you  so  unhappy?" 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders,  as  he  re- 
phed:  "No,  not  precisely." 

"Then  she — she  has— deceived  you?" 

"Unfortunately,  no.  That  would  give 
me  a  cause  for  divorce,  and  I  should  be 
free." 

"But  I  do  not  understand." 

"You  do  not  understand?  That  is  not 
astonishing.  Well,  she  simply  learned  the 
French  language,  nothing  more!  Listen: 

"I  had  never  had  the  least  desire  to 
marry  when  I  went  to  pass  the  summer 
at  Etretat,  two  years  ago.  But  there  is 
nothing  more  dangerous  than  watering- 
places.  One  cannot  imagine  to  what  an 
advantage  young  girls  are  seen  there. 
Paris  may  be  for  women,  but  the  coun- 
try is  for  young  girls. 

"The  idiotic  promenades,  the  morning 
baths,  lunches  upon  the  grass,  all  are  so 
many  snares  for  marriage.  And,  truly, 
there  is  nothing  prettier  than  a  girl  of 
eighteen  running  across  a  field  or  pick- 
ing flowers  along  the  road. 

"I  made  the  acquaintance  of  an  Eng- 
lish family  Hving  at  the  same  h^tei  ai 
myself.  The  father  resembled  the  men 
you  see  there,  and  the  mother  all  other 
Englishwomen.  They  had  two  sons,  boys, 
all  bones,  who  played  at  violent  games. 


360 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


with  balls,  sticks,  or  rackets,  from  morn- 
ing until  evening;  then,  two  girls,  the 
elder  a  lean,  well-preserved  English-wo- 
man of  maturity,  the  younger  a  wonder. 
She  was  a  blonde,  or  rather  a  blondine, 
with  a  head  that  came  from  the  skies. 
When  they  do  undertake  to  be  pretty, 
these  wretches,  they  are  divine.  She 
had  blue  eyes,  of  the  blue  which  seems 
to  contain  all  the  poetry,  dreams,  hopes, 
and  happiness  of  the  world! 

"What  a  horizon  of  infinite  thought 
opens  before  you  in  the  two  eyes  of  a 
woman  like  that!  How  well  she  re- 
sponds to  the  eternal,  vague  expectation 
of  our  hearts! 

'It  is  only  necessary  to  remember  that 
Frenchmen  always  adore  foreigners.  As 
soon  as  we  meet  a  Russian,  an  Italian, 
a  Swede,  a  Spanish,  or  an  English- 
woman at  all  pretty,  we  fall  in  love  with 
her  immediately.  Everything  that 
comes  from  abroad  fills  us  with  enthu- 
siasm, whether  it  be  trouser  cloth,  hats, 
gloves,  guns,  or — ^women.  We  are 
wrong  nevertheless. 

"But  I  beheve  the  most  seductive 
thing  about  these  exotics  is  their  faulty 
pronunciation  of  our  language.  As  soon 
as  a  woman  speaks  French  badly,  she 
is  charming.  If  she  uses  a  wrong  word, 
she  is  exquisite,  and  if  she  jabbers  in  a 
manner  quite  unintelligible,  she  becomes 
irresistible. 

"You  cannot  imagine  how  pretty  it  is 
to  hear  a  sweet,  red  mouth  say: 
*raime  heaucoup  la  gigotte*  (I  like  mut- 
ton so  much!). 

"My  little  English  Kate  spoke  a  most 
unlikely  tongue.  I  could  understand 
nothing  of  it  in  the  first  days,  she  in- 
vented so  many  unheard-of  words.  That 
was  when  I  became  absolutely  in  love 


with  the  comical,  gay  little  monkey.  All 
these  crippled,  strange,  ridiculous  terms 
took  on  a  delicious  charm  upon  her  lips; 
and,  on  the  Casino  terrace,  in  the  eve- 
ing,  we  had  many  long  conversations, 
resembling  spoken  enigmas. 

"I  married  her!  I  loved  her  foolishly, 
as  one  can  love  a  dream.  For  the  true 
lover  adores  naught  but  a  dream  which 
takes  thd  shape  of  a  woman.  You  recall 
Louis  Bouilhet's  admirable  verse: 

"  'You  only  were,  in  those  rarest  days, 
A  common  instrument  under  my  art; 
Like  the  bow,  on  the  viol  d'amour  it 

plays, 
I  dreamed  my  dream  o'er  your  empty 
heart' 

"Well,  my  dear,  the  greatest  mistake 
I  made  was  to  give  my  wife  a  teacher 
of  French.  As  long  as  she  made  a  mar- 
tyr of  the  dictionary  and  punished  the 
grammar,  I  was  fond  of  her.  Our  talks 
were  very  simple.  She  showed  a  sur- 
prising grace  of  mind,  an  incomparable 
elegance  in  her  actions.  She  seemed  to 
be  a  marvelous  speaking  jewel,  a  doll  oi 
flesh  made  to  kiss,  knowing  how  to  make 
known,  or  at  least  indicate  the  things 
she  desired,  uttering  at  times  the 
strangest  exclamations,  and  expressing 
rather  complicated  sensations  and  emo- 
tions in  a  coquettish  fashion,  with  a 
force  as  incomprehensible  as  it  was  un- 
foreseen. She  much  resembled  those 
pretty  playthings  which  say  'papa'  and 
'mamma,'  pronouncing  them  'Baba'  and 
*Bamban.' 
"Could  I  have  believed  that — 
"She  speaks  now — she  speaks — badly 
— ^very  badly —  She  makes  just  as  many 
mistakes — but  I  can  understand  her — 
yes,  I  understand — ^I  know—  and  I  kno'w 
her — 


MADAME  PARISSE 


361 


"I  have  opened  my  doll  to  see  what 
was  inside.  I  have  seen.  And  one  must 
talk,  my  dear! 

"Ah !  you  don't  know,  you  could  never 
imagine  the  theories,  the  ideas,  the  opin- 
ions of  a  young  Englishwoman,  well 
brought  up,  in  whom  there  is  nothing  to 
reproach,  who  repeats  to  me  morning 
and  evening  all  the  phrases  in  the  die- 
Monary  of  conversation  in  use  at  the 
fichools  for  young  people. 

"You  have  seen  those  favors  for  a 
cotillon,  those  pretty  gilt-paper-covered 
execrable  bonbons?  I  had  one  of  them. 
I  tore  it  open.  I  wished  to  taste  w^hat 
was  inside,  and  became  so  disgusted 
that  now  there  is  a  rebellion  in  my  feel- 


ings if  I  but  see  one  of  her  compatriots. 
"I  have  married  a  paroquet  to  whom 
an    old-time    instructress    had    taught 
French.    Do  you  understand?" 

The  port  of  Trouville  now  showed  its 
wooden  piers,  covered  with  people.  I 
said: 

"Where  is  your  wife?" 

He  answered:  "I  have  just  taken  her 
back  to  Etretat." 

"And  where  are  you  going?" 

"I?  I  am  going  to  try  and  divert  my- 
self at  Trouville." 

Then,  after  a  silence,  he  added:  "You 
cannot  imagine  hom  irksome  a  wife  can 
become  sometimes." 


Madame  Parisse 


I  WAS  seated  on  the  mole  of  the  little 
port  of  Obernon,  near  the  hamlet  of  La 
Salis,  watching  Antibes  in  the  setting 
sun.  I  have  never  seen  anything  so  won- 
derfully beautiful.  The  little  town,  in- 
closed within  its  heavy  fortifications  of 
masonry  (constructed  by  Monsieur  de 
Vauban),  was  situated  in  the  middle  of 
the  Gulf  of  Nice.  The  great  waves 
rolled  in  from  afar  to  throw  themselves 
at  its  feet,  surrounding  it  with  a  garland 
of  foam;  and,  above  the  ramparts,  the 
houses  could  be  seen,  climbing  one  above 
another  up  to  the  two  towers  pointing 
to  the  sky  Hke  two  horns  on  an  ancient 
helmet,  and  standing  out  against  the 
milky  whiteness  of  the  Alps — an  enor- 
mous, illimitable  wall  of  snow  that  ap- 
peared to  shut  off  the  entire  horizon. 
Between  the  white  foam  at  the  foot  of 


the  walls  and  the  white  snov^r  on  the 
border  of  the  sky,  the  little  city,  spark- 
ling and  upright  on  the  blue  background 
of  the  nearest  mountain,  shone  in  the 
rays  of  the  setting  sun,  looking  like  a 
pyramid  of  red-roofed  houses,  the  ja- 
gades  of  which  were  white,  yet  of  such 
different  shades  of  white  that  they 
seemed  to  be  of  many  hues. 

The  sky  above  the  Alps  was  of  a  pale 
blue  that  was  almost  white,  as  if  the 
snow  had  given  to  it  some  of  its  own 
whiteness.  A  few  silvery  clouds  floated 
near  the  pale  summit;  and,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  gulf,  Nice  lay  oii  the  edge  of 
the  water  like  a  white  ribbon  between 
the  sea  and  the  mountains.  Two  great 
lateen  sails,  forced  onward  by  a  strong 
breeze,  appeared  to  run  before  the 
waves.    I  gazed  at  the  scene,  enchanted 


362 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


with  its  beauty.  It  was  one  of  those 
sights  so  charming,  so  rare,  so  exquisite, 
which  seem  to  talce  possession  of  you, 
and  become  one  of  those  moments  never 
to  be  forgotten,  like  certain  happy  mem- 
ories. We  think,  we  enjoy,  we  suffer, 
we  are  moved,  from  various  causes,  but 
we  love  by  seeing!  He  that  can  feel 
deep  emotion  through  the  power  of 
sight  experiences  the  same  keen  joy  re- 
fined and  profound,  felt  by  the  man  with 
a  sensitive  and  nervous  ear  when  listen- 
ing to  music  that  stirs  the  heart. 

I  said  to  my  companion,  Monsieur 
Martini,  a  pure-blooded  southerner, 
"That  is  certainly  one  of  the  rarest  spec- 
tacles that  it  ever  has  been  my  good 
fortune  to  admire.  I  have  seen  Mont- 
Saint-Michel,  that  enormous  jewel  of 
granite,  spring  forth  from  the  sands  at 
sunrise.  I  have  seen,  in  the  Sahara, 
Lake  Raianecherqui,  fifty  kilometers  in 
length,  shine  under  a  moon  as  brilliant 
as  our  sun,  and  exhale  toward  the  clouds 
a  vapor  as  white  as  milk.  I  have  seen 
in  the  Lipari  Islands  the  fantastic  sul- 
phur crater  of  Volcanello,  a  giant  flower, 
the  center  of  which  is  a  volcano  that 
smokes  and  burns  with  a  limitless  yel- 
low flame  that  spreads  out  over  the 
ocean.  But  I  have  seen  nothinsj  more 
impressive  than  Antibes,  standing  before 
the  Alps  in  the  setting  sun.  And  I  can- 
not tell  why,  at  this  moment,  souvenirs 
of  olden  days  haunt  me.  Verses  of  Ho- 
mer come  into  my  mind.  It  is  a  city  of 
the  old  Orient,  Antibes,  it  is  a  city  of 
the  'Odyssey,'  it  is  a  western  Troy — 
even  though  Troy  was  far  from  the 
sea." 

"Monsieur  Martini  drew  from  his  poc- 
kst  a  Sarty  guide   and  read: 


"The  city  was  originally  a  colony 
founded  by  the  Phoenicians  of  Marseilles, 
about  the  year  340  B.  C.  It  received 
from  them  the  Greek  name  of  Antipolis, 
that  is  to  say,  'city  over  against,'  'city  in 
front  of  another,'  because,  in  reality,  it 
was  situated  opposite  Nice,  another  colony 
of  Marseilles.  After  the  conquest  of  the 
Gauls,  the  Romans  made  of  Antibes  a 
municipal  city,  and  her  inhabitants  en- 
joyed the  privileges  of  a  Roman  city." 

"We  know,"  he  continued,  "by  an 
epigram  of  Martial,  that  in  his  time — " 

I  interrupted  him,  saying:  "I  don't 
care  what  it  was!  I  tell  you  I  have 
before  my  eyes  a  city  of  the  'Odyssey.* 
Coast  of  Asia  or  coast  of  Europe — they 
are  alike;  and  there  is  nothing  on  the 
other  shore  of  the  Mediterranean  that 
awakens  in  me  the  memory  of  heroic 
days  as  does  this." 

The  sound  of  an  approaching  step 
caused  me  to  turn  my  head;  a  tall,  dark 
woman  was  passing  along  the  road  that 
follows  the  sea  in  the  direction  of  the 
cape. 

Monsieur  Martini  murmured,  empha- 
sizing the  last  words:  "It  is  Madame 
Parisse — you  know!" 

No,  I  did  not  know,  but  this  name 
thrown  out,  the  name  of  the  shepherd  of 
Troy,  confirmed  me  in  my  dream. 

I  said,  however,  "Who  is  this  Ma- 
dame Parisse?" 

He  appeared  surprised  that  I  did  not 
know  her  story.  I  reaffirmed  that  I 
did  not  know  it,  and  I  looked  at  the  wo- 
man, who  went  on  without  seeing  us, 
dreaming,  walking  with  a  slow,  stately 
step,  like  the  dames  of  antiquity,  with- 
out doubt.  She  was  about  thirty-five 
years  old,  and  beautiful  y^t,  ver}-  beau- 
tiful, though  perhaps  a  trifle  too  plump. 


MADAMZ  PARISSE 


363 


After  she  had  passed  out  of  sight, 
Monsieur  Martini  told  me  this  story. 

"Madame  Parisse,  a  Mademoiselle 
Combelombe,  had  married,  a  year  be- 
fore the  war  of  1870,  Monsieur  Parisse, 
an  employee  of  the  government.  She 
was  then  a  beautiful  young  girl,  as  slen- 
der and  gay  as  she  has  since  become 
stout  and  sad.  She  had  accepted  Mon- 
sieur Parisse  reluctantly;  he  was  one  of 
tho.se  little  red-tape  men,  with  short 
legs,  who  make  a  great  fuss  in  a  pint 
measure,  which  is  yet  too  large  for 
them. 

"After  the  war,  Antibes  was  occupied 
by  a  single  battalion  of  line  commanded 
by  Monsieur  Jean  de  Carmelin,  a  young 
offi::er  who  had  been  decorated  during 
the  campaign,  and  had  only  recently  re- 
ceived the  four  stripes.  As  he  was 
greatly  bored  with  the  life  in  that  for- 
tress, in  that  suffocating  mole-hill  shut 
in  by  enormous  double  walls,  the  com- 
mander went  quite  often  for  a  walk  on 
the  Cape,  a  sort  of  park  or  forest,  where 
there  was  a  fine,  fresh  breeze. 

"There  he  met  Madame  Parisse,  who 
used  also  to  come  on  summer  evenings 
to  breathe  the  fresh  air  under  the  trees. 
How  was  it  that  they  loved?  Can  one 
tell?  Th^y  met,  they  looked  at  each 
other,  and  when  they  could  not  meet, 
they  thought  of  each  other,  without 
doubt.  The  image  of  the  younj  woman 
with  the  brown  c^^es,  black  hair,  and 
pale  face,  the  image  of  that  fresh  and 
beautiful  southern  girl,  who  showed  her 
pretty  white  teeth  in  smiling,  remained 
floating  before  the  eyes  of  the  officer, 
who  would  continue  his  promenade  lost 
in  thought,  biting  his  cigar  instead  of 
smoking  it.  And  the  image  of  the  com- 
mander in  his  close-fiitting  coat  and  red 


trousers,  covered  with  gold  lace,  whose 
blond  moustache  curled  on  his  lip,  must 
have  remained  before  the  eyes  cf  Ma- 
dame Parisse  when  her  husband,  un- 
shaved,  badly  dressed,  short  of  limb, 
and  with  pursy  stomach,  returned  home 
for  supper. 

"From  meeting  so  often,  they  smiled 
at  seeing  each  other,  perhaps;  and  from 
that  they  came  to  think  they  knew  each 
other.  He  bowed  to  her,  certainly.  She 
was  surprised,  and  inclined  her  head 
slightly,  only  just  enough  to  escape  being 
impolite.  But  at  the  end  of  two  weeks 
she  returned  his  salutations  from  afar, 
before  coming  face  to  face. 

"He  talked  to  her!  Of  what?  Of  the 
setting  sun,  without  any  doubt!  And 
they  admired  it  together,  looking  deep 
into  each  other's  eyes  more  often  than 
at  the  horizon.  And  every  day  during 
two  weeks  there  v/as  some  simple  pre- 
text for  a  little  chat  of  several  minutes. 
Then  they  dared  to  take  a  few  steps 
together  in  talking  of  something  oi 
other;  but  their  eyes  spokt  of  a  thou- 
sand things  more  intimate,  of  secret  and 
charming  things,  the  reflection  of  which 
in  the  softness  and  emotion  of  a  look 
causes  the  heart  to  beat,  because  they 
reveal  the  soul  better  than  words.  Then 
he  must  have  taken  her  hand  and  mur- 
mured those  words  wh'ch  a  woman  di- 
vines without  appearing  to  have  heard 
them. 

"It  was  admitted  between  them  that 
they  loved,  without  submitting  their  mu- 
tual knowledge  to  the  proof  of  sensu- 
ality or  passion.  She  would  have  been 
content  to  remain  indefinitely  at  the 
stage  of  romantic  tenderness,  but  not 
he — ^he  wished  to  go  further.  And  he 
pressed  her,  evf^'  day  more  ardently^  tff 


364 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


give  herself  entirely  to  him.  She  re- 
sisted, did  not  wish  it,  and  even  seemed 
resolved  never  to  yield. 

"One  evening,  however,  she  said  to 
him,  as  if  by  chance:  'My  husband  has 
just  gone  to  Marseilles,  and  is  going  to 
remain  there  four  days.' 

"Jean  de  Carmelin  threw  himself  at 
her  feet,  begging  her  to  open  her  door 
that  very  evening  near  eleven  o'clock. 
But  she  would  not  listen  to  him,  and  re- 
turned home  as  if  angry.  The  comman- 
dant was  in  a  bad  humor  all  the  evening; 
and  the  next  day  beginning  at  daybreak 
he  walked  on  the  ramparts  in  a  rage,  go- 
ing from  the  drum-school  to  the  platoon- 
school,  and  meting  out  reprimands  to 
officers  and  men  like  one  throwing  stones 
into  a  crowd.  But  on  returning  for 
breakfast,  he  found  under  his  napkin  a 
note  containing  these  four  words:  This 
evening,  ten  o'clock.*  And  he  gave  five 
francs,  without  any  apparent  reason,  to 
the  boy  who  served  him. 

"The  day  seemed  long.  He  passed  a 
part  of  it  in  prinking  and  perfuming 
himself.  At  the  moment  when  he  placed 
himself  at  the  table  for  dinner,  another 
^envelope  was  handed  to  him.  He  found 
inside  this  telegram: 

**  'My  darling,  business  terminated.  I 
return  this  evening:  train  at  nine. 

Parisse.* 

"The  commandmant  gave  vent  to  an 
oath  so  violent  that  the  boy  let  the 
soup-toureen  fall  on  the  floor.  What 
should  he  do?  Certainly,  he  wanted 
her,  and  that  very  night,  too,  let  it  cost 
what  it  might,  and  he  would  have  her. 
He  would  have  her  by  some  means  or 
another,  if  he  had  to  arrest  and  imprison 
btr  busband.    Suddenly  an  insane  idea 


crossed  his  mind.    He  called  for  paper 
and  wrote : 

"'Madame:  He  will  not  return  this 
evening.  I  swear  it  to  you,  and  I  will 
be  at  ten  o'clock  at  the  place  you  know. 
Fear  nothing,  I  guarantee  everything  on 
my  honor  as  an  officer. 

"  'Jean  de  Carmelin.' 

"And,  having  sent  this  letter,  he  dined 
tranquilly.  About  eight  o'clock  he  sum- 
moned Captain  Gribois,  who  was  next 
in  command,  and  said  to  him,  while 
rolling  between  his  fingers  the  rumpled 
dispatch  of  Monsieur  Parisse:  'Cap- 
tain, I  have  received  a  telegram  of  a 
singular  character,  which  it  is  impossible 
for  me  to  communicate  to  you.  You 
must  go  immediately  and  guard  the  gates 
of  the  city,  in  such  a  way  that  no  one 
— ^you  understand,  no  one — either  comes 
in  or  goes  out  before  six  o'clock  to- 
morrow morning.  You  must  place 
guards  in  the  streets  also,  and  compel 
the  inhabitants  to  go  into  their  houses 
at  nine  o'clock.  Anyone  who  is  found 
outside  after  that  hour  will  be  con- 
ducted to  his  domicile  manu  militari.  If 
your  men  meet  me  during  the  night 
they  must  retire  at  once  with  an  air  of 
not  recognizing  me.  Do  you  imder- 
stand  me  thoroughly?* 

"  'Yes,  commandant.* 

"  'I  make  you  responsible  for  the  exe- 
cution of  these  orders,  captain.* 

"  'Yes,  commandant.* 

"  'Would  you  like  a  glass  of  Char- 
treuse?* 

"  'With  pleasure,  commandant.' 

"They  touched  glasses,  drank  the  yel- 
low liquor,  and  Captain  Gribois  de- 
parted. 

"The  train  from  Marseilles  came  intc 


MADAME  PARISSE 


365 


the  station  at  exa-ctly  nine  o'clock,  and 
left  on  the  platform  two  travelers,  then 
went  on  its  way  toward  Nice. 

''One  of  the  travelers  was  tall  and 
thin.  He  was  a  Monsieur  Saribe,  mer- 
chant in  oils.  The  other  passenger  was 
short  and  stout, — it  was  Monsieur 
Parisse.  They  started  on  their  way  to- 
gether, their  traveling  bags  in  their 
hands,  to  reach  the  town,  a  kilometer 
distant.  But  on  arriving  at  the  gate  the 
sentinels  crossed  their  bayonets  and  or- 
dered them  off. 

"Alarmed,  amazed,  and  filled  with  as- 
tonishment they  drew  aside  and  delib- 
erated; then,  after  taking  counsel  to- 
gether, they  returned  with  precaution  to 
parley,  and  to  make  known  their  names. 
But  the  soldiers  must  have  received  per- 
emptory orders,  for  they  threatened  to 
shoot,  and  the  two  travelers,  greatly 
frightened,  took  flight  at  the  top  of 
their  speed,  leaving  behind  them  their 
bags,  which  impeded  their  flight. 

"The  two  unfortunate  travelers  made 
the  circle  of  the  ramparts  and  presented 
themselves  at  the  Porte  de  Cannes.  This 
also  was  closed  and  guarded  as  well  by 
a  menacing  sentinel.  Messieurs  Saribe 
and  Parisse,  like  prudent  men,  insisted 
no  longer,  but  returned  to  the  station  to 
find  a  shelter,  for  the  road  around  the 
fortifications  was  not  very  safe  after 
sunset. 

"The  employee  at  the  station,  sur- 
prised and  sleepy,  gave  them  permis- 
sion to  remain  until  daylight  in  the  wait- 
ing-room. They  sat  there,  without  light, 
side  by  side,  on  the  green  velvet -covered 
bench,  too  frightened  to  think  of  sleep- 
ing.   The  night  was  long  for  them. 

"Toward  half  past  six  they  learned 
that  the  gates  were  open  and  that  one 


could  at  last  enter  Antibes.  They 
started  for  the  town,  but  did  not  find 
their  bags  along  the  way.  When  they 
had  passed  through  the  gates,  still  a  little 
uneasy,  the  Commandant  de  Carmelin, 
with  a  sly  look  and  his  head  in  the  air, 
came  himself  to  meet  and  question 
them.  He  bowed  to  them  politely,  and 
made  excuses  for  having  caused  them  to 
pass  a  bad  night,  but  said  he  had  been 
obliged  to  execute  orders. 

"The  people  of  Antibes  were  mysti- 
fied. Some  talked  of  a  surprise  medi- 
tated by  the  Italians;  others  of  the 
landing  of  the  imperial  prince ;  and  still 
others  imagined  an  Orleanist  plot.  The 
truth  was  not  guessed  until  later,  when 
they  learned  that  the  battalion  of  the 
commandant  had  been  sent  far  away, 
and  that  Monsieur  de  Carmelin  had 
been  severely  punished." 

Monsieur  Martini  ceased  speaking, 
and  soon  after  Madame  Parisse  re- 
appeared, her  walk  being  finished.  She 
passed  sedately  near  me,  her  eyes  on  the 
Alps,  the  summits  of  which  were  rudd5^ 
with  the  last  rays  of  the  setting  sun. 

I  desired  to  salute  her,  that  poor,  sad- 
dened woman  who  must  think  alway? 
of  that  one  night  of  love  now  so  far  in 
the  past,  and  of  the  bold  man  who  had 
dared,  lor  a  kiss  from  her,  to  put  a 
whole  city  in  a  state  of  siege  and  com- 
promise his  future.  To-day  he  had  prob- 
ably forgotten  her,  unless  sometimes^ 
after  drinking,  he  relates  that  audacious 
farce,  so  comic  and  so  tender. 

Had  she  ever  seen  him  again?  Did 
she  love  him  still?  And  I  thought: 
Here,  indeed,  is  a  trait  of  modem  love, 
grotesque  and  yet  heroic.  The  Homer 
who  will  sing  of  this  Helen,  and  of  the 


5tt 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPAlSSAIN'l 


adventures  cf  hci  Menelaus,  must  have  man,  was  valiant,  bold,  beautiful,  strong 
the  soul  of  a  Merimee.  And  yet,  the  as  Achilles,  and  more  cunning  than 
captain,  this  lover  of  that  deserted  wo-      Ulysses. 


Making  a  Conveti 


When  Sabot  entered  the  Martmville 
Inn,  they  all  laughed  in  advance.  This 
rascal  of  a  Sabot,  how  farcical  he  was! 
See  how  he  disliked  curates,  for  exam- 
ple! Ah!  yes,  yes!  He  was  ready  to 
eat  them,  this  merry  fellow. 

Sabot  (Theodule),  master  carpenter, 
represented  the  progressive  party  at 
Martin ville.  He  was  a  tall,  thui  man, 
with  gay,  cunning  eyes,  hair  glued  to  his 
temples,  and  thin  lips.  When  he  said: 
"Our  holy  father,  the  priest,"  in  a  cer- 
tain fashion,  everybody  was  convulsed. 
He  made  it  a  point  to  work  on  Sunday 
during  mass.  Every  year  he  would  kill 
his  pig  on  Monday  of  Holy  Week  in 
order  to  have  blood  pudding  until  Eas- 
ter, and  when  he  passed  the  curate  he 
would  always  say,  in  a  way  of  a  joke: 

"Here's  a  man  who  finds  his  good  God 
upon  the  roof." 

The  priest,  a  large  man,  very  tall  also, 
dreaded  him  because  of  his  talk,  which 
made  partisans.  Father  Maritime  was 
a  politic  man,  a  friend  of  ease.  The 
struggle  between  them  had  gone  on  for 
ten  years,  a  secret  struggle,  provoking 
and  incessant.  Sabot  was  municipal 
counselor.  It  was  believed  that  he 
would  be  mayor,  which  would  be  decid- 
edly bad  for  the  church. 

The  elections  were  about  to  take 
place.  The  religious  camp  in  Martin- 
ville  trembled.    Then,  one  mommg  the 


curate  set  out  for  Rouen,  announcing 
to  his  servant  that  he  was  going  to  see 
the  Archbishop. 

Two  days  later  he  returned.  He  had 
a  joyous,  triumphant  air.  The  next 
day  everybody  knew  that  the  choir  of 
the  church  was  to  be  remodeled.  A  sum 
of  six  hundred  francs  had  been  given 
by  Monsieur  from  his  private  cashbox. 

All  the  old  pine  stalls  were  to  be  re- 
moved and  be  replaced  by  new  ones  of 
heart  of  oak.  It  was  a  considerable 
piece  of  carpenter  work,  and  they  were 
talking  about  it  in  every  house  that 
evening. 

Theodule  Sabot  did  not  laugh.  The 
next  day,  when  he  went  through  the  vil- 
lage, his  neighbors,  friends,  and  enemies 
said  to  him  in  a  joking  manner: 

"Is  it  you  who  is  to  make  over  the 
choir  of  the  church?" 

He  found  nothing  to  answer,  but  he 
raged,  and  raged  silently.  The  rogues 
would  add: 

"It  is  a  good  job;  not  less  than  two 
or  three  hundred  clear  proht." 

Two  days  later  it  was  known  that  the 
repairs  had  been  given  to  Celestin 
Chambrelan,  the  carpenter  cf  Perche- 
ville.  Then  the  news  was  contradicted; 
then  it  was  said  that  all  of  the  benches 
of  the  church  were  also  to  be  renewed. 
This  would  be  worth  two  thousand 
francs,  as  some  one  had  found  out  from 


MAKING  A  CONVERT 


367 


the  administration.  The  excitement  was 
great. 

Theodule  Sabot  was  not  asleep. 
Never,  within  the  memory  of  man  had 
a  carpenter  of  the  country  executed  a 
like  piece  of  work.  Then  a  rumor  was 
heard  that  the  curate  was  desolate  at 
having  to  give  this  work  to  an  out-of- 
town  workman,  but  that  Sabot's  opinions 
were  so  opposed  to  his  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  give  it  to  him. 

Sabot  knew  it.  He  betook  himself  to 
the  priest's  house  at  nightfall.  The  ser- 
vant told  him  that  the  curate  was  in 
the  church.  He  went  there.  Two 
Ladies  of  the  Virgin,  sourish  old  maids, 
were  decorating  the  altar  for  the  month 
of  Mary  under  the  direction  of  the 
priest.  There  he  was,  in  the  middle  of 
the  choir,  swelling  out  his  enormous 
front,  as  he  directed  the  work  of  the 
two  women  who,  mounted  on  chairs,  dis- 
posed of  bouquets  about  the  tabernacle. 

Sabot  felt  under  restraint  in  there,  as 
if  he  were  on  the  enemy's  ground,  but 
the  desire  of  gain  was  ever  pricking  at 
his  heart.  He  approached,  cap  in  hand, 
without  even  noticing  the  Ladies  of  the 
Virgin,  who  remained  standing,  stupe- 
fied and  immovable  upon  the  chairs.  He 
stammered : 

"Good  evening,  Mr.  Curate.** 

The  priest  responded  without  looking 
at  him,  all  occupied  with  the  altar: 

"Good  evening,  Mr.  Carpenter. 

Sabot,  out  of  his  element,  could  say 
nothing  further.  After  a  silence,  he 
said,  howevp^,  "You  are  going  to  make 
some  repairs?" 

Father  Maritime  answered :  "Yes,  we 
are  approaching  the  month  of  .vlary." 

Sabot  repeated :  "That's  it.  that's  it," 
and  then  he  was  silent. 


He  felt  now  like  withdrawing  without 
saying  anything  more,  but  a  glance  of 
the  eye  around  the  choir  restrained  him 
He  perceived  that  there  were  sixteen 
stalls  to  be  made,  six  to  the  right,  and 
eight  to  the  left,  the  door  of  the  sacristy 
occupying  two  places  more.  Sixteen 
stalls  in  oak  would  be  worth  three  hun- 
dred francs,  and,  in  round  numbers, 
there  ought  to  be  two  hundred  francs' 
profit  on  the  work  if  it  was  managed 
well.    Then  he  stammered: 

"I — I've  come  for  the  v/ork." 

The  curate  appeared  surprised.  He 
a.sked : 

"What  work?" 

"The  work  of  the  repairs,"  murmured 
Sabot,  desperately. 

Then  the  priest  turned  toward  him 
and,  looking  him  straight  in  the  eye, 
said:  "And  you  speak  to  me  of  working 
on  the  choir  stalls  of  my  church!" 

The  tone  of  Father  Maritime's  voice 
caused  a  cold  chill  to  run  down  the  back 
of  Theodule  Sabot,  and  gave  him  a  furi- 
ous desire  to  scamper  away.  Neverthe- 
less, he  responded  with  humility. 

"Why,  yes,  Mr.  Curate." 

Then  the  priest  folded  his  arms  acro.^s 
his  ample  front,  and,  as  if  powerless 
from  surprise,  replied: 

"You — ^you — ^you — Sabot,  come  to 
ask  that  from  me—  You — the  only  im- 
pious soul  in  my  parish!  Why,  it 
would  be  a  scandal,  a  public  scandal. 
The  Archbishop  would  reprimand  me 
and  send  me  to  another  place,  perhaps.** 

He  breathed  hard  for  some  seconds, 
then  in  a  calmer  tone  he  continued: 

"I  understand  that  it  would  be  hard 
for  you  to  see  a  work  of  so  much  im* 
portance  go  to  a  carpenter  in  a  neigh- 
boring parish.    Dul  i  could  not  do  other- 


.368 

wise,  at  least  not  unless — no — it  is  im- 
possible. You  would  never  consent — 
and  without  that— never." 

Sabot  regarded  critically  the  line  of 
benches  that  came  almost  up  to  the  door 
of  the  sacristy.  Christopher!  If  one 
might  be  able  to  make  this  alteration  I 
And  he  asked:  ''What  is  it  you  con- 
sider necessary?     Say  it." 

The  priest,  in  a  firm  tone,  replied:  "It 
would  be  necessary  for  me  to  have  a 
statement  of  your  goodwill." 

Sabot  murmured:  "I  should  say 
nothing — I  should  say  nothing — that 
would  be  understood." 

The  curate  declared:  *'It  would  be 
necessary  to  take  public  communion  at 
high  mass,  next  Sunday — " 

The  carpenter  grew  pale  and,  without 
answering,  asked: 

"And  the  church  benches,  are  they 
^oing  to  be  replaced  with  new  ones  too?" 

The  priest  responded  with  assurance: 
"Yes,  but  that  will  come  later." 

Sabot  repeated:  "I  would  say  noth- 
ing, I  say  nothing.  In  fact,  I  feel  noth- 
ing derogatory  to  religion,  and  I  believe 
in  it  certainly;  what  ruffles  me  is  the 
practice  of  it,  but  in  this  case,  I  should 
not  show  myself  contrary." 

The  Ladies  of  the  Virgin,  having  got 
down  from  their  chairs,  concealed  them- 
selves behind  the  altar;  they  were  lis- 
tening, pale  with  emotion. 

The  curate  seeing  himself  victorious, 
suddenly  became  friendly  and  familiar: 
"Well  and  good!  well  and  good!"  said 
he.  "You  have  spoken  wisely  instead  of 
being  foolish,  you  understand.  We  shall 
see.    We  shall  see." 

Sabot  smiled  in  a  constrained  way  as 
he  asked :  "Isn't  there  some  way  of  giv- 
ing this  communion  the  slip?" 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


The  priest,  with  severe  countenance 
replied : 

"At  the  moment  that  this  work  is 
given  to  you,  I  wish  to  be  certain  of 
your  conversion."  Then  he  continued 
more  gently:  "You  will  come  to  con- 
fess to-morrow;  for  it  will  be  necessary 
for  me  to  examine  you  at  least  twice." 

Sabot  repeated:    "At  least  twice?" 

"Yes." 

The  priest  smiled:  "You  understand 
that  it  will  be  necessary  to  have  a  gen- 
eral clearing  out,  a  complete  cleansing. 
I  shall  expect  you  then,  to-morrow." 

The  carpenter,  much  moved,  asked: 
"Where  do  you  do  this?" 

"Why.  in  the  confessional." 

"In — that  box  there — ^in  the  comer? 
That  is — scarcely — ^big  enough  for  me, 
your  box." 

"Why  so?" 

"Seeing  that — seeing  that  I  am  not 
accustomed  to  it.  And  seeing  that  I'm  a 
little  hard  of  hearing." 

The  curate  showed  himself  lenient: 
"Ah!  well,  you  can  come  to  my  house, 
in  my  dining-room.  There  we  shall  be 
all  alone,  face  to  face.  How  will  that 
suit  you?" 

"That's  it.  That  suits  me,  but  your 
box,  no." 

"Well,  to-morrow  then,  after  the  day's 
work,  at  six  o'clock." 

"It  is  understood,  all  plain  and  agreed 
upon;  till  to-morrow,  then,  Mr.  Curate, 
and  the  rack  for  him  who  retracts." 

And  he  extended  his  great  rude  hand, 
into  which  the  priest  let  fall  his  own, 
heartily.  The  smack  of  this  hand-shake 
ran  along  under  the  arches  and  died 
away  back  in  the  organ  pipes. 

Theodule  Sabot  was  not  tranquil 
while  he  was  at  work  the  next  day.  The 


MAKING  A  CONVERT 


369 


apprehension  he  felt  was  something  like 
what  one  feels  when  he  is  going  to 
have  a  tooth  pulled.  Every  moment 
this  thought  would  come  to  him:  "I 
must  go  to  confession  this  evening." 
And  his  troubled  soul,  the  soul  of  an 
atheist  not  wholly  convinced,  became  ex- 
cited from  the  confused  and  powerful 
fear  of  some  divine  mystery. 

He  directed  his  steps  toward  the  rec« 
tory,  when  he  had  finished  his  day's 
woik.  The  curate  was  waiting  for  him 
in  xhe  garden,  reading  his  breviary  as 
be  walked  up  and  down  a  narrow  path. 
fie  seemed  radiant,  and  said  with  a  great 
lai^h : 

*'Ah!  well!  here  you  are!  Come  in, 
con.e  in,  Mr.  Sabot,  nobody  is  going  to 
eat  you." 

And  Sabot  passed  in  first.  He  stam- 
ajei^d: 

"if  you  are  not  too  busy  I  should  be 
pleased  to  finish  up  our  little  business, 
right  away." 

The  curate  answered :  "At  your  serv- 
ice. I  will  get  my  surplice.  One 
minute  and  I  will  listen  to  you." 

The  carpenter,  so  disturbed  that  he 
no  longer  had  two  ideas,  watched  him 
cover  himself  with  the  white  garment 
with  its  pressed  folds.  The  priest  made 
a  sign  to  him. 

"Put  your  knees  on  this  cushion." 

Sabot  remained  standing,  ashamed  to 
have  to  kneel.    He  muttered: 

"What's  the  use?" 

But  the  priest  became  majestic :  "One 
can  only  approach  the  tribunal  of  peni- 
tence on  the  knees." 

And  Sabot  kneeled. 

The  priest  said:  "Recite  the  *Con- 
fiteor.' " 

Sabot  asked:    "What's  that?" 


"The  'Confiteor.'  If  you  do  not  know 
it,  repeat  one  by  one,  after  me,  the 
words  I  pronounce." 

And  the  curate  articulated  the  sacred 
prayer,  in  a  deliberate  voice,  scanning 
the  words  for  the  carpenter  to  repeat; 
then  he  said: 

"Now,  confess." 

But  Sabot  said  nothing  more,  not 
knowing  how  to  commence. 

Then  Father  Maritime  came  to  his 
aid: 

"My  child,  I  will  ask  you  some  ques- 
tions until  you  become  a  little  more  fa- 
miliar with  the  customs.  We  will  take 
up,  one  by  one,  the  commandments  of 
God.  Listen  to  me  and  be  not  troubled. 
Speak  very  frankly,  and  never  fear  tvt 
say  too  much. 

"  *One  God  alone  you  shall  adore 
And  you  shall  love  him  perfectly.' 

Have  you  ever  loved  some  one  or  some- 
thmg  more  than  God?  Do  you  love 
Him  with  all  your  soul,  with  all  your 
heart,  and  all  the  energy  of  your  love?'* 

Sabot  was  sweating  from  the  effort 
of  his  thought.    Finally  he  said : 

"No.  Oh!  no,  Mr.  Curate.  I  love 
the  good  God  as  much  as  I  can.  That 
is — ^yes — I  love  Him  well.  To  say  that 
I  love  Him  better  than  my  children,  no, 
I  cannot.  To  say  that,  if  it  was  neces- 
sary to  choose  between  Him  and  my 
children,  I  would  choose  the  good  God, 
that  I  could  not.  To  say  that  I  would 
be  willing  to  lose  a  hundred  francs  for 
the  love  of  the  good  God,  no,  I  could 
not.  But  I  love  Him  well,  be  sure, 
I  love  Him  well,  all  the  same." 

The  priest,  very  grave,  declared :  "It 
is  necessary  that  you  love  Him  before 
anything." 


370 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


And  Sabot,  full  of  good-will,  an- 
swered: "I  will  do  my  best,  Mr. 
Curate." 

Father  Maritime  continued:  "God  will 
not  have  you  take  His  name  in  vain. 
Have  you  sometimes  made  use  of  an 
oath?" 

"No.  Oh!  no,  indeed!  I  never 
swear.  Sometimes,  in  a  moment  of 
anger,  I  speak  the  sacred  name  of  God. 
That's  all.    I  do  not  swear." 

The  priest  cried:  "But  that  is  swear- 
ing." And  then  gravely:  "Do  it  no 
more.  I  will  continue :  You  will  remem- 
ber the  Sabbath  to  keep  it  holy.  What 
do  you  do  on  Sunday?" 

This  time  Sabot  scratched  his  ear. 
Finally  he  said:  "I  serve  the  good  God 
in  my  own  way,  Mr.  Curate.  I  serve 
Him  — at  home.    I  work  on  Sunday — " 

The  curate  was  magnanimous  in  in- 
terrupting him:  "I  know  you  will  be 
more  proper  in  the  future.  I  pass  the 
commandments  following,  sure  that  you 
have  not  failed  in  the  first  two.  Let  us 
see  the  sixth  and  the  ninth.  I  repeat: 
The  goods  of  another  thou  shalt  not 
take,  nor  retain  them  knowingly.*  Have 
you  turned  to  your  own  use  by  any 
means,  the  goods  belonging  to  another?" 

Theodule  Sabot  answered  indignantly: 
"No!  Ah!  no!  I  am  an  honest  man, 
Mr.  Curate.  I  swear  to  that.  Not  to 
say  that  I  have  not  sometimes  counted 
more  hours  of  work  than  I  have  done — 
I  have  sometimes  done  that.  And  I 
could  not  say  that  I  have  not  put  a 
few  more  centimes  on  notes,  only  a  few 
sometimes.  But  as  for  robbing,  no,  no, 
indeed,  no!" 

The  curate  answered  severely:  "Take 


not  a  single  centime,  for  that  is  robbery. 
Do  it  no  more.  'False  v/itness  shalt 
thou  not  bear,  nor  lie  about  anything* 
Have  you  lied?" 

"No,  not  that:  I  am  no  liar.  I  am 
not  that  kind.  If  you  ask  if  I  have 
not  told  some  stories  for  the  sake  of 
talking,  I  could  not  deny  it.  And  to  say 
that  I  had  not  made  people  believe  what 
was  not  so,  when  it  was  for  my  interest 
to  do  so,  I  could  not.  But  as  for  lies, 
1  tell  no  hes." 

The  priest  simply  said:  "Be  a  little 
more  careful."    Then  he  pronounced: 

"  Things  of  the  tiesh  thou  shalt  not 
desire,  except  in  marriage  alone.' 

"Have  you  desired  or  possessed 
another  woman  than  your  own?' 

Sabot  exclaimed  with  sincerity:  "Oh! 
no.  As  for  that,  no,  Mr.  Curate.  De- 
ceive  my  poor  wife?  No!  no!  Not  as 
much  as  the  end  of  your  finger.  Not  in 
thought,  say  nothing  of  action!  That's 
true." 

He  was  very  silent  for  some  seconds, 
then,  very  low,  as  if  some  doubt  had 
come  over  him,  he  said :  "When  I  go  to 
town,  tci  say  that  I  never  go  into  a 
house,  you  know,  one  of  the  houses  of 
license,  for  the  sake  of  a  bit  of  laughter 
and  frolic  and  see  another  kind  of  skin, 
that  I  could  not  say— but  I  always  pay, 
Mr.  Curate,  I  always  pay;  but  I  won't 
embarrass  you  with  this  that  you  have 
neither  seen  nor  known." 

The  curate  did  not  insist,  but  gave 
the  absolution. 

Theodule  Sabot  executed  the  work  o! 
the  choir  stalls,  and  received  the  sacra- 
ment in  the  months  followine. 


VOLUME  W 


A  Little  Walk 


When  father  Leras,  bookkeeper  with 
Messrs.  Labuze  and  Company,  went  out 
of  the  store,  he  stood  for  some  minutes 
dazzled  by  the  brilliancy  of  the  setting 
sun. 

He  had  toiled  all  day  under  the  yel- 
low light  of  the  gas  jet,  at  the  end  of 
the  rear  shop,  on  the  court  which  was 
as  narrow  and  deep  as  a  well.  The  little 
room  in  which  for  forty  years  he  had 
spent  his  days  was  so  dark  that  even 
in  the  middle  of  summer  they  could 
hardly  dispense  with  the  gas  from  eleven 
to  three  o'clock. 

It  was  always  cold  and  damp  there; 
and  the  emanations  from  that  sort  of 
hole  on  which  the  window  looked  came 
into  the  gloomy  room,  filling  it  with 
an  odor  moldy  and  sewer-like. 

Monsieur  Leras,  for  forty  years, 
arrived  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning 
at  this  prison;  and  the  remained  till 
seven  at  night  bent  over  his  books,  writ- 
ing with  the  faithfulness  of  a  good  em- 
ployee. 

He  now  earned  three  thousand  francs 
per  year,  having  begun  with  fifteen  hun- 
dred francs.  He  had  remained  unmar- 
ried, his  means  not  permitting  him  to 
take  a  v/ife.  And  never  having  enjoyed 
anything  he  did  not  desire  much.  From 
time  to  time,  nevertheless,  weary  of  his 
monotonous  and  continuous  work,  he 
made  a  Platonic  vow: 

"Cristi,  if  I  had  five  thousand  livres 
income  I  would  enjoy  life!" 

He  had  never  enjoyed  life,  never  hav- 
ing had  more  than  his  monthly  salary. 

His  existence  passed  without  events, 
without  emotion,  and  almost  without 
hopes.  The  faculty  of  dreaming,  which 
everyone  has   in   him,   had    never   de- 


veloped in  the  mediocrity  of  his  ambl 
tions. 

He  had  entered  the  employ  of 
Messrs.  Labuze  and  Company  at  twenty- 
one  years  of  age.  And  he  had  never  left 
it. 

In  1856  he  had  lost  his  father,  thek 
his  mother  in  1859.  And  since  then  he 
had  experienced  nothing  but  a  removal, 
his  landlord  having  wanted  to  raise  his 
rent. 

Every  day  his  morning  alarm  exactly 
at  six  o'clock  made  him  jump  out  ot 
bod  by  its  fearful  racket. 

Twice,  however,  this  machine  had  run 
down,  in  1866  and  in  1874,  without  his 
ever  knowing  why. 

He  dressed,  made  his  bed,  swept  his 
room,  dusted  his  armchair  and  the  top 
of  his  commode.  All  these  duties  re« 
quired  an  hour  and  a  half. 

Then  he  went  out,  bought  a  roll  at 
the  Lahure  bakery,  which  had  had  a 
dozen  different  proprietors  without  los- 
ing its  name,  and  he  set  out  for  the  ofiice 
eating  the  bread  on  the  way. 

His  whole  existence  was  thus  accom- 
plished in  the  narrow  dark  office,  which 
was  adorned  with  the  same  wall-paper. 
He  had  entered  the  employ  young,  an 
assistant  to  Monsieur  Burment  and  with 
the  desire  of  taking  his  place. 

He  had  taken  his  place  and  expected 
nothing  further. 

All  that  harvest  of  memories  which 
other  men  make  during  their  lives,  the 
unforeseen  events,  the  sweet  or  tragic 
love  affairs,  the  adventurous  journeys, 
all  the  hazards  of  a  free  existence,  had 
been  strange  to  him. 

The  days,  the  weeks,  the  months,  the 
seasons,  the  /ears  were  all  alike.    At  the 


I 


371 


372 

same  hour  every  day  he  rose,  left  the 
house,  arrived  at  the  office,  took  his 
luncheon,  went  away,  dined,  and  retired 
without  ever  having  interrupted  the 
monotony  of  the  same  acts,  the  same 
deeds,  and  the  same  thoughts. 

Formerly  he  looked  at  his  blond 
mustache  and  curly  hair  in  the  little 
round  glass  left  by  his  predecessor.  He 
now  looked  every  morning,  before  going 
out,  at  his  white  mustache  and  his  bald 
head  in  the  same  glass.  Forty  years 
had  flown,  long  and  rapid,  empty  as  a 
day  of  sorrow  and  like  the  long  hours 
of  a  bad  night — forty  years,  of  which 
nothing  remained,  not  even  a  memory, 
not  even  a  misfortune,  since  the  death 
of  his  parents,  nothing. 

That  day  Monsieur  Leras  stood  daz- 
zled at  the  street  door  by  the  brilliancy 
of  the  setting  sun;  and  instead  of  re- 
turning to  his  house  he  had  the  idea  of 
taking  a  little  walk  before  dinner,  some- 
thing which  he  did  four  or  five  times  a 
year. 

He  reached  the  Boulevard,  where 
many  people  were  passing  under  the 
budding  trees.  It  was  an  evening  in 
springtime,  one  of  those  first  soft  warm 
evenings  which  stir  the  heart  with  the 
intoxication  of  life. 

M.  Leras  walked  along  with  his  minc- 
ing old  man's  step,  with  a  gaiety  in  his 
eye,  happ3'  with  the  unusual  joy  and 
the  mildness  of  the  air. 

He  reached  the  Champs-Elysees  and 
proceeded  reanimated  by  the  odors  of 
youth  which  filled  the  breeze. 

The  whole  sky  glowed;  and  the  Tri- 
umphal Arch  stood  with  its  dark  mass 
against  the  shining  horizon  like  a  giant 
struggling   in    a    conflagration.      When 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSAN  1 


he  had  nearly  reached  the  stupendous 
monument  the  old  bookkeeper  felt  hun- 
gry and  went  into  a  wine-shop  to  dine. 

They  served  him  in  front  of  the  shop, 
on  the  sidewalk,  a  sheep's  foot  stew,  a 
salad,  and  some  asparagus,  and  Mon- 
sieur Leras  made  the  best  dinner  he  had 
made  in  a  long  while.  He  washed  down 
his  Brie  cheese  with  a  small  bottle  of 
good  Bordeaux;  he  drank  a  cup  of 
coffee,  which  seldom  occurred  to  him, 
and  finally  a  tiny  glass  of  brandy. 

When  he  had  paid  he  felt  quite  lively 
and  brisk,  even  a  little  perturbed.  He 
said:  "I  will  continue  my  walk  as  far 
as  the  entrance  to  the  Bois  de  Boulogne. 
It  will  do  me  good." 

He  started.  An  old  air  which  one  of 
his  neighbors  used  to  sing  long  ago  came 
to  his  mind: 

"When  the  park  grows  green  and  gay 
Then  doth  my  brave  lover  say 
Come  with  me,  my  sweet  and  fair. 
To  get  a  breath  of  air." 

He  hummed  it  continually,  beginning 
it  over  again  and  again.  Night 
had  fallen  upon  Paris,  a  night 
without  wind,  a  night  of  sweet 
calm.  Monsieur  Leras  followed  the 
Avenue  de  Bois  de  Boulogne  and 
watched  the  cabs  pass.  They  came  with 
their  bright  lamps,  one  after  another, 
giving  a  fleeting  glimpse  of  a  couple  em- 
bracing, the  woman  in  light  colored  dress 
and  the  man  clad  in  black. 

It  was  a  long  procession  of  lovers, 
driving  under  the  starry  and  sultry  sky. 
They  kept  arriving  continually.  They 
passed,  reclining  in  the  carriages,  silent, 
pressed  to  one  another,  lost  in  the  hallu- 
cination, the  emotion  of  desire,  in  the 
exritpment  of  the  approachinfT  culmina- 


A  LITTLE  WALK 


373 


lion.  The  warm  darkness  seemed  full 
of  floating  kisses.  A  sensation  of  ten- 
derness made  the  air  languishing  and 
stifling.  All  these  embracing  people,  all 
these  persons  intoxicated  with  the  same 
intention,  the  same  thought,  caused  a 
fever  around  them.  All  these  carriages 
full  of  caresses  diffused  as  they  passed, 
as  it  were,  a  subtile  and  disturbing  ema- 
nation. 

Monsieur  Leras,  a  little  wearied, 
finally,  by  walking,  took  a  seat  on  a 
bench  to  watch  these  carriages  loaded 
with  love.  And  almost  immediately  a 
woman  came  near  to  him  and  took  her 
place  at  his  side. 

"Good  evening,  my  little  man,"  she 
said. 

He  did  not  reply.  She  continued: 

"Don't  you  want  a  sweetheart?" 

"You  are  mistaken,  Madame." 

And  she  took  his  arm. 

"Come,  don't  be  a  fool,  listen — " 

He  had  risen  and  gone  away,  his  heart 
oppressed. 

A  hundred  steps  further  on  another 
woman  approached  him: 

"Won't  you  sit  down  a  moment  with 
me,  my  fine  boy?" 

He  said  to  her: 

"Why  do  you  lead  such  a  life?" 

"Name  of  God,  it  isn't  always  for  my 
pleasure." 

He  continued  in  a  soft  voice: 

"Then  what  compels  you?" 

She:  "Must  live,  you  know."  And 
she  went  away  singing. 

Monsieur  Leras  stood  astonished. 
Other  women  passed  ne?r  him,  similarly 
accosting  him.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
something  dark  was  setting  upon  his 
bead,  something  heartbreaking.    And  be 


seated  himself  again  upon  a  bench.    The 
carriages  kept  hurrying  by. 

"Better  not  to  have  come  here,"  h* 
thought,  "I  am  all  unsettled." 

He  began  to  think  on  all  this  love, 
venal  or  passionate,  on  all  these  kisses, 
bought  or  free,  which  streamed  before 
him. 

Love,  he  hardly  knew  what  it  meant. 
He  never  had  had  more  than  two  or 
three  sweethearts  in  all  his  life,  his 
means  not  permitting.  And  he  thought 
of  that  life  which  he  had  led,  so  dif- 
ferent from  the  life  of  all,  his  life  so 
dark,  so  dull,  so  flat,  so  empty. 

There  are  beings  who  truly  never  have 
any  luck.  And  all  at  once,  as  if  a  thick 
veil  had  been  lifted,  he  perceived  the 
misery,  the  infinite  monotonous  misery 
of  his  existence:  the  past  misery,  the 
present  misery,  the  future  misery;  the 
last  days  like  the  first,  with  nothing 
before  him,  nothing  behind  him,  nothing 
around  him,  nothing  in  his  heart,  nothing 
anywhere. 

The  carriages  kept  passing.  He  saw 
appearing  and  disappearing  in  the  rapid 
flight  of  the  open  fiacre,  the  two  beings, 
silent  and  embracing.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  the  whole  of  humanity  was  filing 
before  him,  intoxicated  with  joy,  with 
pleasure,  with  happiness.  And  he  was 
alone,  looking  on  at  it,  ail  alone.  He 
would  be  still  alone  to-morrow,  alone 
always,  alone  as  no  one  else  is  alone. 

He  rose,  took  a  few  steps,  and  sud- 
denly fatigued,  as  if  he  had  walked  for 
many  miles,  he  sat  down  on  the  next 
bench. 

What  was  awaiting  him?  What  did 
he  hope  for?  Nothing.  He  thought 
how  good  it  must  be  when  a  man  is  old 
to  find  on  getting  home,  little  prattHng 


374 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


children  there.  To  grow  old  is  sweet 
when  a  person  is  surrounded  by  those 
beings  who  owe  him  their  life,  who  love 
him,  who  caress  him,  saying  those 
charming  foolish  words  which  warm  the 
heart  and  console  him  for  everything. 

And  thinking  of  his  empty  room,  neat 
<\nd  sad,  where  never  a  person  entered 
but  himself,  a  feeling  of  distress  over- 
whelmed his  soul.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  room  was  more  lamentable  even 
than  his  little  office. 

No  one  came  to  it;  no  one  spoke  in 
it.  It  was  dead,  silent,  without  the 
echo  of  a  human  voice.  One  would  say 
that  the  walls  had  something  of  the 
people  who  lived  within,  something  of 
their  look,  their  face,  their  words. 

The  houses  inhabited  by  happy  fami- 
iies  are  more  gay  than  the  habitations 
of  the  wretched.  His  room  was  empty 
of  memories,  like  his  life,  and  the 
thought  of  going  back  into  that  room, 
all  alone,  of  sleeping  in  his  bed,  of  do- 
ing over  again  all  his  actions  and  all  his 
duties  of  evening  terrified  him.  And 
as  if  to  put  himself  further  away  from 
this  gloomy  lodging  and  from  the  mo- 
ment when  he  would  have  to  return  to  it 
be  rose  and,  finding  all  at  once  the  first 
pathway  of  the  park,  he  entered  a  clump 
of  woods  to  sit  upon  the  grass. 

He  heard  round  about  him,  above  him^ 


every  where,  a  confused  sound,  im- 
mense and  continuous,  made  of  innu- 
merable different  voices,  near  and  far, 
a  vague  and  enormous  palpitation  of  life 
— the  breath  of  Paris  respiring  like  some 
colossal  being. 

The  sun  already  high  cast  a  flood  of 
light  upon  the  Bois  de  Boulogne.  Some 
carriages  began  to  circulate,  and  the 
horseback  riders  gaily  arrived. 

A  couple  were  going  at  a  walk  through 
a  lonely  bridle  path. 

Suddenly  the  young  woman,  raising 
her  eyes,  perceived  something  brown 
among  the  branches:  she  raised  her 
hand  astonished  and  disturbed. 

"Look— what  is  that?" 

Then  uttering  a  scream,  she  let  her-* 
self  fall  into  the  arms  of  her  companion, 
who  placed  her  on  the  ground. 

The  guards  quickly  summoned,  un- 
fastened an  old  man,  hanging  to  a 
branch  by  his  braces. 

It  was  agreed  that  the  deceased  had 
hanged  himself  the  evening  before. 

The  papers  found  upon  him  disclosed 
the  fact  that  he  was  the  bookkeeper 
for  Messrs.  Labuze  and  Company  and 
that  his  name  was  Leras. 

They  attributed  his  death  to  suicide, 
for  which  the  cause  could  not  be  deter- 
mined. Perhaps  a  suddeij  attack  of 
madness. 


A  Wife's  Confession 


My  friend,  you  have  asked  me  to 
relate  to  you  the  liveliest  recollections 
of  my  life.    I  am  very  old,  without  rela- 


tives, without  children;  so  I  am  free  to 
make  a  confession  to  you.  Promise  me 
one  thing — ^never  to  reveal  my  name. 


A  WIFE'S  CONFESSION 


375 


I 


I  have  been  much  loved,  as  you  know; 
I  have  often  myself  loved.  I  was  very 
beautiful;  I  may  say  this  to-day,  when 
my  beauty  is  gone.  Love  was  for  me 
the  life  of  the  soul,  just  as  the  air  is  the 
life  of  the  body.  I  would  have  pre- 
ferred to  die  rather  than  exist  without 
affection,  without  having  somebody  al- 
ways to  care  for  me.  Women  often  pre- 
tend to  love  only  once  with  all  the 
strength  of  their  hearts;  it  has  often 
happened  to  be  so  violent  in  one  of  my 
attachments  that  I  thought  it  would  be 
impossible  for  my  transports  ever  to 
end.  However,  they  always  died  out  in 
a  natural  fashion,  like  a  fire  when  it  has 
no  more  fuel. 

I  will  tell  you  to-day  the  first  of  my 
adventures,  in  vvhich  I  was  very  inno- 
cent, but  which  led  to  the  others.  The 
horrible  vengeance  of  that  dreadful 
chemist  of  Pecq  recalls  to  me  the  shock- 
ing drama  of  which  I  was,  in  spite  of 
myself,  a  spectator. 

I  had  been  a  year  married  to  a  rich 
man,  Comte  Herve  de  Ker — a  Breton 
of  ancient  family,  whom  I  did  not  love, 
you  understand.  True  love  needs,  I 
beHeve  at  any  rate,  freedom  and  impedi- 
ments at  the  same  time.  The  love  which 
is  imposed,  sanctioned  by  law,  and 
blessed  by  the  priest — can  we  really  call 
that  love?  A  legal  kiss  is  never  as  good 
as  a  stolen  kiss.  My  husband  was  tall 
in  stature,  elegant,  and  a  really  fine  gen- 
tleman in  his  manners.  But  he  lacked 
intelligence.  He  spoke  in  a  downright 
fashion,  and  uttered  opinions  that  cut 
like  the  b.ide  of  a  knife.  He  created 
the  impression  that  his  mind  was  full 
of  ready-m.de  views  instilled  into  him 
by  his  father  and  mother,  who  had  them- 
selves  got  them  from  their   ancestors. 


He  never  hesitated,  but  on  everj  sub- 
ject immediately  made  narrow-minded 
suggestions,  without  showing  any  em- 
barrassment and  without  realizing  that 
there  might  be  other  ways  of  looking  at 
things.  One  felt  that  his  head  was 
closed  up,  that  no  ideas  circulated  in  it, 
none  of  those  ideas  which  renew  a  man's 
mind  and  make  it  sound,  like  a  breath 
of  fresh  air  passing  through  an  open 
window  into  a  house. 

The  chateau  in  which  we  lived  was 
situated  in  the  midst  of  a  desolate  tract 
of  country.  It  was  a  large  melancholy 
structure,  surrounded  by  enormous  trees, 
with  tufts  of  moss  on  it  resembling  old 
men's  white  beards.  The  park,  a  real 
forest,  was  inclosed  in  a  deep  trench, 
called  the  ha-ha;  and  at  its  extremity, 
near  the  moorland,  we  had  big  ponds 
full  of  reeds  and  floating  grass.  Be- 
tween the  two,  at  the  edge  of  a  stream 
v/hich  connected  them,  my  husband  had 
got  a  little  hut  built  for  shooting  wild 
ducks. 

We  had,  in  addition  to  our  ordinary 
servants,  a  keeper,  a  sort  of  brute  de- 
voted to  my  husband  to  the  death,  and 
a  chambermaid,  almost  a  friend,  pas- 
sionately attached  to  me.  I  had  brought 
her  back  from  Spain  with  me  five  years 
before.  She  was  a  deserted  child.  She 
might  have  been  taken  for  a  gypsy  with 
her  dusky  skin,  her  dark  eyes,  her  hair 
thick  as  a  wood  and  always  clustering 
around  her  forehead.  She  was  at  the 
time  sixteen  years  old,  but  she  looked 
twenty. 

The  autumn  was  beginning.  We 
hunted  much,  sometimes  on  neighboring 
estates,  sometimes  on.  our  own;  and  I 
noticed  a  young  man,  the  Baron  de  C — , 
whose  visits  at  the  chateau  became  sin- 


376 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


gularly  frequent.  Then,  he  ceased  to 
tome;  I  thought  no  more  about  it;  but 
I  perceived  that  my  husband  changed 
in  his  demeanor  toward  mc. 

He  seemed  taciturn  and  preoccupied; 
he  did  not  kiss  me;  and,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  he  did  not  come  into  my  room, 
as  I  insisted  on  separate  apartments  in 
order  to  live  a  little  alone,  I  often  at 
night  heard  a  furtive  step  drawing  near 
my  door,  and  withdrawing  a  few  min- 
utes after. 

As  my  window  was  on  the  ground 
floor,  I  thought  I  had  also  often  heard 
some  one  prowling  in  the  shadow  around 
the  chateau.  I  told  my  husband  about 
it,  and,  having  looked  at  me  intensely 
for  some  seconds,  he  answered: 

"It  is  nothing— it  is  the  keeper." 
*        *        ♦ 

Now,  one  evening,  just  after  dinner, 
Herve,  who  appeared  to  be  extraordi- 
narily gay,  with  a  sly  sort  of  gaiety,  said 
to  me: 

"Would  you  like  to  spend  three  hours 
out  with  the  guns,  in  order  to  shoot  a 
fox  who  comes  every  evening  to  eat 
my  hens?'* 

I  was  surprised.  I  hesitated;  but,  as 
he  kept  staring  at  me  with  singular  per- 
sistency, I  ended  by  replying: 

"Why,  certainly,  my  friend."  I  must 
tell  you  that  I  hunted  like  a  man  the 
wolf  and  the  wild  boar.  So  it  v^as 
quite  natural  that  he  should  suggest 
this  shooting  expedition  to  me. 

But  my  husband,  all  of  a  sudden,  had 
a  curiously  nervous  look;  and  all  the 
evening  he  s'^emed  agitated,  rising  up 
and  sitting  down. feverishly. 

About  tea  o'clock  he  suddenly  said 
to  me: 


"Are  you  ready?" 

I  rose;  and,  as  be  was  bringing  me 
my  gun  himself,  i  asked: 

"Are  we  to  load  with  bullets  ci  with 
dforshot?" 

He  showed  some  astonishment;  then 
he  rejoined: 

"Oh!  only  with  deershot;  make  your 
mind  easy!  that  will  bo  enough." 

Then,  after  some  seconds,  he  added 
in  a  peculiar  tone: 

"You  may  boast  of  havmg  splendid 
coolness." 

I  burst  out  laughing. 

"I?  Why,  pray?  Coolness  because  I 
go  to  kill  a  fox?  What  are  you  think- 
ing of,  my  friend?" 

And  we  quietly  made  our  way  across 
the  park.  AH  the  household  slept.  The 
full  moon  seemed  to  give  a  yellow  tint 
to  the  old  gloomy  building,  whose  slate 
roof  glittered  brightly.  The  two  turrets 
that  flanked  it  had  two  plates  of  light 
on  their  summits,  and  no  noise  disturbed 
the  silence  of  this  clear,  sad  night,  sweet 
and  still,  which  seemed  in  a  death-trance. 
Not  a  breath  of  air,  not  a  shriek  from 
a  toad,  not  a  hoot  from  an  owl;  a  mel- 
ancholy numbness  lay  heavy  on  every- 
thing. When  we  were  under  the  trees 
in  the  park,  a  sense  of  freshness  stole 
over  me,  together  with  the  odor  of  fallen 
leaves.  My  husband  said  nothing;  but 
he  was  listening,  he  was  watching,  he 
seemed  to  be  smelling  about  in  the  shad- 
ows, possessed  from  head  to  foot  by 
the  passion  for  the  chase. 

We  soon  reached  the  edges  of  the 
ponds. 

Their  tufts  of  rushes  remained  motion- 
less; not  a  breath  of  air  caressed  them; 
but  movements  which  were  scarcely 
perceptible    ran    through     the    water. 


A  WIFE'S  CONFESSION 


3n 


Sometimes  the  surface  was  stirred  by 
something,  and  light  circles  gathered 
around,  like  luminous  wrinkles  enlarg- 
ing indetmitely. 

When  we  reached  the  hut,  where  we 
were  to  lie  in  wait,  my  husband  made 
me  go  in  first ;  then  he  slowly  loaded  his 
gun,  and  the  dry  cracking  of  the  pow- 
der produced  a  strange  effect  on  me.  He 
saw  that  I  was  shuddering  and  asked: 

'Does  this  trial  happen  to  be  quite 
enough  for  you?    If  so,  go  back." 

I  was  murh  surprised,  and  I  replied: 

"Not  ?.t  all.  I  did  not  come  to  go 
back  without  doing  anything.  You  seem 
queer  this  evening." 

He  murmured: 

"As  you  wish."  And  we  remained 
there  without  moving. 

At  the  end  of  about  half  an  hour,  as 
nothing  broke  the  oppressive  stillness  of 
this  bright  autumn  night,  I  said,  in  a 
low  tone: 

"Are  you  quite  sure  he  is  passing  this 
way?" 

Herve  winced  as  if  I  had  bitten  him, 
and,  with  his  mouth  close  to  my  ear, 
he  said: 

"Make  no  mistake  about  it!  I  am 
quite  sure." 

And  once  more  there  was  silence. 

I  believe  I  was  beginning  to  get 
drowsy  when  my  husband  pressed  my 
arm,  and  his  voice,  changed  to  a  hiss, 
said: 

"Do  you  see  him  there  imder  the 
trees?" 

I  looked  in  vain;  I  could  distinguish 
nothing.  And  slowly  Herve  now  cocked 
his  gun,  all  the  time  fixing  his  eyes  on 
my  face. 

I  was  myself  making  ready  to  fire, 
and  suddenly,  thirty  paces  in  front  of 


us,  appeared  in  the  full  light  of  the 
moon  a  man  who  was  hurrying  forward 
with  rapid  movements,  his  body  bent,  as 
if  he  were  trying  to  escape. 

7  was  so  stupefied  that  I  uttered  a 
loud  cry;  but,  before  I  could  turn 
round,  there  was  a  flash  before  my 
eyes;  I  heard  a  deafening  report;  and  I 
saw  the  man  rolling  on  the  ground,  like 
a  wolf  hit  by  a  bullet. 

I  burst  into  dreadful  shrieks,  terrified, 
almost  going  mad;  then  a  furious  hand 
— it  was  Herve's — seized  me  by  the 
throat.  I  was  flung  down  on  the  groimd, 
then  carried  off  by  his  strong  arms.  He 
ran,  holding  me  up,  till  he  reached  the 
body  lying  on  the  grass,  and  he  threw 
me  on  top  of  it  violently,  as  if  he  wanted 
to  break  my  head. 

I  thought  I  was  lost ;  he  was  going  to 
kill  me;  and  he  had  just  raissd  his  heel 
up  to  my  forehead  when,  in  his  turn,  he 
was  gripped,  ki;ocked  down,  before  I 
could  yet  realize  wlict  had  happened. 

I  rose  up  abruptly,  and  I  saw  kneel- 
ing on  top  of  him  Porquita,  my  maid, 
clinging  like  a  wild  cat  to  him  with  des« 
perate  energy,  tearing  off  his  beard,  his 
mustache,  and  the  skin  of  his  face. 

Then,  as  if  another  idea  had  sud- 
denly taken  hold  of  her  mind,  she  rose 
up,  and,  flinging  herself  on  the  corpse, 
she  threw  her  arms  around  the  dead 
man,  kissing  his  eyes  and  his  mouth, 
opening  the  dead  lips  with  her  own  lips, 
trying  to  find  in  them  a  breath  and  the 
long,  long  kiss  of  lovers. 

My  husband,  picking  himself  up, 
gazed  at  me.  He  understood,  and,  fall- 
ing at  my  feet,  said: 

"Oh!  forgive  me,  my  darling,  I  sus- 
pected you,  and  I  killed  this  girl's  lover. 
It  was  my  keeper  that  deceived  me.** 


378 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


But  I  was  watching  the  strange  kisses 
of  that  dead  man  and  that  living  woman, 
and  her  sobs  and  her  writhings  of  sor- 


rowing love,  and  at  that  moment  1  un- 
derstood that  I  might  be  unfaithful  to 
my  husband. 


A  Dead  Woman's  Secret 


She  had  died  painlessly,  tranquilly, 
like  a  woman  whose  life  was  irreproach- 
able; and  she  now  lay  on  her  back  in 
bed,  with  closea  eyes,  calm  features,  her 
long  white  hair  carefully  arranged,  as  if 
«he  had  again  made  her  toilette  ten  min- 
Mtes  before  her  death.  Her  pale  phy- 
siognomy was  £0  composed,  nO/f  that 
she  had  passed  away,  so  resigned,  that 
ine  felt  sure  a  sweet  soul  had  dwelt  in 
that  body,  that  this  serene  grandmother 
had  spent  an  untroubled  existence,  that 
this  virtuous  woman  had  ended  her  life 
without  any  shock,  without  any  remorse. 

On  his  knees,  beside  the  bed,  her  son, 
&  magistrate  of  inflexible  principles,  and 
her  daughter  Marguerite — ^in  religion, 
Sister  Eulalie — ^were  weeping  distract- 
edly. She  had  from  the  time  of  their 
infancy  armed  them  with  an  inflexible 
code  of  morality,  teaching  them  a  reli- 
gion without  weakness  and  a  sense  of 
duty  without  any  compromise.  He,  the 
son,  had  become  a  magistrate,  and, 
wielding  the  weapon  of  the  law,  struck 
down  without  pity  the  feeble  and  the 
erring,.  She,  the  daughter,  quite  pene- 
trated with  the  virtue  that  had  bathed 
her  in  this  austere  family,  had  become 
the  spouse  of  God  through  disgust  with 
men. 

They  had  scarcely  known  their  father ; 
all  they  knew  v;as  that  he  had  made 
their  mother  unhaDnv  without  learning 


any  further  details.  The  nun  passion- 
ately kissed  one  hand  of  her  dead 
mother,  which  hung  down,  a  hand  of 
ivory  like  that  of  Christ  in  the  large 
crucifix  which  lay  on  the  bed.  At  the 
opposite  side  of  the  prostrate  body,  the 
other  hand  seemed  still  to  grasp  the  rum- 
pled sheet  with  that  wondering  move- 
ment which  is  called  the  fold  of  the  dy- 
ing, and  the  lines  had  retained  little 
creases  as  a  memento  of  those  last  mo- 
tions which  precede  the  eternal  motion- 
lessness.  A  few  light  taps  at  the  dooi 
caused  the  two  sobbing  heads  to  look 
up,  and  the  priest,  who  had  just  dined, 
entered  the  apartment.  He  was  flushed, 
a  little  puffed,  from  the  effects  of  the 
process  of  digestion  which  had  just 
commenced ;  for  he  had  put  a  good  dash 
of  brandy  into  his  coffee  in  order  to 
counteract  the  fatigue  caused  by  the  last 
nights  he  had  remained  up  and  that 
which  he  anticipated  from  the  night  that 
was  still  in  store  for  him.  He  had  put 
on  a  look  of  sadness,  that  simulated  sad- 
ness of  the  priest  to  whom  death  is  a 
means  of  livelihood.  He  made  the  sign 
of  the  cross,  and,  coming  over  to  them 
with  his  professional  gestures,  said : 

"Well,  my  poor  children,  I  have  come 
to  help  you  to  pass  tliese  mournful 
hours." 

But  Sister  Eulalie  suddenly  rose  up. 

"Thanks,  Father;  but  my  brother  and 


A  DEAD  WOMAN'S  SECRET 


S79 


I  would  like  to  be  left  alone  with  her. 
These  are  the  last  moments  that  we  now 
have  for  seeing  her;  so  we  want  to  feel 
ourselves  once  more,  the  three  of  us, 
just  as  we  were  years  ago  when  we — 
we — we  were  only  children,  and  our 
poor — ^poor  mother — "  She  was  unable 
to  finish  with  the  flood  of  tears  that 
gushed  from  her  eyes  and  the  sobs  that 
were  choking  her. 

But  the  priest  bov/ed,  with  a  more 
serene  look  on  his  face,  for  he  was 
thinking  of  his  bed.  "Just  as  you  please, 
my  children." 

Then,  he  kneeled  down,  again  crossed 
himself,  prayed,  rose  up,  and  softly  stole 
away  murmuring  as  he  went :  "She  was 
a  saint." 

They  were  left  alone,  the  dead  woman 
and  her  children.  A  hidden  timepiece 
kept  regularly  ticking  in  its  dark  cor- 
ner, and  through  the  open  window  the 
soft  odors  of  hay  and  of  woods  pene- 
trated, with  faint  gleams  of  moonlight. 
No  sound  in  the  fields  outside,  save  the 
wandering  croak  of  toads  and  now  and 
then  the  humming  of  some  nocturnal  in- 
sect darting  in  like  a  ball  and  knocking 
itself  against  the  wall. 

An  infinite  peace,  a  divine  melancholy, 
a  silent  serenity  surrounded  this  dead 
woman,  seemed  to  emanate  from  her,  to 
evaporate  from  her  into  the  atmosphere 
outside  and  to  calm  Nature  herself. 

Then  the  magistrate,  still  on  his  knees 
his  head  pressed  against  the  bedclothes, 
in  a  far-off,  heart-broken  voice  that 
pierced  through  the  sheets  and  the  cov- 
erlet, exclaimed: 

•'Mamma,  mamma,  mamma!"  And 
the  sister,  sinking  down  on  the  floor, 
striking  the  wood  with  her  forehead 
fanatically,      twisting      herself      about 


and  quivering  like  a  person  in  an  epilep- 
tic fit,  groaned:  "Jesus,  Jesus — mamma 
—Jesus!" 

And  both  of  them,  shaken  by  a  hurri-*, 
cane  of  grief,  panted  with  a  rattling  in 
their  throats. 

Then  the  fit  gradually  subsided,  and 
they  now  wept  in  a  less  violent  fashionr 
like  the  rainy  calm  that  follows  a  squall 
on  a  storm-beaten  sea.  Then,  'after 
some  time,  they  rose  and  fixed  their 
glances  on  the  beloved  corpse.  And 
memories,  those  memories  of  the  past, 
so  sweet,  so  torturing  to-day,  came 
back  to  their  minds  with  all  those  little 
forgotten  details,  those  Httlc  details  so 
intimate  and  familiar,  which  make  the 
being  who  is  no  more  live  over  again. 
They  recalled  circumstances,  words, 
smiles,  certain  intonations  of  voice 
which  belonged  'to  one  whom  they 
should  never  hear  speaking  to  them 
again.  They  saw  her  once  more  happy 
and  calm,  and  phrases  she  used  in  or- 
dinary conversation  rose  to  their  lips. 
They  even  remembered  a  little  move- 
ment of  the  hand  peculiar  to  her,  as  if 
she  were  keeping  time  when  she  was 
saying  something  of  importance. 

And  they  loved  her  as  they  had  never 
before  loved  her.  And  by  the  depth  of 
their  despair  they  realized  how  strongly 
they  had  been  attached  to  her,  and  how 
desolate  they  would  find  themselves 
now. 

She  had  been  their  mainstay,  their 
guide,  the  best  part  of  their  youth,  of 
that  happy  portion  of  their  lives  which 
had  vanished;  she  had  been  the  bond 
that  united  them  to  existence,  the 
mother,  the  mamma,  the  creative  flesh, 
the  tie  that  bound  them  to  their  ances- 
tors.     They  would  henceforth  be  soli- 


380 


tary,  isolated;  they  would  have  nothing 
on  earth  to  look  back  upon. 
The  nun  said  to  her  brother: 
"You  know  how  mamma  used  always 
to  read  over  her  old  letters.    They  are 
all  there  in  her  desk.    Suppose  we  read 
them  in  our  turn,  and  so  revive  all  her 
life  this  night  by  her  side.    It  would  be 
like  a  kind  of  road  of  the  cross,  like 
naking  the  acquaintance  of  her  mother, 
of  grandparents  whom  we  never  knew, 
whose  letters  are  there,  and  of  whom  she 
has  so  often  talked  to  us,  you  remem- 
ber?" 

♦  *  )|e 

And  they  drew  forth  from  the  drawer 
a  dozen  little  packets  of  yellow  paper, 
carefully  tied  up  and  placed  close  to  one 
another.  They  flung  these  relics  on  the 
bed,  and  selecting  one  of  them  on  which 
the  word  "Father"  was  written,  they 
opened  and  read  what  was  in  it. 

It  consisted  of  those  very  old  letters 
which  are  to  be  found  in  old  family 
writing-desks,  those  letters  which  have 
the  flavor  of  another  century.  Tho  first 
said,  "My  darling";  another,  "My  beau- 
tiful little  girl";  then  others,  "My  dear 
child";  and  then  again,  "My  dear  daugh- 
ter." And  suddenly  the  nun  began  read- 
ing aloud,  reading  for  the  dead  her  own 
history,  all  her  tender  souvenirs.  And 
the  magistrate  listened,  while  he  leaned 
on  the  bed,  with  his  eyes  on  his  mother^s 
face.  And  the  motionless  corpse  seemed 
happy. 

Sister  Eulalie,  interrupting  herself, 
said:  "We  ought  to  put  them  into  the 
grave  with  ^er,  to  make  a  winding-sheet 
of  them,  and  bury  them  with  her." 

And  then  she  took  up  another  packet, 
on  which  the  descriptive  word  did  not 
appear. 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 

And  in  a  loud  tone  she  began; 


"My  adored  one,  I  love  you  to  distrac- 
tion. Since  yesterday  1  have  been  suffer- 
ing like  a  damned  soul  burned  by  the 
recollection  of  you.  I  feel  your  lips  on 
mine,  >our  eyes  under  my  eyes,  your  flesh 
under  my  flesh.  I  love  you !  1  love  you ! 
You  have  made  me  mad !  My  arms  open ! 
I  pant  with  an  immense  desire  to  possess 
you  again.  My  whole  body  calls  out  to 
you,  wants  you.  I  have  kept  in  my 
mouth  the  taste  of  your  kisses," 

The  magistrate  rose  up;  the  nun 
stopped  reading.  He  snatched  the  let- 
ter from  her  and  sought  for  the  signa- 
ture. There  was  none,  save  under  the 
words,  "He  who  adores  you,"  the  name 
"Henry."  Their  father's  name  was 
Rene.    So  then  he  was  not  the  man. 

Then,  the  son,  with  rapid  fingers, 
fumbled  in  the  packet  of  letters,  took 
another  of  them,  and  read: 

"I   can   do  without  your  caresses   no 

longer." 

And,  standing  up,  with  the  severity  of 
a  judge  passing  sentence,  he  gazed  at 
the  impassive  face  of  the  dead  woman. 

The  nun,  straight  as  a  statue,  with 
teardrops  standing  at  each  corner  of  her 
eyes,  looked  at  her  brother,  waiting  to 
see  what  he  meant  to  do.  Then  he 
crossed  the  room,  slowly  reached  the 
window,  and  looked  out  thoughtfully  in- 
to the  night. 

When  he  turned  back,  Sister  Eulalie, 
her  eyes  quite  dry,  still  remained  stand- 
ing near  the  bed,  with  a  downcast  look. 

He  went  over  to  the  drawer  and  flung 
in  the  lette^-s  whi'-h  he  had  picked  up 
from  the  floor.  Then  he  drew  the  cur- 
tain round  the  bed. 


LOVE'S  AWAKENING 


3S1 


And  when  the  dawn  made  the  candles 
on  the  table  look  pale,  the  son  rose  from 
his  armchair,  and,  without  even  a  part- 
mg  glance  at  the  mother  whom  he  had 


separated  from  them  ano  condemned,  he 
said  slowly: 
"Now,  my  sister,  let  us  leave  tht 


room. 


Love's  Awakening 


No  ONE  was  surprised  at  the  marriage 
of  Mr.  Simon  Lebrument  and  Miss  Jean 
Cordier.  Mr.  Lebrument  came  to  buy 
out  the  oCcc  of  Mr.  Papillon;  he 
needed,  it  was  understood,  money  with 
which  to  pay  for  i^;  and  Miss  Jean  Cor- 
dier had  three  hundred  thousand  francs 
clear,  in  stocks  and  bonds. 

Mr.  Lebrument  was  a  handsome  bach- 
elor, who  had  style,  the  style  of  a  no- 
tary, a  provincial  style,  but,  after  all, 
some  style,  which  was  a  rare  thing  at 
B  outigny-le-Rebours. 

Miss  Cordier  had  grace  and  freshness, 
grace  a  little  av/kward  and  freshness  a 
little  fixed  up;  but  she  was  nevertheless, 
a  pretty  girl,  desirable  and  entertaining. 

The  wedding  ceremonies  turned  Bou- 
tigny  topsy-turvy.  The  married  couple 
was  much  admired  when  they  returned 
to  the  conjugal  domicile  to  conceal  their 
happiness,  having  resolved  to  make  a 
little,  simple  journey  to  Paris,  after  they 
had  spent  a  few  days  together. 

It  was  charming,  these  few  days  to- 
gether, as  Mr.  Lebrument  knew  how  to 
manage  his  early  relations  with  his  wife 
with  a  delicacy,  a  directness,  and  sense 
of  fitness  that  was  remarkable  He  took 
for  his  motto:  "Everything  comes  to 
him  who  waits."  He  knew  how  to  be 
patient  and  energetic  at  the  same  time. 
His  success  was  rapid  and  complete. 


At  the  end  of  four  days  Mrs.  Lebru- 
ment adored  her  husband.  She  could 
not  bear  to  be  a  moment  away  from  him. 
He  must  be  near  her  all  day  long,  that 
she  might  caress  his  hands,  his  beard, 
his  nose,  etc.  She  would  sit  upon  his 
knees  and,  taking  him  by  the  ears,  would 
say:  "Open  your  mouth  and  shut  your 
eyes."  He  opened  his  mouth  with  confi- 
dence, shut  his  eyes  halfway,  and  then 
would  receive  a  very  long,  sweet  kiss 
that  made  great  shivers  in  his  back. 
And  in  his  turn,  he  never  had  enough 
caresses,  enough  lips,  enough  hands, 
enough  of  anything  with  which  to  enjoy 
his  wife  from  morning  until  evening, 
and  from  evening  until  morning. 

As  soon  as  the  first  week  had  slipped 
away  he  said  to  his  young  companion : 

"If  you  wish,  we  might  leave  for  Paris 
Tuesday  of  next  week.  We  shall  be  like 
lovers  who  are  not  married;  go  about 
to  the  theaters,  the  restaurants,  the  con- 
cert cafes,  and  everywhere,  everywhere.** 

She  jumped  for  joy.  "Oh!  yes,  yes,** 
she  replied,  "let  us  go  as  soon  as  possi- 
ble.** 

"And  as  we  must  not  forget  anything, 
you  might  ask  your  father  to  have  your 
dowry  ready;  I  will  take  it  with  me, 
and  at  the  same  time  pay  Mr.  Papillon." 


382 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


She  answered:  "I  will  speak  to  him 
about  it  to-morrow  morning." 

Then  he  seized  her  in  his  arms  and 
began  again  the  little  tendernesses  she 
loved  so  much,  and  had  reveled  in  now 
for  eight  days. 

The  Tuesday  following,  the  father-in- 
law  and  the  mother-in-law  accompanied 
their  daughter  and  son-in-law  to  the 
station,  whence  they  set  out  for  the 
capital.    The  father-in-law  remarked: 

"I  tell  you  it  is  imprudent  to  carry  so 
much  money  in  your  pocketbook."  And 
the  young  notary  smiled. 

"Do  not  be  disturbed,  father-in-law," 
he  answered,  "I  am  accustomed  to  these 
things.  You  know  that  in  my  profession 
it  often  happens  that  I  have  nearly  a 
million  about  me.  By  carrying  it  with 
me,  we  escape  a  lot  of  formalities  and 
delays,  to  say  the  least.  Do  not  give 
yourself  any  uneasiness." 

Then  the  trainman  cried  out,  "All 
aboard!"  and  they  hurried  into  a  com- 
partment where  they  found  themselves 
with  two  old  ladies. 

Lebrument  murmured  in  his  wife^s 
ear:  *'How  annoying!  Now  I  cannot 
smoke." 

She  answered  in  a  low  tone:  *'I  am 
sorry  too,  but  not  on  account  of  your 
cigar." 

The  engine  puffed  and  started.  The 
journey  lasted  an  hour,  during  v/hich 
they  could  not  say  anything  of  impor- 
tance, because  the  two  old  ladies  did 
not  go  to  sleep. 

When  they  were  in  the  Saint -Lazare 
station,  in  Paris,  Mr.  Lebrument  said  to 
his  wife: 

"If  you  wish,  my  dear,  we  will  first 
go  and  breakfast  on  the  Boulevard,  then 
retuin  at  our  leisure  to  find  our  trunk 


and  give  it  to  the  porter  of  some  hoteL** 

She  consented  immediately:  "Oh I 
yes,"  said  she,  "let  us  breakfast  in  some 
restaurant.    Is  it  far  from  here?" 

"Yes,  rather  far,  but  we  will  take  an 
omnibus." 

She  was  astonished:  "Why  not  a 
cab?"  she  asked. 

He  groaned  as  he  said  smilingly:  "And 
you  are  economical!  A  cab  for  five 
minutes'  ride,  at  zix  sous  per  minute f 
You  do  not  deprive  yourself  of  any- 
thing!" 

"That  is  true,"  said  she,  a  little  con- 
fused. 

A  large  omnibus  was  passing,  with 
three  horses  at  a  trot.  Lebrument  hailed 
it:     "Conductor!  eh,  conductor!" 

The  heavy  carriage  stopped.  The 
young  notary  pushed  his  wife  inside, 
saying  hurriedly,  in  a  low  voice: 

"You  get  in  while  I  climb  up  on  the 
outside  to  smoke  at  least  a  cigarette  be- 
fore breakfast." 

She  had  not  time  for  any  answer. 
The  conductor,  who  had  seized  her  by 
the  arm  to  aid  her  in  mounting  the  steps, 
pushed  her  into  the  'bus,  where  she 
landed,  half-frightened,  upon  a  seat,  and 
in  a  sort  of  stupor  watched  the  feet  of 
her  husband  through  the  windows  at 
the  back,  as  he  climbed  to  the  top  of  the 
imperial. 

There  she  remained  immo\abIe  be- 
tween a  large  gentleman  who  smelled  of 
a  pipe  and  an  old  woman  who  smelled 
of  a  dog.  All  the  other  travelers,  in 
two  mute  lines, — a  grocer's  boy,  a  work- 
man, a  sergeant  of  infantry,  a  gentle- 
man with  gold-rimmed  spectacles  and 
a  silk  cap  with  enormous  visors,  like? 
gutters,  and  two  ladies  with  ar  impor- 
tant, mincing  air,  which  seemed  to  say: 


LOVE'S  AWAKENING 


S83 


We  are  here,  although  wo  should  be  in 
a  better  place.  Then  there  were  two 
good  sisters,  a  little  girl  in  long  hair, 
and  an  undertaker.  The  assemblage  had 
th*^  appearance  of  a  collection  of  carica- 
tures in  a  freak  museum,  a  series  of  ex- 
pressions of  the  human  countenance,  like 
a  row  of  grotesque  puppets  which  one 
knocks  down  at  a  fair. 

The  jolts  of  the  carriage  made  them 
toss  their  heads  a  little,  and  as  they 
shook,  the  flesh  of  their  cheeks  trem- 
bled; and  the  disturbance  of  the  rolling 
wheels  gave  them  an  idiotic  or  sleepy 
look. 

The  young  woman  remained  inert: 
"Why  did  he  not  come  with  me?"  she 
asked  herself.  A  vague  sadness  op- 
pressed her.  He  might,  indeed,  have  de- 
prived himself  of  his  cigar! 

The  good  sisters  gave  the  signal  to 
stop.  They  alighted,  one  after  the  other, 
leaving  an  odor  of  old  and  faded  skirts. 

Soon  after  they  were  gone  another 
stopped  the  'bus.  A  cook  came  in,  red 
and  out  of  breath.  She  sat  down  and 
placed  her  basket  of  provisions  upon 
her  knees.  A  strong  odor  of  dishwater 
pervaded  the  omnibus. 

"It  is  further  than  I  thought,"  said 
the  young  woman  to  herself. 

The  undertaker  got  out  and  was  re- 
placed by  a  coachman  who  smelled  of  a 
stable.  The  girl  in  long  hair  was  suc- 
ceeded by  an  errand-boy  who  exhaled 
the  perfume  of  his  walks. 

The  notary's  wife  perceived  all  these 
things,  ill  at  ease  and  so  disheartened 
that  she  was  ready  to  weep  without 
knowing  why. 

Some  others  got  out,  still  others  came 
n..    The  onmibus  went  on  through  the 


interminable  streets,  stopped  at  Uie  sta- 
tion, and  began  its  route  again. 

"How  far  it  is!"  said  Jean.  "Espe- 
cially when  one  has  nothing  for  diver- 
sion and  cannot  sleep!"  She  had  not 
been  so  much  fatigued  for  many  days. 

Little  by  little  all  the  travelers  got 
out.  She  remained  alone,  all  alone.  The 
conductor  shouted: 

"Vaugirard!" 

As  she  blushed  he  again  repeated: 
"Vaugirard!" 

She  looked  at  him  not  understand- 
ing that  this  must  be  addressed  to  her  as 
all  her  neighbors  had  gone.  For  the 
third  time  the  man  said:     "Vaugirard!" 

Then  she  osked:  "Where  are  we?" 

He  answered  in  a  gruff  voice:  "We 
are  at  Vaugirard  Miss;  I've  told  you 
twenty  times  already." 

"Is  it  far  from  the  Boulevard?"  she 
asked. 

"What  Boulevard?" 

"The  Italian   Boulevard." 

"We  passed  that  a  long  time  ago." 

"Ah!  Will  you  be  kind  enough  to  tell 
my  husband?" 

"Your  husband?    Where  is  he?" 

"On  the  outside." 

"On  the  outside!  It  has  been  a  long 
time  since  there  was  anybody  there." 

She  made  a  terrified  gesture.  Then 
she  said: 

"How  can  it  be?  It  is  not  possible. 
He  got  up  there  when  I  entered  the 
omnibus.  Look  again;  he  must  be 
there." 

The  conductor  became  rude:  "Come, 
little  one,  this  is  talk  enough.  If  there 
is  one  man  lost,  there  ar  ten  to  be  found. 
Scamper  out  now!  You  will  find 
another  in  the  street.'* 

The  tears  sprang  to  her  eyes.     Sh« 


384 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


insisted:  "But,  sir,  you  are  mistaken,  I 
assuie  you  that  you  are  mistaken.  He 
had  a  large  pocketbook  in  his  hand." 

The  employee  began  to  laugh:  "A 
large  pocketbook?  I  remember.  Yes, 
he  got  out  at  the  Madeleine.  That's 
right!    He's  , eft  you  behind!    Ha!  ha  I" 

The  carriage  was  standing  still.  She 
got  down  and  looked  up,  in  spite  of 
herself  to  the  roof,  with  an  instinctive 
movement  of  the  eye.  It  was  totally 
deserted. 

Then  jhe  began  to  weep  aloud,  with- 
•3Ut  thinking  that  anyone  was  looking  at 
or  listening  to  her.    Finally  she  said: 

"What  is  going  to  become  of  me?" 

The  inspector  came  up  and  inquired: 
"What's  the  matter?" 

The  conductor  answered  in  a  jocose 
fashion : 

'This  lady's  husband  has  left  her  on 
the  way.'* 

The  other  replied:  "Now,  now,  that  is 
nothing.  I  am  at  your  service."  And 
he  turned  on  his  heels. 

Then  she  began  to  walk  ahead,  too 
much  frightened,  too  much  excited  to 
think  even  where  she  was  going.  Where 
was  she  going?  What  should  she  do? 
How  could  such  an  error  have  occurred? 
Such  an  act  of  carelessness,  of  disregard, 
of  unheard  of  distraction! 

She  had  two  francs  in  her  pocket.  To 
whom  could  she  apply?  Suddenly  she 
remembered  her  cousin  Barral,  who  was 
a  clerk  in  the  office  of  Naval  Affairs. 

She  had  just  enough  to  hire  a  cab; 
she  would  go  to  him.  And  she  met  him 
just  as  he  was  starting  for  his  office. 
Like  Lebrument,  he  carried  a  large  poc-» 
'tetbook  under  his  arm. 


She  leaned  out  of  the  carriage  and 
called:  "Henry!" 

He  stopped,  much  surprised. 

"Jeanne,"  said  he,  "here? — and  alone? 
Where  do  you  come  from?  What  are 
you  doing?" 

She  stammered,  with  her  eyes  full  of 
tears:  "My  husband  is  lost  some* 
where — " 

"Lost?  where?" 

"On  the  omnibus." 

"On  the  omnibus!     Oh!" 

And  she  related  to  him  the  whole 
story,  weeping  much  over  the  adven- 
ture. 

He  listened  reflectively,  and  then 
asked : 

"This  morning?  And  wafi  his  head 
perfectly  clear?" 

"Oh!  yes!     And  he  had  my  dowry." 

"Your  dowr>'?    Th^  whole  of  it?" 

"Yes,  the  whob  of  it — in  order  to  pay 

for  his  office." 
"Well,  my  dear  cousin,  your  husband, 

whoever  he  is,  is  probably  watching  the 

wheel — this  minute." 

She  did  not  yet  comprehend.  She 
stammered:  "My  husband — ycu  say — " 

"I  say  that  he  has  run  off  with  your 
— ^your  capital — and  that's  all  about  it." 

She  remained  standing  there,  suffo- 
cated with  grief,  murmuring: 

"Then  he  is — ^he  is — a  wretch!" 

Then,  overcome  with  emotion,  she  fell 
on  her  cousin's  shoulder,  sobbing  vio- 
lently. 

As  people  werft  stopping  to  look  at 
them,  he  guided  her  gently  into  the 
entrance  of  his  house,  supporting  her 


BED  NO.  29 


38S 


body.  They  mounted  the  steps,  and  as  "Sophie,  run  to  the  restaurant  and 
the  maid  came  to  open  the  door  he  bring  breakfast  for  two  persons.  I  shall 
ordered  her:  not  go  to  the  ofiSce  this  morning." 


Bed  No.  29 


«Vhen  Captain  Epivent  passed  in  the 
street  all  the  ladies  turned  to  look  at 
him.  He  was  the  true  type  of  a  hand- 
some officer  of  hussars.  He  was  always 
on  parade,  always  strutted  a  little  and 
seemed  preoccupied  and  proud  of  his 
leg,  his  figure,  and  his  mustache.  He 
had  superb  ones,  it  is  true,  a  superb  leg, 
figure,  and  mustache.  The  last-named 
was  blond,  very  heavy,  falling  martially 
from  his  lip  in  a  beautiful  sweep  the 
color  of  ripe  wheat,  carefully  turned  at 
the  ends,  and  failing  over  both  sides  of 
his  mouth  in  two  powerful  sprigs  of  hair 
cut  square  across.  His  waist  was  thin 
as  if  he  wore  a  corset,  while  a  vigorous 
masculine  chest,  bulged  and  arched, 
spread  itself  above  his  waist.  His  leg 
was  admirable,  a  gymnastic  leg,  the  leg 
of  a  dancer  whose  muscular  flesh  out- 
lined each  movement  under  the  cling- 
ing cloth  of  the  red  pantaloon. 

He  walked  with  muscles  taut  with  feet 
and  arms  apart,  and  with  the  slightly 
balanced  step  of  the  cavalier,  who  knows 
how  to  make  the  most  of  his  limbs  and 
his  carriage,  and  who  seems  a  conqueror 
in  a  uniform,  but  looks  commonplace  in 
a  mufti. 

Like  many  other  officers,  Captain 
Epivent  carried  a  civil  costume  badly. 
He  had  no  air  of  elegance  as  soon  as  he 
was  clothed  in  the  gray  or  black  of  the 
shop  clerk.     But  in  his  proper  setting 


he  was  a  triumph.  He  had  besides  a 
handsome  face,  the  nose  thin  and  curved, 
blue  eyes,  and  a  good  forehead.  He  was 
bald,  wichout  ever  being  able  to  com- 
prehend why  his  hair  had  fallen  off.  He 
consoled  himself  with  thinking  that,  with 
a  heavy  moustache,  a  head  a  little  bald 
was  not  so  bad. 

He  scorned  everybody  in  general, 
with  a  difference  in  the  degrees  of  his 
scorn. 

In  the  first  place,  for  him  the  middle 
class  did  not  exist.  He  looked  at  them 
as  he  would  look  at  animals,  without 
according  them  more  of  his  attention 
than  he  would  give  to  sparrow&  or 
chickens.  Officers,  alone,  counted  In  his 
world;  but  he  did  not  have  the  same 
esteem  for  all  officers.  He  only  re- 
spected handsome  men;  an  imposing 
presence,  the  true,  military  quality  be- 
ing first.  A  soldier  was  a  merry  fellow,  a 
devil,  created  for  love  and  war,  a  man 
of  brawn,  muscle  and  hair,  nothing  more. 
He  classed  the  generals  of  the  French 
army  according  to  their  figure,  their 
bearing,  and  the  stern  look  of  their  faces. 
Bourbaki  appeared  to  him  the  greatest 
warrior  of  modern  times. 

He  often  laughed  at  the  officers  of  the 
line  who  were  short  and  fat,  and  puffed 
while  marching.  And  he  had  a  special 
scorn  for  the  poor  recruits  from  the 
polytechnic   schools,    those   thin,   little 


3S6 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


men  with  spectacles,  awkward  and  un- 
skillful, who  seemed  as  much  made  for 
a  uniform  as  a  wolf  for  saying  mass,  as 
he  often  asserted.  He  was  indignant 
that  they  should  be  tolerated  in  the 
army,  those  abortions  with  the  lank 
limbs,  who  marched  like  crabs,  did  not 
drink,  ate  little,  and  seemed  to  love 
equations  better  than  pretty  girls. 

Captain  Epivent  himself  had  constant 
successes  and  triumphs  with  the  fair  sex. 

Every  time  he  took  supper  in  company 
with  a  'woman  he  thought  himself  cer- 
tain of  finishing  the  night  with  her  upon 
the  same  mattress,  and,  if  unsurmount- 
able  obstacles  hindered  that  evening,  his 
victory  was  sure  at  least  the  following 
day.  His  comrades  did  not  like  him 
to  meet  their  mistresses,  and  the  mer- 
chants in  the  shops,  who  had  their  pretty 
wives  at  the  counter,  knew  him,  feared 
him,  and  hated  him  desperately.  When 
he  passed,  the  merchants'  wives  in  spite 
of  themselves  exchanged  a  look  with  him 
through  the  glass  of  the  front  windows; 
one  of  those  looks  that  avail  more  than 
tender  words,  which  contain  an  appeal 
and  a  response,  a  desire  and  an  avowal. 
And  the  husbands,  who  turned  away 
with  a  sort  of  instinct,  returned  brus- 
quely, casting  a  furious  look  at  the 
proud,  arched  silhouette  of  the  officer. 
And,  when  the  captain  had  passed,  smil- 
ing and  content  with  his  impression,  the 
merchants,  handling  with  nervous  hands 
the  objects  spread  out  before  them,  de- 
clared : 

"There's  a  great  dandy.  When  shall 
we  stop  feeding  all  these  good-for-noth- 
ings who  go  dragging  their  tinware 
through  the  streets?  For  my  part,  I 
would  rather  be  a  butcher  than  a  soldier. 
Then  if  there's  blood  on  my  table,  it  is 


the  blood  of  beasts,  at  least.  And  he  is 
useful,  is  the  butcher;  and  the  knife  he 
carries  has  not  killed  men.  I  do  not 
understand  how  these  murderers  are 
tolerated  walking  on  the  public  streets, 
carrying  with  them  their  instruments  of 
death.  It  is  necessary  to  have  them,  I 
suppose,  but  at  least,  let  them  conceal 
themselves,  and  not  dress  up  in  mas- 
querade, with  their  red  breeches  and 
blue  coats.  The  executioner  doesn^t 
dress  himself  up,  does  he?" 

The  woman,  without  answering,  would 
shrug  her  shoulders,  while  the  husband, 
divining  the  gesture  without  seeing  it, 
would  cry: 

"Anybody  must  be  stupid  to  watch 
those  fellows  parade  up  and  down." 

Nevertheless,  Captain  Epivent's  repu- 
tation for  conquests  was  well  established 
in  the  whole  French  army. 

Now,  in  1868,  his  regiment,  the  One 
Hundred  and  Second  Hussars  came  into 
garrison  at  Rouen. 

He  was  soon  known  in  the  town.  He 
appeared  every  evening,  toward  five 
o'clock,  upon  the  Boieldieu  mall,  to  take 
his  absinthe  and  coffee  at  the  Comedy; 
and,  before  entering  the  establishment, 
he  would  always  take  a  turn  upon  the 
promenade,  to  show  his  leg,  his  figure, 
and  his  moustaches. 

The  merchants  of  Rouen  who  also 
promenaded  there  with  their  hands  be- 
hind their  backs,  preoccupied  with  busi- 
ness affairs,  speaking  in  high  and  low 
voices,  would  sometimes  throw  him  ^ 
glance  and  murmur: 

"Egad!  that's  a  handsome  fellow!'" 

But  when  they  knew  him,  they  rc' 
remarked; 


BED  NO.  29 


387 


''Look!  Captain  Kpivpr^t'  fiut  he's  a 
rascal  all  the  same!" 

The  women  on  meeting  him  had  a 
very  queer  little  movement  of  the  head, 
a  kind  of  shiver  of  modesty,  as  if  they 
felt  themselves  grow  weak  or  unclothed 
before  him.  They  would  lower  their 
heads  a  little,  with  a  smile  upon  their 
lips,  as  if  they  had  a  desire  to  be  found 
charming  and  have  a  look  from  him. 
When  he  walked  with  a  comrade  the 
comrade  never  failed  to  murmur  with 
jealous  envy,  each  time  that  he  saw  the 
sport : 

'This  rascal  of  an  Epivent  has  the 
chances!" 

Among  the  licensed  girls  of  the  town 
it  was  a  struggle,  a  race,  to  see  who 
would  carry  him  off.  They  all  came  at 
five  o'clock,  the  officers'  hour,  to  the 
Boieldieu  mall,  and  dragged  their  skirts 
up  and  down  the  length  of  the  walk,  two 
by  two,  while  the  lieutenants,  captains, 
and  commanders,  two  by  two,  dragged 
their  swords  along  the  ground  before 
entering  the  cafe. 

One  evening  the  beautiful  Irma,  the 
mistress,  it  was  said,  of  M.  Templier- 
Papon,  the  rich  manufacturer,  stopped 
her  carriage  in  front  of  the  Comedy  and, 
getting  out,  made  a  pretense  of  buying 
some  paper  or  some  visiting  cards  of 
M.  Paulard,  the  engraver,  in  order  to 
pass  before  the  officers'  tables  and  cast 
a  look  at  Captain  Epivent  which  seemed 
to  say:  "When  you  will,"  so  clearly  that 
Colonel  Prune,  who  was  drinking  the 
green  liquor  with  his  lieutenant-colonel, 
could  not  help  muttering: 

"Confound  that  fellow!  He  has 
the  chances,  that  scamp!" 

The  remark  of  the  Colonel  was  re- 
pe&Led,  and  Captain  Epivent,  moved  by 


this  approbation  of  his  superior,  passed 
the  next  day  and  many  times  after  that 
under  the  windows  of  the  beauty,  in  his 
most  captivating  attitude. 

She  saw  him,  showed  herself,  and 
smiled. 

That  same  evening  he  was  her  lover. 

They  attracted  attention,  made  an  ex- 
hibition of  their  attachment,  and  mu- 
tually compromised  themselves,  both  of 
them  proud  of  their  adventure. 

Nothing  was  so  much  talked  of  in 
town  as  the  beautiful  Irma  and  the  offi- 
cer. M.  Templier-Papon  alone  was  ig- 
norant of  their  relation. 

Captain  Epivent  beamed  with  glory; 
every  instant  he  would  say: 

"Irma  happened  to  say  to  me — ^Irma 
told  me  to-night — or,  yesterday  at  din- 
ner Irma  said — " 

For  a  whole  year  they  walked  with 
and  displayed  in  Rouen  this  love  like  a 
flag  taken  from  the  enemy.  He  felt 
himself  aggrandized  by  this  conquest, 
envied,  more  sure  of  the  future,  surer  of 
the  decoration  so  much  desired,  for  the 
eyes  of  all  were  upon  him,  and  he  was 
satisfied  to  find  himself  well  in  sight, 
instead  of  being  forgotten. 

But  here  war  was  declared,  and  the 
Captain's  regiment  was  one  of  the  first 
to  be  sent  to  the  front.  The  adieux  were 
lamentable.  They  lasted  the  whole  night 
long. 

Sword,  red  breeches,  cap,  and  jacket 
were  all  overturned  from  the  back  of  a 
chair  upon  the  floor;  robes,  skirts,  silk 
stockings,  also  fallen  dowr»,  were  spread 
around  and  mingled  with  the  uniform  in 
distress  upon  the  carpet;  the  room  up- 
side down  as  if  there  had  been  a  battle; 
Irma  wild,  her  hair  unbound,  threw  hef 


38^i 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


despairing  arms  around  the  officer's 
neck,  straining  him  to  lier;  then,  leaving 
him,  roiled  upon  the  floor,  overturning 
the  furniture,  catching  the  fringes  of  the 
armchairs,  biting  their  feet,  while  the 
Captain  much  moved,  but  not  skillful 
at  consolation,  repeated: 

"Irma,  my  little  Irma,  do  not  cry  so, 
it  is  necessary." 

He  occasionally  wiped  a  tear  from  the 
comer  of  h"s  eye  with  the  end  of  his 
finger.  They  separated  at  daybreak. 
She  followed  her  lover  in  her  carriage 
as  far  as  the  first  stopping-place.  Then 
she  kissed  him  before  the  whole  regi- 
ment at  the  moment  of  separation.  They 
even  found  tnis  very  genteel,  worthy, 
and  very  romantic;  and  the  comrades 
pressed  the  Captain's  hand  and  said  to 
him: 

"Confound  you,  rogue,  she  has  a 
heart,  all  the  same,  the  little  one." 

They  seemed  to  see  something  patri- 
otic in  it. 

The  regiment  was  sorely  proved  dur- 
ing the  campaigii.  The  Captain  con- 
ducted himself  heroically  and  finally  re- 
ceived the  cross  of  honor.  Then,  the 
war  ended,  he  returned  to  Rouen  and 
the  garrison. 

Immediately  upon  his  return  he  asked 
of  news  01  Irma,  but  no  one  was  able 
to  give  him  anything  exact.  Some  said 
she  was  married  to  a  Prussian  major. 
Others,  that  she  had  gone  to  her  parents 
who  were  farmers  in  the  suburbs  of 
Vvetot. 

He  even  sent  his  orderly  to  the 
mayor's  office  to  consult  the  registry  of 
Jeaths.  The  name  of  his  mistress  was 
Qot  to  be  found. 

He   was  very  angry,   which   fact   he 


paraded  everywhere.  He  even  took  the 
enemy  to  task  for  his  unhappiness, 
attributing  to  the  Prussians,  who  had 
occupied  Rouen,  the  disappearance  of 
the  young  girl,  declaring: 

"In  the  next  war,  they  snail  pay  well 
for  it,  the  beggars!" 

Then,  one  morning  as  he  entered  the 
mess-room  at  the  breakfast  hour,  an  old 
porter,  in  a  blouse  and  an  oilcloth  cap, 
gave  him  a  letter,  which  he  opened  and 
read: 

"My  Dearie:  I  am  in  the  hospital, 
very  ill,  very  ill.  Will  you  not  come  and 
see  me?  It  would  give  me  so  much 
pleasure !  "Irma." 

The  Captain  grew  pale  and,  moved 
with  pity,  declared: 

"It's  too  bad!  The  poor  girl!  I  will 
go  there  as  soon  as  breakfast." 

And  during  the  whole  time  at  the 
table,  he  told  the  officers  that  Irma  was 
in  the  hospital  and  that  he  was  going 
to  see  her  that  blessed  morning.  It  must 
be  the  fault  of  those  unspeakable  Prus- 
sians. She  had  doubtless  found  herself 
alone  without  a  sou,  broken  down  with 
misery,  for  they  must  certainly  have 
stolen  her  furniture. 

"Ah!  the  dirty  whelps." 

Everybody  listened  with  great  excite- 
ment. Scarcely  had  he  slipped  his  nap- 
kin in  his  wooden  ring,  when  he  rose 
and,  taking  his  sword  from  the  peg,  and 
swelling  out  his  chest  to  make  him  thin, 
hooked  his  belt  and  set  out  with  hurried 
step  to  the  city  hospital. 

But  entrance  to  the  hospital  building, 
where  he  expected  to  enter  immediately, 
was  sharply  refused  h*m,  and  he  was 
obliged  to  find  his  Colonel  and  explain 


BED  NO.  29 


389 


tis  case  to  him  in  order  to  get  a  word 
from  him  to  the  director. 

This  man,  after  having  kept  the  hand- 
some Captain  waiting  some  time  in  his 
anteroom,  gave  him  an  authorized  pass 
and  a  cold  and  disapproving  greeting. 

Inside  the  door  he  felt  himself  con- 
strained in  this  asylum  of  misery  and 
suffering  and  death.  A  boy  in  the  serv- 
ice showed  h*m  the  way.  He  walked 
upon  tiptoe,  that  he  might  make  no 
noise,  through  the  long  corridors,  where 
floated  a  slight,  moist  odor  of  illness 
and  medicines.  A  murmur  of  voices 
&lone  disturbed  the  silence  of  the  hos- 
pital. 

At  times,  through  an  open  door,  the 
Captain  perceived  a  dormitory,  with  its 
rows  of  beds  whose  clothes  were  raised 
by  the  forms  of  the  bodies. 

Some  convalescents  were  seated  in 
chairs  at  the  foot  of  their  couches,  sew- 
ing, and  clothed  in  the  uniform  gray 
cloth  dress  with  white  cap. 

His  guide  suddenly  stopped  before 
one  of  these  corridors  filled  with 
patients.  He  read  on  the  door,  in  large 
letters:  "Syphilis."  The  Captain 
started:  then  he  felt  that  he  was  blush- 
ing. An  attendant  was  preparing  a  med- 
icine at  a  little  wooden  table  at  the 
door. 

"I  will  show  you,'*  she  said,  "it  is 
bed  29." 

And  she  walked  ahead  of  the  ofScer. 
She  indicated  a  bed:  "There  it  is." 

There  was  nothing  to  be  seen  but  a 
bundle  of  bedclothes.  Even  the  head 
was  concealed  under  the  coverlet. 
Everywhere  faces  were  to  be  seen  on  the 
couches,  pale  faces,  astonished  at  the 
sight  of  a  uniform,  the  faces  of  women, 
youn?  womeji  p.nd  old  women,  but  all 


seemingly   plain    and    common   in    the 
humble,  regulation  garb. 

The  Captain,  very  much  disturbed, 
supporting  his  sword  in  one  hand  and 
carrying  his  cap  in  the  other,  murmured: 

"Irma." 

There  was  a  sudden  motion  in  the 
bed  and  the  face  of  his  mistress  ap- 
peared, but  so  changed,  so  tired,  so  thin, 
that  he  would  scarcely  have  known  it. 

She  gasped,  overcome  by  emotion  and 
then  said: 

"Albert!— Albert!     It  is  you!     Oh  I 
I  am  so  glad — so  glad."    And  the  tear 
ran  down  her  cheeks. 

The  attendant  brought  a  chair.  "Be 
seated,  sir,"  she  said. 

He  sat  down  and  looked  at  the  pale, 
wretched  countenance,  so  little  like  that 
of  the  beautiful,  fresh  girl  he  had  left. 
Finally  he  said: 

"What  seems  to  be  the  matter  with 
you?" 

She  replied,  weeping:  "You  know  well 
enough,  it  is  written  on  the  door."  And 
she  hid  her  eyes  under  the  edge  of  the 
bedclothes. 

Dismayed  and  ashamed,  he  continued: 
"How  have  you  caught  it,  my  poor 
girl?" 

She  answered:  "It  was  those  beasts 
of  Prussians.  They  took  me  almost  by 
force  and  then  poisoned  me." 

He  found  nothing  to  add.  He  looked 
at  her  and  kept  turning  his  cap  around 
on  his  knees. 

The  other  patients  gazed  at  him,  and 
he  believed  that  he  detected  an  odor  of 
putrefaction,  of  contaminated  flesh,  in 
this  corridor  full  of  girls  tainted  with 
this  ignoble,  terrible  malady. 

She  murmured:     "I  do  not  believe 


390 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


that  I  shall  recover.  The  doctor  says  it 
is  very  serious." 

Then  she  perceived  the  cross  upon 
the  officer's  breast  and  cried: 

"Oh!  you  have  been  honored;  now  I 
am  content.  How  contented  I  am!  If 
I  could  only  embrace  you!" 

A  shiver  of  fear  and  disgust  ran 
along  the  Captain's  skin  at  the  thought 
of  this  kiss.  He  had  a  desire  to  make 
his  escape,  to  be  in  the  clear  air  and 
never  see  this  woman  again.  He  re- 
mained, however,  not  knowing  how  to 
make  the  adieux,  and  finally  stammered: 

"You  took  no  care  of  yourself,  then.'* 

A  flame  flashed  in  Irma's  eyes:  "No, 
the  desire  to  avenge  myself  came  to  me 
when  I  should  have  broken  away  from 
it.  And  I  poisoned  them  too,  all,  all 
that  I  could.  As  long  as  there  were  any 
of  them  in  Rouen,  I  had  no  thought  for 
myself." 

He  declared,  in  a  constrained  tone 
In  which  there  was  a  little  note  of 
gaiety:  "So  far,  you  have  done  some 
good." 

Getting  animated,  and  her  cheek- 
bones getting  red,  she  answered: 

"Oh!  yes,  there  will  more  than  one  of 
them  die  from  my  fault.  I  tell  you  I 
had  my  vengeance." 

Again  he  said:  "So  much  the  better.'* 
Then  rising,  he  added:  "Well,  I  must 
leave  you  now,  because  I  have  only  time 
to  meet  my  appointment  with  the  Col- 
onel—" 

She  showed  much  emotion,  crying 
out:  "Already!  You  leave  me  already! 
And  when  you  have  scarcely  arrived!" 

But  he  wished  to  go  at  any  cost,  and 
said: 

"But  you  see  that  I  came  immedi- 
ately; and  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that 


I  be  at  the  Colonel's  H  an  appointed 
time." 

She  asked:  "Is  it  still  Colonef 
Prune?" 

"Still  Colonel  Prune.  He  was  twice 
wounded." 

She  continued:  "And  your  comrades? 
Have  some  of  them  been  killed?" 

"Yes.  Saint-Timon,  Savagnat,  Poli, 
Saprival,  Robert,  De  Courson,  Pasafil, 
Santal,  Caravan,  and  Poivrin  are  dead. 
Sahel  had  an  arm  carried  off  and  Cour- 
voisin  a  leg  amputated.  Paquet  lost  his 
right  eye." 

She  listened,  much  interested.  Then 
suddenly  she  stammered: 

"Will  you  kiss  me,  say?  before  you 
leave  me;  Madame  Langlois  is  not 
there." 

And,  in  spite  of  the  disgust  which 
came  to  his  lips,  he  placed  them  against 
the  wan  forehead,  while  she,  throwing 
her  arms  around  him,  scattered  random 
kisses  over  his  blue  jacket. 

Then  she  said:  "You  will  come  again? 
Say  that  you  will  come  again — Promise 
me  that  you  will." 

"Yes,  I  promise." 

"When,  now.  Can  you  come  Thurs- 
day?" 

"Yes,  Thursday—" 

"Thursday  at  two  o'clock?'* 

"Yes,  Thursday  at  two  o'clock." 

"You  promise?" 

"I  promise.'* 

"Adieu,  my  dearie.** 

"Adieu." 

And  he  went  away,  confused  by  the 
staring  glances  of  those  in  the  dormi- 
tory, bending  his  tall  form  to  make  him* 
self  seem  smaller.  And  when  he  was  ii^ 
the  street  he  took  a  long  breath. 


BED  NO.  29 


591 


fhat  evening  his  comrades  asked  him : 
"WeU,  how  is  Irma?" 

He  answered  in  a  constrained  voice: 
"She  has  a  trouble  with  the  lungs;  she 
is  very  ill." 

But  a  little  lieutenant,  scenting  some- 
thing from  his  manner,  went  to  head- 
quarters, and,  the  next  day,  when  the 
Captain  went  into  mess  he  was  wel- 
comed by  a  volley  of  laughter  and 
jokes.  They  had  found  vengeance  at 
last. 

It  was  learned  further  that  Irma  had 
made  a  spite  marriage  with  the  staff- 
major  of  the  Prussians,  that  she  had 
gone  through  the  country  on  horseback 
with  the  colonel  of  the  Blue  Hussars, 
and  many  others,  and  that,  in  Rouen,  she 
was  no  longer  called  anything  but  the 
"wife  of  the  Prussians." 

For  eight  days  the  Captain  was  the  vic- 
tim of  his  regiment.  He  received  by 
post  and  by  messenger,  notes  from  those 
who  can  reveal  the  past  and  the  future, 
circulars  of  specialists,  and  medicines, 
the  nature  of  which  was  inscribed  on  the 
package. 

And  the  Colonel,  catching  the  drift 
of  it,  said  in  a  severe  tone: 

"Well,  the  Captain  had  a  pretty  ac- 
quaintance! I  send  him  my  compli- 
ments." 

At  the  end  of  twelve  days  he  was 
appealed  to  by  another  letter  from 
Irma.  He  tore  it  up  with  rage  and 
made  no  reply  to  it. 

A  week  later  she  wrote  him  again 
that  she  was  very  ill  and  wished  to  see 
him  to  say  farewell. 

He  did  not  answer. 

After  some  days  more  he  received  a 
jnote  from  a  chaplain  of  the  hosoital. 


"The  girl  Irma  Pavolin  is  on  her  death- 
bed and  begs  you  to  come." 

He  dared  not  refuse  to  oblige  the 
chaplain,  but  he  entered  the  hospital 
with  a  heart  sweUing  with  wicked  anger, 
with  wounded  vanity,  and  humiliation. 

He  found  her  scarcely  changed  at  all 
and  thought  that  she  had  deceived  him. 
"What  do  you  wish  of  me?"  he  asked. 

"I  wish  to  say  farewell.  It  appears 
that  I  am  near  the  end." 

He  did  not  believe  it. 

"Listen,"  said  he,  "you  have  made  me 
the  laughing  stock  of  the  regiment,  and 
I  do  not  wish  it  to  continue." 

She  asked:  "What  have  I  done?" 

He  was  irritated  at  net  knowing  how 
to  answer.    But  he  said: 

"Is  it  nothing  that  I  return  here  to 
be  joked  by  everybody  on  your 
account?" 

She  looked  at  him  with  languid  eyes, 
where  shone  a  pale  light  of  anger,  and 
answered : 

"What  can  I  have  done?  I  have  not 
been  genteel  v/ith  you,  perhaps!  Is  it 
because  I  have  sometimes  asked  for 
something?  But  for  you,  I  would  have 
remained  with  M.  Templier-Papon,  and 
would  not  have  found  myself  here  to- 
day. No,  you  see,  if  anyone  has  re- 
proaches to  make  it  is  not  you." 

He  ansvvered  in  a  clear  tone:  "I  have 
not  made  reproaches,  but  I  cannot  con- 
tinue to  come  to  see  you,  because  youJ 
conduct  with  the  Prussians  has  been  the 
shame  of  the  town." 

She  sat  up,  with  a  little  shake,  in  thd 
bed,  as  she  replied : 

"My  conduct  with  the  Prussians?  But 
when  I  tell  you  that  they  took  me,  and 
when  I  tell  you  that  if  I  took  i  o  thought 


392 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


of  myself,  it  was  because  I  wished  to 
poison  them!  If  I  had  wished  to  cure 
myself,  it  would  not  have  been  so  diffi- 
cult, I  can  tell  you!  But  I  wished  to  kill 
them,  and  I  have  killed  them,  come 
now!     I  have  killed  them!" 

He  remained  standing:  "In  any  case," 
said  he,  "it  was  a  shame." 

She  had  a  kind  of  suffocation,  and 
then  replied: 

"Why  is  it  a  shame  for  me  to  cause 
them  to  die  and  try  to  exterminate 
them,  tell  me?  You  did  not  talk  that 
way  when  you  used  to  come  to  my  house 
in  Jeanne-d'Arc  street.  Ah!  it  is  a 
shame!  You  have  not  done  as  much, 
with  your  cross  of  honor!  I  deserve 
more  merit  than  you,  do  you  understand, 
more  than  you,  for  I  have  killed  more 
Prussians  than  you!" 

He  stood  stupefied  before  her  trem- 
bling with  indignation.  He  stammered: 
"Be  still — ^you  must — ^be  still — ^because 
those  things — I  cannot  allow — anyone 
to  touch  upon — " 

But  she  was  not  listening:  "What 
harm  have  you  done  the  Prussians? 
Would  it  ever  have  happened  if  you  had 
kept  them  from  coming  to  Rouen?  Tell 
me!  It  is  you  who  should  stop  and 
listen.     And  I  have  done  more  harm 


than  you,  I,  yes,  more  harm  to  them 
than  you,  and  I  am  going  to  die  for  it 
while  you  are  singing  songs  and  making 
yourself  fine  to  inveigle  women — " 

Upon  each  bed  a  head  was  raised  and 
ail  eyes  looked  at  this  man  in  uniform 
who  stammered  again: 

"You  must  be  still — more  quiet — ^you 
know — " 

But  she  would  not  be  quiet.  She 
cried  out: 

"Ah!  yes,  you  are  a  pretty  poser!  I 
know  you  well.  I  know  you.  And  I 
tell  you  that  I  have  done  them  more 
harm  than  you — I — and  that  I  have 
killed  more  than  all  your  regiment  to- 
gether— come  now,  you  coward. 

He  went  away,  in  fact  he  fled,  stretch- 
ing his  long  legs  as  he  passed  between 
the  two  rows  of  beds  where  the  syphili- 
tic patients  were  becoming  excited.  And 
he  heard  the  gasping,  stifled  voice  of 
Irma  pursuing  him : 

"More  than  you — ^yes — I  have  killed 
more  than  you — " 

He  tumbled  down  the  staircase  four 
steps  at  a  time,  and  ran  until  he  was 
shut  fast  in  his  room. 

The  next  day  he  heard  that  she  was 
dead. 


Marroca 


You  ask  me,  my  dear  friend,  to  send 
you  my  impressions  of  Africa,  and  an 
account  of  my  adventures,  especially 
of  my  love  affairs  in  this  s'^ductive  land. 
You  laughed  a  great  deal  beforehand  at 
my  dusky   sweethearts,   as  you   called 


them,  and  declared  that  you  could  see 
me  turning  to  France  followed  by  a  tallj 
ebony-colored  woman,  with  a  yellow 
silk  handkerchief  round  her  head,  and 
wearing  voluminous  bright-colored  trous- 
ers. 


MARROCA 


393 


No  doubt  the  Moorish  dames  will 
fiave  their  turn,  for  I  have  seen  sev- 
eral who  made  me  feel  very  much  in- 
clined to  fall  in  love  with  them.  But 
by  way  of  making  a  beginning,  I  came 
across  something  better  and  very  origi- 
nal. 

In  your  last  letter  to  me,  you  say: 
"When  I  know  how  people  love  in  a 
country,  I  know  that  country  well 
enough  to  describe  it,  although  I  may 
never  have  seen  it."  Let  me  tell  you, 
then,  that  here  they  love  furiously. 
From  the  very  first  moment  one 
feels  a  sort  of  trembling  ardor,  of  con- 
stant desire,  to  the  very  tips  of 
the  fingers,  which  overexcites  the 
powers  and  faculties  of  physical  sensa- 
tion, from  the  simple  contact  of  the 
hands  down  to  the  requirement  which 
makes  us  commit  so  many  follies. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me.  I  do  not 
know  whether  you  call  love  of  the  heart 
a  love  of  the  soul;  whether  sentimental 
idealism,  Platonic  love,  in  a  word,  can 
exist  on  this  earth;  I  doubt  it,  myself. 
But  that  other  love,  sensual  love,  which 
has  something  good,  a  great  deal  of 
good  about  it,  is  really  terrible  in  this 
climate.  The  heat,  the  burning  atmos- 
phere which  makes  you  feverish,  the 
suffocating  blasts  of  wind  from  the 
south,  waves  of  fire  from  the  desert 
which  is  so  near  us,  that  oppressive 
sirocco  which  is  more  destructive  and 
withering  than  fire,  a  perpetual  con- 
flagration of  an  entire  continent,  burned 
even  to  its  stones  by  a  fierce  and  de- 
v^ouring  sun,  inflame  the  blood,  excite 
the  flesh,  and  make  brutes  of  us. 

But  to  come  to  my  story.  I  shall  not 
dwell  on  the  beginning  of  my  stay  in 
Africa.     After  visiting  Bona,  Constan- 


tine,  Biskara,  and  Steif,  I  went  tc 
Bougie  through  the  defiles  of  Chabet 
by  an  excellent  road  cut  through  a  large 
forest,  which  follows  the  sea  at  a  height 
of  six  hundred  feet  above  it  and  leads 
to  that  wonderful  bay  of  Bougie,  which 
is  as  beautiful  as  that  cf  Naples,  of 
Ajaccio,  or  of  Douamencz,  which  are 
the  most  lovely  that  I  know  of. 

Far  away  in  the  distance,  before  one 
rounds  the  large  inlet  where  the  water 
is  perfectly  calm,  one  sees  Bougie.  It 
is  built  on  the  steep  sides  of  a  high 
hill  covered  with  trees,  and  forms  a 
white  spot  on  that  green  slope;  it  might 
almost  be  taken  for  the  foam  of  £ 
cascade  falling  into  the  sea. 

I  had  no  sooner  set  foot  in  that  small, 
delightful  town,  than  I  knew  that  I 
should  stay  for  a  long  time.  In  all  di- 
rections the  eye  rests  on  rugged, 
strangely  shaped  hilltops,  so  close  to- 
Cether  that  you  can  hardly  see  the  open 
sea,  so  that  the  gulf  looks  like  a  lake. 
The  blue  water  is  wonderfully  trans- 
parent, and  the  azure  sky,  a  deep  azure, 
as  if  it  had  received  two  coats  of  color, 
expands  its  wonderful  beauty  above  \ 
it.  They  seem  to  be  looking  at  them- 
selves in  a  glass,  a  veritable  reflection 
of  each  other. 

Bougie  is  a  town  of  ruins,  and  on  the 
quay  is  such  magnificent  ruin  that  you 
might  imagine  you  were  at  the  opera. 
It  is  the  old  Saracen  Gate,  overgrown 
with  ivy,  and  there  are  ruins  in  all  di- 
rections on  the  hills  round  the  town, 
fragments  of  Roman  walls,  b*ts  of 
Saracen  monuments,  and  remains  of 
Arabic  buildings. 

I  had  taken  a  small,  Moorish  house, 
in  the  upper  town.  You  know  those 
dwellings,  which  have  been  described  sa 


I 


394 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


often.  They  have  no  windows  on  the 
outside;  but  they  are  lighted  from  top 
to  bottom  by  an  inner  court.  On  the 
first,  floor,  they  have  a  large,  cool  room, 
in  which  one  spends  the  days,  and  a  ter- 
race on  the  roof,  on  which  one  spends 
the  nights. 

I  at  once  fell  in  with  the  custom  of 
all  hot  countries,  that  is  to  say,  of  tak- 
ing a  siesta  after  lunch.  That  is  the 
hottest  time  in  Africa,  the  time  when 
one  can  scarcely  breathe;  when  the 
streets,  the  fields,  and  the  long,  daz- 
zling, white  roads  are  deserted,  when 
everyone  is  asleep  or  at  any  rate,  try- 
ing to  sleep,  attired  as  scantily  as  pos- 
sible. 

In  my  drawing-room,  which  had  col- 
umns of  Arabic  architecture,  I  had 
placed  a  large,  soft  couch,  covered  with 
a  carpet  from  Djebel  Amour.  There, 
very  nearly  in  the  costume  of  Assan,  I 
sought  to  rest,  but  I  could  not  sleep,  as 
I  was  tortured  by  continence.  There 
are  two  forms  of  torture  on  this  earth 
which  I  hope  you  will  never  know:  the 
want  of  water,  and  the  want  of  women, 
I  and  I  do  not  know  which  is  the  worst. 
In  the  desert,  men  would  commit  any 
infamy  for  the  sake  of  a  glass  of  clean, 
cold  water,  and  what  would  one  not  do 
m  some  of  the  towns  of  the  littoral  for 
the  companionstiip  of  a  handsome  wo- 
man? There  is  no  lack  of  girls  in  Africa; 
on  the  contrary,  they  abound,  but,  to 
continue  my  comparison,  they  are  as 
unwholesome  as  the  muddy  water  in  the 
pools  of  Sahara. 

Well  one  day  when  I  was  feeling 
more  enervated  than  usual,  I  was  try- 
ing in  vain  to  close  my  eyes.  My  legs 
twitched  as  if  they  were  being  pricked, 
and   I   tossed   about    uneasily    on   my 


couch.  At  last,  unable  to  bear  it  any 
longer,  I  got  up  and  went  out.  It  was  a 
terribly  hot  day,  in  the  middle  of  July, 
and  the  pavement  was  hot  enough  to  bake 
bread  on.  My  shirt,  which  was  soaked  with 
perspiration,  clung  to  my  body;  on  the 
horizon  there  was  a  slight,  white  vapor, 
which  seemed  to  be  palpable  heat. 

I  went  down  to  the  sea,  and  circling 
the  port,  walked  along  the  shore  of  the 
pretty  bay  where  the  baths  are.  There 
was  nobody  about,  and  nothing  was 
stirring;  not  a  sound  of  bird  or  of  beast 
was  to  be  heard,  the  very  waves  did 
not  lap,  and  the  sea  appeared  to  be 
asleep  in  the  sun. 

Suddenly,  behind  one  of  the  rocks, 
which  were  half  covered  by  the  silent 
water,  I  heard  a  slight  movement. 
Turning  round,  I  saw  a  tall,  naked 
girl,  sitting  up  to  her  bosom  in  the 
water,  taking  a  bath;  no  doubt  she 
reckoned  on  being  alone  at  that  hot 
period  of  the  day.  Her  head  was  turned 
toward  the  sea,  and  she  was  moving 
gently  up  and  down,  without  seeing 
me. 

Nothing  could  be  more  surprising 
than  that  picture  of  a  beautiful  woman 
in  the  water,  which  was  as  clear  as 
crystal,  under  a  blaze  of  light.  She 
was  a  statue.  She  turned  round,  ut- 
tered a  cry,  and  half  swimming,  half 
walking,  hid  herself  altogether  behind 
her  rock.  I  knew  she  must  necessarily 
come  out,  so  I  sat  down  on  the  beach 
and  waited.  Presently,  she  just  showed 
her  head,  which  was  covered  with  thick 
black  plaits  of  hair.  She  had  a  rather 
large  mouth,  with  full  lips,  large,  bold 
eyes,  and  her  skin,  which  was  tanned 
by  the  cHmate,  looked  like  a  piece  of 
old,  hard,  polished  ivory. 


MARROCA 


395 


She  called  out  to  me:  "Go  away!" 
and  her  full  voice,  \*rhich  corresponded 
to  her  strong  build,  had  a  guttural  ac- 
cent. As  I  did  not  move,  she  added: 
"It  is  not  right  of  you  to  stop  there, 
Monsieur.'*  I  did  not  move,  however, 
and  her  head  disappeared.  Ten  min- 
utes passed,  and  then  her  hair,  then  her 
forehead,  and  then  her  eyes  reappeared, 
but  slowly  and  prudently,  as  if  sLe 
were  playing  at  hide-and-seek,  and  were 
looking  to  see  who  was  near.  This  time 
she  was  furious,  and  called  out:  "You 
will  make  me  catcL  a  chill,  for  I  shall 
not  come  out  as  long  as  you  are  there." 
Thereupon,  I  got  up  and  went  away, 
but  not  without  looking  round  several 
times.  When  she  thought  I  was  far 
enough  off,  she  came  out  of  the  water. 
Bending  down  and  turning  her  back  to 
me,  she  disappeared  in  a  cavity  of  the 
rock,  behind  a  petticoat  that  was  hang- 
ing up  in  front  of  it. 

I  went  back  the  next  day.  She  was 
bathing  again  but  she  had  a  bathing 
costume  and  she  began  to  laugh,  and 
showed  her  white  teeth.  A  week  later 
we  were  friends,  and  in  another  week 
we  were  eager  lovers.  Ker  nam.e  was 
Marroca,  and  she  pronounced  it  as  if 
there  were  a  dozen  rs  in  it.  She  was  the 
daughter  of  Spanish  colonists,  and  had 
married  a  Frenchman,  whose  name  was 
Pontabeze.  He  was  in  government  em- 
ploy, though  I  never  exactly  knew  what 
his  functions  were.  I  found  out  that 
he  was  always  very  busy,  and  I  did 
not  care  for  anything  else. 

She  then  altered  her  time  for  hav- 
ing her  bath,  and  came  to  my  house 
every  day,  to  take  her  siesta  there. 
What  a  siesta!  It  could  scarcely  be 
called  reposing!     She  was  a  splendid 


girl,  of  a  somewhat  animal  but  superb 
type.  Her  eyes  were  alwajs  glowing 
with  passion;  her  half-open  mouth,  her 
sharp  teeth,  and  even  her  smiles,  had 
something  ferociously  loving  about 
them;  and  her  curious,  long  and  con- 
ical breasts  gave  her  whole  body  some- 
thing of  the  animal,  made  her  a  sort  of 
inferior  yet  magnificent  being,  a  crea- 
ture destined  for  unbridled  love,  and 
roused  in  me  the  idea  of  those  ancient 
deities  who  gave  expression  to  their 
tenderness  on  the  grass  and  under  th* 
trees. 

And  then,  her  mind  was  as  simple  as 
two  and  two  are  four,  and  a  sonorous 
laugh  served  her  instead  of  thought. 

Instinctively  proud  of  her  beauty, 
she  hated  the  slightest  covering,  and 
ran  and  frisked  about  my  house  with 
daring  and  unconscious  immodesty. 
When  she  was  at  last  overcome  and 
worn  out  by  her  cries  and  movements, 
she  used  to  sleep  soundly  and  peace- 
fully, while  the  overwhelming  heat 
brought  out  minute  spots  of  perspira- 
tion on  her  brown  skin. 

Sometimes  she  returned  in  the  eve- 
ning, when  her  husband  was  on  duty 
somewhere,  and  we  used  to  lie  on  the 
terrace,  scarcely  covered  by  some  fine, 
gauzy,  Oriental  fabric.  W^hen  the  full 
moon  lit  up  the  town  and  the  gi'lf,  with 
its  surrounding  fram*:  of  hills,  we  saw 
on  all  the  other  terraces  a  recumbent 
army  of  silent  phantoms,  who  would 
occasionally  get  up,  change  their  places, 
and  lie  down  again,  in  the  languorous 
warmth  of  the  starry  night. 

In  spite  of  the  brightness  of  African 
nightb,  Marroca  would  insist  upon  strip- 
ping herself  almost  naked  in  the  clear 
rays  of  the  moon;  she  did  not  trouble 


305 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANl 


nerself  much  about  anybody  who  might 
see  us,  and  often,  in  spite  of  my  fears 
and  entreaties,  she  uttered  long,  re- 
sounding cries,  which  made  the  dogs  in 
the  distance  howl. 

One  night,  when  I  was  sleeping  un- 
der the  starry  sky,  she  came  and  kneeled 
down  on  my  carpet,  and  putting  her 
lips,  whxh  curled  slightly,  close  to  my 
face,  she  said: 

"You  must  come  and  stay  at  my 
house." 

I  did  not  understand  her,  and  asked: 
"What  do  you  mean?" 
"Yes,  when  my  husband  has  gone 
away  you  must  come  and  be  with  me." 
I  could  not  help  laughing,  and  said: 
"Why,  as  you  come  here?" 

And  she  went  on,  almost  talking  into 
my  mouth,  sending  her  hot  breath  into 
my  throat,  and  moistening  my  mustache 
with  her  lips: 

"I  want  it  as  a  remembrance." 
Still  I   did  not   grasp   her  meaning. 
Then  she  put  her  arms  around  my  neck 
and  said:     "When  you  are  no  longer 
here,  I  shall  think  of  it." 

I  was  touched  and  amused  at  the 
i-.ame  -time  and  replied:  "You  must 
be  mad.  I  would  much  rather  stop 
here." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  have  no  liking 
for  assignations  under  the  conjugal 
roof;  they  are  mouse-traps,  in  which 
the  unwary  are  always  caught.  But 
she  begged  and  prayed,  and  even  cried, 
and  at  last  said:  "You  shall  see  how 
I  will  love  you  there." 

Her  wish  seemed  so  strange  that  I 
could  not  explain  it  to  myself;  but  on 
thinking  it  over,  I  thought  I  could  dis- 
cern a  profound  hatred  for  her  hus- 
band, the  secrei  vengeance  of  a  woman 


who  takes  a  pleasure  in  deceiving  him» 
and  who,  moreover,  wishes  to  deceive 
him  in  his  own  house. 

"Is  you  husband  very  unkind  to 
you?"  I  asked  her.  She  looked  vexed, 
and  said: 

*'0h,  no,  he  is  very  kind." 
"But  you  are  not  fond  of  him?" 
She  looked  at  me  with  astonishment 
in  her  large  eyes.    "Indeed,  I  am  very 
fond  of  him,  very;  but  not  so  fond  as 
I  am  of  you." 

I  could  not  understand  it  all,  and 
while  I  was  trying  to  get  at  her  mean- 
ing, she  pressed  one  of  those  kisses, 
whose  power  she  knew  so  well,  on  to 
my  lips,  and  whisperea:  "But  you 
will  come,  will  you  not?" 

I  resisted,  however,  and  so  she  got 
up  immediately,  and  went  away;  nor 
did  she  com.e  back  for  a  week.  On  the 
eighth  day  she  came  back,  stopped 
gravely  at  the  door  of  my  abode,  and 
said:  "Are  you  coming  to  my  house 
to-night?  If*  you  refuse,  I  shaU  go 
away." 

Eight  days  is  a  very  long  time,  my 
friend>  and  in  Africa  those  eight  days 
are  as  good  as  a  month.  "Yes,"  I  said, 
and  opened  my  arms,  and  she  threw 
herself  into  them. 

At  night  she  waited  for  me  in  a  neigh- 
boring street,  and  took  me  to  their 
house,  which  was  very  small,  and  near 
the  harbor.  I  first  of  all  went  through 
the  kitchen,  where  they  had  their 
meals,  and  then  into  a  V2ry  tidy,  white- 
washed room,  with  photographs  on  the 
walls  and  paper  flowers  under  a  glass 
case.  Marroca  seemed  beside  herself 
with  pleasure,  and  she  jumped  about 
and  said:  "There,  you  are  at  home, 
now."    And  I  certainly  acted  as  though 


MARKOCA 


.97 


I  were,  though  I  felt  rather  embarrassed 
and  somewhat  uneasy. 

Suddenly  a  loud  knocking  at  the 
door  made  us  start,  and  a  man's  voice 
called  out:     "Marroca,  it  is  I.'* 

She  started:  "My  husband!  Here, 
hide  under  the  bed,  quickly.'* 

I  was  distractedly  looking  for  my 
coat,  but  she  gave  me  a  push,  and 
panted  out:    ''Come  along,  come  along." 

I  lay  down  flat  on  my  stomach,  and 
crept  under  the  bed  without  a  word, 
while  she  went  into  the  kitchen.  I 
heard  her  open  a  cupboard  and  then 
shut  it  again,  and  she  came  back  into 
the  room  carrying  some  object  which 
I  could  not  see,  but  which  she  quickly 
put  down.  Then,  as  her  husband  was 
getting  impatient,  she  said  calmly:  "T 
cannot  find  the  matches."  Suddenly 
she  added:  "Oh,  here  they  are;  I  will 
come  and  let  you  in." 

The  man  came  in,  and  I  could  see 
nothing  of  him  but  his  feet,  which 
were  enormous.  If  the  rest  of  him 
was  in  proportion,  he  must  have  been 
a  giant. 

I  heard  kisses,  a  little  pat  on  her 
naked  flesh,  and  a  laugh,  and  he  said, 
in  a  strong  Marseilles  accent:  "I  for- 
got my  purse,  so  I  was  obliged  to 
come  back;  you  were  sound  asleep,  I 
suppose." 

He  went  to  the  cupboard,  and  was 
a  long  time  in  finding  what  he  wanted; 
and  as  Marroca  had  thrown  herself  on 
to  the  bed,  as  if  she  were  tired  out,  he 
^ent  up  to  her,  and  no  doubt  tried  to 
caress  her,  for  she  flung  a  volley  of 
angry  rs  at  him.  His  feet  were  so  close 
to  me  that  i  felt  a  stupid,  inexplicable 
longing  to  catch  hold  of  them,  but  I 
restrained  myself.     When  he  saw  that 


he  could  not  succeed  in  his  wish,  he 
got  angry,  and  said:  "You  are  not  at 
all  nice,  to-night.    Good-bye." 

I  heard  another  kiss,  then  the  big 
feet  turned,  and  I  saw  the  nails  in  his 
shoes  as  he  went  into  the  next  room,  the 
front  door  was  shut,  and  I  was  saved  I 

I  came  slowly  out  of  my  retreat,  feel- 
ing rather  humiliated,  and  while  Mar- 
roca danced  a  jig  around  me,  shouting 
with  laughter,  and  clappmg  her  hands, 
I  threw  myself  heavily  into  a  chair. 
But  I  jumped  up  with  a  bound,  for  I 
had  sat  down  on  something  cold,  and 
as  I  was  no  more  dressed  than  my  ac- 
complice was,  the  contact  made  me 
start.  I  looked  round.  I  had  sat 
down  on  a  small  ax,  used  for  cutting 
wood,  and  as  sharp  as  a  knife.  How 
had  it  got  there?  I  had  certainly  not 
seen  it  when  I  went  in;  but  Marroca 
seeing  me  jump  up,  nearly  choked  with 
laughter,  and  coughed  with  both  hands 
on  her  sides. 

I  thought  her  amusement  rather  out 
of  place;  we  had  risked  our  lives  stu- 
pidly, I  still  felt  a  cold  shiver  down  my 
back,  and  I  was  rather  hurt  at  her  fool- 
ish laughter. 

"Supposing  your  husband  had  seen 
me?"  I  said. 

"There  was  no  danger  of  that,"  she 
replied. 

"What  do  you  mean?  No  danger? 
That  is  a  good  joke !  If  he  had  stooped 
down,  he  must  have  seen  me." 

She  did  not  laugh  any  more,  she  only 
looked  at  me  with  her  large  eyes,  which 
were  bright   with   merriment. 

"He  would  not  have  stooped." 
"Why?"  I  persisted.     "Just  suppose 
that  he  had  let  his  hat  fall,  he  would 
have  been  sure  to  pick  it  up,  and  then 


{98 

>^I  was  well  prepared  to  defend  my- 
t.elf,  in  this  costume!" 

She  put  her  two  strong,  round  arms 
nbout  my  neck,  and,  lowering  her  voice, 
hs  she  did  when  she  said  "I  adorre  you," 
fche  whispered: 

"Then  he  would  never  have  got  up 
again." 

I  did  not  understand  her,  and  said: 
*What  do  you  mean?" 

She  gave  me  a  cunning  wink,  and  put 
out  her  hand  to  the  chair  on  which  I 
)iad  sat  down,  and  her  outstretched 
Hands,  her  smile,  her  half-open  lips,  her 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


white,  sharp,  and  ferocious  teeth,  all 
drew  my  attention  to  the  little  ax  which 
was  used  for  cutting  wood,  the  sharp 
blade  of  which  was  glistening  in  the 
candle-light.  While  she  put  out  her 
hand  as  if  she  were  going  to  take  it, 
she  put  her  left  arm  round  me,  and 
drawing  me  to  her,  and  putting  her  lips 
against  mine,  with  her  right  arm  she 
made  a  motion  as  if  she  were  cutting 
off  the  head  of  a  kneeling  man! 

This,  my  friend,  is  the  manner  in 
which  people  here  understand  conjugal 
duties,  love,  and  hospitality! 


A  Philosopher 


Blerot  had  been  my  most  intimate 
('riend  from  childhood;  we  had  no  se- 
j.-rets  from  each  other,  and  were  united 
>ieart  and  soul  by  a  brotherly  intimacy 
nnd  a  boundless  confidence  in  each 
other.  I  had  been  intrusted  with  the 
secret  of  all  his  love  affairs,  as  he  had 
.*)een  with  mine. 

When  he  told  me  that  he  was  going 
TO  get  married  I  was  hurt,  just  as  if 
>ie  had  been  guilty  of  a  treacherous  act 
with  regard  to  me.  I  felt  that  it  must 
"•nterfere  with  that  cordial  and  absolute 
affection  which  had  united  us  hitherto. 
flis  wife  would  come  between  us.  The 
intimacy  of  the  marriage-bed  establishes 
a  kind  of  complicity,  a  mysterious  al- 
liance between  two  persons,  even  when 
they  have  ceased  to  love  each  other. 
Man  and  wife  are  like  two  discreet  part- 
ners who  will  not  let  anyone  else  into 
their  secrets.  But  that  close  bond 
which  the  conjugal  kiss  fastens  is  widely 


loosened  on  the  day  on  which  the 
woman  takes  a  lover. 

I  remember  Blerot's  wedding  as  if 
it  were  but  yesterday.  I  would  not  be 
present  at  the  signing  of  the  marriage 
contract,  as  I  have  no  particular  liking 
for  such  ceremonies.  I  only  went  to  the 
civil  wedding  and  to  the   church. 

His  wife,  whom  I  had  never  seen  be- 
fore, was  a  tall,  slight  girl,  with  pale 
hair,  pale  cheeks,  pale  hands,  and  eyes 
to  match.  She  walked  with  a  slightly 
undulating  motion  as  if  she  were  on 
board  a  ship,  and  seemed  to  advance 
v/ith  the  succession  of  long  graceful 
courtesies. 

Blerot  seemed  very  much  in  love 
with  her.  He  looked  at  her  constantly, 
and  I  felt  a  shiver  of  an  immoderate 
desire  for  her  pass  through  my  frame. 

I  went  to  see  him  in  a  few  days,  and 
he  said  to  me: 

"You  do  not  know  how  happy  I  am; 


A  PHILOSOPHER 


399 


I  am  madly  in  love  with  her;  but  then 
she  is — she  is — "  He  did  not  finish  his 
sentence,  but  he  put  the  tips  of  his 
fingers  to  his  lips  with  a  gesture  which 
signified  "divinp.!  delicious!  perfect!" 
and  a  good  deal  more  besides. 

I  asked  laughing,  ''What!  all  that?" 

"Everything  that  you  can  imagine," 
was  his  answer. 

He  introduced  me  to  her.  She  was 
very  pleasant,  on  easy  terms  with  me, 
as  was  natural,  and  begged  me  to  look 
upon  their  house  as  my  own.  I  felt 
that  he,  Blerot,  did  not  belong  to  me 
any  longer.  Our  intimacy  was  alto- 
gether checked,  and  we  hardly  found  a 
word  to  say  to  each  other. 

I  soon  took  my  leave,  and  shortly 
afterward  went  to  the  East,  returning 
by  way  of  Russia,  Germany,  Sweden, 
and  Holland,  after  an  absence  of 
eighteen  months  from  Paris. 

The  morning  after  my  arrival,  as  I 
was  walking  along  the  boulevards  to 
breathe  the  air  once  more,  I  saw  a  pale 
man  with  sunken  cheeks  coming  toward 
me,  who  was  as  much  like  Blerot  as  it 
was  possible  for  a  physical,  emaciated 
man  to  resemble  a  strong,  ruddy,  rather 
stout  man.  I  looked  at  him  in  sur- 
prise, and  asked  myself:  "Can  it  pos- 
sibly be  he?"  But  he  saw  me,  and  came 
toward  me  with  outstretched  arms,  and 
we  embraced  in  the  middle  of  the 
boulevard. 

After  we  had  gone  up  and  down  once 
or  twice  from  the  Rue  Drouot  to  the 
Vaudeville  Theatre,  just  as  we  were 
taking  leave  of  each  other, — for  he  al- 
ready seemed  quite  done  up  with  walk- 
ing,— I  said  to  him: 

"You  don't  look  at  all  well.  Are 
ytra  ill?" 


'T  do  feel  rather  out  of  sorts,"  was 
all  he  said. 

He  looked  like  a  man  who  was  going 
to  die,  and  I  felt  a  flood  of  affection  for 
my  old  friend,  the  only  real  one  that  I 
had  ever  had.    I  squeezed  his  hands. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you?  Are 
you  in  pain?" 

"A  little  tired;  but  it  is  nothing." 

"What  does  your  doctor  say?" 

"He  calls  it  anaemia,  and  has  or« 
dered  me  to  eat  no  white  meat  and  tc 
take  tincture  of  iron." 

A  suspicion  flashed  across  me. 

"Are  you  happy?"  I  asked  him. 

"Yes,  very  happy;  my  wife  is  charm' 
ing,  and  I  love  her  more  than  ever." 

But  I  noticed  that  he  grew  rather  red 
and  seemed  embarrassed,  as  if  he  was 
afraid  of  any  further  questions,  so  I 
took  him  by  the  arm  and  pushed  him 
into  a  cajif  which  was  nearly  empty  at 
that  time  of  day.  I  forced  him  to  sit 
down,  and  looking  him  straight  in  the 
face,  I  said: 

"Look  here,  old  fellow.  Just  tell  mei 
the  exact  truth." 

"I  have  nothing  to  tell  you,"  he 
stammered. 

"That  is  not  true,"  I  replied,  firmly. 
"You  are  ill,  mentally  perhaps,  and  you 
dare  not  reveal  your  secret  to  anyone. 
Something  or  other  is  doing  you  harm, 
and  I  mean  you  to  tell  me  what  it  is. 
Come,  I  am  waiting  for  you  to  begin.*' 

Again  he  got  very  red,  stammered, 
and  turning  his  head  away,  he  said: 

"It  is  very  idiotic — ^but  I — I  am  done 
for!" 

As  he  did  not  go  on,  I  said: 

"Just  tell  me  what  it  is." 

"Well,  I  have  got  a  wife  who  is  kill- 


I 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


400 

ing  me,  that  is  all,"  he  said  abruptly, 
almost  desperately. 

I  did  not  understand  at  first.  "Does 
she  make  you  unhappy?  How?  What 
is  it?" 

"No,"  he  replied  in  a  low  voice,  as  if 
he  were  confessing  some  crime;  "I  love 
her  too  much,  that  is  all." 

I  was  thunderstruck  at  this  singular 
avowal,  and  then  I  felt  inclined  to 
laugh,  but  at  length  I  managed  to  reply: 

"But  surely,  at  least  so  it  seems  to 
me,  you  might  manage  to — ^to  love  her 
a  little  less." 

He  had  got  very  pale  again,  and  at 
length  made  up  his  mind  to  speak  to 
me  openly,  as  he  used  to  do  formerly. 

"No,"  he  said,  "that  is  impossible; 
and  I  am  dying  from  it,  I  know;  it  is 
killing  me,  and  I  am  really  frightened. 
Some  days,  Hke  to-day,  I  feel  inclined 
to  leave  her,  to  go  away  altogether,  to 
start  for  the  other  end  of  the  world,  so 
as  to  live  for  a  long  time;  and  then, 
when  the  evening  comes,  I  return  home 
in  spite  of  myself,  but  slowly,  and  feel- 
ing uncomfortable.  I  go  upstairs  hesi- 
tatingly and  ring,  and  when  I  go  in  I 
see  her  there  sitting  in  her  easy-chair, 
and  she  will  say,  'How  late  you  are,*  I 
kiss  her,  and  we  sit  down  to  dinner. 
During  the  meal  I  make  this  resolve: 
*I  will  go  directly  it  is  over,  and  take 
the  train  for  somewhere,  no  matter 
where';  but  when  we  get  back  to  the 
drawing-room  I  am  so  tired  that  I  have 
not  the  courage  to  get  up  out  of  my 
chair,  and  so  I  remain,  and  then — ^and 
then — and  then — I  succumb  again." 

I  could  not  help  smiling  again.     He 
saw  it,  and  said:    "You  may  laugh,  but 
I  assure  you  it  is  very  horrible." 
"Why  don't  you  tell  your  wife?'*    I 


asked  him.     "Unless  she  be  a  regulai 
monster  she  would  understand." 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "It  is  all 
very  well  for  you  to  talk.  I  don't  tell 
her  because  I  know  her  nature.  Have 
you  ever  heard  it  said  of  certain  women, 
'She  has  just  married  a  third  time?' 
Well,  and  that  makes  you  laugh  like 
you  did  just  now,  and  yet  it  is  true. 
What  is  to  be  done?  It  is  neither  her 
fault  nor  mine.  She  is  so,  because  na- 
ture has  made  her  so;  I  assure  you,  my 
dear  old  friend,  she  has  the  tempera- 
ment of  a  Messalina.  She  does  not 
know  it,  but  I  do;  so  much  the  worse 
for  me.  She  is  charming,  gentle,  ten- 
der, and  thinks  that  our  conjugal  in- 
tercourse, which  is  wearing  me  out  and 
killing  me,  is  natural  and  quite  moder- 
ate. She  seems  like  an  ignorant  school- 
girl, and  she  really  is  ignorant,  poor 
child. 

"Every  day  I  form  energetic  resolu 
tions,  for  you  must  understand  that  I 
am  dying.  But  one  look  of  her  eyes, 
one  of  those  looks  in  which  I  can  read 
the  ardent  desire  of  her  lips,  is  enough 
for  me,  and  I  succumb  at  once,  say- 
ing to  myself:  This  is  really  the  end; 
I  will  have  no  more  of  her  death-giving 
kisses,'  and  then,  when  I  have  yielded 
again,  like  I  have  to-day,  I  go  out  and 
walk  and  walk,  thinking  of  death,  and 
saying  to  myself  that  I  am  lost,  that 
all  is  over. 

"I  am  mentally  so  ill  that  I  went  for 
a  walk  to  Pere  Lachaise  cemetery  yes- 
terday. I  looked  at  all  the  graves, 
standing  in  a  row  like  dominoes,  and  I 
thought  to  myself:  *I  shall  soon  be 
there,'  and  then  I  returned  home,  quite 
determined  to  pretend  to  be  ill,  and  so 
escaoe.  but  I  could  not. 


A  PHILOSOPHER 


40X 


"Oh!  You  don't  know  what  it  is. 
\sk  a  smoker  who  is  poisoning  himself 
mth  nicotine  whether  he  can  give  up  his 
delicious  and  deadly  habit.  He  will 
tell  you  that  he  has  tried  a  hundred 
times  without  success,  and  he  will,  per- 
haps, add:  *So  much  the  worse,  but 
I  would  rather  die  than  go  without  to- 
bacco.' That  is  just  the  case  with  me. 
When  once  one  is  in  the  clutches  of 
such  a  passion  or  such  a  habit,  one  must 
give  oneself  up  to  it  entirely." 

He  got  up  and  gave  me  bis  hand.  I 
felt  seized  with  a  tumult  of  rage,  and 
with  hatred  for  this  woman,  this  care- 
less, charming,  terrible  woman;  and  as 
he  was  buttoning  up  his  coat  to  go  out 
I  said  to  him,  brutally  perhaps: 

"But,  in  God's  name,  why  don't  you 
let  her  have  a  lover,  rather  than  kill 
yourself  like  that?" 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders  without  re- 
plying, and  went  off. 

For  six  months  I  did  not  see  him. 
Every  morning  I  expected  a  letter  of 
invitation  to  his  funeral.,  but  I  would 
not  go  to  his  house  from  a  complicated 
feeling  of  contempt  for  him  and  for 
that  woman ;  of  anger,  of  indignation,  of 
a  thousand  sensations. 

One  lovely  spring  morning  I  was 
in  the  Champs-EIysees.  It  was  one  of 
those  warm  days  which  make  our  eyes 
bright  and  stir  up  in  us  a  tumultuous 
feeling  of  happiness  from  the  mere 
sense  of  existence.  Some  one  tapped 
me  on  the  shoulder,  and  turning  round 
I  saw  my  old  friend,  looking  well,  stout, 
and  rosy. 

He  gave  me  both  hands,  beaming  with 
pleasure,  and  exclaimed: 

"Here  you  are,  you  erratic  indi- 
vidual!" 


I  looked  at  him,  utterly  thunden- 
struck. 

"Well,  on  my  word — ^yes.  By  Jove! 
I  congratuate  you;  you  have  indeed 
changed  in  the  last  six  months!" 

He  flushed  scarlet,  and  said,  with  an 
embarrassed  laugh: 

"One  can  but  do  one's  best." 

I  looked  at  him  so  obstinately  that 
he  evidently  felt  uncomfortable,  so  I 
went  on: 

"So  —  now  —  you  are  —  completely 
cured?" 

He  stammered,  hastily: 

"Yes,  perfectly,  thank  you."  Then 
changing  his  tone,  ''How  lucky  that  I 
should  have  come  across  you,  old  fellow. 
I  hope  we  shall  often  meet  now." 

But  I  would  not  give  up  my  idea;  1 
wanted  to  know  how  matters  really 
stood,  so  I  asked: 

"Don't  you  remember  what  you  told 
me  six  months  ago?  I  suppose — I — eh 
— suppose  you  resist  now?" 

"Please  don't  talk  any  more  about 
it,"  he  replied,  uneasily;  "forget  that  I 
mentioned  it  to  you;  leave  me  alone. 
But,  you  know,  I  have  no  intention  of 
letting  you  go;  you  must  come  and 
dine  at  my  house." 

A  sudden  fancy  took  me  to  see  for 
myself  how  matters  stood,  so  that  I 
might  understand  all  about  it,  and  I  ac- 
cepted. 

His  wife  received  me  in  a  most 
charming  manner,  and  she  was,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  a  most  attractive 
woman.  Her  long  hands,  her  neck,  and 
cheeks  were  beautifully  white  and  deli- 
cate, and  marked  her  breeding,  and  her 
walk  was  undulating  and  delightful. 

Rene  gave  her  a  brotherly  kiss  on  the 
forehead  and  said: 


402 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"Has  not  Lucien  come  yet?" 

"Not  yet,"  she  replied,  in  a  clear, 
soft  voice;  "you  know  he  is  almost  al- 
ways rather  late." 

At  that  moment  the  bell  rang,  and  a 
tall  man  was  shown  in.  He  was  dark, 
with  a  thick  beard,  and  looked  like  a 
modern  Hercules.  We  were  introduced 
to  each  other;  his  name  was  Lucien 
Delabarre. 

Rene  and  he  shook  hands  in  a  most 
friendly  manner,  and  then  we  went  to 
dinner. 

It  was  a  most  enjoyable  meal,  with- 
out the  least  constraint.  My  old  friend 
spoke  with  me  constantly,  in  the  old 
familiar  cordial  manner,  just  as  he 
used  to  do.  It  was:  "You  know,  old 
fellow!"— "I  say,  old  f ellow ! "— " Just 
listen  a  moment,  old  fellow!"  Sud- 
denly he  exclaimed: 

"You  don't  know  how  glad  I  am  to 
see  you  again;  it  takes  me  back  to  old 
times." 

I  looked  at  his  wife  and  the  other 
man.  Their  attitude  was  perfectly  cor- 
rect, though  I  fancied  once  or  twice  that 
they  exchanged  a  rapid  and  furtive  look. 

As  soon  as  dinner  was  over  Rene 
turned  to  his  wife,  and  said: 

"My  dear,   I  have  just   met   Pierre 


again,  and  I  am  going  to  carry  him  off 
for  a  walk  and  chat  along  the  boule- 
vards to  remind  us  of  old  times.  I  am 
leaving  you  in  very  good  company." 

The  young  woman  smiled,  and  said 
to  me.  as  she  shook  hands  with  me: 

"Don't  keep  him  too  long." 

As  we  went  along,  arm-in-arm,  I  could 
not  help  saying  to  him,  for  I  was  de- 
termined to  know  how  matters  stood: 

"What  has  happened?     Do  tell  me!" 

He,  however,  interrupted  me  roughly, 
and  answered  like  a  man  who  has  been 
disturbed  without  any  reason. 

"Just  look  here,  old  fellow;  leave  one 
alone  with  your  questions." 

Then  he  added,  half  aloud,  as  if  talk- 
ing to  himself: 

''After  all,  it  would  have  been  too 
stupid  to  have  let  oneself  go  to  perdi 
tion  like  that." 

I  did  not  press  him.  We  walked  on 
quickly  and  began  to  talk.  All  of  a 
sudden  he  whispered  in  my  ear: 

"I  say,  suppose  we  go  and  have  a  bot- 
tle of  'fizz'  with  some  girls!  Eh?" 

I  could  not  prevent  myself  from 
laughing  heartily. 

"Just  as  you  like;  come  along,  let  us 
go." 


A  Mistake 


That  day  Boniface,  the  letter-carrier, 
found  in  leaving  the  postofi&ce  that  his 
route  would  not  be  so  long,  and  there- 
fore felt  a  lively  delight. 

He  had  charge  of  the  country  around 
V'ire'Mlle  and,  when  he  returned  in  the 


evening,  he  often  found  he  had  covered 
over  twenty  miles  in  his  long  march. 
To-day  the  distribution  would  be 
easy;  he  could  even  stroll  along  a  little 
and  be  home  by  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon.     What  luck! 


A  MISTAKE 


403 


He  went  out  along  the  Sennemare 
road  and  commenced  his  work.  It  was 
June,  the  month  of  verdure  and  flowers, 
the  true  month  of  the  fields  and  mea- 
dows. 

The  man,  in  his  blue  blouse  and  black 
cap  with  red  braid,  crossed  through  by- 
paths, fields  of  millet,  oats,  and  wheat, 
buried  to  the  shoulders  in  their  depths; 
and  his  head  moving  along  above  the 
feathery  waves,  seemed  to  float  upon 
a  calm  and  verdant  sea,  which  a  light 
breeze  caused  to  undulate  gently.  He 
entered  the  farms  through  wooden  gate- 
ways built  on  the  slopes  and  shaded  by 
two  rows  of  beech  trees,  greeted  the 
farmer  by  name:  ''Good  morning,  M. 
Chicot,"  and  passed  him  his  newspaper, 
"The  Little  Norman." 

The  farmer  would  wipe  his  hand  on 
his  trousers,  receive  the  paper  and  slide 
in  into  his  pocket  to  read  at  his  ease 
after  the  midday  meal.  The  dogs, 
asleep  in  barrels  under  the  drooping 
apple  trees,  yapped  with  fury,  pulling  at 
their  chains;  but  the  carrier  without 
turning,  proceeded,  at  his  military  gait, 
stretching  his  long  limbs,  the  left  arm 
over  him  bag,  the  right  manipulating  his 
cane  which  marched  like  himself,  in  a 
continuous,  hurried  fashion. 

He  distributed  his  printed  matter  and 
his  letters  in  the  hamlet  of  Sennemare, 
then  set  out  across  the  fields  with  a  paper 
for  the  tax-collector  who  lived  in  a  lit- 
tle isolated  house  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
from  the  village. 

He  was  a  new  collector,  this  M. 
Chapatis,  arrived  but  the  week  before 
and  lately  married. 

Hp  took  a  Paris  paper  and,  some- 
times,   carrier   Boniface,   when   he  had 


time,  would  take  a  look  at  it  before 
delivering  it  at  its  destination. 

Now,  he  opened  his  bag,  took  out  the 
paper,  slipped  it  out  of  its  wrapper,  un- 
folded it,  and  began  to  read  while  walk- 
ing. The  first  page  did  not  interest 
him;  politics  did  not  arouse  him;  the 
finance  he  always  passed  over  but  the 
general  facts  of  the  day  he  read  eagerly. 

That  day  they  were  very  exciting. 
He  became  so  much  interested  in  the 
story  of  a  crime  executed  in  a  game- 
keeper's lodge  that  he  stopped  in  the 
middle  of  a  cloverfield  to  read  it  more 
slowly.  The  details  were  frightful.  A 
woodcutter,  in  passing  the  forester's 
house  the  morning  after,  had  noticed  a 
little  blood  upon  the  sill  as  if  some  one 
had  been  bleeding  from  the  nose.  "The 
keeper  must  have  killed  a  wolf  last 
night,"  he  thought;  but  coming  nearer, 
he  perceived  that  the  door  was  left  open 
and  that  the  lock  had  been  broken. 
Then,  seized  with  fear,  he  ran  to  the 
village,  notified  the  mayor,  who  took 
with  him  as  a  re-enforcement,  the 
keeper  of  fields  and  the  school-master; 
these  four  men  returned  together.  They 
found  the  forester  with  his  throat  cut 
before  the  chimney-piece,  his  wife 
strangled  on  the  bed,  and  their  little 
daughter,  aged  six  years,  stifled  under 
two  mattresses. 

Carrier  Boniface  became  so  wrought 
up  over  the  thought  of  this  assassina- 
tion, whose  horrible  details  had  been  re- 
vealed to  him  one  by  one,  that  he  felt 
a  weakness  in  his  limbs  and  said  aloud: 

"Christopher!  But  some  of  the  peo- 
ple in  this  world  are  brutes!" 

Then  he  replaced  the  journal  in  its 
wrapper  and  went  on,  his  head  full  of 
visions     of     the     crime        He     arrived 


I 


404 

shortly  at  M.  Chapatis's.  He  opened 
the  gate  of  the  Lttle  garden  and  ap- 
proached the  house.  It  was  of  low 
construction,  containing  only  one  story 
and  a  mansard  roof.  It  was  at  least 
five  hundred  feet  from  its  nearest 
neighbor. 

The  carrier  mounted  the  two  front 
steps,  placed  his  hand  upon  the  knob, 
trying  to  open  the  door,  but  found  it 
locked.  Then  he  perceived  that  the 
shutters  had  not  been  opened,  and  that 
no  one  had  come  out  that  morning. 

A  feeling  of  alarm  took  possession  of 
him,  for  M.  Chupatis,  since  his  arrival, 
had  always  been  up  rather  early.  It 
was  then  only  ten  minutes  after  seven, 
nearly  an  hour  earlier  than  he  usually 
got  there.  No  matter.  The  tax- 
collector  ought  to  be  up  before  that. 

He  made  a  tour  around  the  house, 
walking  with  much  precaution,  as  if  he 
himself  might  be  in  some  danger.  He 
noticed  nothing  suspicious  except  a 
man's  footprints  on  a  strawberry  bed. 

But  suddenly  he  remained  motionless 
as  he  was  passing  a  window,  powerless 
from  fright.  A  groan  came  from  the 
house. 

He  approached  nearer  p,nd  stepping 
over  a  border  of  thyme,  glued  his  ear  to 
♦he  opening  in  order  to  hear  better;  as- 
suredly some  one  Vv'as  groaning.  He 
could  plainly  hear  long,  dolorous  sighs, 
a  kind  of  rattle,  a  noise  of  struggle. 
Then  the  groans  become  louder,  and  oft 
repeated,  finally  being  accentuated  and 
changing  into  cries. 

Then  Boniface,  no  longer  doubtful 
that  a  crime  was  being  committed,  took 
to  his  legs,  recrossed  the  little  garden, 
flew  across  the  field  and  the  meadow, 
running  until  he  was  out  of  breath,  his 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


bag  shaking  and  hitting  against  his  hip, 
and  arrived  gasping  and  in  dismay  at 
the  door  of  the  police  headquarters. 

Brigadier  Malautour  was  mending  a 
broken  chair  by  means  of  some  brads 
and  a  hammer.  Gendarme  Rauter  held 
the  damaged  piece  of  furniture  between 
his  knees  and  placed  a  nail  at  the  edge 
of  the  crack;  then  the  Brigadier,  chew- 
ing his  mustache,  his  eyes  round  and 
moist  with  interest  in  his  work,  would 
pound, — ^blows  which  fell  on  the  fingers 
of  his  subordinate. 

When  the  letter-carrier  perceived 
them,  he  cried  out: 

"Come  quick;  some  one  is  assassinat- 
ing the  tax-collector.     Quick!     Quick!" 

The  two  men  ceased  their  work  and 
raised  their  heads,  the  astonished  heads 
of  people  surprised  and  perplexed. 

Boniface,  seeing  more  surprise  than 
haste,  repeated: 

"Quick!  quick!  the  robbers  are  in  the 
house.  I  heard  the  cries.  There  is  no 
time  to  be  lost." 

The  Brigadier,  placing  his  hammer 
on  the  ground,  remarked:  "How  was 
it   you  found   out  about  this?" 

The  carrier  answered:  "I  went  to 
carry  the  paper  and  two  letters  when  I 
noticed  that  the  door  was  locked  and 
that  the  collector  had  not  been  out.  I 
walked  around  the  house,  trying  to  ac- 
count for  it,  when  suddenly,  I  heard 
some  one  groan,  as  if  he  were  being 
strangled,  as  if  his  throat  were  being 
cut — and  then  I  started  as  soon  as  I 
could  to  get  you.  There's  no  time  to 
to  be  lost." 

"And  you  didn't  try  to  help  any?" 

The  carrier,  much  frightened,  replied: 

"I  was  afraid  that  one  was  too  smaC 
a  number." 


A  MISTAKE 


40S 


TTien  the  Brigadier,  convinced,  said: 
*'Give  me  time  to  get  into  my  uniform 
and  I  will  follow  you." 

And  he  went  into  the  building  fol- 
lowed by  his  subordinate  who  carried 
the  chair.  They  reappeared  almost  im- 
mediately and  all  three  started,  in  quick, 
trained  step,  for  the  scene  of  the  crime. 

Arriving  near  the  house,  they  slack- 
ened their  pace  through  precaution,  and 
the  Brigadier  drew  his  revolver;  then 
they  went  softly  into  the  garden  and  ap- 
proached the  walls  of  the  dwelling. 
There  was  nothing  to  indicate  that  the 
malefactors  had  gone  away.  The  door 
remained  locked,  the  windows  closed. 

"Let  us  wait  for  them,"  murmured 
the  Brigadier. 

But  Boniface,  palpitating  with  emo- 
tion, made  them  pass  around  to  the 
other  side  and  showed  them  an  open- 
ing:    "It  is  there,"  said  he. 

The  Brigadier  advanced  alone  and 
fixed  his  ear  against  the  board.  The 
two  others  waited,  ready  for  anything, 
watching  him  closely. 

He  remained  a  long  time  motionless, 
listening.  The  better  to  bring  his  head 
near  the  wooden  shutter,  he  had  re- 
moved his  three-cornered  hat  and  held 
it  in  his  right  hand. 

What  did  he  hear?  His  face  revealed 
nothing  for  some  time,  then,  suddenly, 
his  mustache  rose  at  the  corners,  his 
cheeks  took  on  folds  as  in  a  silent 
laugh,  and,  stepping  over  the  border  of 
thjone,  he  came  toward  the  two  men 
who  were  looking  at  him  in  a  kind  of 
stupor. 

Walking  along  on  the  tips  of  his  toes, 
he  made  the  sign  for  them  to  follow, 
and  when  they  came  to  the  gate  he  ad- 


vised Boniface  to  slip  the  paper  and  the 
letters  under  the  door. 

Th  amazed  carrier  obeyed  v/ith  per- 
fect docility. 

"And  now,  back  again,"  said  the 
Brigadier. 

When  they  had  gone  a  little  way,  he 
turned  to  the  letter-carrier  with  a  jocose 
air,  his  eyes  upturned  and  shining  with 
fun,  and  said,  in  a  bantering  tone: 

"Well,  you  are  a  rogue,  you  are!" 

The  old  fellow  asked:  "Why?  1 
heard  something.  I  swear  to  you  I 
heard  something." 

Then  the  Brigadier,  no  longer  able  to 
restrain  himself,  laughed  aloud.  He 
laughed  to  suffocation,  his  two  hands 
holding  his  sides,  doubling  himself  up, 
his  eyes  full  of  tears,  and  making  fright- 
ful grimaces  about  the  nose.  Both  of 
them  were  frightened  to  look  at  him. 

As  he  could  neither  speak,  nor  cease 
laughing,  nor  make  them  understand,  he 
made  a  gesture,  a  popular,  meaning  ges- 
ture. As  they  could  not  comprehend 
that  either,  he  kept  repeating  it,  mo- 
tioning back  always,  with  his  head. 

Finally,  his  subordinate  caught  the 
meaning  suddenly,  and  in  his  turn 
broke  into  formidable  laughter.  The 
old  fellow  remained  stupefied  between 
these  two  men  who  were  twisting  them- 
selves into  all  shapes. 

The  Brigadier,  finally,  became  calm, 
and  giving  the  old  man  a  great  tap  on 
his  waistcoat,  like  a  jolly  good  fellow, 
he  cried: 

"What  a  farce!  A  holy  farce!  I 
shall  record  it  as  the  Ciime  of  Father 
Boniface!" 

The  carrier  opened  his  enormous  eyes. 
and  reoeated; 


406 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSA>rr 


"I  swear  to  you  that  I  heard  some- 
thing." 

The  Brigadier  began  to  laugh.  His 
subordinate  sat  down  on  the  grass  be- 
side the  ditch  and  laughed  at  his  ease. 

"Ah!  you  heard  something.  And 
your  wife,  do  you  assassinate  her  that 
way,  hey,  you  old  joker?" 

"My  wife?" 

And  he  stood  reflecting  a  long  time, 
then  he  continued. 

"My  wife.  Yes,  she  bawls  if  I  strike 
her — ^and  bawls  that  are  bawls,  why? 
Was  M.  Chapatis  beating  his  wife?" 

Then  the  Brigadier,  in  a  delirium  of 
humor,  turned  him  around  by  the  shoul- 
ders as  if  he  had  been  a  puppet  and 


whispered  in  his  ear  something  that 
caused  him  to  look  besotted  with  as- 
tonishment. 

Then  the  old  man  murmured  pen- 
sively: 

"No? — not  that — not  that — she  said 
nothing — mine — I  would  never  have  be- 
lieved— is  it  possible? — one  would  swear 
that  a  murder — " 

And,  confused,  disconcerted,  and 
ashamed,  he  went  on  his  way  across  the 
fields,  while  the  two  policemen,  laugh- 
ing continually  and  calling  back  to  him 
from  afar,  with  barrack-room  wit, 
watched  his  black  cap  as  it  disappeared 
in  the  tranquil  sea  of  grain. 


Florentine 


We  were  talking  about  girls,  for  what 
else  is  there  to  talk  about,  among  men? 
One  of  us  said: 

"Wait!  A  strange  story  occurs  to 
me  on  this  subject." 

And  he  related  it: 

"One  evening  of  last  winter,  I  was 
suddenly  taken  with  one  of  those  deso- 
late lassitudes  which  are  overwhelming 
in  their  attack  upon  soul  and  body,  from 
time  to  time.  I  was  at  home  alone,  and 
I  knew  well  that  if  I  remained  there  I 
should  have  a  frightful  fit  of  despon- 
dency, of  the  kind  that  leads  to  suicide 
when  they  return  often. 

"I  pu.t  on  my  coat  and  went  out, 
without  knowing  at  all  what  I  was  go- 
ing to  do.  Having  descended  to  the 
Boulevard,  I  began  to  walk  along  past 
the  cafes,  nearly  empty,  for  it  was  rain- 


ing. One  of  those  thin  rains  was  fall- 
ing that  dampens  the  spirits  as  much  as 
the  clothes;  not  one  of  those  good 
showers,  striking  one  in  a  cascade  and 
driving  passers  under  the  porte-cocheres 
out  of  breath,  but  a  rain  that  unceas- 
ingly deposits  upon  you  imperceptible 
droplets  and  covers  your  clothing  with  a 
glistening,  penetrating  moisture. 

"What  should  I  do?  I  went  up  and 
returned,  seeking  some  place  to  pass  a 
couple  of  hours,  and  discovering,  for 
the  first  time,  that  there  was  not  a  place 
of  diversion  in  all  Paris  in  the  evening. 
Finally,  I  decided  to  enter  the  Folies- 
Bergeres,  that  theater  so  amusing  to 
street  girls. 

"There  were  very  few  in  the  great 
hall.  The  long,  semicircular  promenade, 
contained  but  a  few  individuals,  of  a 


FLORENTINE 


407 


race  usually  known  by  their  walk,  their 
clothing,  the  cut  of  their  hair  and  beard, 
their  hats,  and  their  complexion.  It  is 
not  often  that  one  sees  among  them  a 
man  who  seems  clean,  perfectly  clean, 
and  whose  clothing  has  altogether  the 
same  air.  As  for  the  girls  they  are  al- 
ways the  same,  as  you  know,  plain, 
weary,  drooping,  walking  with  that  quick 
step  and  that  air  of  imbecile  disdain 
which  they  assume,  I  know  not  why. 

"I  said  to  myself  that  truly  not  one 
of  these  flagging  creatures,  greasy 
rather  than  fat,  either  bloated  or  very 
thin,  with  the  paunch  of  a  prelate  and 
their  long  legs  bowed,  was  worth  the 
louis  that  they  obtained  with  much  dif- 
ficulty after  having  demanded  five. 

"But  suddenly  I  perceived  one  of 
them,  a  little  one  that  appeared  genteel; 
not  at  all  young,  but  fresh,  droll,  and 
provoking.  I  stopped  her  and,  in 
beastly  fashion,  without  thinking,  set 
my  price  for  ihe  night.  I  did  not  wish  to 
return  home  alone,  all  alone;  I  pre- 
ferred rather  the  company  and  embrace 
of  this  worthless  woman. 

"And  so  I  followed  her.  She  lived  in 
a  big,  big  house  in  Martyr  street.  The 
gas  was  already  extinguished  on  the 
staircase.  I  mounted  slowly,  constantly 
lighting  taper-matches,  striking  the  steps 
with  my  feet,  stumbling  and  ill  at  ease, 
flowing  a  petticoat,  the  rustle  of 
which  I  heard  before  me. 

"She  stopped  at  the  fourth  story,  and 
having  shut  again  the  inside  door,  she 
asked : 

"  'And  you  wish  to  remain  until  to- 
morrow?' 

''  'Yes.  You  know  that  was  the 
agreement.' 

"  'All  right,  my  dear,  I  only  wanted 


to  know.  Wait  for  me  here  a  minute, 
I  will  return  immediately.' 

"And  she  left  me  in  the  darkness.  I 
heard  her  close  two  doors,  then  it 
seemed  to  me  she  was  speaking  with 
somebody.  I  was  surprised  and  dis* 
turbed.  The  idea  of  blackmail  occurred 
to  me.  But  I  have  fists  and  solid  mus» 
cles.     'We  shall  see,'  thought  I. 

"I  listened  with  all  attention,  both, 
of  ear  and  mind.  Some  one  was  mov- 
ing, walking  about,  but  with  great  pre- 
caution. Then  another  door  was  opened, 
and  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  still  heard 
talking,  but  in  a  very  low  voice. 

"She  returned,  bringing  a  lighted  can- 
db.    'You  can  enter  now,'  she  said. 

"She  spoke  familiarly,  as  a  sign  o£ 
possession.  I  entered,  and  after  havinjj 
crossed  a  dining-room,  where  it  was  evi- 
dent nobody  ever  dined,  I  entered  a 
chamber  like  that  of  all  these  girls,  a 
furnished  room,  with  rep  curtains,  and 
eider-down  silk  quilt  with  suspiciou.% 
poppy-red  spots. 

"She  continued:  'Put  yourself  at 
ease,  my  dear.* 

"I  inspected  the  apartment  with  an 
eye  of  suspicion.  There  seemed  noth- 
ing disquieting,  however.  She  u.idressed 
herself  so  quickly  that  she  was  in  bed 
before  I  had  my  overcoat  off.  Then 
she  began  to  laugh: 

"  'Well,  what  is  the  matter  with  you? 
Are  you  changed  into  a  pillar  of  salt? 
Come!     Make  haste!' 

"I  imitated  her  and  joined  her.  Five 
minutes  later  I  had  a  foolish  desire  to 
dress  again  and  go  out.  But  the  over- 
whelming lassitude  which  had  seized  me 
at  my  house,  rei'irned  to  me,  depriv- 
ing me  of  all  strength  to  move,  and  I 
remained^  in  spite  of  the  disgust  which  ] 


408 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


had  for  this  public  bed.  The  sensual 
charm  which  I  believed  I  saw  down 
there,  under  the  lights  of  the  theater, 
had  disappeared  in  my  arms,  and  I  had 
with  me,  flesh  to  flesh,  only  a  vulgar 
girl,  like  all  the  rest,  whose  indifferent 
and  complaisant  kiss  had  an  after-taste 
of  garlic. 

•'I  began  to  talk  to  her: 

"  'Have  you  been  here  long?'  said  I. 

"'Six  months  the  fifteenth  of  Janu- 
ary.' 

"  'Where  were  you  before  that?* 

*"I  was  in  Clauzel  street.  But  the 
janitor  madr^  me  so  miserable  that  I 
teft.' 

"And  she  began  to  relate  an  intermi- 
nable story  of  the  concierge  who  had 
made  some  scandal  about  her. 

"Suddenly  I  heard  something  moving 
near  us.  At  first  there  was  a  sigh,  then 
a  light  noise,  but  distinct,  as  if  some 
one  had  fallen  from  a  chair. 

"I  sat  up  quickly  in  bed  and  de- 
manded:    'What  was  that  noise?* 

"She  answered  with  assurance  and 
composure:  'Don't  disturb  yourself, 
my  dear,  it  is  my  neighbor.  The  parti- 
tion is  so  thin  that  we  hear  all  as  if 
they  were  here.  These  are  dirty  boxes. 
They  are  made  of  pasteboard.* 

"My  indolence  was  so  strong  that  I 
got  down  under  the  clothes  again.  We 
continued  our  talk.  Incited  by  the 
curiosity  which  drives  all  men  to  ques- 
tion these  creatures  upon  their  first  ad- 
venture, to  wish  to  raise  the  veil  from 
their  first  fault  in  order  to  find  in  them 
some  far-off  trace  of  innocence,  that  we 
may  find  something  to  love,  perhaps,  in 
the  rapid  recital  evoked  by  their  candor 
and  the  shame  of  long  ago,  I  asked  her 
about  her  first  lover. 


"I  knew  that  she  lied.  What  did  it 
matter?  Among  all  the  lies  I  might 
discover^  perhaps,  some  sincere  or  touch- 
ing incident. 

"  'Come,'  said  I,  'tell  me  who  he  was.* 

"  'He  was  an  oarsman.* 

*"Ah!  Tell  me  about  it.  Where 
were  you?' 

*'  'I  was  at  Argenteuil.* 

"'What  were  you  doing  there?' 

"  *I  was  maid  in  a  restaurant.* 

"  'What  restaurant?' 

"  'At  the  Freshwater  Sailors,  do  yoi» 
know  it?' 

"  'Well,  yes;  Bonanfan's.* 

"  'Yes,  that's  the  one.' 

"  'And  how  did  he  pay  his  court,  this 
oarsman?' 

"  'While  I  was  making  his  bed.  He 
forced  me.' 

"But  suddenly  I  recalled  the  theory 
of  a  doctor  of  my  acquaintance,  an  ob- 
serving, philosophic  doctor  who,  in  his 
practice  in  a  great  hospital,  had  daily 
examples  of  these  girl-mothers  and  pub- 
lic girls,  and  knew  all  the  shame  and 
misery  of  women,  the  poor  women  who 
become  the  hideous  prey  of  the  wander- 
ing male  with  money  in  his  pocket. 

"  'Invariably,'  he  told  me,  'is  a  girl 
debauched  by  a  man  of  her  own  class 
and  station  in  life.  I  have  made  vol- 
umes of  observations  upon  it.  It  is  cus- 
tomary to  accuse  the  ricli  of  culling  the 
flower  of  innocence  from  the  children 
of  the  people.  That  is  not  true.  The 
rich  pay  for  the  culled  bouquet.  They 
cull  also,  but  at  the  second  flowering; 
they  never  cut  the  first.* 

"Then  turning  toward  my  companion, 
I  began  to  laugh: 

"  'You  may  as  well  know  that  I  know 
all   about   your    story.      The    oarsrnan 


FLORENTINE 


4W 


was  not  the  first,  as  you  well  know.* 
'"Oh!  yes,  my  dear,  I  swear  it!' 
"  'You  are  lying.' 

"  'Oh!  no,  I  promise  you  I  am  not.' 
"  'You  lie.    Come,  tell  me  the  truth.* 
"She  seemed  to  hesitate,  astonished. 

I  continued: 

"  'I  am  a  sorcerer,  my  good  child,  a 

hypnotist.     If  you  do  not  tell  me  the 

truth,  I  shall  put  you  to  sleep,  and  then 

I  can  find  it  out.' 

"She   was    afraid,    being   stupid    like 

her  kind.    She  murmured: 

"  'How  did  you  ever  guess  it?' 
"I  replied:     'Come,  speak.' 

"  'Oh!  the  first  time,  that  amounted 
to  nothing.  It  was  at  a  festival  in  the 
country.  They  called  in  a  chef  for  the 
occasion,  Mr.  Alexander.  After  he 
came  he  had  it  all  his  own  way  in  the 
house.  He  ordered  everybody,  even  to 
the  master  and  mistress,  as  if  he  had 
been  a  king.  He  was  a  large,  handsome 
man  who  would  not  stay  in  place  before 
his  stove.  He  was  always  crying  out: 
*'Here,  some  butcer — some  eggs — some 
Madeira!"  And  it  was  necessary  to 
carry  him  e\erything  on  the  run,  or  he 
v/ould  get  angry  and  say  things  to  you 
that  ATould  make  you  blush  under  the 
:  icirts. 

'  'When  the  day  was  finished,  he 
would  smoke  h's  pipe  before  the  door. 
And,  as  I  passed  him  with  a  pile  of 
plates,  he  said  to  me  this:  "Come,  little 
goose,  come  down  to  the  edge  of  the 
lake  and  show  me  the  country."  As 
for  me,  I  went,  like  i  fool;  and  scarcely 
had  we  arrived  at  the  bank  when  he 
forced  me  so  quickly  that  I  did  not  even 
know  that  it  was  done.  And  then  he 
went  away  by  the  nin2  o'clock  train,  and 
I  never  saw  him  again  after  that.* 


'I  asked:     'Is  that  all?' 

"She  stammered:  'Oh!  I  believe 
Florentine  belongs  to  him.' 

"  'Who  is  Florentine?' 

"  'He  is  my  little  boy.' 

"  'Ah!  very  well.  And  you  made 
the  oarsman  believe  that  he  was  tha 
father,  did  you  not?' 

"  'Yes.' 

"  'He  had  money,  this  oarsman?* 

"  'Yes,  he  left  me  an  income  of  three 
hundred  francs  for  Florentine's  support.* 

"I  commenced  to  be  amused.  I  con- 
tinued : 

"  'Very  well,  my  girl,  very  well.  You 
are  all  less  sensual  than  one  would  be- 
lieve.   And  how  old  is  Florentine  now?' 

"She  answered:  'Twelve  years  old. 
He  will  take  his  fi'xst  communion  m  the 
spring.' 

"'That  is  good;  anf  since  that  you 
have  made  a  trade  with  your  con- 
science.' 

"She  sighed  resignedly:  'One  must 
do  what  she  can.* 

"But  a  great  noise  in  another  part  of 
the  room  made  me  leap  out  of  bed  with 
a  bound;  it  was  the  noise  of  one  fall- 
ing, then  rising  and  groping  with  his 
hands  upon  the  wall.  I  had  seized  the 
candle  and  was  looking  about,  fright- 
ened and  furious.  She  got  up  also  and 
tried  to  hold   me  back,  saying: 

"  'It  is  nothing,  my  dear,  I  assure 
you  it  is  nothing,' 

"But  I  had  discovered  on  which  side 
of  the  wall  thic  strange  noise  was.  ) 
went  straight  toward  a  concealed  door 
at  the  head  of  the  bed  and  opened  it 
suddenly — and  perceived  there  a  pool 
little  boy,  trembling  and  staring  at  me 
with  frightened  eyes,  a  pale,  thir  litfcjie 


»lO 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


boy  beside  a  large  chair  filled  with 
straw,  from  which  he  had  fallen. 

"When  he  saw  me,  he  began  to  cry 
and,  opening  his  arms  to  his  mother: 

"  'It  was  not  my  fault,  mamma,  it 
was  not  my  fault.  I  was  asleep  and  I 
fell.  You  mustn't  scold  me,  for  it  was 
not  my  fault.' 

"I  turned  toward  the  woman  and 
said: 

"  'What  does  he  mean?' 

"She  seemed  confused  and  disheart- 
ened.    But  finally  she  said  in  a  broken 


voice 


What  can  you  expect?  I  do  not 
earn  enough  to  put  the  child  in  school! 
I  must  take  care  of  him  somehow,  and 
I  cannot  afford  to  hire  another  room. 
He  sleeps  with  me  when  I  have  no  one. 
When  some  one  comes  for  an  hour  or 


two,  he  can  stay  in  the  closet  very  well 
and  keep  quiet;  he  knows  how.  But 
when  one  remains  all  night,  as  you  have, 
his  muscles  are  fatigued  from  sleeping 
on  the  chair — and  it  is  not  the  child's 
fault.  I  would  like  to  see  you — ^you — 
sleep  all  night  on  a  chair — you  would 
sing  another  song — ' 

"She  was  angry,  wrought  up,  and  was 
crying. 

"The  child  wept  too.  A  poor  child, 
pitiful  and  timid,  a  good  child  of  the 
closet,  of  the  cold,  dark  closet,  a  child 
who  came  from  time  to  time  to  get  a 
little  warmth  in  the  bed  a  moment 
empty. 

"I,  too,  had  a  desire  to  weep. 

"And  I  returned  home  to  my  own 
bed." 


Consideration 


Simon  Bombard  often  found  life  very 
bad!  He  was  born  with  an  unbeliev- 
able aptitude  for  doing  nothing  and 
with  an  immoderate  desire  to  follow  this 
vocation.  All  effort,  whether  moral  or 
physical,  each  movement  accomplished 
for  a  purpose,  appeared  to  him  beyond 
bis  strength.  As  soon  as  he  heard  any- 
one speak  of  anything  serious  he  be- 
came confused,  his  mind  being  incap- 
able of  tension  or  even  attention. 

The  son  of  a  novelty  merchant  of 
Caen,  he  glided  along  smoothly,  as 
they  said  ir  the  family,  until  he  was 
twenty-five  years  of  age.  But  as  his 
parents  were  always  nearer  bankruptcy 
than  fortune,  he  suffered  greatly  for 
want  of  money. 


He  was  a  tall,  large,  pretty  youth  with 
red  whiskers,  worn  Norman  fashion,  of 
florid  complexion,  blue  eyes,  sensual 
and  gay,  corpulence  already  apparent, 
and  dressed  with  the  swagger  elegance 
of  a  provincial  at  a  festival.  He 
laughed,  crfed,  and  gesticulated  at  the 
same  time,  displaying  a  storm  of  good 
nature  with  all  the  assurance  of  the  sea- 
soned traveler.  He  considered  that  life 
was  made  principally  for  joys  and  pleas- 
ures, and  as  soon  as  it  became  neces- 
sary to  curb  his  noisy  enjoyment,  he 
fell  into  a  kind  of  chronic  somnolence, 
being  incapable  of  sadness. 

His  need  for  money  harassed  him  unr 
til  he  formed  the  habit  of  repeating  a 
phrase  now  celebrated  in  his  circle  of 


CONSIDERATION 


411 


acquaintance:  "For  ten  thousand  francs 
a  year,  I  would  become  an  executioner." 

Now,  he  went  each  year  to  Trouville 
to  pass  two  weeks.  He  called  this 
•'spending  the  season."  He  would  in- 
stall himself  at  the  house  of  his  cousins 
who  gave  him  the  use  of  a  room,  and 
from  the  day  of  his  arrival  to  that  of  his 
departure  he  would  promenade  along 
the  board  walk  which  extends  along  the 
great  stretch  of  seashore. 

He  walked  with  an  air  of  confidence, 
his  hands  in  his  pockets  or  crossed  be- 
hind his  back,  always  clothed  in  ample 
garments,  with  light  waistcoats  and 
showy  cravats,  his  hat  somewhat  over 
his  ear  and  a  cheap  cigar  in  one  corner 
of  his  mouth. 

He  went  along,  brushing  by  the  ele- 
gantly dressed  women  and  eying  con- 
temptuously the  merry  men  who  were 
ready  to  make  a  disturbance  for  the 
sake  of  it,  and  seeking — seeking — ^what 
he  was  seeking. 

He  was  after  a  wife,  counting  entirely 
upon  his  face  and  his  physique.  He  said 
to  himself:  *'Why  the  devil,  in  all  the 
crowd  that  comes  here,  should  I  not  be 
able  to  find  my  fate?"  And  he  hunted 
with  the  scent  of  a  dog  in  the  chase, 
with  the  Norman  scent,  sure  that  he 
should  recognize  her,  the  v/oman  'vho 
would  make  him  rich,  the  moment  he 
perceived  her. 

It  was  one  Monday  morning  that  he 
murmured:  "Wait!  wait!  wait!"  The 
weather  was  superb,  one  of  those  yel- 
low and  blue  days  of  the  month  of 
July,  when  one  might  say  that  the  sky 
wept  from  the  heat.  The  vast  shore 
covered  with  people,  costumes,  colors, 
had  the  air  of  a  garden  of  women;  and 


the  fishing  boats  with  their  brown  sails, 
almost  immovable  upon  the  blue  watei 
which  reflected  them  upside  down 
seemed  asleep  under  the  preat  sun  at 
ten  o'clock  in  the  morning.  There  they 
remained  opposite  the  wooden  pier, 
some  near,  some  further  off,  some  still 
further,  as  if  overcome  by  a  summer 
day  idleness,  too  indifferent  to  seek  the 
high  sea  or  even  to  return  to  port.  And 
down  there  one  could  vaguely  perceive 
in  the  mist  the  coast  of  Havre,  show- 
ing two  white  points  on  its  summit,  the 
lighthouses  of  Sainte-Adresse. 

He  said  to  himself:  "Wait,  wait, 
wait!"  For  he  had  passed  her  now  for 
the  third  time  and  perceived  that  she 
had  noticed  him,  this  mature  woman, 
experienced  and  courageous,  who  was 
making  a  bid  for  his  attention.  He  had 
noticed  her  before  on  the  days  preced- 
ing, because  she  seemed  also  in  quest  of 
some  one.  She  was  an  Englishwoman, 
rather  tall,  a  little  thin,  an  audacious 
Englishwoman  whom  circumstances  and 
much  journeying  had  made  a  kind  of 
man.  Not  bad,  on  the  whole,  walking 
along  slowly  with  short  steps,  soberly 
and  simply  clothed,  but  wearing  a  queer 
sort  of  hat  as  Englishwomen  always  do. 
She  had  rather  pretty  eyes,  high  cheek- 
bones, a  little  red,  teeth  thai  were  too 
long  and  always  visible. 

When  he  came  to  the  pier,  he  re- 
turned upon  his  steps  to  see  if  she  would 
meet  him  again.  He  met  her  and  she 
threw  him  a  knowing  glance,  a  glance 
which  seemed  to  say:     "Here  I  am!^* 

But  how  should  he  speak  to  her? 
He  returned  a  fifth  time,  and  when  he 
was  again  face  to  face  with  her  she 
dropped  her  umbrella.     He  threw  hira- 


WORKS  OF  GUV  DE  MAUPASSANT 


412 

self  forward,  picked  it  up  and  presented 
it  to  her,  saying: 

"Permit  me,  Madame — " 

She  responded:     ''Oh,  you  are  very 

kind!" 

And  then  they  looked  at  each  other. 
They  knew  nothing  more  to  say.  But 
she  blushed.  Then  becoming  courage- 
ous, he  said: 

"We    are   having    beautiful    weather 

Jiere-" 

And  she  answered:     *'0h,  delicious!'* 

And  then  they  remained  opposite  each 
other  embarrassed,  neither  thinking  of 
going  away.  It  was  she  who  finally  had 
the  audacity  to  ask:  ''Have  you  been 
about  here  long?" 

He  answered  laughing:  "Oh!  yes, 
about  as  long  as  I  care  about  it."  Then 
brusquely  he  proposed:  "Would  you 
like  to  go  down  to  the  pier?  It  is  pretty 
there  such  days  as  this." 

She  simply  said:  "I  should  be  much 
pleased." 

And  they  walked  along  side  by  side, 
she  with  her  harsh,  direct  allurement,  he 
alluring  her  with  his  dandyism,  which 
makes  for  rakishness  later  on. 

Three  months  later  the  notables  in 
the  commercial  world  of  Caen  received 
one  morning  a  square  white  card  which 
said: 

"Mr.  and  Mrs.  Prosper  Bombard 
have  the  honor  to  announce  the 
marriaae  of  their  son,  Mr.  Simon 
Bombard,  to  Mrs.  Kate  Robert' 
son." 

ind  on  the  other  side: 

"Mrs.  Kate  Robertson  has  the 
honor  or  announcing  her  marriage 
to  Mr,  Siffi'^u  Bombard.'^ 


They  went  to  live  in  Paris.  The  for- 
tune of  the  wife  amounted  to  fifteen 
thousand  francs  a  year  income,  free  and 
clear.  Simon  wished  to  have  four  hun- 
dred francs  a  month  for  his  personal  ex- 
penses. He  had  to  prove  that  his  ten- 
derness merited  this  amount;  he  did 
prove  it  easily  and  obtained  what  he 
asked  for. 

At  first  everything  went  well.  Young 
Mrs.  Bombard  was  no  longer  young, 
assuredly,  and  her  freshness  had  un- 
dergone some  wear;  but  she  had  a  way 
of  exacting  things  which  made  it  im» 
possible  for  anyone  to  refuse  her.  She 
would  say,  with  her  grave,  willful,  Eng- 
lish accent:  "Oh!  Simon,  now  we  must 
go  to  bed,"  which  made  Simon  start 
toward  the  bed  like  a  dog  that  had  been 
ordered,  "To  your  kennel."  And  she 
knew  how  to  have  her  way  by  day  and 
night,  in  a  manner  there  was  no  resist- 
ing. 

She  did  not  get  angry;  she  made  nc 
scenes;  she  never  cried;  she  never  had 
the  appearance  of  being  irritated  or 
hurt,  or  even  disturbed.  She  knew  how 
to  raik,  that  was  all;  and  she  spoke  to 
the  point,  and  in  a  tone  that  admitted 
no  contradiction. 

More  than  once  Simon  was  on  the 
point  of  rebelling;  but  before  the  brief 
and  imperious  desires  of  this  singular 
"Woman  he  found  himself  unable  to  stand 
out.  Nevertheless,  when  the  conjugal 
kisses  began  to  be  meager  and  monoton- 
ous, and  he  had  in  his  pocket  what 
would  hung  him  something  greater,  he 
paid  for  satiety,  but  T'ith  a  thousand 
precautions. 

Mrs.  Bombard  perceived  all  this, 
without  his  surmising  it;  and  one  eve- 
ning  she   announced    to   him    that    she 


CONSIDERATION 


413 


oad  rented  a  house  at  Mantes  where 
they  would  live  in  the  future. 

Then  existence  became  harder.  He 
tried  various  kinds  of  diversion  which 
did  not  at  all  compensate  for  the  con- 
quests he  had  a  taste  for. 

He  fished  with  a  line,  learned  how  to 
tell  the  places  which  the  gudgeon  liked, 
which  the  roach  and  carp  preferred,  the 
favorite  spots  of  the  bream  and  the 
kinds  of  bait  that  divers  fishes  will  take. 

But  in  watch'ng  his  bob  as  it  trem- 
bled on  the  surface  of  the  water,  other 
visions  haunted  his  mind.  Then  he  be- 
came the  friend  of  the  chief  of  the  office 
of  the  subprefect  and  the  captain  of 
the  police;  and  they  played  whist  of 
evenings,  at  the  Commerce  caji;  but  his 
sorrowful  eye  would  disrobe  the  queen 
of  clubs,  or  the  lady  of  the  diamonds, 
while  the  problem  of  the  absent  legs 
on  these  two-headed  figures  would  bring 
up  images  suddenly  that  confused  his 
thoughts. 

Then  he  conceived  a  plan,  a  true  Nor- 
man plan  of  deceit.  He  would  have  his 
wife  take  a  maid  who  would  be  a  con- 
venience to  him;  not  a  beautiful  girl,  a 
coquette,  adorned  and  showy,  but  a 
gawky  woman,  rough  and  strong-backed, 
who  would  not  arouse  suspicions  and 
whom  he  would  acquaint  beforehand 
with  his  plans. 

She  was  recommended  to  them  by  the 
director  of  the  city  farm,  his  accomplice 
and  obliging  friend,  who  guaranteed  her 
under  all  relations  and  conditions.  And 
Mrs.  Bombard  accepted  with  confidence 
the  treasure  they  brought  to  her. 

Simon  was  happy,  happy  with  pre- 
caution, with  fear,  and  with  unbelieva- 
ble difficulties.  He  could  never  un- 
dress beyond   the  watchful  eye  of  his 


wife,  except  for  a  tew  short  moments 
from  time  to  time,  and  then  without 
tranquillity.  He  sought  some  plan, 
some  stratagem,  and  he  ended  by  find- 
ing one  that  suited  him  perfectly. 

Mrs.  Bombard,  who  had  nothing  to 
do,  retired  early,  while  Bombard,  who 
played  whist  at  the  Commerce  cafi,  re- 
turned each  evening  at  half  past  nine, 
exactly.  He  got  Victorine  to  wait  for 
him  in  the  passageway  of  his  house, 
under  the  vestibule  steps,  in  the  dark- 
ness. 

He  only  had  five  minutes  or  more  for 
he  was  always  in  fear  of  a  surprise; 
but  five  minutes  from  time  to  time  suf- 
ficed for  his  ardor,  and  he  slid  a  louis 
into  the  servant's  hand,  for  he  was  gen- 
erous  in  his  pleasures,  and  she  would 
quickly  remount  to  her  garret. 

And  he  laughed,  he  triumphed  all 
alone,  and  repeated  aloud,  like  King 
Midas's  barber  fishing  for  the  gold-fish 
from  the  reeds  on  the  river  bank:  "The 
mistress  is  safe  within." 

And  the  happiness  of  having  Mrs. 
Bombard  safely  fixed  within  made  up 
for  him  in  great  part  for  the  imperfec- 
tion and  incompleteness  of  his  conquest. 

One  evening  he  found  Victorine  wait- 
ing for  him  as  was  her  custom,  but  she 
appeared  to  him  more  lively,  more  ani- 
mated than  usual,  and  he  remained  per- 
haps ten  minutes  in  the  rendezvous  in 
the  corridor. 

When  he  entered  the  conjugal  cham- 
ber, Mrs.  Bombard  was  not  there.  He 
felt  a  cold  chill  run  down  his  back  and 
sunk  into  a  chair,  tortured  with  fear 

She  appeared  with  a  candlestick  in 
her  hand.    He  asked  trembling: 


414 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"You  have  been  out?" 

She  answered  quietly:  ''I  went  to 
the  kitchen  for  a  glass  of  water." 

He  forced  himself  to  calm  his  suspi- 
cions of  what  she  might  have  heard;  but 
she  seemed  tranquil,  happy,  confident, 
and  he  was  reassured. 

When  they  entered  the  dining-room 
for  breakfast  the  next  morning,  Vic- 
torine  put  the  cutlets  on  the  table.  As 
she  turned  to  go  out,   Mrs.   Bombard 


handed  her  a  louis  which  she  hela  up 
delicately  between  her  two  fingers,  and 
said  to  her,  with  her  calm,  serious  ac- 
cent: 

"Wait,  my  girl,  here  are  twenty  francs 
which  I  deprived  you  of  last  night.  I 
wish  to  give  them  to  you." 

And  the  girl,  amazed,  took  the  piece 
of  gold  which  she  looked  at  with  a 
stupid  air,  while  Bombard,  frightened, 
opened  his  eyes  wide  at  his  wife. 


Woman^s  Wiles 


'Women?" 

"Well,  what  do  you  say  about 
women?" 

"Well,  there  are  nu  conjurors  more 
subtle  in  taking  us  in  at  every  available 
opportunity  with  or  without  reason, 
often  for  the  sole  pleasure  of  playing 
tricks  on  us.  And  they  play  these  tricks 
with  incredible  simplicity,  astonishing 
audacity,  unparalleled  ingenuity.  They 
play  tricks  from  morning  till  night,  and 
they  all  do  it — the  most  virtuous,  the 
most  upright,  the  most  sensible  of  them. 
You  may  add  that  sometimes  they  are 
to  some  extent  driven  to  do  these  things. 
Man  has  alv/ays  idiotic  fits  of  obstinacy 
and  tyrannical  desires.  A  husband  is 
continually  giving  ridiculous  orders  in 
his  own  house.  He  is  full  of  caprices; 
his  wife  plays  on  them  even  while  she 
makes  use  of  them  for  the  purpose  of 
deception.  She  persuades  him  that  a 
thing  costs  so  much  because  he  would 
kick  up  a  row  if  its  price  were  higher. 
And  she  always  extricates  herself  from 
the   difficulty   cunningly    by   means    sc 


simple  and  so  sly  that  we  gape  with 
amazement  when  by  chance  we  discover 
them.  We  say  to  ourselves  in  a  stupe- 
fied state  of  mind,  'How  is  it  we  did 
not  see  this  till  now?'  " 

****** 

The  man  who  uttered  the  words  was 
an  ex-Minister  of  the  Empire,  the  Comte 

de   L ,   thorough   profligate,   it   was 

said,  and  a  very  accomplished  gentle- 
man. A  group  of  young  men  were  lis- 
tening to  him. 

He  went  on: 

"I  was  outwitted  by  an  ordinary  un- 
educated woman  in  a  comic  and  thor- 
ough-going fashion.  I  will  tell  you 
about  it  for  your  instruction. 

"I  was  at  the  time  Minister  for  For- 
eign Affairs,  and  I  was  in  the  habit  of 
taking  a  long  walk  every  morning  in 
the  Champs-Elysees.  It  was  the  month 
of  May;  I  walked  along,  sniffing  in 
eagerly  that  sweet  odor  of  budding 
leaves. 

"Ere  long,  I  noticed  that  I  used  to 
meet  every  day  a  charmine  little  woman. 


WOMAN  S  WILES 


4ir 


one  of  those  marvelous,  graceful  crea- 
tures, who  bear  the  trade-mark  of  Paris. 
Pretty?  Well,  yes  and  no.  Well-made? 
No,  better  than  that:  her  waist  was  too 
slight,  her  shoulders  too  narrow,  her 
breast  too  full,  no  doubt;  but  I  prefer 
those  exquisite  human  dolls  to  that  great 
statuesque  corpse,  the  Venus  of  Milo. 

"And  then  this  sort  of  woman  trots 
along  in  an  incomparable  fashion,  and 
the  very  rustle  of  her  skirt  fills  the  mar- 
row of  your  bones  with  desire.  She 
seemed  to  give  me  a  side-glance  as  she 
passed  me.  But  these  women  give  you 
all  sorts  of  looks — you  never  can  tell — 

"One  morning  I  saw  her  sitting  on  a 
bench  with  an  open  book  between  her 
hands.  I  came  across,  and  sat  down 
beside  her.  Five  minutes  later,  we 
were  friends.  Then,  each  day,  after 
the  smiling  salutation:  'Good  day, 
Madame,'  'Good  day.  Monsieur,'  we  be- 
gin to  chat.  She  told  me  that  she  was 
the  wife  of  a  government  clerk,  that  her 
life  was  a  sad  one,  that  in  it  pleasures 
were  few  and  cares  numerous,  and  a 
thousand  other  things. 

"I  told  her  who  I  was,  partly  through 
thoughtlessness,  and  partly  perhaps 
through  vanity.  She  pretended  to  be 
much  astonished. 

"  'Next  day  she  called  at  the  Min- 
istry to  see  me;  and  she  came  again 
there  so  often  that  the  ushers,  having 
their  attention  drawn  to  her  appear- 
ance, used  to  whisper  to  one  another,  as 
soon  as  they  saw  her,  the  name  with 
which  they  had  christened  her:  'Ma- 
dame Leon' — that  is  my  Christian  name. 

"For  three  months  I  saw  her  every 
morning  without  growing  tired  of  her 
for  a  second,  so  well  was  she  able  in- 
cessantly to  give  variety  and  piquancy 


to  her  physical  attractiveness.  But 
one  day  I  saw  that  her  eyes  were  blood- 
shot and  glowing  with  suppressed  tears, 
that  she  could  scarcely  speak,  so  much 
was  she  preoccupied  with  secret  troubles. 

"I  begged  of  her,  I  implored  of  her, 
to  tell  me  what  was  the  cause  of  her 
agitation. 

"She  faltered  out,  at  length,  with  a 
shudder:    'I  am — I  am  enceinte!* 

"And  she  burst  out  sobbing.  Oh!  1 
made  a  dreadful  grimace,  and  I  have  no 
doubt  I  turned  pale,  as  men  generally 
do  at  hearing  such  a  piece  of  news. 
You  cannot  conceive  what  an  unpleas- 
ant stab  you  feel  in  your  breast  at  the 
announcement  of  an  unexpected  pater- 
nity of  this  kind.  But  you  are  sure  to 
know  it  sooner  or  later.  So,  in  my 
turn,  I  gasped:  'But — ^but — ^you  are 
married,  are  you  not?' 

"She  answered:  'Yes,  but  my  hus- 
band has  been  away  in  Italy  for  the  last 
two  months  and  he  will  not  be  back  for 
some  time.' 

"I  was  determined  at  any  cost  to  get 
out  of  my  responsibility. 

"I  said:  'You  must  go  and  join  him 
immediately,' 

"She  reddened  to  her  very  temples, 
and  with  downcast  eyes,  murmured: 
'Yes — ^but — '  She  either  dared  not  or 
would  not  finish  the  sentence. 

"I  understood,  and  I  prudently  in- 
closed her  in  an  envelope  the  expenses 
of  the  journey. 

****** 

"Eight  days  later,  she  sent  me  a  let- 
ter from  Genoa.  The  following  week  I 
received  one  from  Florence.  Then  let« 
ters  reached  me  from  Leghorn,  Rome^ 
and  Naples. 

"She  said  to  me: 


416 

"•I  am  in  good  health,  my  dear  love, 
but  I  am  looking  frightful.  I  would  not 
care  to  have  you  see  me  till  it  is  all  over; 
you  would  not  love  me.  My  husband 
suspects  nothing.  As  his  business  in  this 
country  will  require  him  to  stay  there 
much  longer.  I  will  not  return  to  France 
imtil  after  my  confinement.* 

"And,  at  the  end  of  about  eight 
months,  I  received  from  Venice  these 
few  words: 

"'It  is  a  boy.' 

"Some  time  after  she  suddenly  en- 
tered  my  study  one  morning,  fresher 
and  prettier  than  ever,  and  flung  her- 
self into  my  arms.  And  our  former  con- 
nection was  renewed. 

"I  left  the  Ministry,  and  she  came  to 
live  in  my  house  in  the  Rue  de  Crenelle. 
She  often  spoke  to  me  about  the  child, 
but  I  scarcely  listened  to  what  she  said 
about  it;  it  did  not  concern  me.  Now 
and  then  I  placed  a  rather  large  sum 
of  money  in  her  hand,  saying:  Tut 
that  by  for  him.' 

•Two  more  years  glided  by;  and  she 
was  more  and  more  eager  to  tell  me 
some  news  about  the  youngster — 'about 
Leon.' 

"Sometimes  she  would  say  in  the 
midst  of  tears:  *You  don't  care  about 
him;  you  don't  even  wish  to  see  him. 
If  you  could  know  what  grief  you  cause 
me!' 

"At  last  I  was  so  much  harassed  by 
her  that  I  promised,  one  day,  to  go, 
next  morning,  to  the  Champs-Elysees 
when  she  took  the  child  there  for  an 
airing. 

"But  at  the  moment  when  I  was  leav- 
ing the  house.  I  was  stopped  by  a  sud- 
den apprehension.     Man  is  weak  and 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


foolish.  What  if  I  were  to  get  fond  of 
this  tiny  being  of  whom  I  was  the  father 
— my  son? 

"I  had  my  hat  on  my  head,  my  gloves 
in  my  hands.  I  flung  down  the  gloves 
on  my  desk,  and  my  hat  on  a  chair: 

"  'No,  decidedly  I  will  not  go;  it  is 
wiser  not  to  go.' 

"My  door  flow  open.  My  brother  en- 
tered the  room.  He  handed  me  an 
anonymous  letter  he  had  received  that 
morning: 

"  'Warn    the    Comte    de    L ,    your 

brother,  that  the  little  woman  of  the  Rue 
Casette  is  impudently  laughing  at  him. 
Let  him  make  some  inquiries  about  her.* 

"I  had  never  told  anybody  about  this 
intrigue,  and  I  now  told  my  brother 
the  history  of  it  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end.     I  added: 

"  'For  my  part,  I  don't  want  to  trou- 
ble myself  any  further  about  the  mat- 
ter; but  will  you,  like  a  good  fellow,  go 
and  find  out  what  you  can  about  her?' 

"When  my  brother  had  left  me,  I  said 
to  myself:  'In  what  way  can  she  have 
deceived  me?  She  has  other  lovers? 
What  does  it  matter  to  me?  She  is 
young,  fresh,  and  pretty;  I  ask  nothing 
more  from  her.  She  seems  to  love  me, 
and  as  a  matter  of  fact,  she  does  not 
cost  me  much.  Really,  I  don't  under- 
stand this  business.' 

"My  brother  speedily  returned.  He 
had  learned  from  the  police  all  that  was 
to  be  known  about  her  husband:  A 
clerk  in  the  Home  Department,  of  regu- 
lar habits  and  good  repute,  and,  more- 
over, a  thinking  man,  but  married  to 
a  very  pretty  woman,  whose  expenses 
seemed  somewhat  extravagant  for  hci 
modest  Dosition.     That  was  all 


WOMAN'S  WILES 


417 


"Now,  my  brother,  having  sought  for 
Uer  at  her  residence,  and  finding  that 
she  was  gone  out,  succeeded,  with  the 
assistance  of  a  little  gold,  in  making  the 

doorkeeper  chatter:     'Madame  D , 

a  very  worthy  woman,  and  her  husband 
a  very  worthy  man,  not  proud,  not  rich, 
but  generous.' 

"My  brother  asked,  for  the  sake  of 
saying  something: 

"  'How   old   is   her  little   boy   now?' 

"  'Why,  she  has  not  got  any  little  boy, 
Monsieur.* 

"  'What?    Little  Leon?' 

"  'No,  Monsieur,  you  are  making  a 
mistake.' 

"  'I  mean  the  child  she  had  while 
she  was  in  Italy  two  years  ago?' 

•'  'She  has  never  been  in  Italy,  Mon- 
sieur; she  has  not  quitted  the  house  she 
is  living  in  for  the  last  five  years.' 

"My  brother,  in  astonishment,  ques- 
tioned the  doorkeeper  anew,  and  then 
he  pushed  his  investigation  of  the  mat- 
ter further.    No  child,  no  journey. 

"I  was  prodigiously  astonished,  but 
without  clearly  understanding  the  final 
meaning  of  this  comedy. 

"  *I  want,'  said  I  to  him,  *to  have 
my  mind  perfectly  clear  about  the  af- 
fair. I  will  ask  her  to  come  here  to- 
morrow. You  shall  receive  her  in- 
stead of  me.  If  she  has  deceived  me, 
you  will  hand  her  these  ten  thousand 
francs,  and  I  will  never  see  her  again. 
In  fact,  I  am  beginning  to  find  I  have 
had  enough  of  her.' 

"Would  you  believe  it?  I  had  been 
grieved  the  night  before  because  I  had 
a  child  by  this  woman;  and  I  was 
now  irritated,  ashamed,  wounded  at 
having  no  more  of  her.  I  found  my- 
self free,  released  from  all  responsibil- 


ity, from  all  anxiety;  and  yet  I  felt  my- 
self raging  at  the  position  in  which  I 
was  placed. 

"Next  morning  my  brother  awaited 
her  in  my  study.  She  came  in  as 
quickly  as  usual,  rushing  toward  him 
with  outstretched  arms,  but  when  she 
saw  who  it  was  she  at  once  drew  back, 

"He  bowed,  and  excused  hiinself. 

"  *I  beg  your  pardon,  Madame,  for 
being  here  instead  of  my  brother;  but 
he  has  authorized  me  to  ask  you  for 
some  explanations  which  he  would  find 
it  painful  to  seek  from  you  himself.' 

"Then,  fixing  on  her  face  a  search- 
ing glance,  he  said  abruptly: 

"  'We  know  you  have  not  a  child  by 
him.' 

"After  the  first  moment  of  stupor,  she 
regained  her  composure,  took  a  seat, 
and  gazed  with  a  smile  at  this  man  who 
v/as  sitting  in  judgment  on  her. 

"She  answered  simply: 

"'No;  I  have  no  child.' 

"  'We  know  also  that  you  have  never 
been  in  Italy.' 

"This  time  she  burst  out  laughing  In 
earnest. 

"  'No ;  I  have  never  been  in  Italy.' 

"My  brother,  quite  stunned,  went  on: 

"  'The  Comte  has  requested  me  to 
give  you  this  money,  and  to  tell  you 
that  it  is  broken  off.' 

"She  became  serious  again,  calml) 
putting  the  money  into  her  pocket,  an(i 
in  an  ingenuous  tone,  asked: 

"  'And  I  am  not,  then,  to  see  the 
Comte  any  more?' 

"  'No,  Madame.' 

"She  appeared  to  be  annoyed,  and  in 
a  passionless  voice  she  said: 

"  'So  much  the  worse;  I  was  very 
fond  of  him.' 


418 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"Seeing  that  she  had  made  up  her 
mind  on  the  subject  so  resolutely,  my 
brother,  smiling  in  his  turn,  said  to  her: 

"  'Look  here,  now,  tell  me  why  you 
invented  all  this  long,  tricky  yarn,  com- 
plicating it  by  bringing  in  the  sham 
journey  to  Italy  and  the  child?' 

"She  gazed  at  my  brother  in  amaze- 
ment, as  if  he  had  asked  her  a  stupid 
question,  and  replied: 

"  'Well,  I  declare !  How  spiteful  you 
are!  Do  you  believe  a  poor  little 
woman  of  the  people  such  as  I  am — 
nothing  at  all — could  have  for  three 
years  kept  on  my  hands  the  Comte  de 

L ,  Minister,  a  great  personage,  a 

man  of  fashion,  wealthy,  and  seductive, 
if  she  had  not  taken  a  little  trouble 
about  it?  Now  it  is  all  over.  So  much 
the  worse.  It  couldn't  last  forever. 
None  the  less  I  succeeded  in  doing  it 
for  three  years.  You  will  say  many 
things  to  him  on  my  behalf.' 

"She  rose  up.  My  brother  continued 
questioning  her: 


"  'But— the  child?  You  had  one  to 
show  him?' 

"  'Certainly — my  sister's  child.  She 
lent  it  to  me.  I'd  bet  it  was  she  gave 
you  the  information.' 

"  'Good !  And  ajl  those  letters  from 
Italy?' 

"She  sat  down  again  so  as  to  laugb 
at  her  ease. 

"  'Oh!  those  letters — well,  they  were 
a  bit  of  poetry.  The  Comte  was  not 
a  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  for  noth- 
ing.' 

"  'But— another  thing?' 

"  'Oh!  the  other  thing  is  my  secret. 
I  don't  want  to  compromise  anyone.' 

"And  bowing  to  him  with  a  rather 
mocking  smile  she  left  the  room  with- 
out any  emotion,  an  actress  who  had 
played  her  part  to  the  end." 

And  the  Comte  de  h added  by 

way  of  moral: 

"So  take  care  about  putting  your 
trust  in  that  sort  of  turtledove!" 


Moonlight 


Madame  Julie  Roubere  was  await- 
ing her  elder  sister,  Madame  Henriette 
.Letore,  who  had  just  returned  after 
a  trip  to  Switzerland. 

The  Letore  household  had  left  nearly 
five  weeks  ago.  Madame  Henriette  had 
allowed  her  husband  to  return  alone 
to  their  estate  in  Calvados,  where  some 
matters  of  business  required  his  atten- 
tion, and  came  to  spend  a  few  days  in 
Paris  with  her  sister.  Night  came  on. 
In  the  quiet  parlor   darkened  by  twi- 


light  shadows,   Madame  Roubere  waj 
reading    in   an    absent-minded    fashion 
raising  her  eyes  whenever  she  heard  a 
sound. 

At  last  she  heard  a  ring  at  the  door, 
and  presently  her  sister  appeared, 
wrapped  in  a  traveling  cloak.  And  im- 
mediately, v/ithout  any  formal  greeting, 
they  clasped  each  other  ardently,  only 
desisting  for  a  moment  to  begin  em- 
bracing each  other  over  again.  Then 
they  talked,  asking  questions  about  each 


MOONLIGHT 


419 


cither's  health,  about  their  respective 
families,  and  a  thousand  other  things, 
gossiping,  jerking  out  hurried,  broken 
sentences,  and  rushing  about  while  Ma- 
dame Henriette  was  removing  her  hat 
and  veil. 

It  was  now  quite  dark.  Madame 
Roubere  rang  for  a  lamp,  and  as  soon 
as  it  was  brought  in,  she  scanned  her 
sister's  face,  and  was  on  the  point  of 
embracing  her  once  i-iore.  But  she  held 
back,  scared  and  astonished  at  the 
other's  appearance.  Around  her  tem- 
ples, Madame  Letore  had  two  long  locks 
of  white  hair.  All  the  rest  of  her  hair 
was  of  a  glossy,  raven-black  hue;  but 
there  alone,  at  each  side  of  her  head, 
ran,  as  it  were,  two  silvery  streams 
which  were  immediately  lost  in  the  black 
mass  surrounding  them.  She  was, 
nevertheless,  only  twenty-four  years  old, 
and  this  change  had  come  on  suddenly 
since  her  departure  for  Switzerland. 

Without  moving,  Madame  Roubere 
gazed  at  her  in  amazement,  tears  ris- 
ing to  her  eyes,  as  she  thought  that 
some  mysterious  and  terrible  calamity 
must  have  fallen  on  her  sister.  She 
asked : 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you,  Hen- 
riette?" 

Smiling  with  a  sad  smile,  the  smile  of 
one  who  is  heartsick,  the  other  replied: 

*'Why,  nothing,  I  assure  you.  Were 
you  noticing  my  white  hair?" 

But  Madame  Roubere  impetuously 
seized  her  by  the  shoulders,  and  with  a 
searching  glance  at  her,  repeated: 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you?  Tell 
me  what  is  the  matter  with  you.  And 
if  you  tell  me  a  falsehood  I'll  soon 
find  it  out." 

They    remained    face    to    face^    and 


Madame  Henriette,  who  became  so  pale 
that  she  was  near  fainting,  had  two 
pearly  tears  at  each  corner  of  her 
drooping  eyes. 

Her  sister  went  on  asking: 

"What  has  happened  to  you?  What 
is  the  matter  with  you?     Answer  me!" 

Then,  in  a  subdued  voice,  the  other 
murmured : 

"I  have — I  have  a  lover." 

And,  hiding  her  forehead  on  the  shoul- 
der of  her  younger  sister,  she  sobbed. 

Then,  when  she  had  grown  a  little 
calmer,  when  the  heaving  of  her  breast 
had  subsided,  she  commenced  to  un« 
bosom  herself,  as  if  to  cast  forth  this 
secret  from  herself,  to  empty  this  sor- 
row of  hers  into  a  sympathetic  heart. 

Thereupon,  holding  each  other's 
hands  tightly  grasped,  the  two  women 
went  over  to  a  sofa  in  a  dark  corner  of 
the  room,  into  which  they  sank,  and  the 
younger  sister,  passing  her  arm  over  the 
elder  one's  neck  and  drawing  her  close- 
to  her  heart,  listened. 

****** 

"Oh!  I  recognize  that  there  was  no 
excuse  for  one;  I  do  not  understand  my- 
self, and  since  that  day  I  feel  as  if  I 
were  mad.  Be  careful,  my  child,  about 
yourself— be  careful!  If  you  only  knew 
how  weak  we  are,  how  quickly  we 
yield,  a  moment  of  tenderness,  one  of 
those  sudden  fits  of  melancholy  which 
steal  into  your  soul,  one  of  those  long- 
ings to  open  your  arms,  to  love,  to  em- 
brace, which  we  all  have  at.  certain  mo<? 
ments. 

"You  know  my  husband,  and  you 
know  how  fond  of  him  I  am ;  but  he  is 
mature  and  sensible,  and  cannot  even 
comprehend  the  tender  vibrations  of  a 
woman's  heart.     He  is  always,  always 


420 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


the  same,  always  good,  always  smiling, 
always  kind,  always  perfect.  Oh!  how 
I  sometimes  have  wished  that  he  would 
roughly  clasp  me  m  his  arms,  that  he 
would  embrace  me  with  those  slow,  sweet 
kisses  which  make  two  beings  inter- 
mingle, which  are  like  mute  confidences! 
How  I  wished  that  he  was  self -abandoned 
and  even  weak,  so  that  he  should  have 
need  of  me,  of  my  caresses,  of  my 
tears ! 

"This  all  seems  very  silly;  but  we 
women  are  made  like  that.  How  can 
we  help  it? 

"And  yet  the  thought  of  deceiving 
never  came  near  me.  To-day,  it  has 
happened,  without  love,  without  reason, 
without  anything,  simply  because  the 
moon  shone  one  night  on  the  Lake  of 
Lucerne. 

"During  the  month  when  we  were 
traveling  together,  my  husband,  with 
his  calm  indifference,  paralyzed  my  en- 
thusiasm, extinguished  my  poetic  ardor. 
When  we  were  descending  the  moun- 
tain paths  at  sunrise,  when  as  the  four 
horses  galloped  along  with  the  diligence, 
we  saw,  in  the  transparent  morning  haze, 
valleys,  woods,  streams,  and  villages,  I 
clasped  my  hands  with  delight,  and 
said  to  him:  'What  a  beautiful  scene, 
darling!  Kiss  me  now!'  he  only  an- 
swered, with  a  smile  of  chilling  kindli- 
ness, There  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
kiss  each  other  because  you  like  the 
landscape.' 

"And  his  words  froze  me  to  the  heart. 
It  seems  to  me  that  when  people  love 
«ach  other,  they  ought  to  feel  more 
Jroved  hy  love  than  ever  in  the  presence 
of  beautiful  scenes. 

"Indeed,  he  prevented  the  effervescent 
jw>etry  that  bubbled  up  within  me  from 


gushing  out.  How  can  I  expriws  it?  I 
was  almost  like  a  boiler,  filled  with 
steam,  and  hermetically  sealed. 

"One  evening  (we  had  been  for  four 
days  staying  in  the  Hotel  de  Fluelen), 
Robert,  having  got  one  of  his  sick  head- 
aches, went  to  bed  immediately  after 
dinner,  and  I  went  to  take  a  walk  all 
alone  along  the  edge  of  the  lake. 

"It  was  a  night  such  as  one  might 
read  of  in  a  fairy  tale.  The  full  moon 
showed  itself  in  the  middle  of  the  sky; 
the  tall  mountains,  with  their  snowy 
crests,  seemed  to  wear  silver  crowns; 
the  waters  of  the  lake  glittered  with 
tiny  rippling  motions.  The  air  was 
mild,  with  that  kind  of  penetrating 
freshness  which  softens  us  till  we  seem 
to  be  swooiiing,  to  be  deeply  affected 
without  any  apparent  cause.  But  how 
sensitive,  how  vibrating,  the  heart  is  at 
such  moments!  How  quickly  it  leaps 
up,  and  how  intense  are  its  emotions! 

"I  sat  down  on  the  grass,  and  gazed 
at  that  vast  lake  so  melancholy  and  so 
fascinating;  and  a  strange  thing  passed 
into  me;  I  became  possessed  with  an 
insatiable  need  of  love,  a  revolt  against 
the  gloomy  dullness  of  my  life.  What! 
would  it  never  be  my  fate  to  be  clasped 
in  the  arms  of  a  man  whom  I  loved  on 
a  bank  like  this  under  the  glowing 
moonlight?  Was  I  never  then,  to  feel 
on  my  lips  those  kisses  so  deep,  deli- 
cious, and  intoxicating  which  lovers  ex- 
change on  nights  that  seem  to  have  been 
made  by  God  for  passionate  embraces? 
Was  I  never  to  know  such  ardent, 
feverish  love  in  the  moonlit  shadows 
of  a  summer's  night? 

"And  I  burst  out  weeping  like  a 
woman  who  has  io5t  her  reason.  I 
heard  some  person  stirring  behind  me. 


DOUBTFUL  HAPPINESS 


421 


A  man  was  intently  gazing  at  me.  When 
I  turned  my  head  round,  he  recognized 
me,  and,  advancing,  said: 

"  'You  are  weeping,   Madame?' 

*'It  was  a  young  barrister  who  was 
traveling  with  his  mother,  and  whom  we 
bad  often  met.  His  eyes  had  fre- 
quently followed  me. 

"I  was  so  much  confused  that  I  did 
not  know  what  answer  to  give  or  what 
to  think  of  the  situation.  I  told  him  I 
felt  ill. 

"He  walked  on  by  my  side  in  a 
natural  and  respectful  fashion,  and  be- 
gan talking  to  me  about  what  we  had 
seen  during  our  trip.  All  that  I  had 
felt  he  translated  into  words;  every- 
thing that  made  me  thrill  he  understood 
perfectly,  better  even  than  I  did  myself. 
And  all  of  a  sudden  he  recited  some 
verses  of  Alfred  de  Musset.  I  felt  my- 
self choking,  seized  with  indescribable 


emotion.  It  seemed  to  me  that  the 
mountains  themselves,  the  lake,  the 
moonlight,  were  singing  to  me  /'bout 
things  ineffably  sweet. 

"And  it  happened,  I  don't  know  how, 
I  don't  know  why,  in  a  sort  of  hallucina- 
tion. 

"As  for  him,  I  did  not  see  him  again 
till  the  morning  of  his  departure. 

"He  gave  me  his  card!" 

>i(  *  >|(  4i  4:  4i 

And,  sinking  into  her  sister's  arms, 
Madame  Letore  broke  into  groans — al- 
most into  shrieks. 

Then  Madame  Roub^re,  with  a  self- 
contained  and  serious  air,  said  very 
gently : 

"You  see,  sister,  very  often  it  is  not 
a  man  that  we  love,  but  love.  And 
your  real  lover  that  night  was  the  moon- 

light.'» 


Doubtful  Happiness 


1  CAN  neither  tell  you  the  name  of 
the  country  nor  of  the  man.  It  was 
far,  far  from  here,  upon  a  hot,  fertile 
coast.  We  folloved,  since  morning,  the 
shore  and  the  wheat  fields  and  the  sea 
covered  with  the  sun.  Flowers  grew 
down  very  near  the  waves,  the  light 
waves,  so  sweet  and  sleepy.  It  was 
very  warm ;  but  a  gentle  heat,  perfumed 
with  the  fat,  humid,  fruitful  earth;  one 
could  believe  that  he  was  breathing 
germs. 

I  had  been  told  that  this  evening  I 
would  find  hospitality  in  the  house  of  a 
Frenchman  who  lived  at  the  end  of  the 


promontory,  in  a  grove  of  orange-trees. 
Who  was  he?  I  do  not  know  yet.  He 
had  arrived  one  morning,  ten  years  be- 
fore this,  bought  the  land,  planted  his 
vines,  and  sown  his  seed;  he  had  worked, 
had  this  man,  with  passion  and  fury. 
Month  after  month  and  year  after  year 
he  had  added  to  his  domains,  making 
the  fertile,  virgin  soil  yield  without 
ceasing,  and  amassing  a  fortune  by  his 
indefatigable  labor. 

It  was  said  that  he  worked  constantly. 
Up  with  the  dawn,  going  through  his 
fields  until  night,  superintending  every- 
thing without  rest,  he  seemed  harassed 


422 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


by  a  fixed  idea,  tortured  by  an  in- 
satiable desire  for  money  which  noth- 
satiable  desire  for  money  which  noth- 

Now  he  seemed  to  be  very  rich. 

The  sun  was  setting  when  I  reached 
his  dwelhng.  This  dweUing  was  at  the 
end  of  a  point  in  the  midst  of  orange- 
trees.  It  was  a  large,  square  house,  very 
simple,  overlooking  the  sea. 

As  I  approached,  a  large,  bearded 
man  appeared  in  the  doorway.  Hav- 
ing saluted  him,  I  asked  for  shelter  for 
the  night.  He  extended  his  hand  and 
said,  smiling: 

"Enter,  sir,  you  are  at  home." 

He  led  me  to  a  room,  gave  some  or- 
ders to  a  servant  with  the  perfect  ease 
and  good  grace  of  a  man  of  the  world, 
then  he  left  me  saying: 

"We  will  dine  when  you  are  ready  to 
come  down." 

We  dined,  tete-a-tete,  upon  a  terrace 
opposite  the  sea.  At  first,  I  sp>oke  of 
his  country,  so  rich,  so  far  away,  so  lit- 
tle known!  He  smiled,  answering  in  an 
abstracted  way: 

"Yes,  this  is  a  pretty  country.  But 
no  country  pleases  one  much  when  it  is 
far  from  those  they  love." 

"You  regret  France?" 

'1— I  long  for  Paris." 

"Why  not  return  there?" 

"Oh!    I  am  going  to  return  there." 

And  gradually  we  begin  to  talk  of  the 
French  world,  of  the  boulevards,  and 
of  the  many  features  of  Paris.  He  asks 
Jne  about  men  he  has  known,  cites 
uames,  all  of  them  familiar  names  upon 
the  vaudeville  stage. 

"Who  does  one  see  at  Tortoni's  these 
days?" 

"The  same  ones,  except  the  dead." 

I  looked  at  him  with  marked  interest, 


pursued  by  some  vague  remembrance. 
Certainly  I  had  seen  that  head  some- 
where! But  where?  And  when?  He 
seemed  fatigued,  although  vigorous,  sad, 
though  resolute.  His  great  blond  beard 
fell  upon  his  breast,  and  sometimes  he 
would  take  it  near  his  chin  and  draw 
it  through  his  closed  hand,  slippmg  it 
along  to  the  very  end.  He  was  a  little 
bald  but  had  thick  eyebrows  and  a 
heavy  mustache  which  mingled  with  the 
hair  of  his  beard. 

Behind  us  the  sun  was  disappearing 
in  the  sea,  throwing  upon  the  coast  a 
cloud  of  fire.  The  orange-trees,  in 
flower,  exhaled  a  powerful,  delicious 
fragrance  on  the  evening  air.  Seeing 
nothing  but  me,  and  fixing  his  look  upon 
me,  he  seemed  to  discover  in  my  eyes, 
to  see  at  the  depth  of  my  soul,  the  well- 
known,  much  loved  image  of  the  broad 
walk,  so  far  away,  that  extends  from  the 
Madeleine  to  the  Rue  Drouot. 

"Do  you  know  Bourtelle?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,  certainly." 

"Is  he  much  changed?" 

"Yes,  he  is  all  white." 

"And  the  Ridamie?" 

"Always  the  sam.e." 

"And  the  women?  Tell  me  about  the 
women.  Let  us  see.  Did  you  know 
Suzanne  Verner?" 

"Yes,  very  well,  to  the  end." 

"Ah!    And  Sophie  Astier?" 

"Dead!" 

"Poor  girl!  Can  it  be —  Did  you 
know — " 

He  was  suddenly  silent.  Then,  in  a 
changed  voice,  his  face  growing  pale,  he 
continued : 

"No,  it  is  better  not  to  speak  of  her, 
it  disturbs  me  so." 


DOUBTFUL  HAPPINESS 


423 


Then,  as  if  to  change  the  trend  of 
his  thought,  he  rose  and  said: 

"Do  you  wish  to  go  in?" 

"I  am  willing  to  go."  And  I  followed 
him  into  the  house. 

The  rooms  downstairs  were  enormous, 
bare,  sad,  and  seemed  abandoned.  Some 
glass  dishes  were  set  upon  the  table  by 
the  tawny-skinned  servants  who  con- 
stantly roamed  around  this  dwelling. 
Two  guns  hung  upon  two  nails  on  the 
wall;  and,  in  the  comers,  were  to  be 
seen  some  spades,  some  fish  lines,  dried 
palm  leaves,  and  objects  of  every  kind 
placed  there  at  random  by  those  en- 
tering, that  they  might  find  them  at 
hand  should  they  chance  to  have  need 
of  them  on  going  out. 

My  host  smiled : 

"This  is  a  lodge,  or  rather  the  lodging 
place  of  an  exile,"  said  he,  "but  my 
chamber  is  more  as  it  should  be.  Let 
us  go  in  there." 

I  thought,  on  entering,  that  I  was  in 
a  curiosity  shop,  so  filled  was  the  room 
with  all  kinds  of  things,  things  discon- 
nected, strange,  and  varied,  that  one 
felt  to  be  souvenirs  of  something.  Upon 
the  walls  were  two  pretty  engravings  of 
well-known  paintings,  some  stuffs,  some 
arms,  swords,  pistols;  then,  in  the  mid- 
die  of  the  principal  panel,  a  square  of 
white  satin  in  a  gold  frame. 

Surprised,  I  approached  to  look  at  it, 
when  I  perceived  a  pin  which  held  a 
hair  in  the  middle  of  the  shining  silk. 

My  host  placed  his  hand  on  my  shoul- 
der and  said,  smiling: 

"That  is  the  only  thing  that  I  see 
here  and  the  only  thing  I  have  seen  for 
ten  years.  Mr.  Prudhomme  exclaims: 
*This  sword  is  the  most  beautiful  day  in 


my  life.'  But  I  say:  This  pin  is  all 
of  my  life.'  " 

I  sought  for  a  commonplace  phrase 
and  ended  by  saying: 

"You  have  suffered  through  some 
woman?" 

He  replied  brusquely:  "You  may 
say  I  have  suffered,  miserably,  —  but 
come  out  on  my  balcony.  A  name 
has  suddenly  come  to  my  lips  that  I 
have  not  dared  to  pronounce,  because, 
if  you  had  answered  'dead'  as  you  did 
when  I  spoke  of  Sophie  Astier,  my 
brain  would  be  on  fire,  even  to-day." 

We  were  upon  a  large  balcony  where 
we  could  see  two  gulfs,  one  on  the  right 
and  the  other  on  the  left,  shut  in  by 
high,  gray  mountains.  It  was  the  hour 
of  twilight,  when  the  sun,  entirely  out 
of  sight,  no  longer  lights  the  earth,  ex- 
cept by  reflection  from  the  sky. 

He  continued:  "Do  you  know  if 
Jeanne  de  Limours  still  lives?" 

His  eye,  fixed  on  mine,  was  full  of 
trembling  anxiety.  I  smiled  and  an- 
swered : 

"Yes,  indeed,  and  prettier  than  ever." 

"You  know  her?" 

"Yes." 

He  hesitated.  Then  asked:  "Com* 
pletely?" 

"No.'» 

He  took  my  hand.  "Tell  me  about 
her,"  said  he. 

"I  have  nothing  to  tell ;  she  is  one  of 
the  most  charming  women,  or  rather 
girls,  in  Paris,  and  the  most  courted. 
She  leads  an  agreeable,  princess-like 
existence,  that  is  all." 

He  murmured:  "I  love  her,"  as  if 
he  had  said:  "I  am  going  to  die.** 
Then,  brusquely:  "Ah!  for  three  years 
that  was  a  frightful  but  delicious  exist- 


WORKi.  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


424 

ence  of  ours.  I  was  very  near  killing 
her  five  or  six  times  and  she  tried  to  put 
out  my  eyes  with  that  pin  you  were  just 
looking  at.  Wait !  Do  you  see  the  lit- 
tle white  point  under  my  left  eye?  That 
shows  how  we  loved  each  other!  How 
can  I  explain  this  passion?  You  could 
never  comprehend  it. 

"There  should  be  such  a  tMng  as  a 
simple  lo'  e,  born  of  the  force  of  two 
hearts  and  two  souls;  and  assuredly 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  an  atrocious  love, 
cruelly  torturing,  born  of  the  invinci- 
ble rapture  of  two  beings  totally  un- 
like, who  detest  while  they  adore  each 
other. 

"This  girl  ruined  me  in  three  years. 
I  possessed  four  millions  which  she 
squandered  in  her  calm  way,  tranquilly, 
and  destroyed  with  a  sweet  smile  which 
seemed  to  fall  from  her  eyes  upon  her 
lips. 

"You  know  her?  Then  you  know  that 
there  is  something  irresistible  about  her ! 
What  is  it !  I  do  not  know.  Is  it  those 
gray  eyes,  whose  lOok  enters  into  you 
and  remains  there  like  the  barb  of  an 
arrow?  Or  is  it  rather  that  sweet  smile, 
mdifferent  and  seductive,  which  stays 
on  her  face  like  a  mask?  Her  slow  man- 
ner penetrates,  little  by  little,  and  takes 
hold  of  you  like  a  perfume,  as  does  her 
tall  figure,  which  seems  to  balance  it- 
self as  she  passes,  for  she  glides  instead 
of  walking,  and  her  sweet  voice,  which 
drags  a  little  and  is  so  pretty  that  it 
seems  to  be  the  music  of  her  smile;  her 
gestures  too,  her  always  moderate  ges- 
tures, always  right,  which  intoxicate  the 
eye,  so  harmonious  are  they. 

"For  three  years,  I  saw  only  her  upon 
the  earth!  How  I  suffered!  Because 
she  deceived  me  as  well  as  everybody 


else.  Why?  For  no  reason,  only  for 
the  sake  of  deceiving.  And  when  I 
found  it  out  and  accused  her  c  f  being  a 
street  girl,  a  bad  woman,  she  said  tran- 
quilly: 'Weil,  we  are  not  married,  are 
we?' 

"Since  I  have  come  here,  I  have 
thought  much  about  her,  and  have  suc- 
ceeded in  understanding  her,  that  girl  is 
Manon  Lescaut  over  again.  Manon 
could  never  love  without  deceiving,  and 
for  her  love,  pleasure  and  money  were 
all." 

He  was  silent.  Then,  after  some  min- 
utes he  added: 

"When  I  had  squandered  my  last  sou 
for  her,  she  simply  said  to  me:  'You 
understand,  my  dear,  that  I  cannot  live 
on  air  and  weather.  I  love  you  very 
much,  T  love  you  more  than  anyone,  but 
I  must  live.  Misery  and  I  can  never 
dwell  in  the  same  housu.' 

"And  if  I  could  only  tell  you  what  an 
atrocious  life  I  led  by  her  side!  When- 
ever I  looked  at  her  I  had  as  much  de- 
sire to  kill  her  as  I  had  to  embrace  her. 
Whenever  I  looked  at  her  there  came  to 
me  a  furious  desire  to  open  my  arms, 
P'ess  her  to  me  until  I  strangled  her. 
There  was  something  about  her,  behind 
her  eyes,  something  perfidious  and  un- 
seizable  which  made  me  furious  against 
her;  and  perhaps  it  was  for  that  very 
reason  that  I  loved  her  so  much.  In  her 
the  Feminine,  the  odious,  frightful  Fen:- 
inine,  was  more  prominent  than  in  any 
other  woman.  She  was  charged  and  sur- 
charged with  it,  as  with  a  venomous 
fluid.  She  was  Woman,  more  than  any- 
one else  has  ever  been. 

"And  whenever  I  went  out  with  her. 
she  would  cast  her  eyes  over  all  men  hi 
such  a  fashion  that  she  seemed  to  giva 


HUMILIATION 


42  S 


herself  to  each  one  with  only  a  look. 
This  exasperated  me,  but  attached  me 
more  strongly  to  her,  nevertheless.  This 
creature  belonged  to  everybody  from 
merely  passing  through  the  street,  in 
spite  of  me,  in  spite  of  herself,  from  her 
very  nature,  although  the  allurement 
was  most  modest  and  sweet.  Do  you 
understand? 

"And  what  torment!  At  the  theater, 
in  a  restaurant,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
everyone  possessed  her  before  my  eyes. 
And  whenever  I  left  her  alone,  others 
did,  in  fact,  possess  her. 

"It  is  ten  years  now  since  I  saw  her, 
and  1  love  her  nov/  more  than  ever." 

Might  had  spread  over  the  earth.    A 


powerful  perfume  of  orange  flowers  in 
the  air. 

I  said  to  him:  "Will  you  try  to  see 
her  again?" 

He  answered:  "Surely!  I  have  here 
now,  in  money  and  land,  seven  or  eight 
hundred  thousand  francs.  When  the  mil- 
lion is  completed,  I  shall  sell  all  and  set 
out.  With  that  I  can  have  one  year  with 
her,  one  good,  entire  year.  And  then- 
adieu;  my  life  will  be  finished." 

I  asked:     "And  after  that?" 
"After  that,"  he  answered,  "1  don^ 
know.     It  will  be  finished.     Perhaps  I 
shall  ask  her  to  take  me  as  a  valet  de 
chamhre" 


Humiliation 


The  two  young  women  have  the  ap- 
pearance of  being  buried  in  a  bed  of 
flowers.  They  are  alone  in  an  immense 
landau  filled  with  bouquets  like  a  giant 
basket.  Upon  the  seat  before  them  are 
two  small  hampers  full  of  Nice  violets, 
and  upon  the  bear-skin  which  covers 
their  knees  is  a  heap  of  roses,  gilly- 
flowers, marguerites,  tuberoses,  and 
orange  flowers,  bound  together  with  silk 
ribbons,  which  seem  to  crush  the  two 
delicate  bodies*  only  allowing  to  appear 
above  the  spread-out,  perfumed  bed  the 
shoulders,  arms,  and  a  little  of  their 
bodices,  one  of  which  is  blue  and  the 
other  lilac. 

The  coachman's  whip  bears  a  sheath 
of  anemones,  the  horses'  heads  are 
decorated  with  wallflowers,  the  spokes  of 
the  wheels  ar*»   clothed  in  mignonette. 


and  in  place  of  laniems,  there  are  two 
round,  enormous  bouquets,  which  seem 
like  the  two  eyes  of  this  strange,  rolling, 
flowery  beast. 

The  landau  goes  along  Antibes  street 
at  a  brisk  trot,  preceded,  followed,  and 
accompanied  by  a  crowd  or  other  gar- 
landed carriages  full  of  women  con- 
cealed under  a  billow  of  violets.  For  it 
is  the  Flower  Festival  at  Cannes. 

They  arrived  at  the  Fonciere  Boule- 
vard where  the  battle  takes  place.  The 
whole  length  of  the  immense  avenue,  a 
doubl  line  of  bedecked  equipages  waf 
going  and  coming,  like  a  ribbon  withoui 
end.  They  threw  flowers  from  one  to 
the  other.  Flowers  passed  in  the  air 
like  balls,  hit  the  fair  faces,  hovered  and 
fell  in  the  dust  where  an  army  of  street 
urchins  gathered  them. 


426 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


A  compact  crowd,  clamorous  but  or- 
derly, looked  on,  standing  in  rows  upon 
the  sidewalks,  and  held  in  place  by  po- 
licemen on  horseback  who  passed  along, 
pushing  back  the  curious  brutally  with 
their  feet,  in  order  that  the  villains  might 
not  mingle  with  the  rich. 

Now,  the  people  in  the  carriages  rec- 
ognize each  other,  call  to  each  other,  and 
bombard  one  another  with  roses.  A 
chariot  full  of  pretty  young  women, 
clothed  in  red  like  devils,  attracts  and 
holds  all  eyes.  One  gentleman,  who  re- 
sembles the  portraits  of  Henry  IV.j 
throws  repeatedly,  with  joyous  ardor,  a 
huge  bouquet  retained  by  an  elastic.  At 
the  threat  of  the  blow  the  women  lower 
their  heads  and  hide  their  eyes,  but  the 
gracious  projectile  only  describes  a 
curve  and  again  returns  to  its  master, 
who  immediately  throws  it  again  to  a 
new  face. 

The  two  young  women  empty  their 
arsenal  with  full  hands  and  receive  a 
shower  of  bouquets ;  then,  after  an  hour 
of  battle,  a  little  wearied  at  the  last, 
they  order  the  coachman  to  take  the 
road  to  the  Juan  gulf,  which  skirts  the 
sea. 

The  sun  disappeared  behind  the 
listerel,  outlining  in  black,  upon  a  back- 
ground of  fire,  the  lacey  silhouette  of 
tiie  stretched-out  mountain.  The  calm 
sea  was  spread  out  blue  and  clear  as 
far  as  the  horizon,  where  it  mingled 
with  the  sky  and  with  the  squadron  an- 
chored in  the  middle  of  the  gulf,  hav- 
ing the  appearance  of  a  troop  of  mon- 
strous beasts,  immovable  upon  the 
water,  apocalyptic  animals,  hump-backed 
and  clothed  in  coats-of-mail,  capped 
with  thin  masts  like  plumes,  and  v;ith 


eyes  that  lighted  up  when  night  came 
on. 

The  young  women,  stretched  out  un- 
der the  fur  robe,  looked  upon  it  lan- 
guidly.    Finally  one  of  them  said: 

"How  delicious  these  evenings  are! 
Everything  seems  good.  Is  it  not  so, 
Margot?" 

The  other  replied:  "Yes.  it  is  good. 
But  there  is  always  something  lacking." 

"What  is  it?  For  my  part,  I  am  com- 
pletely happy.    I  have  need  of  nothing." 

"Yes?  You  think  so,  perhaps.  But 
whatever  well-being  surrounds  our 
bodies,  we  always  desire  something  more 
— for  the  heart." 

Said  the  other,  smiling:  "A  little 
love?" 

"Yes." 

They  were  silent,  looking  straight  be- 
fore them;  then  the  one  called  Margue- 
rite said:  "Life  does  not  seem  support- 
able to  me  without  that.  I  need  to  be 
loved,  if  only  by  a  dog.  And  we  are 
all  so,  whatever  you  may  say,  Simone.'* 

"No,  no,  my  dear.  I  prefer  not  to  be 
loved  at  all  than  to  be  loved  by  no  one 
of  importance.  Do  you  think,  for  ex- 
ample, that  it  would  be  agreeable  to 
me  to  be  loved  by — ^by — " 

She  looked  for  some  one  by  whom 
che  could  possibly  be  loved,  casting  her 
eyes  over  the  neighboring  country.  Her 
eyes,  after  having  made  the  tour  of  the 
whole  horizon,  fell  upon  the  two  metal 
buttons  shining  on  the  coachman's  back, 
and  she  continued,  laughing,  "By  my 
coachman?" 

Miss  Marguerite  scarcely  smiled  as 
she  replied: 

"I  can  assure  you  it  is  very  amusing 
to  be  loved  by  a  domestic.  This  has 
happened   to  me   two   or   three    times. 


HUlvriLIATION 


427 


ITiey  roll  their  eyes  so  queerly  that  one 
is  dying  to  laugh.  Naturally,  the  more 
one  is  \oved,  the  more  severe  she  be- 
comes, since  otherwise,  one  puts  herself 
in  the  way  of  being  made  ridiculous  for 
some  very  slight  cause,  if  anyone  hap- 
pened  to  observe  it." 

Miss  Simone  listened,  her  look  fixed 
straight  before  her;  then  she  declared: 

"No,  decidedly,  the  heart  of  my  valet 
at  my  feet  would  not  appear  to  me  suf- 
ficient. But  tell  me  how  you  perceived 
that  you  were  loved." 

"I  perceived  it  in  them  as  I  do  in 
other  men,  they  become  so  stupid!" 

"But  others  do  not  appear  so  stupid 
to  me,  when  they  are  in  love." 

"Idiots,  my  dear,  incapable  of  chat- 
ting, of  answering,  of  comprehending 
anything." 

"And  you?  What  effect  did  it  have 
on  you  to  be  loved  by  a  domestic?  Were 
you  moved — flattered?" 

"Moved?  No.  Flattered?  Yes,  a 
little.  One  is  always  flattered  by  the 
love  of  a  man,  whoever  he  may  be." 

"Oh!  now,  Margot!" 

"Yes,  my  dear.  Wait!  I  will  tell  you 
a  singular  adventure  that  happened  to 
me.  You  will  see  what  curious  things 
take  place  among  us  in  such  cases. 

"It  was  four  years  ago  in  the  autumn, 
when  I  found  myself  without  a  maid.  I 
had  tried  five  or  six,  one  after  the  other, 
all  of  them  incompetent,  and  almost 
despaired  of  finding  one,  when  I  read  in 
the  advertisements  of  a  newspaper  of  a 
young  girl,  knowing  how  to  sew,  em- 
broider, and  dress  hair,  who  was  seeking 
a  place  and  could  furnish  the  best  of 
references.  She  could  also  speak  Eng- 
lish. 

"I  wrote  to  the  address  given,  and  the 


next  day  the  person  in  question  pre- 
sented herself.  She  was  rather  tall, 
thin,  a  little  pale,  with  a  very  timid  air. 
She  had  beautiful  black  eyes,  a  charm- 
ing color,  and  she  pleased  me  at  once. 
I  asked  for  her  references;  she  gave  me 
one  written  in  English,  because  she  had 
come,  she  said,  from  the  house  of  Lady 
Ryswell,  where  she  had  been  for  ten 
years. 

"The  certificate  attested. that  the  girl 
was  returning  to  France  of  her  own  wil\, 
and  that  she  had  nothing  to  reproach 
her  for  during  her  long  service  with  her, 
except  a  little  of  the  French  coquettish- 
ness. 

*'The  modest  turn  of  the  English 
phrase  made  me  smile  a  little  and  I  en- 
gaged the  maid  immediately.  She  came 
to  my  house  the  same  day;  she  called 
herself  Rose. 

"At  the  end  of  a  month,  I  adored 
her.  She  was  a  treasure,  a  pearl,  a 
phenomenon. 

"She  could  dress  my  hair  with  ex- 
quisite taste;  she  could  flute  the  lace 
of  a  cap  better  than  the  best  of  the  pro> 
fessionals,  and  she  could  make  frocks. 
I  was  amazed  at  her  ability.  Never 
had  I  been  so  well  served. 

"She  dressed  me  rapidly  with  an  as- 
tonishing lightness  of  hand.  I  never  felt 
her  fingers  upon  my  skin,  and  nothing 
is  more  disagreeable  to  me  than  con- 
tact with  a  maid's  hand.  I  immediately 
got  into  excessively  idle  habits,  so  pleas- 
ant was  it  to  let  her  dress  me  from  head 
to  foot,  from  chemise  to  gloves — ^this 
tall,  timid  girl,  always  blushing  a  little 
and  never  speaking.  After  my  bath,  she 
would  rub  me  and  massage  me  while  I 
slept  a  little  while  on  my  divan ;  indeed, 
I  came   to  look   upon  her  more  as  a 


•.28 


WORKS  OF  Girv  DE  MAUPASSANT 


friend  iri  poorer  circumstances,  than  a 
servant. 

"One  mDrning  the  concierge,  with 
some  show  of  mystery,  said  he  wished 
to  speak  to  me.  I  was  surprised  but 
let  him  enter.  He  was  an  old  soldier, 
once  orderly  lor  my  husband. 

"He  appeared  to  hesitate  at  what  he 
was  going  to  say.  Finally,  he  said  stam- 
meringly:  'Madame,  the  police  cap- 
tain for  this  district  is  downstairs.* 

*'I  asked:     'What  does  he  want?' 

"  'He  wants  to  seaich  the  house.' 

"Certainly  the  police  are  necessary, 
but  I  do  detest  them.  I  never  can  make 
it  seem  a  noble  profession.  And  I  an- 
swered, irritated  as  well  as  wounded: 

"  'Why  search  here?  For  what  pur- 
pose?   There  has  been  no  burglary/ 

"He  answered: 

"  'He  thinks  that  a  criminal  is  con- 
:ealed  somewhere  here.* 

"I  began  to  be  a  little  afraid  and  or- 
dered the  police  captain  to  be  brought 
that  I  might  have  some  explanation.  He 
was  a  man  rather  well  brought  up  and 
decorated  with  the  Legion  of  Honor. 
He  excused  himself,  asked  my  pardon, 
then  asserted  that  I  had  among  my 
servants  a  convict! 

"I  was  thunderstruck,  and  answered 
that  I  could  vouch  for  every  one  of 
them  and  that  I  would  make  a  review  of 
them  for  his  satisfaction. 

"  'There  is  Peter  Courtin,  an  old 
soldier.* 

"It  was  not  he. 

"  'The  coachman,  Francis  Pingau,  a 
peasant,  son  of  my  father's  farmer.* 

"It  was  not  he. 

"  'A  stable  boy,  also  from  Cham- 
pagne, and  also  a  son  of  peasants  I  had 


known,  and  no  mjre  except  the  foot- 
man whom  you  have  seen.' 

*Tt  was  not  any  of  them. 

"  'Then,  sir,  you  see  that  you  have 
been  deceived.' 

"  'Pardon  me,  Madame,  but  I  am 
sure  I  am  not  deceived.  As  he  has  not 
at  all  the  appearance  of  a  criminal,  will 
you  have  the  goodness  to  have  all  your 
servants  appear  here  before  you  and 
me,  all  of  them?' 

"I  hesitated  at  first,  then  I  yielded, 
summoning  all  my  people,  men  and 
women. 

"He  looked  at  them  all  for  an  in- 
stant, then  declared. 

"  'This  is  not  all.' 

**  'Your  pardon,  sir,*  I  replied,  'this 
is  all  except  my  own  maid  who  could 
not  possibly  be  confounded  with  a  con- 
vict.* 

"He  asked:    'Could  I  see  her  too?* 

"  'Certainly.* 

"I  rang  and  Rose  appeared  imme- 
diately. Scarcely  had  she  entered 
when  he  gave  a  signal  and  two  men, 
whom  I  had  not  seen,  concealed  behind 
the  door,  threw  themselves  upon  her, 
seized  her  hands,  and  bound  them  with 
cords. 

"I  uttered  a  cry  of  fury,  and  was  go- 
ing to  try  and  defend  her.  The  cap- 
tain stopped  me: 

"  'This  girl,  Madame,  is  a  man  who 
calls  himself  John  Nicholas  Lecapet, 
condemned  to  death  in  1879  for  assas- 
sination preceded  by  violation.  His 
sentence  was  changed  to  life  imprison- 
ment. He  escaped  four  months  ago. 
We  have  been  on  the  search  for  him 
ever  since.* 

"I  was  dismayed,  struck  dumb.     2 


THE  WEDDING  NIGHT 


f2Q 


could  not  believe  it.  The  policeman 
continued,  laughing: 

"  'I  can  only  give  you  one  proof. 
His  right  arm  is  tattooed.' 

*'His  sleeve  was  rolled  up.  It  was 
true.  The  policeman  added,  certainly 
in  bad  taste: 

"  'Doubtless  you  will  be  satisfied  with- 
out the  other  proofs.' 

"And  he  led  away  my  maid! 

"Well,  if  you  will  believe  it,  the  feel- 
ing which  was  unpermost  in  me  was  that 
of  anger  at  having  been  played  with  in 
this  way,  deceived  and  made  ridiculous; 
it  was  not  shame  at  having  been  dressed, 


undressed,  handled,  and  touched  by  this 
man,  but  —  a  —  profound  numiliation— 
the  humiliation  of  a  woman.  Do  you 
understand?" 

"No,  not  exactly." 

"Let  us  see.  Think  a  minute —  He 
had  been  condemned — for  violation,  this 
young  man — and  that — that  humiliated 
me — there!     Now  do  you  understand?'* 

And  Miss  Simone  did  not  reply.  She 
looked  straight  before  her,  with  her 
eyes  singularly  fixed  upon  the  two  shin- 
ing buttons  of  the  livery,  and  with  that 
sphinx's  smile  that  women  have  som> 
times. 


The  Wedding  Night 


My  DEAR  Genevieve,  you  ask  me  to 
tell  you  about  my  wedding  journey. 
How  do  you  think  I  dare?  Ah!  sly 
one,  who  had  nothing  to  tell  me,  who 
even  allowed  me  to  guess  at  nothing — 
but  there!  nothing  from  nothing! 

Now,  you  have  been  married  eighteen 
months,  yes,  eighteen  months,  you,  my 
best  friend,  who  formerly  said  you 
could  conceal  nothing  from  me,  and  you 
had  not  the  charity  to  warn  me !  If  you 
had  only  given  the  hint!  If  you  had 
only  put  me  on  my  guard!  If  you  had 
put  one  little  simple  suspicion  in  my 
soul,  you  might  have  hindered  me  from 
making  the  egregious  blunder  for  which 
I  still  blush,  and  which  my  husband 
will  laugh  at  until  his  death.  You  alone 
are  responsible  for  it!  I  have  rendered 
myself  frightfully  rediculous  forever; 
I  have  committed  one  of  those  errors 
of  which  the  memory  is  never  effaced — 


and  by  your  fault,  wicked  one!    Oh!  if 
I  had  known! 

Wait!  I  take  courage  from  writing, 
and  have  decided  to  tell  you  all.  But 
promise  me  not  to  laugh  too  much.  And 
do  not  expect  a  comedy.    It  is  a  drama. 

You  recall  my  marriage.  I  was  to 
start  the  same  evening  on  my  wedding 
journey.  Certainly  I  did  not  at  all  re- 
semble Paulette,  whom  "Gyp"  tells  us 
about  in  that  droll  account  of  her  spir- 
itual romance,  called,  "About  Marriage." 
And  if  my  mother  had  said  to  me,  as 
Mrs.  d'Hautretan  did  to  her  daughter: 
"Your  husband  will  take  you  in  his  arms 
— and — "  I  should  certainly  not  have 
responded  as  Paulette  did,  laugHng: 
"Go  no  farther,  mamma,  I  know  all  that 
as  well  as  you — " 

As  for  me,  I  knew  nothing  at  all,  and 
mamma,  my  Door  mamma  who  is  alwava 


430 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


frightened,  dared  not  broach  the  delicate 
subject. 

Well,  then,  at  five  o'clock  in  the  eve- 
ning, after  the  collation,  they  told  us 
that  the  carriage  was  waiting.  The 
guests  had  gone,  I  was  ready.  I  can 
still  hear  the  noise  of  the  trunks  on  the 
staircase  and  the  blowing  of  papa's  nose, 
which  seemed  to  indicate  that  he  was 
weeping.  In  embracing  me,  the  poor 
:nan  said:  "Good  courage!"  as  if  I 
^ere  going  to  have  a  tooth  pulled.  As 
for  mamma,  she  was  a  fountain.  My 
husband  urged  me  to  hasten  theje  pain- 
ful adieux,  and  I  was  myself  all  in 
tears,  although  very  happy.  That  is 
not  easy  to  explain  but  is  entirely  true. 
All  at  once,  I  felt  something  pulling 
at  my  dress.  It  was  Bijou,  wholly  for- 
gotten since  morning.  The  poor  beast 
was  saying  adieu  to  me  after  his  fash- 
ion. This  gave  my  heart  a  little  blow, 
and  I  felt  a  great  desire  to  embrace  my 
dog.  I  seized  h:m  (you  remember  he 
is  as  large  as  a  fist)  and  began  to  de- 
vour him  with  kisses.  I  love  to  caress 
animals.  It  gives  me  a  sweet  pleasure, 
causing  a  kind  of  delicious  shiver. 

As  for  him,  he  was  like  a  mad  crea- 
ture; he  waved  his  paws,  licked  me,  and 
nibbled,  as  he  does  when  he  is  perfectly 
content.  Suddenly,  he  took  my  nose  in 
his  teeth,  and  I  felt  that  he  had  really 
bitten  me.  I  uttered  a  little  cry  and 
put  the  dog  down.  He  had  bitten,  al- 
though only  in  play.  Everybody  "was 
disburbed.  They  brought  water,  vine- 
i  r,  and  some  pieces  of  linen.  My  hus- 
band himself  attended  to  it.  It  was 
nothing  after  all  but  three  little  holes 
which  his  teeth  had  made.  At  the  end 
of  five  minutes  the  b'ood  was  stopped 
find  we  went  awav 


It  had  been  decided  that  we  should 
go  on  a  journey  through  Normanay  for 
about  six  weeks. 

That  evening  we  arrived  at  Dieppe- 
Whcn  I  say  evening,  I  mean  midnight. 

You  know  how  I  love  the  sea.  I  de- 
clared to  my  husband  that  I  could  not 
retire  until  I  had  seen  it.  He  appeared 
very  contrary.  I  asked  him  laughing, 
if  he  was  sleepy. 

He  answered :  "No,  my  dear,  but  you 
must  understand  that  I  would  like  to  be 
alone  with  you." 

I  was  surprised.  "Alone  with  me?" 
I  replied,  "but  you  have  been  alone 
with  me  all  the  way  from  Paris,  in  the 
train." 

He  laughed:  "Yes  —  but,  —  in  the 
train, — that  is  not  the  same  thing  as  be- 
ing in  our  room." 

I  would  not  give  up.  "Oh,  well,'* 
said  i,  '*we  shall  be  alone  on  the  beach, 
and  that  is  all  there  is  to  it!" 

Decidedly  he  was  not  pleased.  He 
said:     "Very  well;  as  you  wish." 

The  night  was  magnificent,  one  of 
those  nights  which  bring  grand,  vague 
ideas  to  the  soul, — more  sensations  than 
thoughts,  perhaps, — that  bring  a  desire 
to  open  the  arms  as  if  they  were  wings 
r,nd  embrace  the  heavens — but  how  can 
I  express  it?  One  always  feels  that 
these  unknown  things  can  be  compre- 
hended. 

There  was  a  dreaminess,  a  poesy  in 
the  air,  a  happiness  of  another  kind 
than  that  of  earth,  a  sort  of  infinite  in- 
toxication which  comes  from  the  stars, 
the  moon,  the  silver,  glistening  water. 
These  are  the  best  moments  of  life. 
They  are  a  glimpse  of  a  different  exis- 
tence,   an    embellished,    delicious    axis- 


THi:  WEDDING  NIGHT 


431 


tencc;  they  are  the  revelation  of  what 
could  be,  of  what  will  be,  perhaps. 

Nevertheless,  my  husband  appeared 
impatient  to  return.  I  said  to  him: 
'Are  you  cold?" 

"No." 

"Then  look  at  the  little  boat  down 
there,  which  seems  asleep  on  the  water. 
Could  anything  be  better  than  this!  I 
would  willingly  remain  here  until  day- 
break. Tell  me,  shall  we  wait  and  see 
aurora?" 

He  seemed  to  think  that  I  was  mock- 
ing him,  and  very  soon  took  me  back 
to  the  hotel  by  force !  If  I  had  known ! 
Oh!  the  poor  creature! 

When  we  were  once  alone,  I  felt 
ashamed,  constrained,  without  knowing 
why.  I  swear  it.  Finally,  I  made  him 
go  into  the  bath-room  while  I  got  into 
bed. 

Oh!  my  dear,  how  can  I  go  further? 
Well,  here  it  is!  He  took  without  doubt, 
my  extreme  innocence  for  mischief,  my 
extreme  simplicity  for  profligacy,  my 
confident,  credulous  abandon  for  some 
kind  of  tactics,  and  paid  no  regard  to 
the  delicate  management  that  is  neces- 
sary in  order  to  make  a  soul  wholly  un- 
prepared comprehend  and  accept  such 
mysteries. 

All  at  once,  I  believe  he  lost  his  head. 
Then  fear  seized  me;  I  asked  him  if  he 
Tvished  to  kill  me.  When  terror  invades, 
one  does  not  reason  nor  think  further, 
one  is  mad.  In  one  second  I  had 
imagined  frightful  things.  I  thought  of 
various  stories  in  the  newspapers,  of 
mysterious  crimes,  of  all  the  whispered 
tales  of  young  girls  married  to  miser- 
able men!  I  fought,  repulsed  him,  was 
overcome  with  fright.  I  even  pulled 
a  wisp  of  hair  from  his  mustache,  and 


relieved  by  this  effort,  1  arose,  shout- 
ing: "Help!  help!"'  I  ran  to  the  door, 
drew  the  bolts,  and  hurried,  nearly 
naked,  downstairs. 

Other  doors  opened.  Men,  in  night 
apparel,  appeared  with  lights  in  theii 
hands.  I  fell  into  the  arms  of  one  of 
them,  imploring  his  protection.  He 
made  an  attack  upon  my  husband. 

I  knew  no  more  about  it.  They 
fought  and  they  cried;  then  they 
laughed,  but  laughed  in  a  way  you  could 
never  imagine.  The  whole  house 
laughed,  from  the  cellar  to  the  garret. 
I  heard  in  the  corridors  and  in  the 
rooms  about  us  explosions  of  gaiety.  The 
kitchen  maids  laughed  under  the  root, 
and  the  bellboy  was  in  contortions  on 
his  bench  in  the  vestibule. 

Think  of  it!    In  a  hotel! 

Soon,  I  found  myself  alone  with  my 
husband,  who  made  me  some  summary 
explanations,  as  one  explains  a  surgical 
operation  before  it  is  undertaken.  He 
was  not  at  all  content.  I  wept  until 
daylight,  and  we  went  away  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  doors. 

That  is  not  all.  The  next  day  we  ar- 
rived at  Pourville,  which  is  only  an 
embryo  station  for  baths.  My  husband 
overwhelmed  me  with  little  attentions 
and  tender  care.  After  a  first  misun- 
derstanding, he  appeared  enchanted. 
Ashamed,  and  much  cast  down,  over 
my  adventure  of  the  evening  before,  I 
was  also  amiable  as  could  be,  and  docile. 
But  you  cannot  figure  the  horror,  the 
disgust,  almost  the  hatred  that  Henry 
inspired  in  me,  when  I  knew  the  iO' 
famous  secret  that  they  conceal  fronx 
young  girls.  I  was  in  despair,  as  sad  as 
death,  mindful  of  everything,  and  har- 
assed  oy   the  need  of  being  near  my 


432 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSAI^  i 


poor  parents.  The  next  day  after  we 
arrived  at  Etretat.  All  the  bathers  were 
in  a  Hurry  of  excitement.  A  young 
woman  had  been  bitten  by  a  little  dog, 
and  had  just  died  of  rabies.  A  great 
shiver  ran  down  my  back  when  I  heard 
this  story  told  at  the  hotel  table.  It 
seemed  to  me  immediately,  that  I  was 
suffering  in  the  nose,  and  I  had  strange 
feelings  all  along  my  limbs. 

That  night  I  could  not  sleep;  I  had 
completely  forgotten  mv  husband.  What 
if  I  were  going  to  die  too  from  rabies? 
I  asked  (o:  some  deta'ls,  the  next  day, 
from  the  proprietor  of  the  hotel.  He 
gave  me  some  frightful  ones.  I  passed 
the  day  in  walking  upon  the  shore.  I 
thought  I  could  no  longer  speak.  Hy- 
drophobia!    What  a  horrible  death! 

Henry  asked  me:  "What  is  the  mat- 
ter?   You  seem  sad." 

I  answered:  ''Oh!  Nothing!  Noth- 
ing!" 

My  staring  eyes  were  fixed  upon  the 
sea  without  seeing  it,  upon  farms,  upon 
the  fields,  without  my  ever  being  able 
to  say  what  came  under  my  gaze.  For 
nothing  in  the  world  would  I  have  con- 
fessed the  thought  that  tortured  me. 
Some  pain,  true  pain  was  felt  in  my 
nose.     I  wished  to  return. 

As  soon  as  I  was  back  in  the  hotel,  I 
shut  myself  up  in  order  to  examine  the 
wound.  There  was  nothing  to  be  seen. 
Nevertheless,  I  could  not  doubt  that 
it  was  working  me  great  harm.  I 
wrote  immediately  to  my  mother,  a 
short  letter  which  probably  sounded 
strange.  I  asked  an  immediate  reply 
to  some  insignificant  questions.  After 
having  signed  my  name,  I  wrote:  "Es- 
pecially, do  not  forget  to  give  me  some 
news  of  Bijou." 


I 


The  next  day  I  could  not  eat,  but  1 
refused  to  see  a  physician.  All  day 
long  I  remained  seated  upon  the  beach 
looking  at  the  bathers  in  the  water.  , 
They  came,  the  thin  and  the  stout,  all  \ 
hideous  in  their  frightful  costumes; 
but  I  never  thought  of  laughing.  I 
thought:  "They  are  happy,  these  peo- 
ple! They  have  not  been  bitten!  They 
are  going  to  live!  They  have  nothing 
to  fear.  They  can  amuse  themselves 
at  will,  because  they  are  at  peace!" 

At  that  instant  I  carried  my  hand  to 
my  nose,  touchmg  it;  was  it  not 
swollen?  And  soon  I  entered  the  hotel, 
shut  myself  in,  and  looked  at  it  in  the 
glass.  Oh!  it  had  changed  color.  I 
should  die  now  very  soon. 

That  evening  1  felt  all  at  once  a  sort 
of  tenderness  for  my  husband,  a  ten- 
derness of  despair.  He  appeared  good 
to  me;  I  leaned  upon  his  arm.  Twenty 
times  I  was  on  the  point  of  telling  him 
my  distressing  secret,  but  ended  in  keep- 
ing silent. 

He  abused  odiously  my  listlessness 
and  the  weakness  of  my  soul.  I  had 
not  the  force  to  resist  him,  nor  even 
the  will.    I  would  bear  all,  suffer  all! 

The  next  day  I  received  c  letter  from 
my  mother.  She  replied  to  my  ques- 
tions, but  said  not  a  word  about  Bijou. 
I  immediately  thought:  "He  is  dead 
and  they  are  concealing  it  from  me." 
I  wished  to  run  to  the  telegraph  office 
and  send  a  dispatch.  One  thought 
stopped  Hie:  "If  he  really  is  dead,  they 
will  not  tell  me."  I  then  resigned  my- 
self to  two  more  days  of  anguish.  I 
wrote  again.  I  asked  them  to  send  me 
the  dog,  for  diversion,  because  I  was  a 
little  lonesome. 

A  trembling  fit  took  me  in  the  after* 


THE  WEDDING  NIGHT 


433 


noon.  I  could  not  raise  a  full  glass 
without  spilling  half.  The  state  of  my 
soul  was  lamentable.  I  escaped  from 
my  husband  at  twilight  and  ran  to  the 
church.  I  prayed  a  long  time.  On  re- 
turning, I  felt  anew  the  pains  in  my  nose 
and  consulted  a  druggist  whose  shop 
was  lighted.  I  spoke  to  him  as  if  one 
of  my  friends  had  been  bitten,  asking 
his  advice  in  the  matter.  He  was  an  ami- 
able man,  very  obliging.  He  advised  me 
freely.  But  I  forgot  to  notice  what  he 
said,  my  mind  was  so  troubled.  I  only 
remember  this:  "Purging  is  often  rec- 
ommended." I  bought  many  bottles  of 
I  know  not  what,  under  pretext  of  send- 
ing them  to  my  friend. 

The  dogs  that  I  met  filled  me  with 
horror,  creating  in  me  a  desire  to  flee  at 
top  of  my  speed.  It  seemed  to  me  many 
times,  also,  that  I  had  a  desire  to  bite 
liem.  My  night  was  horribly  disturbed. 
My  husband  profited  by  it. 

The  next  day  I  received  a  response 
from  my  mother.  *'Bijou,"  said  she,  *'is 
very  well,  but  it  would  expose  him  too 
much  to  send  him  alone  on  a  railroad 
train."  Then  they  would  not  send  him 
to  me.    He  was  dead. 

I  could  not  yet  sleep.  As  for  Henry, 
he  snored.  He  awoke  many  times.  I 
was  annihilated. 

The  next  day  I  took  a  bath  in  the  sea. 

I  was  almost  overcome  in  entering  the 

i       water,  I  was  so  frightfully  cold.     I  was 

=       more  than  ever  shocked  by  this  frigid 

sensation.     I  trembled   in   every  Umb, 

but  felt  no  more  pain  in  the  nose. 

By  chance,  they  presented  me  to  the 
medical  inspector  of  the  baths,  a  charm- 
mg  man.  I  led  up  to  my  subject  with 
extreme  skill.  I  then  said  to  him  that 
my  little  dog  had  bitten  me  several  days 


before,  and  asked  him  what  was  neces- 
sary to  be  done  if  we  discovered  any 
inflammation.  He  laughed  and  an- 
swered: "In  your  situation,  Madame, 
1  see  only  one  remedy,  which  would  be 
for  you  to  make  a  new  nose.'' 

And  as  I  did  not  comprehend,  he 
added:  "Your  husband  will  see  to 
that."  And  I  was  no  better  informed 
on  leaving  him  than  I  was  before. 

Henry,  that  evening,  seemed  very 
gay,  very  happy.  We  went  to  the  Ca- 
sino, but  he  did  not  wait  for  the  end 
of  the  play  before  proposing  to  me  to 
return.  As  there  was  nothing  of  inter- 
est to  me,  I  followed  him.  But  I  could 
not  remain  in  bed;  all  my  nerves  were 
unstrung  and  vibrating.  Neither  could 
he  sleep.  He  embraced  me,  caressed 
me,  became  all  sweetness  and  tender- 
ness, as  if  he  had  finally  guessed  how 
much  I  was  suffering.  I  accepted  his 
caresses  without  even  comprehending 
them  or  thinking  about  them. 

But  suddenly  an  extraordinary,  fear- 
ful crisis  seized  me.  I  uttered  a  fright- 
ful cry,  pushed  back  my  husband  who 
took  hold  of  me,  ran  into  my  room, 
and  began  to  beat  my  head  and  face 
against  the  door.  It  was  rage!  Horri- 
ble rage!     I  was  lost! 

Henry  raised  me  up,  himself  fright- 
ened and  trying  to  understand  the  trou- 
ble. I  kept  silent.  I  was  resigned  now. 
I  awaited  death.  I  knew  that  after  some 
hours  of  respite,  another  crisis  would 
seize  me,  even  to  the  last  which  would 
be  mortal. 

I  allowed  them  to  put  me  in  the  bed. 
At  the  point  of  day,  the  irritating  ob- 
sessions  of  my  husband  caused  a  new 
paroxyism,  which  was  longer  than  the 
first.     I  had  a  desire  to  tear  and  \  ite 


L 


434 


Vv'ORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  howl;  it  was  terrible  and  neverthe- 
less, not  so  painful  as  I  had  believed. 

Toward  eight  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, I  slept  for  the  first  time  in  four 
nights.  At  eleven  o'clock,  a  beloved 
voice  awoke  me.  It  was  mamma,  whom 
my  letters  had  frightened  and  who  had 
hastened  to  see  me.  She  had  in  her 
hand  a  great  basket,  from  whence  came 
some  little  barks.  I  seized  it,  foolish 
in  hope.  I  opened  it,  and  Bijou  jumped 
upon  the  bed,  embraced  me,  gamboled 
about,  rolled  himself  upon  my  pillow, 
frenzied  with  joy. 


Ah !  well,  my  dearie,  you  may  believe 
me  if  you  will,  I  did  not  comprehend  al) 
until  the  next  day!  Oh!  the  imagina- 
tion, how  it  works!  And  to  think  that 
I  beheved —  Teil  roe,  was  it  not  too 
foolish? 

I  have  never  confessed  to  anyone, 
you  will  understand  why,  the  tortures  of 
those  four  days.  Think,  if  my  husband 
had  known!  He  has  teased  enough  al- 
ready about  my  adventures  at  Pour/ille. 
For  my  part,  I  cannot  be  too  angry  at 
his  jests. 

I  am  done.  We  have  to  accustoiw 
ourselves  to  everything  in  life. 


The  Noncommissioned  Officer 


Quartermaster  Varajou  had  ob- 
tained permission  to  pass  eight  days  with 
his  sister,  Madame  Padoie.  Varajou, 
who  was  in  garrison  at  Rennes  and 
led  a  jolly  life  there,  finding  himself 
high  and  dry  with  his  family,  had  writ- 
ten to  his  sister  that  he  would  devote 
his  week  of  liberty  to  her.  Not  that 
he  loved  Madame  Padoie  so  much,  for 
she  was  a  little  moralist,  devout  and  al- 
ways irritating,  but  he  was  in  need  of 
money,  in  great  need,  and  he  remem- 
bered that  of  all  his  relatives,  the  Pa- 
doies  were  the  only  ones  from  whom 
he  had  never  borrowed. 

Father  Varajou,  an  old  horticulturist 
of  Angers,  now  retired  from  business, 
had  closed  his  purse  to  his  rake  of  a 
son  and  had  scarcely  seen  him  for  ten 
years.  His  daughter  had  married 
Padoie,  a  former  employee  of  the  Treas- 


ury, who  had  since  become  collector  at 
Vannes. 

Varajou,  then,  on  getting  out  of  the 
train,  took  himself  to  the  house  of  his 
brother-in-law.  He  found  him  in  his 
office,  in  process  of  discussion  with  some 
Breton  peasants  of  the  neighborhood. 
Padoie  raised  himself  from  his  chair, 
extended  his  hand  across  the  table,  which 
was  covered  with  papers  and  said: 
"Take  a  seat;  I  will  be  with  you  in  a 
moment."  Then  he  seated  himself  again 
and  continued  his  discussion. 

The  peasants  could  not  understand  his 
explanations,  teh  collector  could  not 
comprehend  their  reasoning;  he  spoke 
French,  they  spoke  Breton,  and  the 
deputy  who  acted  as  interpreter  seemed 
not  to  understand  anyone. 

It  was  long,  very  long.  Varajou 
looked  at  his  brother-in-law,  thinking: 
"What  an  idiot!"     Padoie  must  have 


THE  NONCOMMISSIONED  OFFICER 


435 


been  about  fifty.  He  was  tall,  thin, 
bony,  slow,  hairy,  with  his  eyebrows 
arching  until  they  made  spears  of  hair 
above  his  eyes.  He  wore  on  his  head  a 
velvet  cap  ornamented  with  gold  braid, 
and  his  look  had  the  tameness  which  his 
action  showed.  His  words,  his  ges- 
tures, his  thoughts  were  all  slow. 
Varajou  kept  repeating:  "What  an 
idiot!" 

He  was  himself  one  of  those  noisy 
brawlers  for  whom  life  has  no  greater 
pleasures  than  those  of  the  cafe  and  the 
public  woman.  Outside  these  two  poles 
of  existence,  he  understood  nothing. 
Boasting,  blustering,  full  of  disdain  for 
everybody,  he  despised  the  whole  uni- 
verse from  the  height  of  his  ignor- 
ance. When  he  had  said:  "What  a 
devil  of  a  holiday!"  he  had  expressed 
the  highest  degree  of  admiration  of 
which  his  mind  was  capable. 

Padoie,  having  fmished  with  iiis  peas- 
ants, turned  to  him  and  asked: 

"You  are  well?" 

"Not  bad,  as  you  see.    And  you?" 

"Very  well,  thank  you.  It  is  amia- 
ble of  you  to  think  of  coming  to  see 
us." 

"Oh!  I  have  thought  of  it  for  a 
long  time;  but  you  know  in  the  military 
profession  one  doesn't  have  much 
liberty." 

"Oh!  I  know,  I  know;  and  that  is 
why  it  is  very  amiable  of  you." 

"And  Josephine  is  well?" 

"Yes,  yes,  thank  you;  you  shall  see 
her  very  soon." 

"Where  is  she?" 

"She  has  gone  to  pay  some  visits;  we 
have  so  many  relatives  here,  and  this  is 
a  very  exacting,  proper  town." 

"I  have  no  doubt  of  it." 


Then  the  door  opened  and  Madame 
Padoie  appeared.  She  went  toward  her 
brother  without  eagerness,  held  up  her 
cheek,  and  asked: 

"Have  you  been  here  long?" 

"No,  scarcely  half  an  hour." 

"Ah!  I  thought  the  train  would  be 
late.  If  you  are  ready,  come  into  the 
parlor." 

They  passed  into  a  neighboring  room, 
leaving  Padoie  to  his  accounts  and  his 
collections.  When  they  were  alone,  she 
said: 

"I  have  heard  of  some  of  your  fine 
actions." 

"What,  for  instance?" 

"It  appears  that  you  have  been  con- 
ducting yourself  like  a  blackguard;. that 
you  get  tipsy  and  have  been  getting 
into  debt." 

He  appeared  very  much  astonished. 
"1,"  said  he,  "never  in  my  life." 

"Oh!  you  needn't  deny  it,  I  know  aU 
about  it." 

He  still  tried  to  defend  himself,  but 
she  closed  his  mouth  with  so  violent 
a  lecture  that  he  was  forced  to  silence. 

Then  she  said:  "We  dine  at  six 
o'clock;  you  are  free  until  dinner.  I 
cannok  ask  your  company  because  I, 
not  unfortunately,  have  some  things  to 
do."  Left  alone,  he  hesitated  between 
sleeping  and  taking  a  walk.  He  looked 
for  a  door  leading  to  his  room  and  found 
one  to  the  street.  He  decided  in  favor 
of  the  street. 

He  began  to  wander  around  slowly, 
his  sword  hitting  against  his  legs, 
through  the  sad  Breton  town,  so  sleepy, 
so  calm,  so  dead  that  on  the  border  of 
its  inner  sea,  they  call  it  "The  Mor- 
bihan."  He  looked  at  the  little  gray 
houses,    the    few    passers,    the    empty 


436 


WORKS  OF  GCJY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


shops,  and  said  to  himself:  "Not  gay, 
surely,  nor  amusing,  is  Vannes.  A  sad 
idea,  coming  here!" 

He  sought  the  port,  so  dreary,  re- 
turned by  a  solitary,  desolate  boulevard 
and  was  back  before  five  o'clock.  Then 
he  threw  himself  upon  his  bed  to  sleep 
until  dinner. 

The  maid  woke  him  by  knocking  on 
the  door  and  saying:    ^'Dinner  is  served, 

sir!" 

He  descended.  In  the  humid  dinmg- 
room,  where  the  paper  was  nearly  all 
unglued  by  the  sun,  a  supper  was  wait- 
ing upon  a  round  table  without  a  cloth, 
for  which  three  melancholy  plates  were 
set. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Padoie  entered  at  the 
same  time  as  Varajou.  They  were 
seated,  ihen  the  husband  and  wife  made 
the  sign  of  the  cross  upon  the  pit  of 
their  stomachs,  after  which  Padoie 
served  the  soup,  a  thick  soup.  It  was 
the  day  for  potpie.  After  the  soup 
came  the  beef,  beef  too  much  cooked, 
melted  and  fat,  which  had  fallen  apart 
in  boiling.  The  noncommissioned  of- 
ficer masticated  it  slowly,  with  disgust, 
with  fatigue  and   rage. 

Madame  Padoie  ^aid  to  her  husband: 
"Are  you  going  to  the  President's  house 
this  evening?" 

"Yes,  my  dear." 

*'Do  not  stay  late.  You  are  all  worn 
out  every  time  you  go  out.  You  are 
not  made  for  the  world,  with  your  bad 
health." 

Then  she  spoke  of  the  society  of 
Vannes,  of  the  excellent  society  where 
the  Padoies  were  received  with  con- 
sideration, thanks  to  their  religious 
!V'<intiments. 

Then  they  served  a  ^rie  of  pota- 


toes with  a  dish  of  pork,  in  honor  of  the 
new  arrival.  Then  some  cheese  and  it 
was  finished.    Not  even  coffee. 

When  Varajou  understood  that  he  was 
to  pass  the  evening  face  to  face  with 
his  sister,  forced  to  undergo  her  re- 
proaches, listen  to  her  sermons,  without 
even  a  solacing  glass  to  cool  his  throat 
or  to  aid  the  remonstrances  in  slipping 
down,  he  concluded  that  the  punish- 
ment was  more  than  he  could  bear,  and 
declared  that  he  must  go  the  armory 
to  execute  some  commission  under  his 
leave  of  absence. 

And  he  escaped  at  seven  o'clock. 

Scarcely  was  he  in  the  street  when 
he  began  to  shake  himself,  like  a  dog 
just  out  of  the  water.  He  murmured: 
"What  a  blankety-blank-blank  life  of 
drudgery!"  And  he  began  to  search 
for  a  caje,  the  best  cafe  in  town.  He 
found  it  over  a  room,  behind  two  gas 
jets.  Inside,  five  or  six  men,  some 
somi-gentlemen,  a  little  noisy,  were 
seated  around  some  little  tables  drink- 
ing and  chatting,  while  two  billiard 
players  were  walking  around  ^he  green 
cloth  on  which  the  ivory  balls  were 
hitting  each  other.  They  were  count- 
ing: "Eighteen, — nineteen. — No  luck. 
—  Oh !  good  shot !  Well  played !  — 
Eleven. — ^You  must  play  on  the  red. — 
Twenty.  —  Froze !  Froze !  Twelve.  — 
There!  was  I  right?" 

Varajou  ordered  a  demi-tasse  and  a 
small  glass  of  brandy,  of  the  best. 
Then  he  sat  down  and  waited  its  com- 
ing. 

He  was  accustomed  to  pass  his  eve- 
nings at  liberty  with  his  romrades  in 
the  clatter  of  glasses  and  the  smoke  of 
pipes.  This  silence,  this  calm  exasper- 
ated him.    He  began  to  drink,  first  his 


THE  NONCOMMISSIONED  OFFICER 


43> 


coffee  then  his  brandy  and  then  he 
gave  a  second  order.  Now  he  had  a 
desire  to  laugh,  then  to  cry,  then  to 
sing,  and  then  of  fighting  some  one. 

He  said  to  himself:  "Jove!  How 
this  sets  me  up!  I  must  make  a  feast 
of  it."  And  the  idea  came  to  him  of 
finding  some  girls  to  amuse  himself 
with. 

He  called  one  of  the  employees: 
"Hey!  waiter!" 

"Yes,  sir!" 

"Say,  waiter,  where  can  one  go  here 
to  have  a  merry  time?'* 

The  man  looked  stupid  at  this  ques- 
tion. Finally  he  answered:  "  I  don't 
know,  sir.     Only  here!" 

"Here!  And  what  do  you  call  a 
merry  time,  I  should  like  to  know!" 

"Oh!  I  don't  know,  sir,  drinking 
beer,  or  some  good  wine." 

"Go  on,  you  oyster!  And  the  girls, 
where  are  they?" 

"The  girls!     Ha!  ha!  ha!" 

"Yes,  the  girls,  where  are  they  to  be 
found  here?" 

"Girls?" 

"Yes,  yes,  girls!" 

The  waiter  came  nearer  to  him  and 
said  in  a  low  voice:  "You  want  to 
know  where  there  is  a  house?" 

"Yes,  of  course!" 

"You  take  the  second  street  to  the 
left  and  then  the  first  to  the  right.  It 
is  number  fifteen." 

"Thanks,  old  man.  Here  is  some- 
thing for  you." 

"Thanks,  sir." 

And  Varajou  went  out  repeating: 
"Second  to  the  left,  first  to  the  right, 
fifteen."  At  the  end  of  a  few  seconds 
he  thought:  "Second  to  the  left, — 
yes.     But  in  coming  out  of  the  caji, 


did  I  turn  to  the  lert  or  to  the  right? 
Bah!  It  doesn't  make  any  difference. 
I  shall  soon  find  out." 

And  he  walked  on,  turning  into  the 
second  street  at  the  left,  then  into  the 
first  at  the  right,  and  looked  for  num- 
ber fifteen.  It  was  a  house  of  very 
good  appearance,  where  he  saw  the  win- 
dows of  the  first  story  lighted  behind 
the  closed  shutters.  The  vestibule  door 
was  half  open  and  a  lamp  was  burning 
in  there. 

"This  is  the  place,"  thought  the  non 
commissioned  officer. 

Then  he  entered  and,  as  no  one  came, 
he  called:     "Hey   there!   hey!" 

A  little  maid  appeared  and  was  struck 
dumb  on  seeing  a  soldier.  He  said  to 
her:  "Good  evening,  my  child.  The 
ladies  are  upstairs?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"In  the  salon?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"And  I  can  go  right  up?" 

"Yes,   sir." 

"The  first  'ioor  I  come  to?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

He  went  up  and  perceived  in  a  room 
well  lighted  with  two  large  lamps,  a 
luster,  and  two  candelabra  containing 
wax  candles,  four  ladies  in  evening 
gowns,  who  seemed  to  be  waiting  for 
some  one. 

Three  of  them,  the  younger,  were 
seated,  with  a  somewhat  starched  ao- 
pearance,  upon  a  garnet  velvet  sofa 
while  the  fourth,  a  woman  about  forty 
five  years  of  age,  was  arranging  flowers 
in  a  vase;  she  was  very  large  and  wore 
a  green  silk  frock  which  seemed  like 
the  envelope  of  a  monstrous  flower,  her 
enormous  arms  and  neck  being  like  a 
rice-powdered  rose. 


438 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


The  noncommissioned  officer  saluted: 
"Good  evening,  ladies." 

The  eldest  one  turned,  appeared  sur- 
prised, but  bowed:  "Good  evening, 
sir.' 

He  sat  down.  But  seeing  that  he  did 
not  seem  to  be  welcomed  with  any  en- 
thusiasm, he  thought  that,  without 
doubt,  only  officers  were  admitted  there, 
and  the  idea  troubled  him.  Then  he 
said  to  himself:  "Bah I  If  one  of 
them  comes,  we  shall  see."  And  then 
he  said:     "Well,  everything  goes  well?" 

The  large  lady,  the  mistress  of  the 
house,  doubtless,  answered: 

"Very  well,  thank  you." 

He  found  nothing  more  to  say,  and 
everybody  was  silent.  Finally,  he  be- 
gan to  be  ashamed  of  his  timidity  and, 
laughing  with  a  constrained  laugh  said: 
"Oh!  well,  there  is  nothing  very  merry 
about  this — I'll  pay  for  a  bottle  of 
wine — " 

He  had  not  finished  his  sentence  when 
the  door  opened  and  Padoie,  in  eve- 
ning clothes,  appeared. 

Varajou  uttered  a  howl  of  joy  and, 
jumping  up,  rushed  at  his  brother-in- 
law,  seized  him  in  his  arms,  and  made 
him  dance  all  around  the  room,  crying: 
"Well,  if  here  isn't  Padoie!  It  is 
Padoie!    It's  Padoie!" 

Then,  releasing  the  collector,  who  was 
lost  in  surprise,  he  said  mockingly,  in 
his  face;     "Ah!  ah!  ah!  joker!  joker! 


You  do  break  away  then  sometimes— 
Ah!  what  a  joker —  And  my  sister! 
You  let  her  loose  too — say! — " 

Realizing  all  the  benefits  from  this 
unlooked-for  situation,  so  impressed 
was  he  with  the  full  force  of  it,  that 
he  threw  himself  upon  a  sofa  and  be- 
gan to  laugh  so  loud  that  the  very  fur* 
niture  seemed  to  crack. 

The  three  young  ladies  arose  with  one 
accord  and  escaped,  v/hile  the  elderly 
one  repaired  toward  the  door,  ready  to 
flee  if  it  became  necessary. 

Then  two  gentlemen  appeared,  both 
in  evening  clothes,  and  decorated. 
Pcdoie  rushed  toward  them  saying: 
"Oh!  Mr.  President — he  is  mad — surely 
he  is  mad —  They  sent  him  to  us  to 
convalesce — ^you  can  see  at  once  that 
he  is  mad." 

Varajou  seated  himself,  comprehend- 
ing nothing  about  him,  but  guessing  that 
he  had  done  something  monstrously 
foolish.  Finally,  he  arose  and  turning 
toward  his  brother-in-law  asked: 
"Where  are  we?" 

And  Padoie,  seized  suddenly  with  a 
foolish  anger  stammered: 

"Where  are — ^where — where  are  we? 
Unfortunate — miserable — infamous  fel- 
low— where  are  we?  In  the  house  of 
the  President — of  the  President  of  Mor- 
temain  —  of  Mortemain — of — of — of — 
Mortemain.  Ah!  ah  —  you  scamp  — 
scamp — you  scampi—" 


In  the  Court  Room 


The  hall  of  the  Justice  of  the  Peace 
Df  Gorgeville  is  full  of  peasants  who, 
seated   in   rows   along   the   walls,    arc 


awaiting    the    opening    of    the   session. 

There  are  tall  and  short,  stout  and 

thin,  all  with  the  trim  appearance  of 


IN  IHE  COURT  ROOM 


439 


a  row  of  fruit-trees.  They  have  placed 
their  baskets  on  the  floor  and  remain 
silent,  tranquil,  preoccupied  with  their 
own  affairs.  They  have  brought  with 
them  the  odor  of  the  stable,  of  sweat, 
of  sour  miik,  and  of  the  manure-heap. 
Flies  are  buzzing  under  the  white  ceil- 
ing. Through  the  open  door  the  crow- 
ing of  cocks  is  heard. 

Upon  a  sort  of  platform  is  a  long 
table  covered  with  green  cloth.  An  old, 
wrinkled  man  sits  there  writing  at  the 
extreme  left.  A  policeman,  tipped 
back  upon  his  chair,  is  gazing  into  the 
air,  at  the  extreme  right.  And  upon 
the  bare  wall,  a  great  Christ,  in  wood, 
twisted  into  a  pitiable  pose,  seems  to 
offer  his  eternal  suffering  for  the  cause 
of  these  brutes  with  the  odor  of  beasts. 

The  Justice  of  the  Peace  enters,  finally. 
He  is  corpulent,  high  colored,  and  rus- 
tles his  magistrate's  black  robe  as  he 
walks  with  the  rapid  step  of  a  large 
man  in  a  hurry;  he  seats  himself,  places 
his  cap  upon  the  table,  and  looks  at 
the  assemblage  with  an  air  of  profound 
icorn. 

He  is  a  scholarly  provincial,  a  bright 
mind  of  the  district,  one  of  those  who 
translate  Horace,  relish  the  little  verses 
of  Voltaire,  and  know  by  heart  Vert- 
Vert  as  well  as  the  snuffy  poetry  of 
Parny. 

He  pronounced  officially,  the  words: 

"Now,  Mr.  Pctel,  call  the  cases." 
Then  smiling,  he  murmured: 

"Quidquid  tentcbam  dicere  versus 
erat." 

Then  the  clerk  of  the  court,  in  an  un- 
intelligible voice,  jabbered: 

"Madame  Victoire  Bascule  vs.  Isidore 
Paturon." 

An  enormous  woman  came  forward,  a 


lady  of  the  country  town  of  the   can- 
ton,  with   a   much   beribboned   hat,   a 
watch-chain  festooned  upon  her  breast, 
rings  on  her  lingers,  and  earrings  shin 
ing  like  lighted  candles. 

The  Justice  greeted  her  with  a  looi 
of  recognition,  which  savored  of  jest, 
and  said: 

"Madame  Bascule,  state  your  trou- 
bles." 

The  opposing  party  stands  on  the 
other  side.  It  is  represented  by  three 
persons.  Among  them  is  a  young  peas- 
ant of  twenty-five,  as  fat-cheeked  as 
an  apple  and  as  red  as  a  poppy.  At 
his  right  is  his  wife,  very  young,  thin, 
small,  like  a  bantam  chicken,  with  a 
narrow,  flat  head  covered,  as  in  Crete, 
with  a  pink  bonnet.  She  has  a  round 
eye,  astonished  and  angry,  which  looks 
sidewise  like  that  of  poultry.  At  the 
left  of  the  boy  sits  his  father,  an  old. 
bent  man,  whose  twisted  body  disap- 
pears in  his  starched  blouse  as  if  it 
were  under  a  bell. 

Madame  Bascule  explains: 

"Mr.  Justice,  for  fifteen  years  I  have 
treated  this  boy  kindly.  I  brought  him 
up  and  loved  him  like  a  mother,  I  have 
done  everything  for  him,  I  have  made 
a  man  of  him.  He  promised  me,  he 
swore  to  me  that  he  would  never  leave 
me,  he  even  took  an  oath,  on  account 
of  which  I  gave  him  a  little  property, 
my  land  at  Bec-de-Mortin,  v/hich  is 
worth  about  six  thousand.  Then  this 
little  thing,  little  nothing,  this  brat — " 

The  Justice:  "Moderate  your  lan^ 
guage,  Madame  Bascule." 

Madame  Bascule:  "A  little — a  little 
— I  think  I  am  understood — turns  his 
head,  does,  I  know  not  what  to  him, 
neither  do  I  know  whv. — and  lie  eoes 


440 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  marries  her,  this  fool,  this  great 
beast,  and  gives  her  my  property,  my 
property  at  Bec-de-Mortin.  Ah!  no, 
ah!  no — I  have  a  paper,  here  it  is — 
which  gives  me  back  my  property,  now. 
We  had  a  statement  drawn  up  at  the 
notary's  for  the  property  and  a  state- 
ment on  paper  for  the  sake  of  friend- 
ship. One  is  worth  as  much  as  the 
other.  Each  to  his  right,  is  it  not  so?" 
She  held  toward  the  Justice  a  stamped 
paper,  wide  open. 

Isidore   Paturon:     *'It   is  not   true." 

The    Justice:      ''Keep    silent.      You 

shall  speak  in  your  turn."    [He  reads.] 

'•  *I,  the  undersigned,  Isidore  Paturon, 
do,  by  this  present,  promise  Madame  Bas- 
cule, my  benefactress,  never  to  leave  her 
while  I  live,  and  to  serve  her  with  devo- 
tion. 

*'  'GORGEVILLE,   August  5,   1883.'  " 

The  Justice:  "There  is  a  cross  here 
for  the  sgnature.  Do  you  not  know 
how  to  write?" 

Isidore:     'No.     I  don't." 

The  Justice-.  "And  is  it  you  who  made 
this  cross?" 

Isidore:    "No,  it  was  not  I." 

The  Justice:  "Who  did  make  it 
then?" 

Isidore:    "She  did." 

The  Justice:  "You  are  ready  to 
swear  that  you  did  not  make  this  cross?" 

Isidore  [earnestly] :  "Upon  the  head 
of  my  mother  and  my  father,  my  grand- 
mother and  grandfather,  and  of  the 
good  God  who  hears  me,  I  swear  that 
it  was  not  I."  [He  raises  his  hand  and 
strikes  it  against  his  side  to  emphasize 
his  oath.] 

The  Justice  [laughing] :    "What  have 


been  your  relations  with  Madame  Bas- 
cule,  the  lady   here   present?" 

Isidore:  "I  have  helped  to  amuse 
her."     [Grinning  at  the  audience.] 

The  Justice:  "Be  careful  of  your 
expressions.  Do  you  mean  to  say  that 
your  connections  have  not  been  as  pure 
as  she  pretends?" 

Father  Paturon  [taking  up  the  narra- 
tive] :  "He  wasn't  fifteen  years  old 
yet,  not  fifteen  years  old,  Mr.  Judge, 
when  she  debauched — '* 

The  Justice:  "Do  you  mean  de* 
bauched?" 

The  Father:  "You  understand  me. 
He  was  not  fifteen  years  old,  I  say. 
And  for  four  years  before  that  al- 
ready, she  had  nursed  him  with  the 
greatest  care,  feeding  him  like  a  chicken 
she  was  fattening,  until  he  was  ready 
to  split,  saving  your  respect.  And  then, 
when  the  time  had  come  that  she 
thought  was  just  right,  then  she  de- 
praved him — " 

The  Justice:  "Depraved —  And  you 
allowed  it?" 

The  Father:  "Her  as  well  as  another. 
It  has  to  come — " 

The  Justice:  "Then  what  have  you 
to  complain  of?" 

The  Father:  "Nothing!  Oh!  I  com- 
plain of  nothing,  of  nothing,  only  that 
he  cannot  get  free  of  her  when  he 
wants  to.  I  ask  the  protection  of  the 
law." 

Madame  Bascule:  "These  people 
weary  me  with  their  lies,  Mr.  Judge.  I 
made  a  man  of  him — " 

The  Justice:    "I  see!" 

Madame  Bascule:  "And  now  he  de- 
nies me,  leaves  me,  robs  me  of  my  prop- 
erty—" 

Isidore:    "It  is  not  true,  Mr.  Judges 


A  PECULIAR  CASE 


441 


1  wanted  to  leave  her  five  years  ago, 
seeing  that  she  had  fleshed  up  with 
excess,  and  that  didn't  suit  me.  It 
troubled  me  much.  Why?  I  don't 
know.  Then  1  told  her  I  was  going 
away.  She  wept  like  a  gutter  aiid  prom- 
ised me  her  property  at  Bec-de-Mortin 
to  stay  a  few  more  years,  if  only  four 
or  five.  As  for  me,  I  said  'Yes,'  of 
course.  And  what  would  you  have 
done?  I  stayed  then  five  years  day  by 
day  and  hour  by  hour.  I  was  free. 
Each  to  his  own.  I  had  paid  well." 
[Isidore's  wife,  quiet  up  to  this  time, 
cries  out  with  a  piercing,  parrot-like 
voice :  ] 

"Look  at  her,  look  at  her,  Mr.  Judge, 
the  millstone,  and  see  if  it  wasn't  well 
paid  for?" 

The  Father  [raising-  his  head  with  a 
convinced  air]:  "Indeed,  yes,  well 
paid  for."  [Madame  Bascule  sinks 
back  upon  her  seat  and  begins  to  weep.] 

The  Justice  [paternally]:  "What 
can  you  expect,  dear  Madame?  I  can 
do  nothing.  You  have  given  your  land 
at  Bec-de-Mortin  away  in  a  perfectly 
regular  manner.  It  is  his,  it  belongs  to 
him.  He  had  the  incontestable  right 
to  do  what  he  has  done,  and  to  give 
it  as  a  marriage  gift  to  his  wife.  I  have 
not  entered  into  the  question  of — of — 


delicacy.  I  can  only  lay  bare  the  facts 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  law. 
There  is  nothmg  more  for  me  to  do." 

The  Father  [in  a  fierce  voice]: 
"Then  I  can  go  home  again?" 

The  Justice:  'Certainly.^'  [They 
go  out  under  the  sympathetic  gaze  of 
the  peasants,  as  people  do  who  win  their 
case.  Madame  Bascule  sits  in  her  seat 
sobbing.] 

The  Justice  [smiling];  "Come, 
come,  dear  Madame,  go  home,  now. 
And  if  I  had  any  counsel  to  give  you, 
I  should  say  find  another — ^another  pu- 
pil—" 

Madame  Bascule  [through  her  tears] : 
"I  cannot — cannot  find  one — '* 

The  Justice:  "I  regret  not  being  able 
to  point  one  out  to  you."  [She  throws 
a  despairing  look  toward  Christ  being 
tortured  on  the  cross,  then  arises  and 
walks  away  with  little  steps,  hiccough- 
ing with  chagrin  and  concealing  her 
face  in  her  handkerchief.]  The  Justice 
adds  in  a  bantering  voice:  "Calypso 
would  not  be  consoled  at  the  departure 
of  Ulysses."  Then  in  a  grave  tone, 
turning  toward  his  clerk:  "Call  the 
next  case." 

The  Clerk  [mumbling] :  "Celestin 
Polyte  Lecacheur  vs.  Prosper  Magloire 
Dieulafait—" 


A  Peculiar  Case 


When  Captain  Hector  Marie  de  Eon-  confident,  had  at  twelve  the  assurance 

Icnne   married   Miss   Laurine   d'Estelle  of  a  woman  of  thirty.    She  was  one  of 

the  parents  and  friends  feared  it  would  those    precocious    little    Parisians    who 

be  a  bad  match.  seem  born  with  a  full  knowledge  of  life 

Miss  Laurine,  pretty,  thin,  blond  anJ  and  of  feminine  tricks,  with  that  aU" 


442 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANl 


Jacity  of  thought,  with  that  profound 
Astuteness  and  suppleness  of  mind  which 
make  certain  beings  seem  destined  by 
fate  to  play  with  and  deceive  others, 
as  they  do.  All  their  actions  seem 
premeditated,  their  manner  calculated, 
their  words  weighed  with  care,  their 
whole  existence  a  role  which  they  are 
playing  with  people  like  themselves. 

She  was  very  charming  and  lively, 
with  the  liveliness  that  cannot  restrain 
itself  nor  be  calm,  when  something 
seems  amusing  or  queer.  She  would 
!augh  in  the  face  of  people  in  almost 
in  impudent  fashion,  but  with  so  much 
giace  that  they  were  never  angered. 
Then  she  was  rich,  very  rich. 

A  priest  served  as  intermediaiy  when 
«?he  married  Captain  de  Fontenne. 
Brought  up  in  a  religious  house,  in  a 
most  austere  fashion,  this  officer 
brought  to  his  regiment  the  morals  of 
the  cloister,  and  very  strict,  intolerant 
principles.  He  was  one  of  those  men 
who  invariably  become  either  a  saint 
or  a  nihilist,  in  whom  ideas  install  them- 
selves as  absolute  mistresses,  whose 
beliefs  are  inflexible,  whose  resolutions 
are  not  to  be  shaken. 

Ke  was  a  large,  dark,  young  man, 
serious,  severe,  ingenuous,  of  simple 
mind,  c^rt,  and  obslinatc,  one  of  those 
men  who  pass  through  life  without  com- 
prehending anything  beneath  them  in 
variety  or  subtlety,  who  divine  nothing, 
suspect  nothing,  and  admit  only  what 
they  think,  what  they  judge,  and  what 
they  believe,  when  some  one  differs 
from  them. 

Miss  Laurine  saw  him,  understood 
him  immediately,  and  accepted  him  for 
her  husband.  They  made  an  excellent 
pair.      She    was   yielding,    skiilful.    and 


wise,  knowing  how  to  show  herself  tO 
best  advantage,  always  ready  in  good 
works  and  at  festivals,  assiduous  at 
church  and  at  the  theater,  at  once 
worldly  and  religious,  with  a  little  air  of 
irony,  and  a  twinkle  in  her  eye  when 
chatting  gravely  with  her  grave  hus- 
band. She  would  relate  to  him  all  her 
charitable  enterprises  with  all  the 
priests  of  the  parish  and  the  vicinity, 
and  she  made  use  of  these  pious  occu- 
pations in  order  to  remain  away  from 
morning  until  night. 

But  sometimes,  in  the  midst  of  the 
recital  of  some  act  of  beneficence,  a 
foolish  laugh  would  seize  her  suddenly, 
a  nervous  laugh  impossible  to  check. 
The  captain  would  look  surprised,  then 
disturbed,  then  a  little  shocked,  as  his 
wife  would  continue  to  laugh.  When 
she  became  a  little  calm,  he  would  ask: 
"What  is  the  matter,  Laurine?"  And 
she  would  answer:  "Nothing.  It  ia 
only  the  memory  of  such  a  funny  thing 
that  happened  to  me!"  And  she  would 
relate  some  story. 

Then,  during  the  summer  of  1883, 
Captain  Hector  de  Fontenne  took  part 
in  the  grand  maneuvers  of  the  thirty- 
second  regiment  of  the  army.  One  eve- 
ning, as  they  camped  on  the  edge  of  a 
town,  after  ten  days  of  tent  and  open 
field,  ten  days  of  fatigue  and  privation, 
the  comrades  of  the  captain  re£>olved  to 
have  a  good  dinner. 

At  first,  Captain  de  Fontenne  refused 
to  accompany  them;  then,  as  his  refusal 
surprised  them,  he  consented.  His 
neighbor  at  table,  the  governor  of  Favr6, 
talking  continually  of  military  opera- 
tions, the  only  thing  that  interested  the 
captain,  turned   to  him  to   drink  glass 


A  PECULIAR  CASE 


U3 


ifter  glass  with  him.  It  had  been  very 
hot,  a  heavy,  parching,  thirst-inspiring 
heat:  and  the  captain  drank  without 
thinking  or  perceiving  that  a  new  gaiety 
had  entered  into  him,  a  certain  lively, 
burning  joy,  a  happiness  of  being,  full 
of  awakened  desires,  of  unknown  ap- 
petites, and  undefined  hopes. 

At  the  dessert  he  was  tipsy.  He 
'alked  and  laughed  and  moved  about, 
seized  by  a  noisy  drunkenness,  the 
foolish  drunkenness  of  a  man  ordinarily 
wise  and  tranquil. 

Some  one  proposed  to  finish  the  eve- 
ning at  the  theater.  He  accompanied 
his  comrades.  One  of  them  recognized 
one  of  the  actresses  as  some  one  he  had 
formerly  loved,  and  a  supper  was 
planned  where  a  part  of  the  feminine 
personnel  of  the  troupe  assisted. 

The  captain  awoke  the  next  day  in 
an  unknown  room,  in  the  arms  of  a 
pretty  little  blond  woman  who  said 
to  him,  on  seeing  him  open  his  eyes: 
"Good  morning,  sweetheart!" 

He  could  not  comprehend,  at  first; 
then,  little  by  little  his  memory '  re- 
turned, somewhat  cloudy,  however. 
Then  he  got  up  without  saying  a  word, 
dressed  himself,  and  emptied  his  purse 
on  the  chimney-piece.  A  sham.e  seized 
him  when  he  f  jund  himself  standing  up 
in  position,  his  sword  at  his  side,  in 
this  furnished  room,  where  the  rumpled 
curtains  and  sofa,  marbleized  with 
spots,  had  a  suspicious  appearance,  and 
he  dared  not  go  out,  since  in  descend- 
ing the  staircase  he  might  meet  some 
one,  nor  dared  he  pass  before  the  con- 
cierge nor  go  out  in  the  street  in  the 
eyes    of   neighbors    and    passers-by. 

The  woman  kept  saying:  "What  has 
come  over  vou?     Have  you  lost  your 


tongue?  You  had  it  fast  enough  last 
evening!     Oh!  what  a  muzzle!  ' 

He  bowed  to  her  ceremoniously  and, 
deciding  upon  flight,  reached  his  abode 
with  great  steps,  persuaded  that  one 
could  guess  from  his  manner  and  his 
bearing  and  his  countenance  that  he  had 
come  out  of  the  house  of  some  gir]. 

And  then  remorse  tortured  him;  the 
harassing  remorse  of  a  rigid,  scrupulous 
man.  He  confessed  and  went  to  com- 
munion, but  he  stiii  was  ill  at  ease,  fol- 
lowed ever  by  the  memory  of  his  fall 
and  by  feeling  of  debt,  a  sacred  debt 
contracted  against  his  wife. 

He  did  not  see  her  again  until  the 
end  of  the  month,  because  she  went  to 
visit  her  parents  during  the  encarnpment 
of  the  troops.  She  came  back  to  him 
with  open  arms  and  a  smile  upon  her 
lips.  He  received  her  with  an  embar- 
rassed attitude,  the  attitude  of  a  guilty 
man;  and  until  evening,  he  scarcely 
talked  with  her. 

When  they  found  themselves  alone, 
she  asked  him:  "What  is  the  matter 
with  you,  my  dear;  I  find  you  very  much 
changed." 

He  answered  in  a  constrained  tone: 
"Oh !  nothing,  my  dear,  absolutely  noth- 
ing." 

"Pardon  me,  but  I  know  you  so  well, 
and  I  feel  sure  there  is  something,  some 
care,  some  angry  feeling,  something,  I 
Iznow  not  what!" 

"Oh!  well,  yes,  there  is  something.*' 

"And  v/hat  is  it?" 

"It  is  impossible  for  me  to  tell  you." 

"To  tell  me?  Why  so?  You  disturb 
me." 

"I  have  no  reasons  to  give  you.    It  is 
impossible  for  me  to  tell  you." 
She  was  seated  upon  a  divan  and  he 


444 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


walked  up  and  down  before  her  with 
his  hands  behind  his  back,  avoiding  the 
look  of  his  wife. 

Then  she  said:  "Let  us  see.  It  is 
necessary  for  me  co  make  you  confess, 
it  is  my  duty  that  I  exact  from  you  the 
truth;  it  is  also  my  right.  You  should 
no  more  have  a  secret  from  me  than 
1  should  from  you." 

His  back  was  turned  to  her,  framed 
in  the  high  window,  as  he  said: 

"My  dear,  there  are  some  things 
which  are  better  not  told.  That  which 
vexes  me  is  one  of  them." 

She  got  up,  crossed  the  room,  took 
him  by  the  arm,  and,  having  forced  him 
to  turn  around,  placed  her  two  hands 
upon  his  shoulders,  then,  smiling  and 
cajoling,  raised  her  eyes  as  she  said: 

"You  see,  Marie  [she  called  him 
Marie  in  moments  of  tenderness]  you 
could  never  conceal  anything  from  me. 
I  should  believe  you  had  done  some- 
thing bad." 

He  answered:  "I  have  done  some- 
thing very  bad." 

She  said  gaily:  "Oh!  is  it  so  bad  as 
that?  I  am  very  much  astonished  at 
you!" 

He  responded  quickly:  "I  shall  say 
nothing  further.    It  is  useless  to  insist." 

But  she  drew  him  to  an  armchair, 
forced  him  to  sit  down  in  it,  then  seated 
herself  on  his  right  knee  and  began 
kissing  him  with  light,  rapid  kisses 
which  just  brushed  the  curled  end  of 
his  mustache.     Then  she  said: 

"If  you  don't  tell  me,  we  shall  al- 
ways be  angry." 

Pierced  by  remorse  and  tortured  by 
hi?)  anguish,  he  answered:  "If  I  should 
telJ  you  what  I  have  done,  you  would 
never  pajrdon  me." 


"On  the  contrary,  my  friend,  I  would 
pardon  you  immediately.' 

"No,  it  is  impossible." 

"I  promise  you." 

"I  tell  you  it  is  impossible!" 

"I  swear  that  I  will  pardon  you." 

"No,  my  dear  Laurine,  you  nevei 
could." 

"How  simple  you  are,  my  friend,  you 
cannot  deny  it!  In  refusing  to  tell  me 
what  you  have  done,  you  allow  me  to 
think  you  have  done  something  abomi- 
nable, and  I  shall  think  constantly 
about  it,  regretting  your  silence  as  much 
as  your  unknown  crime.  While,  if  you 
speak  frankly,  I  shall  forget  it  all  by 
to-morrow." 

"It  is  because — " 

"What?" 

He  blushed  up  to  the  ears  and  said: 
"I  shall  confess  to  you  as  I  would  to 
a  priest,  Laurine." 

On  her  lips  was  the  sudden  smile  that 
she  had  sometimes  in  listening,  and  with 
a  little  mocking  tone  she  said:  "I  am 
all  ears." 

He  began:  "You  know,  my  dear, 
that  I  am  a  sober  man.  I  drink  only 
red  wine,  and  never  liquors,  as  you 
know." 

"Ye-,  I  know." 

*'Well,  imagine  how  I  allowed  myself 
to  drink  a  little,  one  evening  toward 
tlie  end  of  our  encampment,  when  I 
was  very  thirsty,  very  much  worn  out 
with  fatigue,  weary,  and — " 

"And  you  got  tipsy?  Oh!  how  hide- 
ous!" 

"Yes,  I  was  intoxicated,"  he  replied, 
with  a  severe  air. 

"And  now,  were  you  wholly  intoxi- 
cated, so  that  you  couldn't  walk?" 
"Oh  I  no,  not  so  much  as  that.    ITut 


A  PECULIAR  CASE 


445 


I  lost  my  reason  if  not  my  equilibrium. 
I  talked  and  laughed  and  made  a  fool 
of  myself." 

As  he  kept  silent,  she  asked:  "Is 
that  all?'* 

"No." 

"Ah!  and  after  that?*' 

"After  that  I  committed  an  infamous 
deed." 

She  looked  at  him,  disturbed  and 
troubled  as  well  as  somewhat  excited. 

"What  then,  my  friend?" 

"We  had  supped  with — ^with  some 
actresses — and  I  do  not  know  how  it 
was  done,  but — I  have  deceived  you, 
Laurine!" 

He  made  the  statement  in  a  grave, 
solemn  tone.  She  gave  a  little  toss  to 
her  head  and  her  eye  brightened  with 
a  sudden  gaiety,  a  profound,  irresistible 
gaiety.    Then  she  said: 

"You — ^you — you  have — " 

And  a  little  dry,  nervous  laugh  broke 
forth  and  glided  between  her  teeth  two 
or  three  times  and  prevented  her  from 
speaking.  She  tried  to  take  him  seri- 
ously, but  each  time  she  tried  to  pro- 
nounce a  word,  the  laugh  trembled  at 
the  bottom  of  her  throat,  leaped  forth, 
was  quickly  stopped,  but  constantly  re- 
appeared, like  gas  in  a  bottle  of  cham- 
pagne, pushing  for  escape  until  the 
froth  can  no  longer  be  retained.  She 
put  her  hands  on  her  lips  to  calm  her- 
self, that  she  might  restrain  this  un- 
fortunate gaiety.  But  the  laugh  ran 
through  her  fingers,  shaking  her  chest 
and  bursting  forth  in  spite  of  her.  She 
stammered :  "You  —  you  —  have  de- 
ceived me —  Ha! — ^ha!  ha! — ^ha!  ha! 
-ha!  ha'" 


And  then  she  looked  at  him  with  a 
singular  air,  so  mocking  in  spite  of  her- 
self, that  he  was  speechless,  stupefied. 
And  suddenly,  as  if  able  to  contain  her- 
self no  longer,  she  burst  forth  again, 
laughing  with  the  kind  of  laugh  that 
seemed  like  an  attack  of  nerves.  Little 
jerking  cries  issued  from  her  mouth, 
coming,  it  seemed,  from  the  depths  of 
her  lungs.  His  two  hands  supported 
her  bosom,  and  she  was  almost  suf- 
focated with  long  whoops  like  the  cough 
in  whooping-cough. 

With  each  effort  that  she  made  to 
calm  herself  a  new  paroxysm  would  be- 
gin, and  each  word  that  she  tried  to  ut- 
ter was  only  a  greater  contortion. 

"My — my — my — poor  friend — ^ha!  ha/ 
—ha!  ha!  ha!— ha!" 

He  got  up,  leaving  her  alone  upon 
the  armchair,  and  becoming  suddenlj 
very  pale,  he  said:  "Laurine,  this  is 
more  than  unbecoming." 

She  stammered,  in  a  delirium  of 
laughter: 

"What — do  you  want — I — I — I  can- 
not— ^but — ^but  you  are  so  funny — ^ha! 
ha!  hal— ha!  ha!" 

He  became  livid  and  looked  at  her 
now  with  fixed  eye,  a  strange  thought 
awakening  within  him.  Suddenly  he 
opened  his  mouth  as  if  to  say  some- 
thing, but  said  nothing,  then,  turning 
on  his  heel,  he  went  out  and  shut  the 
door. 

Laurine,  doubled  up,  weak,  and  faint- 
ing, still  laughed  with  a  dying  laugh, 
which  occasionally  took  on  new  life, 
like  the  flame  of  a  candle  almost  rea(\y 
to  jTO  out. 


A  Practical  Joke 


The  jokes  that  are  played  nowadays 
are  somewhat  dismal.  They  are  not 
like  the  inoffensive,  laughable  jokes  of 
our  forefathers;  still,  there  is  nothing 
more  amusing  than  to  play  a  good  joke 
on  some  one;  to  force  them  to  laugh 
at  their  own  foolishness  and  if  they  get 
angry,  to  punish  them  by  playing  a 
new  joke  on  them. 

I  have  played  many  a  joke  in  my 
lifetime  and  I  have  had  some  played  on 
me;  some  very  good  ones,  too.  I  have 
played  some  very  laughable  ones  and 
some  terrible  ones.  One  of  my  victims 
died  of  the  consequences;  but  it  was 
no  loss  to  anyone.  I  will  tell  about  it 
some  day,  but  it  will  not  be  an  easy 
task,  as  the  joke  was  not  at  all  a  nice 
one.  It  happened  in  the  suburbs  of 
Paris  and  those  who  witnessed  it  are 
laughing  yet  at  the  recollection  of  it; 
though  the  victim  died  of  it.  May  he 
rest  in  peace! 

I  will  narrate  tvvo  to-day.  One  in 
which  I  was  the  victim  and  another  in 
which  I  was  the  instigator.  I  will  begin 
with  the  former,  as  I  do  not  find  it  so 
amusing,  being  the  victim  myself. 

I  had  been  invited  by  some  friends 
in  Picardie  to  come  and  spend  a  few 
weeks.  They  were  fond  of  a  joke  like 
myself  (I  would  not  have  known  them 
had  they  been  otherwise). 

They  gave  me  a  rousing  reception  on 
my  arrival.  They  fired  guns,  they  kissed 
me,  and  made  such  a  fuss  over  me  that 
I  became  suspicious. 

*'Be  careful,  old  fox,"  I  said  to  my- 
self, -'there  is  something  up." 

During  dinner  they  all  lausrhed  im- 
moderately. I  thought  to  myself,  they 
are  certainlv  oroiectms  some  good  joke 


and  intend  to  play  it  on  me,  for  they 
laugh  at  nothing  apparently.  I  was  on 
my  guard  all  evening  and  looked  at 
everybody  suspiciously,  even  at  the 
servants. 

When  bedtime  came,  everybody  es- 
corted me  to  my  room  and  bid  me  good 
night.  I  wondered  why,  and  after  shut* 
ting  my  door,  I  stood  in  the  middle  of 
the  room  with  the  candle  in  my  hand. 
I  could  hear  them  outside  in  the  hall, 
whisper  and  laugh;  they  were  watcliing 
me  no  doubt.  I  looked  at  the  walls,  in- 
spected the  furniture,  the  ceiling,  the 
floor,  but  I  found  nothing  suspicious. 
I  heard  footsteps  close  to  my  door; 
surely  they  were  looking  through  the 
keyhole.  Then  it  struck  me  that  per- 
haps my  light  would  go  out  suddenly 
and  I  would  be  left  in  the  dark,  so  I 
lighted  all  the  candles  and  looked  around 
once  more;  but  I  discovered  nothing. 
After  having  inspected  the  windows  and 
the  shutters,  I  closed  the  latier  with 
care,  then  I  drew  the  curtains  and 
placed  a  chair  against  them.  If  some 
one  should  try  to  come  in  that  way, 
I  woeld  be  sure  to  hear  them,  I  thought. 
Then  I  sat  down  cautiously,  i  thought 
the  chair  would  give  way  beneath  me, 
but  it  was  solid  enough.  I  did  not 
dare  to  go  to  bed,  but  as  it  was  getting 
late  I  realized  that  I  was  ridiculous. 
If  they  were  watching  me,  as  I  sup^ 
posed  they  were,  they  certainly  must 
laugh  heartily  at  my  uneasiness,  so  I 
resolved  to  go  to  bed.  Having  made  up 
my  mind,  I  approached  the  alcove.  The 
bed  looked  particularly  suspicious  to  me 
and  I  drew  the  heavv  curtains  back, 
Dulled  on  them,  but  they  held  fast. 
Perhaps  a  bucket  of  water  is  hidden  on 


445 


A  PRACTICAL  JOKE 


44T 


the  top  all  ready  to  fall  on  me,  or  else 
the  bed  may  fall  apart  as  soon  as  I  lie 
on  it.  I  thought.  I  racked  my  brain  to 
try  and  remember  all  the  different  jokes 
I  had  played  on  others,  so  as  to  guess 
what  might  be  in  store  for  me;  I  was 
not  going  to  be  caught,  not  I! 

Suddenly,  an  idea  struck  me  which 
I  thought  capital.  I  gently  pulled  the 
mattress  off  the  bed  and  it  came  to- 
ward me,  along  with  the  sheets  and 
blankets.  I  dragged  them  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  room,  near  the  door,  and 
made  my  bed  up  again  the  best  way  I 
could,  put  out  all  the  lights,  and  felt 
my  way  into  bed.  I  laid  awake  at  least 
another  hour,  starting  at  every  little 
sound,  but  everything  seemed  quiet,  so 
I  at  last  went  to  sleep. 

I  must  have  slept  profoundly  for 
some  time,  when  suddenly  I  woke  up 
with  a  start.  Something  heavy  had 
fallen  on  me  and  at  the  same  time,  a 
hot  liquid  streamed  all  over  my  neck 
and  chest,  which  made  me  scream  with 
pain.  A  terrible  noise  filled  my  ears; 
as  if  a  whole  sideboard  full  of  dishes  had 
fallen  in  them.  I  was  suffocating  un- 
der the  weight,  so  I  reached  out  my 
hand  to  feel  the  object  and  I  felt  a 
face,  a  nose,  and  whiskers.  I  gave  that 
face  a  terrible  blow  with  my  fist;  but 
instantaneously,  I  received  a  shower  of 
blows  which  drove  me  out  of  bed  in  a 
hurry  and  out  into  the  hall. 

To  my  amazement,  I  found  it  was 
broad  daj^light  and  everybody  coming 
up  the  stairs  to  find  out  the  cause  of 
the  noise.  What  we  found  w^as  the 
falet,  sprawled  out  on  the  bed,  strug- 
gling among  the  broken  dishes  and 
tray.  He  had  brought  me  some  break- 
fast   and   having  encountered   mv   im- 


provised couch,  had  very  unwillingly 
dropped  the  breakfast  as  well  as  him- 
self on  my  face! 

The  precautions  I  had  taken  to  close 
the  shutters  and  curtains  and  to  sleep 
in  the  middle  of  the  room  had  been  my 
undoing.  The  very  thing  I  had  so 
carefully  avoided  had  happened. 

They  certainly  had  a  good  laugh  on 
me  that  day! 

The  other  ioke  I  speak  of  dates  back 
to  my  boyhood  days.  I  was  spending 
my  vacation  at  home  as  usual,  in  the 
old  castle  in  Picardic. 

I  had  just  finished  my  second  term 
at  college  and  had  been  particularly  in- 
terested in  chemistry  and  especially  in 
a  compound  called  phosphure  de  calcium 
which,  when  thrown  in  water,  would 
catch  fire,  explode,  followed  by  fumes 
of  an  offensive  odor.  I  had  brought  a 
few  handfuls  of  this  compound  with  me, 
so  as  to  have  fun  with  it  during  my 
vacation. 

An  old  lady  named  Mme.  Dufoui 
often  visited  us.  She  was  a  cranky, 
vindictive,  horrid  old  thing.  I  do  not 
know  why,  but  somehow  she  hated  me. 
She  misconstrued  everything  I  did  or 
said  and  she  never  missed  a  chance  to 
tattle  about  me,  the  old  hag!  She 
wore  a  v/ig  of  beautiful  brown  hair, 
although  she  was  mere  than  sixty,  and 
the  most  ridiculous  little  caps  adorned 
with  pink  ribbons.  She  was  well  ihought 
of  because  she  was  rich,  but  I  hated 
her  to  the  bottom  of  my  heart,  and  I 
resolved  to  revenge  myself  by  playing 
a  joke  on  her. 

A  cousin  of  mine,  who  was  of  the 
same  age  as  I,  was  visiting  us  and  I 
communicated  my  plan  to  him;  but  my 
audacity  frii^htened  him. 


448 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


One  night,  when  everybody  was 
downstairs,  I  sneaked  into  Mme.  Du- 
four's  room,  secured  a  receptacle  into 
which  I  deposited  a  handful  of  the 
calcium  phosphate,  having  assured  my- 
self b.^forehand  that  it  was  perfectly 
dry,  and  ran  to  the  garret  to  await  de- 
velopments. 

Pretty  soon  I  heard  everybody  com- 
ing upstairs  to  bed.  I  waited  until 
everything  was  still,  then  I  came  down- 
.stairs  barefooted,  holding  my  breath, 
until  I  came  to  Mme.  Dufour's  door 
and  looked  at  my  enemy  through  the 
keyhole. 

She  was  putting  her  things  away,  and 
having  taken  her  dress  off,  she  donned  a 
white  wrapper.  She  then  filled  a  glass 
with  water  and  putting  her  whole  hand 
in  her  mouth  as  if  she  were  trying  to 
tear  her  tongue  out,  she  pulled  out 
something  pink  and  white  which  she 
deposited  in  the  glass.  I  was  horribly 
frightened,  but  soon  found  it  was  only 
her  false  teeth  she  had  taken  out.  She 
then  took  off  her  wig  and  I  perceived  a 
few  straggling  white  hairs  on  the  top 
of  her  head.  They  looked  so  comical 
that  I  almost  burst  out  laughing.  She 
kneeled  down  to  say  her  prayers,  got 
up  and  approached  my  instrument  of 
vengeance.  I  waited  awhile,  my  heart 
beating  with  expectation. 

Suddenly,  I  heard  a  slight  sound; 
then  a  series  of  explosions.  I  looked  at 
Mme.  Dufour;   her  face  was  a  study. 


She  opened  her  eyes  wide,  then  shut 
them,  then  opened  them  again  and 
looked.  The  white  substance  was 
crackling,  exploding  at  the  same  time, 
while  a  thick,  white  smoke  curled  up 
mysteriously  toward  the  ceiling. 

Perhaps  the  poor  woman  thought  it 
was  some  satanic  fireworks,  or  perhaps 
that  she  had  been  suddenly  afflicted  with 
some  horrible  disease;  at  all  events, 
she  stood  there  speechless  with  fright, 
her  gaze  riveted  on  the  supernatural 
phenomenon.  Suddenly,  she  screamed 
and  fell  swooning  to  the  floor.  I  ran 
to  my  room,  jumped  into  bed,  and 
closed  my  eyes  trying  to  convince  my- 
self that  I  had  not  left  my  room  and 
had  seen  nothing. 

"She  is  dead,"  I  said  to  myself;  "I 
have  killed  her,*'  and  I  listened  anxi- 
ously to  the  sound  of  footsteps.  I  heard 
voices  and  laughter  and  the  next  thing 
I  knew  my  father  was  soundly  boxing 
my  ears. 

Mme.  Dufour  was  very  pale  when  she 
came  down  the  next  day  and  she  drank 
glass  after  glass  of  water.  Perhaps  she 
was  trying  to  extinguish  the  fire  which 
she  imagined  was  in  her,  although  the 
doctor  had  assured  her  that  there  was 
no  danger.  Since  then,  w^en  anyone 
speaks  of  disease  in  front  of  her,  she 
sighs  and  says: 

"Oh,  if  you  only  knew!  There  are 
such  strange  diseases." 


A  Strange  Fancy 


It  was  at  the  end  of  the  dinner  hunters,  eight  youiig  women,  and  the 
opening  the  hunting  season,  at  the  doctor  of  the  neighborhood  were 
house  cf  Marquis  de  Bertrans.     Eleven      seated    around    the    great    illuminated 


A  STRANGE  FANCY 


449 


table  covered  with  fruits  and  flowers. 
They  came  to  speak  of  love,  and  a 
great  discussion  arose,  the  eternal  dis- 
cussion, as  to  whether  one  could  love 
truly  but  once  or  many  times.  They 
cited  examples  of  people  who  had  never 
had  but  one  serious  love;  they  also 
cited  other  examples  of  others  who  had 
loved  often,  violently.  The  men,  gen- 
erally, pretended  that  the  passion,  like 
a  malady,  could  strike  the  same  person 
many  times,  and  strike  to  kill  if  an 
obstacle  appeared  in  his  path.  Although 
the  point  of  view  was  not  contesta- 
ble, the  women,  whose  opinion  de- 
pended upon  poesy  more  than  on  ob- 
servation, affirmed  that  love,  true  love, 
the  great  love,  could  only  fall  once  upon 
a  mortal;  that  it  was  like  a  thunder- 
bolt, this  love,  and  that  a  heart  touched 
by  it  remained  ever  after  so  vacant, 
ravaged,  and  burned  out  that  no  other 
powerful  sentiment,  even  a  dream,  could 
again  take  root. 
^  The  Marquis,  having  loved  much, 
"  combated  this  belief  in  lively  fashion: 
"I  will  tell  you  that  one  can  love 
many  times  with  all  his  strength  and 
all  his  soul.  You  cite  to  me  people  who 
have  killed  themselves  for  love  as  proof 
of  the  impossibility  of  a  second  pas- 
sion. I  answer  that  if  they  had  not 
been  guilty  of  this  foolishness  of  suicide, 
which  removed  them  from  all  chance  of 
another  fall,  they  would  have  been 
healed;  and  they  would  have  recom- 
menced, again  and  again,  until  their 
natural  death.  It  is  with  lovers  as  it 
is  with  drunkards.  He  who  has  drunk 
will  drink — he  who  has  loved  will  love. 
It  is  simply  a  matter  of  temperament." 

They  chose  the  doctor  as  arbitrator, 
an   old   Paris  ohysician   retired   to  the 


country,  and  begged   him   to   give  hii 
opinion. 

To  be  exact,  he  had  none.  As  the 
Marquis  had  said,  it  is  an  affair  of  tem- 
perament. 

"As  for  myself,"  he  continued,  "I 
have  known  of  one  passion  which  lasted 
fifty-five  years  without  a  day  of  respite, 
and  which  was  terminated  only  by 
death.'* 

The  Marquis  clapped  his  hands. 

'This  is  beautiful,"  said  a  lady. 
"And  what  a  dream  to  be  so  loved  t 
What  happiness  to  live  fifty-five  years 
enveloped  in  a  deep,  living  affection! 
How  happy  and  benign  must  be  the 
life  of  one  who  is  adored  like  that!" 

The  doctor  laughed: 

"In  fact,  Madame,"  said  he,  *yo\i 
are  deceived  on  that  point,  because  the 
one  loved  was  a  man.  You  know  him, 
it  is  Mr.  Chouquet,  the  village  phar- 
macist. And  as  for  the  woman,  you 
knew  her  too,  it  is  the  old  woman  who 
put  cane  seats  in  chairs,  and  came  every 
year  to  this  house.  But  how  cm  I 
make   you   comprehend   the   matter?" 

The  enthusiasm  cf  the  women  fell. 
On  their  faces  a  lock  of  disgust  said: 
"Pooh!" — as  if  love  could  only  strike 
those  fine  and  distinguished  creatures 
who  were  worthy  of  the  interest  ci 
fashionable  people. 

The  doctor  continued: 

"I  was  called,  three  months  ago,  to 
the  bedside  of  this  old  woman.  She 
was  dying.  She  had  come  here  in  the 
old  carriage  that  served  her  for  a  house, 
drawn  by  the  nag  that  you  have  often 
seen,  and  accompanied  by  her  two  great 
black  dogs,  her  friends  and  guard.  The 
curate  was  already  there.  She  made  us 
the  executors  of  her  will,  and  in  order 


450 


WORKS  OF  GUV  DE  MAUPASSAN  1 


to  unveil  the  meaning  of  her  testament, 
she  related  the  story  of  her  life.  I 
have  never  heard  anything  more  singu- 
lar or  more  affecting. 

"Her  father  made  chair  seats  and  so 
did  her  mother.  She  had  never  known 
a  home  in  any  one  place  upon  the  earth. 
As  a  little  girl,  she  went  around  ragged 
and  dirty.  They  would  stop  beside  the 
road  at  the  entrance  to  towns,  unhar- 
ness the  horse  and  let  him  browse;  the 
dog  would  go  to  sleep  with  his  nose  in 
his  paws;  the  little  one  would  play  in 
the  grass  while  the  father  and  mother, 
under  the  shade  of  the  elms  bordering 
the  roadside,  would  reseat  all  the  old 
chairs  in  the  neighborhood. 

"No  one  ever  talked  in  this  am- 
bulance dwelling.  After  the  necessary 
words  to  decide  who  should  make  the 
tour  of  the  houses  and  who  should  call 
out  the  well-known:  'Chairs  to  mendl* 
they  would  sit  down  to  plait  the  straw, 
face  to  face  or  side  by  side. 

"When  the  child  went  too  far  away 
or  struck  up  an  acquaintance  with  some 
urchin  in  the  village,  the  angry  voice 
of  the  father  would  call  her:  'You 
come  back  here,  you  brat!'  And  these 
were  the  only  words  of  tenderness  she 
fiver  heard. 

'  "When  she  grew  larger  they  sent  her 
around  lo  collect  the  worn-out  chairs 
to  be  rebottomed.  Then  she  made 
some  acquaintances  from  place  to  place 
among  the  street  children.  Then  it 
would  be  the  parents  of  her  new  friends 
who  would  call  brutally  to  their  chil- 
dren: 'Will  you  come  here,  you 
scamp!  Let  me  catch  you  talking  to 
that  barefoot  again!' 

"Often  the  boys  would  throw  stones 
flt  her.      Sometimes   ladies   would   give 


her  a  few  pennies  and  look  at  rtet 
closely. 

"One  day — she  was  then  eleven  yearfi 
old — as  they  were  passing  through  this 
place,  she  met  the  little  Chouquet  be- 
hind the  cemetery,  weeping  because 
some  comrade  had  stolen  two  sous  from 
him.  The  tears  of  this  little  well-to-do 
citizen,  one  of  those  fortunate  ones 
from  whom  in  her  queer  noddle  she  had 
imagined  herself  cut  off,  one  of  those 
beings  always  content  and  joyous,  quite 
upset  her.  She  went  up  to  him,  and 
when  she  learned  the  cause  of  his  trou- 
ble, she  poured  into  his  hands  all  her 
savings,  seven  sous,  which  he  took  quite 
naturally,  drying  his  tears.  Then,  mad 
with  joy,  she  had  the  audacity  to  em- 
brace him.  As  he  was  counting  the 
money  attentively,  he  allowed  her  to 
do  it.  Seeing  that  she  was  not  repulsed 
nor  beaten,  she  did  the  same  thing  again. 
She  embraced  him  with  arms  and  heart. 
Then  she  ran  away. 

"What  could  have  taken  place  in  her 
miserable  head  after  that?  Did  she  at- 
tach herself  to  this  booby  because  she 
had  sacrificed  for  him  her  vagabond 
fortune,  or  because  she  had  given  to 
him  her  first  tender  kiss?  The  mystery 
is  the  same  for  the  small  as  for  the 
great. 

"For  months  she  dreamed  of  this  cor- 
ner of  the  cemetery  and  of  this  boy.  In 
the  hope  of  seeing  him  again,  she  rob- 
bed her  parents,  keeping  back  a  sou 
here  and  there,  either  from  a  chair  seat 
or  upon  the  provisions  which  she  was 
sent  to  buy. 

"When  she  returned  here  she  had 
two  francs  in  her  pocket,  but  she  only 
saw  the  little  druggist  very  properly 
behind   the.    big    colored    bottle    of   hJ" 


I 


A  STRANGE  FANCY 


451 


father's  shop,  between  a  red  decanter 
and  a  tapeworm.  She  loved  him  there 
still  more,  charmed,  aroused  to  ecstasy 
by  this  glory  of  colored  water,  this 
apotheosis  of  shining  crystal. 

'This  picture  became  an  ineffaceable 
memory,  and  when  she  saw  him,  the 
following  year,  playing  marbles  near 
the  school  with  his  comrades,  she  threw 
herself  upon  him,  seized  him  in  her  arms, 
and  kissed  him  with  such  violence  that 
he  began  to  howl  with  fear.  Then,  in 
order  to  appease  him,  she  gave  him 
all  her  money — seventy  cents,  a  real 
treasure  which  he  looked  at  with  bulg- 
ing eyes. 

"He  took  it  and  let  her  caress  him  as 
much  as  she  wished. 

"During  the  next  four  years  she 
turned  into  his  hand  all  her  surplus, 
which  he  pocketed  with  a  clear  con- 
science, in  exchange  for  permitted 
kisses.  There  was  sometimes  fifteen 
cents,  sometimes  forty,  and  once  only  five 
and  one-half — and  she  wept  with  pain 
and  humiliation  at  this,  but  it  had  been 
a  'bad  year.  The  last  time  there  was 
a  five-franc  piece,  a  great  round  piece 
that  made  him  laugh  with  content. 

"She  thought  of  nothing  but  him; 
and  he  waited  her  return  with  a  cer- 
tain impatience,  runrdng  to  meet  her, 
which  made  the  heart  of  the  girl  leap 
with  joy. 

"Then  he  disappeared.  They  sent 
him  away  to  college.  She  found  it  out 
by  skillful  questioning.  Then  she  used 
her  diplomacy  to  change  her  parents* 
itinerary  and  make  them  pass  through 
there  in  vacation.  She  succeeded  but 
for  one  year;  then  for  two  years  she  did 
not  see  him;  then  she  scarcely  recog- 
nized  him.  so  much  was  he  changed: 


he  was  so  large  and  handsome  in  his 
coat  with  the  brass  buttons,  and  so 
imposing.  He  feigned  not  to  see  her 
and   passed   proudly   by   near   her. 

"She  wept  over  it  for  two  days,  and 
after  that  she  suffered  without  ceasing. 

"Every  year  she  returned  here,  pass- 
ing him  without  daring  to  bow,  and 
without  his  deigning  to  raise  his  eyes  to 
her.  She  loved  him  passionately.  She 
said  to  me:  'Doctor,  he  is  the  only 
man  I  have  seen  on  earth;  I  have  not 
known  that  there  are  others  existing.' 

"Her  parents  died.  She  continued 
their  trade,  but  took  with  her  two  dogs 
instead  of  one,  two  terrible  dogs  that 
no  one  would  dare   encounter. 

"One  day  in  entering  this  village, 
where  her  heart  still  remained,  she  per- 
ceived a  young  woman  coming  out  of 
the  Chouquet  shop  on  the  arm  of  her 
well-beloved.  It  was  his  wife.  He  was 
married. 

"That  evening  she  threw  herself  into 
the  pond  on  the  mayor's  estate.  A 
drunken  man  got  her  out  and  took  hei 
to  the  pharmacy.  Chouquet,  the  son, 
came  down  in  his  dressing-gown,  to  care 
for  her;  and,  without  appearing  tc  rec- 
ognize her,  loosed  her  clothing  and 
rubbed  her,  then  said,  in  a  hard  voice: 
*My!  But  you  are  foolish!  It  is  not 
necessary  to  make  a  beast  of  yourself 
like  this!' 

"That  was  sufficient  to  cure  her.  He 
had  spoken  to  her!  She  was  happy  for 
a  long  time. 

"He  wanted  no  remuneration  for  hi.*! 
services,  but  she  insisted  upon  paying 
him  well.  And  all  her  life  was  spent 
like  this.  She  made  chair  seats  and 
thought  of  Chouquet.  Every  year  she 
saw  hin  beh'nd  hJs  larere  windows.     She 


45: 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


had  the  habit  of  buying  from  him  all 
her  medical  needs.  In  this  way  she 
could  see  him  near  to,  and  speak  to 
him,  and  still  give  him  a  little  money. 

"As  I  told  you  in  the  beginning,  she 
died  this  spring.  After  having  related 
her  sad  history,  she  begged  me  to  give 
to  him  she  had  so  patiently  loved  all  the 
savings  of  her  life,  because  she  had 
worked  only  for  him,  she  said,  fasting 
even,  in  order  to  put  aside,  and  to  be 
sure  that  he  would  think  of  her  at 
least  once  after  she  was  dead. 

"She  then  gave  me  two  thousand  three 
hundred  and  twenty-seven  francs.  I 
allowed  the  curate  twenty-seven  for 
burial,  and  carried  off  the  rest  when  she 
had  drawn  her  last  breath. 

"The  next  day,  I  took  myself  to  the 
house  of  the  Chouquets.  They  had 
just  finished  breakfast,  sitting  opposite 
each  other,  large  and  red,  smelling  of 
their  pharmaceutical  products,  impor- 
tant and  satisfied. 

"They  made  me  be  seated;  they  of- 
fered me  a  kirsch  which  I  accepted; 
then  I  commenced  my  discourse  in  an 
emotional  voice,  persuaded  that  they 
were  going  to  weep. 

"When  they  understood  that  he  had 
been  loved  by  this  vagabond,  this  chair 
mender,  this  rover,  Chouquet  bounced 
with  indignation,  as  if  she  had  robbed 
him  of  his  reputation,  of  the  esteem  of 
honest  people,  of  his  honor,  of  some- 
thing of  that  delicacy  that  was  dearer 
to  him  than  life. 

"His  wife,  also  exasperated,  kept  re- 
peating: 'The  beggar!  The  beggar! 
The  beggar!'  without  being  able  to  find 
any  other  word. 

**He  r^t  up  and  walked  around  the 
V»ble  with  lonrr  strides,  his  Greek  cap 


tipped  over  his  ear.  He  muttered. 
'Think  of  it,  Doctor!  This  is  a  horriblo 
thing  to  happen  to  a  man!  What  is  to 
be  done?  Oh!  if  I  had  known  this  while 
she  was  alive  I  would  have  had  her  ar- 
rested and  shut  up  in  prison.  And  she 
wouldn't  have  got  out,  I  can  tell  you!' 
"I  was  stupefied  at  the  result  of  my 
pious  proceedings.  I  neither  knew  what 
to  say  nor  what  to  do.  But  I  had  to 
complete  my  mission.  I  said:  'She 
has  charged  me  to  give  you  all  her  sav- 
ings, which  amount  to  two  thousand 
three  hundred  francs.  As  what  I  have 
told  you  seems  to  be  so  very  disagree- 
able to  you,  perhaps  it  would  be  better 
to  cive  this  money  to  the  poor.* 

"They  looked  at  me,  the  man  and  the 
woman,  impotent  from  shock.  I  drew 
the  money  from  my  pocket,  miserable 
money  from  all  the  country  and  of 
every  mark,  gold  and  sous  mixed 
Then  I  asked:     'What  do  you  decide?' 

"Mrs.  Chouquet  spoke  first.  She 
said:  'But  since  it  was  the  last  wish 
of  this  woman — it  seems  to  me  that 
it  would  be  difficult  to  refuse  it.' 

"The  husband,  somewhat  confused, 
answered:  'We  could  always  buy  with 
that  money  something  for  our  children.' 

*T  remarked,  dryly:     'As  you  wish.' 

"He  continued:  'Yes,  give  it  to  us, 
since  she  has  put  it  in  your  charge. 
We  can  always  find  means  of  using  it 
in  some  good  work.' 

'T  hid  down  the  money,  bowed,  and 
went  out. 

"The  next  day  Chouquet  came  to  me 
and  said  brusquely:  'She  must  have 
hft  a  wagon  here,  that — that  woman. 
What  are  you  going  to  do  with  this 
waoron?' 


AFTER  DEATH 


453 


"  'Nothing,'  said  I,  'take  it  if  you 
wish.' 

"  'Exactly.  Just  what  I  want.  I 
will  make  a  lean-to  of  it  for  my  kitchen 
stove.' 

"He  was  going,  but  I  recalled  him. 
*She  also  left  an  old  horse  and  her  two 
dogs.     Do   you   want    them?' 

*'He  stopped,  surprised:  *Ah!  no,' 
he  answered,  'what  could  I  do  with 
them?    Dispose  of  them  as  you  wish.' 

"Then  he  laughed  and  extended  his 
hand  which  I  took.    What  else  could 


I  do?  In  our  country,  a  medical  man 
and  a  druggist  should  not  be  enemies. 

"I  have  kept  the  dogs  at  my  house. 
The  curate,  who  has  a  large  yard,  took 
the  horse.  The  wagon  serves  Chouquct 
as  a  cabin,  and  he  has  bought  five  rail- 
road bonds  with  the  money. 

"This  is  the  only  profound  I'^ve  that 
I  have  met  in  my  life." 

The  doctor  was  silent.  Then  the 
Marquis,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  sighed: 
"Decidedly,  it  is  only  women  who  know 
how  to  love." 


After  Death 


All  Veziers-le-Rethel  had  assisted  at 
the  funeral  and  interment  of  M.  Badon- 
Leremince,  and  the  last  words  of  the 
discourse  of  the  delegate  of  the  district 
remained  in  the  memory  of  all: 

"He  was  an  honest  man,  at  least." 

Honest  man  he  had  been  in  all  the 
appreciable  acts  of  his  life ;  in  his  words, 
in  his  example,  in  his  attitude,  in  his 
bearing,  in  his  step,  in  the  cut  of  his 
beard,  and  the  form  of  his  hats.  He 
had  never  said  a  word  that  did  not  con- 
tain an  example,  never  gave  alms  with- 
out accompanying  it  with  advice,  never 
held  a  hand  without  having  the  air  of 
giving  it  a  kind  of  benediction. 

He  left  two  children,  a  son  and  a 
daughter.  His  son  was  General  Coun- 
selor, and  his  daughter,  having  married 
a  notary,  M.  Pc'rel  de  la  Voulte,  held  a 
high  place  in  Ve7ic-: 

They  were  inconsolaelt  at  the  death 
of  their  father,  for  they  !o\'ed  him  sin- 


cer 


^-> 


As  soon  as  the  ceremonies  were  over, 
they  returned  to  the  house  of  death, 
and  all  three  together,  the  son,  the 
daughter,  and  the  son-in-law,  opened  the 
will,  whose  seal  was  to  be  broken  by 
them  alone,  and  that  only  after  the 
cofiin  had  been  placed  in  the  earth. 
A  direction  upon  the  envelope  expresser* 
this  wish. 

It  was  M.  Poirel  de  la  Voulte  who 
opened  the  paper,  being  accustomed  to 
these  things  in  the  capacity  of  notary, 
and,  having  adjusted  his  eyeglasses  over 
his  eyes,  he  read,  in  a  dull  voice,  made 
for  particularizing  contracts: 

"My  children,  my  dear  children,  I 
could  not  sleep  tranquilly  the  eternal 
sleep  if  I  did  not  make  a  confession  to 
you  from  the  other  side  of  the  tomb,  the 
confession  of  a  crime,  remorse  of  which 
has  rent  my  life.  Yes,  I  have  committed 
a  crime,  a  frightful,  abominable  crime. 

"I  was  twenty-six  years  old,  had 
iu5t  been  called  to  the  bar  in  Paris,  and 


454 


WORKS  OF  GUV  DE  MAUPASSANT 


was  living  the  life  of  young  people  from 
the  provinces,  stranded,  without  ac- 
quaintances, friends,  or  parents  in  the 
city. 

"I  took  a  mistress.  There  are  people 
svho  are  indignant  at  this  word,  'mis- 
tress,' but  there  are  also  beings  who 
cannot  live  alone.  I  am  one  of  these. 
Solitude  fills  me  wiih  a  horrible  agony, 
especially  solitude  in  a  lodging,  before 
the  fire  in  the  evening.  It  seems  to  me 
then  that  I  am  alone  upon  earth,  fright- 
fully alone,  surrounded  by  vague  dan- 
gers, and  terrible,  unknown  things;  and 
the  partition  which  separates  me  from 
my  neighbor,  from  my  neighbor  whom 
I  do  not  know,  makes  him  as  far  re- 
moved as  the  stars  that  I  see  from  my 
window.  A  sort  of  fever  invades  me,  a 
fever  of  impatience  and  fear;  and  the 
silence  of  the  walls  overpowers  me.  It 
is  so  profound,  so  sad,  this  silence  of  a 
room  where  one  lives  alone!  It  is  a 
silence  about  the  soul,  and  when  the 
furniture  cracks  or  starts,  the  courage 
wanes,  for  one  expects  no  sound  in  this 
mournful   dwelling-place. 

"How  many  times,  unnerved,  fright- 
ened by  this  mute  immobility,  have  I 
begun  to  speak,  to  pronounce  some 
words,  without  sequence,  without  rea- 
son, in  order  to  make  some  noise.  My 
voice  then  appeared  to  me  so  strange 
that  I  was  afraid  of  that  also.  Is  there 
anything  more  frightful  than  talking 
alone  m  an  empty  house?  The  voice 
seems  like  that  of  another,  an  unknown 
voice,  speaking  without  cause,  to  no 
one,  into  the  hollow  air,  with  no  ear 
to  listen,  for  onf»  knows,  before  the 
words  are  uttered  into  the  space  of  the 
apartment,  what  the  lips  are  about  to 
say.     And  when  they  resound  lugub^ji- 


ously  in  the  silence,  tliey  seem  mare 
like  an  echo,  the  echo  of  singular  words 
pronounced  low  by  the  thoughts. 

*'I  took  a  mistress,  a  young  girl  like 
all  those  young  girls  who  live  in  Paris  at 
some  trade  insufficient  to  support  them. 
She  was  sweet,  good,  and  simple.  Her 
parents  lived  at  Poissy.  She  went  to 
stay  a  few  days  with  them  from  time  to 
time. 

'Tor  a  year  I  lived  tranquilly  enough 
with  her,  fully  decided  to  leave  her 
when  I  should  see  some  young  person 
with  whom  I  was  well  enough  pleased 
to  want  to  marry.  I  would  leave  to 
this  one  a  small  income,  since  it  is  ad- 
mitted in  our  society  that  the  love  of 
a  woman  ought  to  be  paid  for,  in  money 
when  she  is  poor,  in  jewels  if  she  is 
rich. 

"But  behold  there  came  a  day  when 
she  announced  to  me  that  she  was  e»- 
ceinte.  I  was  struck  down,  and  per- 
ceived in  an  instant  the  ruin  of  my 
whole  existence.  The  chain  was  ap- 
parent that  I  must  drag  to  my  dying 
day,  in  the  near  future,  in  my  old  age, 
always,  the  chain  of  a  woman  bound  to 
my  life  by  a  child,  the  chain  of  a  child 
whom  it  would  be  necessary  to  bring  up, 
watch  over,  and  protect,  always  con- 
cealing myself  from  him  and  Wm  from 
the  world.  My  mind  was  overturned  by 
this  news,  and  a  confused  desire,  which 
I  did  not  formulate,  but  which  I  felt 
in  my  heart,  took  to  showing  itself,  like 
people  concealed  behind  portieres  wait- 
ing until  some  one  tells  them  to  appear; 
a  criminal  desire  that  roamed  around  at 
the  bottom  of  my  thoughts'  If  some 
accident  could  happen!  There  are  so 
many  of  these  little  beings  who  die  be™ 
fore  birth! 


AFTER  DEATH 


45S 


"Oh!  I  did  not  desire  the  death  of 
my  mistress.  Poor  girl,  I  loved  her 
well!  But  I  wished,  perhaps,  the  death 
of  the  other  before  I  had  seen  it. 

"It  was  born.  I  had  a  household  in 
my  bachelor's  quarters,  a  false  house- 
hold with  a  child — a  horrible  thing. 
It  resembled  all  infants.  I  could 
scarcely  love  it.  Fathers,  you  see,  do 
not  love  until  later.  They  have  not  the 
instinctive,  surpassing  love  and  tender- 
ness of  mothers ;  their  affection  is  awak- 
ened little  by  little,  as  their  mind  is 
drawn  toward  their  children  each  day 
in  the  bonds  which  unite  living  beings 
together. 

"A  year  passed  away.  I  now  fled 
from  my  too  small  dwelling,  where  linen 
and  blankets  and  stockings,  the  size  of 
a  pair  of  gloves,  were  dragging  around 
and  a  thousand  things  of  this  kind  were 
left  upon  the  furniture,  especially  upon 
the  arm  of  the  easy-chair.  I  fled  par- 
ticularly to  escape  from  hearing  him 
cry;  for  he  cried  at  all  times,  when  he 
was  changed,  when  he  was  washed,  when 
one  touched  him,  when  he  was  put  to 
bed,  when  he  was  taken  up,  without 
ceasing. 

"I  had  made  some  acquaintances,  and 
had  met  her  who  was  to  become  your 
mother.  I  came  to  love  her  and  a  de- 
sire to  marry  her  was  awakened  in  me. 
I  paid  her  my  court;  I  asked  her  in 
marriage;  she  accepted  me. 

"And  now  I  found  myself  in  this 
predicament :  To  marry,  having  a  child, 
this  young  girl  whom  I  adored, — or,  to 
tell  the  truth  and  renounce  her  and 
happiness,  the  future,  everything;  for 
her  parents,  rigid  and  scrupulous  peo- 
ple, would  never  give  her  to  me  if  they 
knew. 


"I  passed  one  month  of  horrible  an- 
guish, of  moral  torture;  a  month  where 
a  thousand  thoughts  frightened  and 
haunted  me;  and  I  felt  growing  in  me 
a  hate  against  my  son,  against  this  little 
piece  of  living,  crying  flesh  v/ho  barred 
my  way,  ruined  my  life,  and  condemned 
me  to  an  existence  without  hope,  those 
vagU3  hopes  so  charming  to  youth. 

'  At  this  time  the  mother  of  my  com- 
panion fell  ill  and  I  remained  alone  with 
the  infant.  It  was  in  December.  It  was 
terribly  cold.  What  a  night!  My  mis- 
tress had  gone.  I  had  dined  in  my  nar- 
row dining-room  and  then  entered  softly 
into  the  chamber  where  the  little  one 
slept. 

"I  seated  myself  in  an  armchair  be- 
fore the  fire.  The  wind  sighed,  making 
the  glass  crack,  a  wind  dry  with  frost, 
and  I  saw  out  of  the  window  the  stars 
scintillating  with  that  bright  light  which 
they  have  on  frosty  nights. 

"Then  the  besetting  thought  which 
had  haunted  me  for  a  month  entered 
my  head  again.  Whenever  I  remained 
still,  it  descended  upon  me,  entered  into 
me,  and  roamed  about.  It  gnawed  me 
as  fixed  ideas  gnaw,  as  a  cancer  gnaw? 
into  the  flesh.  It  was  there,  in  my  head, 
in  my  heart,  in  my  entire  body,  it 
seemed  to  me,  and  it  devoured  me  as 
if  it  had  been  a  beast.  I  tried  to  drive 
it,  push  it  away,  to  opeu  my  thoughts  to 
other  things,  to  new  hopes,  as  one  opens 
a  window  to  the  fresh  air  of  morning  to 
drive  out  the  vitiated  air  of  night;  but 
I  could  not,  even  for  a  second,  get  it 
out  of  my  brain.  I  know  not  how  to 
express  this  torture.  It  gnawed  at  my 
soul;  and  I  felt  with  a  frightful  grief, 
a  physical  and  moral  grief,  each  5UC* 
ceeding  pang. 


455 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


**My  existence  was  ended!  How 
could  I  ever  get  out  of  the  situation? 
How  draw  away,  or  how  confess? 

"And  I  loved  her  who  was  to  become 
your  mother  with  a  mad  passion  which 
this  insurmountable  obstacle  further 
exaggerated. 

"A  terrible  anger  grew  in  me  which 
tightened  my  throat,  an  anger  which  ap- 
proached madness  —  mania!  Surely,  I 
was  mad  that  night! 

"The  child  slept,  i  arose  and  went 
and  looked  at  him  sleeping.  There  he 
was,  this  abortion,  this  larva,  this  noth- 
ing, who  condemned  me  to  a  life  of  un- 
happiness  without  appeal. 

"He  slept,  his  mouth  open,  buried  in 
\he  bedclothes,  in  a  cradle  near  my  bed, 
where  I  could  not  sleep  myself ! 

"How  did  I  accomplish  what  I  did? 
Do  I  know?  What  force  drove  me, 
what  power  of  malice  possessed  me? 
Oh!  the  temptation  of  the  crime  came 
to  me,  without  announcing  itself.  I 
only  recall  that  my  heart  was  beating 
furiously.  It  beat  so  strongly  that  I 
heard  it  as  one  hears  the  blows  of  a 
hammer  behind  a  partition  wall.  I  only 
recall  that!  my  heart  beating!  In  my 
head  there  was  a  strange  confusion,  a 
tumult,  a  derangement  of  reason,  of 
complete  cold-bloodedness.  I  was  in 
one  of  those  frightful  hours  of  hallucina- 
tion when  a  man  is  no  longer  conscious 
of  his  acts,  either  in  direction  or  will. 

"I  gently  raised  the  covers  which  con- 
cealed the  body  of  my  child;  I  threw 
them  upon  the  foot  of  the  cradle,  and 
looked  at  him  all  bare.  He  did  not 
wake.  Then  T  went  toward  the  win- 
dow very  gently  and  opened  it. 

"A  breath  of  cold  air  came  in  like 


an  assassin,  so  cold  that  I  drew  back 
before  it.  The  two  candbs  flickered. 
And  I  remained  there  near  the  window 
for  a  long  time,  not  daring  to  turn 
and  see  what  was  behind  me,  and  feel- 
ing ever  upon  my  forehead,  my  cheeks, 
my  hands,  the  fatal  air  that  was  con- 
stantly gliding  it.  This  lasted  a  long 
time. 

"I  did  not  reflect.  I  was  thinking  of 
nothing.  Suddenly  a  little  cough  made 
a  frightful  shiver  pass  through  me  from 
head  to  foot,  a  shiver  which  I  can  feel 
at  this  moment  at  the  roots  of  my  hair. 
With  a  startled  movement  I  closed 
brusquely  the  two  sides  of  the  windov/, 
and  turning  hastened  to  the  cradle. 

*'He  still  slept,  his  mouth  open,  all 
bare.  I  touched  his  limbs;  they  were 
icy  and  I  covered  him  again.  My  heart 
seemed  suddenly  to  break  and  to  be 
filled  with  pity  and  tenderness  for  thi« 
poor  little  innocent  being  whom  I  had 
wished  to  kill.  I  kissed  him  over  and 
over  again  upon  his  fine  hair.  Then  I 
returned  and  seated  myself  before  the 
fire. 

"I  thought  with  horror  of  what  I 
had  done,  and  asked  myself  whence 
came  these  tempests  of  the  soul  when 
man  loses  all  notion  of  thinj^s,  all  con- 
trol of  himself,  and  moves  in  a  sort  of 
fearful  drunkenness,  without  knowing 
what  he  does,  without  knowing  where 
he  goes,  like  a  ship  in  a  hurricane. 

"The  child  coughed  once  again  and 
I  felt  torn  to  the  heart.  If  he  should 
die !  My  God,  my  God !  what  would  be- 
come of  me? 

"I  got  up  and  went  to  look  at  him; 
and,  with  a  candle  in  my  hand,  I  bent 
over  him.  Seeing  him  breathe  tranquilly, 


AFTER  DEATH 


45? 


J  was  reassured,  even  when  he  coughed 
for  the  third  time.  But  I  felt  such  a 
shock,  and  made  such  a  movement  to 
arrest  it  (as  one  does  at  the  sight  of 
some  frightful  thing)  that  I  let  the  can- 
dle fall. 

"And,  straightening  myself,  after  hav- 
ing picked  it  up,  I  perceived  that  my 
temples  were  moistened  with  sweat,  with 
a  sweat  hot  and  cold  at  the  same  time, 
which  produced  an  agony  of  the  soul  like 
that  of  some  frightful  moral  suffering, 
or  some  unnamable  torture,  burning 
like  fire,  and  cold  as  ice,  piercing  the 
bones  and  the  skin  of  my  head. 

"I  remained  bending  over  my  son 
until  daybreak,  calming  myself  when  he 
was  quiet  and  transfixed  by  an  abomi- 
nable grief  when  a  feeble  cough  came 
from  his  mouth. 

"He  awoke  with  red  eyes,  an  inflamed 
throat,  and  difficult  breathing.  When 
my  wife  entered  the  house  and  saw  him, 
we  sent  immediately  for  a  physician. 
He  came  in  an  hour  and  asked,  after 
having  examined  him: 

"  'Has  he  taken  cold?' 
*1  began  to  tremble  as  very  old  peo- 
ole  tremble,  and  stammered: 

" *No,  I  think  not.'    Then  I  asked' 

"  *What  is  the  matter?  It  is  any- 
thing grave?' 

"He  answered: 

"  *I  cannot  say  yet.  I  will  return 
this  evening.' 

"He  returned  in  the  evening.  My  son 
had  passed  nearly  the  whole  day  in  an 
invincible  sleepiness,  coughing  from 
time  to  time.  A  congestion  of  the  lungs 
now  showed  itself. 

^'This  lasted  ten  days.    "^  cannot  ex- 


press  what  I  suffered  during  those  in- 
terminable hours  which  separate  the 
morning  from  evening  and  the  evening 
from  the  morning. 

"He  died— 

"And  smce — since  that  moment,  I 
have  not  passed  an  hour,  no,  not  an  hour 
without  that  atrocious,  cutting  memory, 
a  memory  which  gnaws,  which  tortures 
and  rends  the  mind,  and  stirs  in  me  like 
a  writhing  beast  chained  up  in  the  bot- 
tom of  my  soul. 

"Oh!  if  I  could  have  become  mad!" 

M.  Poirel  de  la  Voulte  put  up  his 
glasses,  a  movement  which  was  usual 
with  him  when  he  had  finished  reading 
a  contract,  and  the  three  heirs  of  the 
dead  man  looked  at  each  other  without 
saying  a  word,  pale  and  immovable. 
At  the  end  of  a  minute  the  notary  said: 

"This  must  be  destroyed." 

The  two  others  lowered  their  head  in 
sign  of  assent.  He  lighted  a  candle, 
separated  carefully  the  pages  which  con- 
tained the  dangerous  confession  from 
the  pages  which  contained  the  disposi- 
tion of  the  money,  then  he  presented 
them  to  the  ilame  and  threw  them  into 
the  fireplace. 

And  they  watched  the  white  leaves  as 
they  were  consumed.  Soon  they  were 
nothing  more  than  a  lot  of  little  black 
heaps.  And  as  they  still  perceived  some 
letters  which  were  legible  on  the  paper, 
the  daughter  crushed  it  with  the  end  of 
her  foot,  mixing  it  with  the  old  ashes. 

Then  they  all  three  remained  quiet 
for  some  time  looking  at  it,  as  if  the} 
feared  that  the  charred  secret  migh) 
flv  away  up  the  chimney. 


I 


On  Cats 


Cape  of  Antibes. 

Seated  on  a  bench,  the  o'.her  day  at 
aiy  door,  in  the  full  sunlight,  with  a 
duster  of  anemones  in  flower  before 
me,  I  read  a  book  recently  published, 
an  honest  book,  something  uncommon 
and  charming,  —  "The  Cooper"  by 
George  Duval.  A  large  white  cat  that 
belonged  to  the  gardener  jumped  upon 
my  lap,  and  by  the  shock  closed  the 
book,  which  I  placed  at  my  side  in  order 
to  caress  the  animal. 

The  weather  was  warm;  a  faint  sug- 
gestive odor  of  new  flowers  was  in  the 
air,  and  at  times  came  little  cool 
breezes  from  the  great  white  summits 
that  I  could  see  in  the  distance.  But 
the  sun  was  hot  and  sharp,  and  the 
day  was  one  of  those  that  stir  the  earth, 
make  it  alive,  break  open  the  seed  in 
order  to  animate  the  sleeping  germs, 
and  cleave  the  buds  so  that  the  young 
leaves  may  spring  forth.  The  cat  rolled 
itself  on  my  knees,  lying  on  its  back, 
its  paws  in  the  air,  with  claws  protrud- 
ing, then  receding.  The  little  creature 
showed  its  pointed  teeth  beneath  its  lips, 
and  its  green  eyes  gleamed  in  the  half- 
closed  slit  of  its  eyelids.  I  caressed  and 
rubbed  the  soft,  nervous  animal,  sup- 
ple as  a  piece  of  silk,  smooth,  warm, 
delicious,  dangerous.  She  purred  with 
satisfaction,  yet  was  quite  ready  to 
scratch,  for  a  cat  lovcb  to  scratch  as 
well  as  to  be  petted.  She  held  out  her 
neck  and  rolled  again,  and  when  I  took 
my  hand  from  her,  she  raised  herself 
and  pushed  her  head  against  my  lifted 
tand. 

I  made  her  nervous,  and  she  made  me 
nervous  also,  for,  although  I  like  cats 
in  a  certain  way,  I  detest  ^hem  at  the 


same  time, — those  animals  so  charming 
and  so  treacherous.  It  gives  me  plea- 
sure to  fondle  them,  to  rub  under  my 
hand  their  silky  fur  that  sometimes 
crackles,  to  feel  their  warmth  through 
this  fine  and  exquisite  covering.  Noth- 
ing is  softer,  nothing  gives  to  the  skin 
a  sensation  more  delicate,  more  refined, 
more  rare,  than  the  warm,  living  coat 
of  a  cat.  But  this  living  coat  also  com- 
municates to  me,  through  the  ends  of 
my  fingers,  a  strange  and  ferocious  de- 
sire to  strangle  the  animal  I  am  caress- 
ing. I  feel  in  her  the  desire  she  has  to 
bite  and  scratch  me.  I  feel  it, — that 
same  desire,  as  if  it  were  an  electric  cur- 
rent communicated  from  her  to  me.  I 
run  my  fingers  through  the  soft  fur  and 
the  current  passes  through  my  nerves 
from  my  finger-tips  to  my  heart,  even 
to  my  brain;  it  tingles  throughout  my 
being  and  causes  me  to  shut  my  teeth 
hard. 

And  if  the  animal  begins  to  bite  and 
scratch  me,  I  seize  her  by  the  neck,  I 
give  her  a  turn  and  throw  her  far  from 
me,  as  I  would  throw  a  stone  from  a 
.sling,  so  quickly  and  so  brutally  that  she 
never  has  time  to  revenge  herself. 

I  remember  that  when  I  was  a  child 
I  loved  cats,  yet  I  had  even  then  that 
strange  desire  to  strangle  them  with  my 
little  hands;  and  one  day  at  the  end 
of  the  garden,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
woods,  I  perceived  suddenly  something 
gray  rolling  in  the  high  grass.  I  went 
to  see  what  it  was,  and  found  a  cat 
caught  in  a  snare,  strangling,  suffocat- 
ing, dying.  It  rolled,  tore  up  the  ground 
with  its  claws,  bounded,  fell  inert,  then 
began  again,  and  its  hoarse,  rapid 
breathing  made  a  noise  like  a  pump,  a 


I'^S 


ON  CATS 


459 


frightful  noise  which  I  hear  yet.  I 
could  have  taken  a  spade  and  cut  the 
snare,  I  could  have  gone  to  find  the 
servant  or  tell  my  father.  No,  I  did 
not  move,  and  with  beating  heart  I 
watched  it  die  with  a  trembling  and 
cruel  joy.  It  was  a  cat !  If  it  had  been 
a  dog,  I  would  rather  have  cut  the  cop- 
per wire  with  my  teeth  than  let  it  suffer 
a  second  more.  When  tJie  cat  was  quite 
dead,  but  yet  warm,  I  went  to  feel  of 
it  and  pull  its  tail ! 

These  little  creatures  are  delicious, 
nothwithstanding,  delicious  above  all, 
because  in  caressing  them,  while  they 
are  rubbing  against  cur  skin,  purring 
and  rolling  on  us,  looking  at  us  with 
their  yellow  eyes  which  seem  never  to 
see  us,  we  realize  the  insecurity  of  their 
tenderness,  the  perfidious  selfishness  of 
their  pleasure. 

Some  women,  also,  give  us  that  sen- 
scition, — ^women  who  are  charming,  ten- 
oer,  with  clear  yet  false  eyes,  who  have 
chosen  us  entirely  for  their  gratification. 
Near  them,  when  they  open  their  arms 
and  offer  their  lips,  when  a  man  folds 
them  to  his  heart  with  bounding  pulses, 
when  he  tastes  the  joy  of  their  delicate 
caress,  he  realizes  well  that  he  holds  a 
perfidious,  tricky  cat,  with  claws  and 
fangs,  an  enemy  in  love,  who  will  bite 
him  when  she  is  tired  of  kisses. 

Many  of  the  poets  have  loved  cats. 
Baudelaire  has  suns  to  them  divinely. 

I  had  one  day  the  strange  sensation  of 
having  inhabited  the  enchanted  palace 
of  the  White  Cat,  a  magic  castle  where 
reigned  one  of  those  undulant,  mysteri- 
ous, troubling  animals,  the  only  one, 
perhaps,  of  all  living  creatures  that  one 
never  hears  walk. 

This  adventure  occurred  last  year  on 


this  same  shore  of  the  Mediterranean. 
At  Nice  there  was  atrocious  heat,  and 
I  asked  myself  as  to  whether  there  was 
not,  somewhere  in  the  mountains  above 
us,  a  fresh  valley  where  one  might  find 
a  breath  of  fresh  air. 

Thorence  was  recommended  to  me, 
and  I  wished  to  see  it  immediately. 
To  get  there  I  had  first  to  go  to  Grasse, 
the  town  of  perfumes,  concerning  which 
I  shall  write  some  day,  and  tell  how  the 
essences  and  quintessences  of  flowers 
are  manufactured  there,  costing  up  to 
two  thousand  francs  the  liter.  I  passed 
the  night  in  an  old  hotel  of  the  town, 
a  poor  kind  of  inn,  where  the  quality 
of  the  food  was  as  doubtful  as  the 
cleanliness  of  the  rooms.  I  went  on 
my  way  in  the  morning. 

The  road  went  straight  up  into  the 
mountains,  following  the  deep  ravines, 
v/hich  were  overshadowed  by  sterile 
peaks,  pointed  and  savage.  I  thought 
that  my  advisers  had  recommended  to 
me  a  very  extraordinary  kind  of  sum- 
mer excursion,  and  I  was  almost  on  the 
point  of  returning  to  Nice  the  same  day, 
when  I  saw  suddenly  before  me,  on  a 
mountain  which  appeared  to  close  the 
entrance  to  the  entire  valley,  an  im- 
mense and  picturesque  ruined  castle, 
showing  towers  and  broken  wails,  of  a 
strange  architecture,  in  profile  against 
the  sky.  It  proved  to  be  an  ancient  cas- 
tle that  had  belonged  to  the  Templars, 
who,  in  bygone  days,  had  governed  this 
country  of  Thorence. 

I  made  a  detour  of  this  mountain, 
and  suddenly  discovered  a  long,  green 
valley,  fresh  and  reposeful.  Upon  its 
level  were  meadows,  running  waters, 
and  willows;  and  on  its  sides  grew  tall 
pines-trees.     In  front  of  the  ruins,  on 


400 


WORKS  OF  GU\'  DE  MAUPASSANT 


the  other  side  of  the  valley,  but  stand- 
ing lower,  was  an  inhabited  castle,  called 
the  Castle  of  the  Four  Towers,  which 
was  built  about  the  year  1530.  One 
could  not  see  any  trace  of  the  Renais- 
sance period,  however.  It  was  a  strong 
and  massive  square  structure,  apparently 
possessing  tremendous  powers  of  re- 
sistance, and  it  was  supported  by  four 
defensive  towers,  as  its  name  would  in- 
dicate. 

I  had  a  letter  of  introduction  to  the 
owner  of  this  manor,  who  would  not 
permit  me  to  go  to  the  hotel.  The 
whole  valley  is  one  of  the  most  charm- 
ing spots  in  summer  that  one  could 
dream  of.  I  wandered  about  there  un- 
til evening,  and  after  dinner  I  went  to 
the  apartment  that  had  been  reserved 
for  me.  I  first  passed  through  a  sort  of 
sitting-room,  the  walls  of  which  were 
covered  by  old  Cordova  leather;  then  I 
went  through  another  room,  where,  by 
the  light  of  my  candle,  I  noticed  rapidly, 
in  passing,  several  old  portraits  of  ladies 
— those  paintings  of  which  Theophile 
Gautier  has  written. 

I  entered  the  room  where  my  bed 
was,  and  looked  around  me.  The  walls 
where  hung  with  antique  tapestries, 
where  one  saw  rose-colored  donjons  in 
blue  landscapes,  and  great  fantastic 
birds  sitting  under  foliage  of  precious 
stones!  My  dressing-room  was  in  one 
of  the  towers.  The  windows  wide  on 
the  inside  and  narrowed  to  a  mere  slit 
on  the  outside,  going  through  the  entire 
thickness  of  the  walls,  were,  in  reality, 
nothing  but  loopholes,  through  which 
one  might  kill  an  approaching  enemy. 

I  shut  my  door,  went  to  bed,  and 
slept.  Presently  I  dreamed;  usually 
one  dreams  a  little  of  something:  that 


has  passed  during  the  day.  I  seemed 
to  be  traveling;  I  entered  an  inn,  where 
I  saw  at  a  table  before  the  fire  a  ser- 
vant in  complete  livery,  and  a  mason, — 
a  strange  association  which  did  not  as- 
tonish me.  These  people  spoke  of 
Victor  Hugo,  who  had  just  died,  and  I 
took  part  in  their  conversation.  At 
last  I  went  to  bed  in  a  room,  the  door 
of  which  I  could  not  shut;  and  sud- 
denly, I  saw  the  servant  and  the  mason, 
armed  with  sabers,  coming  softly  to- 
ward my  bed. 

I  awoke  at  once,  and  a  few  moments 
passed  before  I  could  recollect  wheie 
I  was.  Then  I  recalled  quickly  my  ar- 
rival of  the  day  before  at  Thorence,  the 
occurrences  of  the  evening,  and  my 
pleasant  reception  by  the  owner.  I  was 
just  about  to  close  my  eyes,  when  I 
saw  distinctly  in  the  darkness,  in  the 
middle  of  my  room,  at  about  the  height 
of  a  man's  head,  two  fiery  eyes  watch- 
ing me. 

I  seized  a  match,  and  while  striking 
it  I  heard  a  noise,  a  light,  soft  noise, 
like  the  sound  of  a  wet  rag  thrown  on 
the  floor,  but  after  I  had  lighted  the 
candle  I  saw  nothing  but  a  tall  table  in 
the  middle  of  the  room.  I  rose,  went 
through  both  apartments,  looked  under 
the  bed  and  into  the  closets,  and  found 
nothing.  I  thought  then  that  perhaps  I 
had  continued  dreaming  after  I  was 
awake,  and  so  I  went  to  sleep  again,  but 
not  without  trouble. 

I  dreamed  again.  This  time  I  trav- 
eled once  more,  but  in  the  Orient,  in 
the  country  that  I  love.  I  arrived  at 
the  house  of  a  Turk,  who  lived  in  the 
middle  of  a  desert.  He  was  a  superH 
Turk, — not  an  Arab,  but  a  Turk,  fat, 
fxiendly.  and  channin*?.    He  was  dressed 


ON  CATS 


461 


in  Turkish  attire,  with  a  turban  on  his 
head,  and  a  whole  shopful  of  silk  on 
his  back, — a  real  Turk  of  the  Theatre 
Frangais,  who  made  me  compliments 
while  offering  me  sweetmeats,  sitting  on 
3  voluptuous  divan. 

Then  a  little  black  boy  took  me  to  a 
room — all  my  dreamr  ended  in  this  fash- 
ion in  those  days!  It  was  a  perfumed 
room  decorated  in  sky  blue,  with  skins 
of  wild  beasts  on  the  floor,  and  before 
the  fire, — the  idea  of  fire  pursued  me 
even  in  the  desert, — on  a  low  chair,  was 
a  woman,  lightly  clothed,  who  was  wait- 
ing on  me.  She  was  of  the  purest  Ori- 
ental type,  with  stars  tattooed  on  her 
cheeks  and  forehead  and  chin;  she  had 
immense  eyes,  a  beautiful  form,  and 
slightly  brown  skin, — ^a  warm  and  ex- 
citing skin. 

She  looked  at  me,  and  I  thought: 
"This  is  what  I  understand  to  be  the 
true  meaning  of  the  word  hospitality. 
In  our  stupid  and  prudish  northern 
countries,  with  their  hateful  mawkish- 
ness  of  ideas,  and  silly  notions  of  moral- 
ity, a  man  would  never  receive  a 
stranger  in  this  fashion." 

I  went  up  to  the  woman  and  spoke  to 
her,  but  she  replied  only  by  signs,  not 
knowing  a  word  of  my  language,  which 
the  Turk,  her  master,  understood  so 
well.  All  the  hippier  that  she  would 
be  silent,  I  took  her  by  the  hand  and 
led  her  toward  my  couch,  where  I  placed 
myself  by  her  side,    .    .    . 


But  one  always  awakens  at  those 
moments!  So  I  opened  my  eyes  and 
was  not  greatly  surprised  to  feel  be- 
neath my  hand  something  soft  and 
warm,  which  I  caressed  lovingly.  Then, 
my  mind  clearing,  I  recognized  that  it 
was  a  cat,  a  big  cat  rolled  up  against  my 
cheek,  sleeping  there  with  confidence. 
I  left  it  there  and  composed  myself  to 
sleep  once  more.  When  daylight  ap- 
peared he  was  gone;  and  I  really 
thought  I  had  dreamed  he  had  been  with 
me;  for  I  could  not  understand  how  he 
could  have  come  in  and  gone  out,  as 
my  door  was  locked. 

When  I  related  my  dream  and  my  ad- 
venture to  my  agreeable  host  (not  the 
whole  of  it!)  he  began  to  laujh,  and 
caid:  "He  came  in  through  his  own 
door,"  and  raising  a  curtain,  he  showed 
me  a  little  round  hole  in  the  wall.  I 
learned  then  that  the  old  habitations  of 
this  country  have  long  narrov/  runways 
through  the  walls,  which  go  from  the 
cellar  to  the  garret,  from  the  servants* 
rooms  to  the  rooms  of  the  seigneur,  and 
these  passages  render  the  cat  king  and 
master  of  the  interior  of  the  house.  He 
goes  where  it  pleases  him,  visits  his  do- 
main at  his  pleasure,  sleeps  in  all  the 
beds,  sees  all,  hears  all,  knows  all  the 
secrets,  all  the  habits,  all  the  shames 
of  the  house.  Everywhere  he  is  at 
home,  the  animal  that  moves  without 
noise,  the  silent  prowler,  the  nocturna) 
rover  of  the  hollowed  walls.  And  ) 
thought  of  Baudelaire. 


Room  No.  Eleven 


"What!  You  do  not  know  why 
President  Amandon  was  removed?' 

"No,  not  at  all." 

"As  far  as  he  is  concerned,  it  would 
never  have  been  known.  But  it  is  a 
story  of  the  strangest  sort." 

"Relate  it  to  me." 

"You  remember  Mrs.  Aiaandon,  that 
pretty  brunette,  thin,  and  so  distin- 
guished and  pretty  thac  she  was  called 
Madame  Marguerite  in  all  Perthuis-le- 
Long?" 

"Yes,  perfectly.'* 

"Very  well,  then.  You  recall  also 
how  much  she  was  respected  and  con- 
sidered, and  better  loved  than  anyone 
III  the  town;  she  knew  how  to  receive, 
how  to  organize  a  festival  or  a  charity 
fair,  how  to  find  money  for  the  poor, 
and  how  to  please  the  young  people  in 
a  thousand  ways. 

"She  was  very  elegant  and  very 
coquettish,  nevertheless,  but  in  a  Pla- 
tonic fashion,  and  with  the  charming 
elegance  of  the  provinces,  for  she  w^as 
a  provincial,  this  pretty  little  woman, 
an  exquisite  provincial. 

"The  poets  and  writers  who  are  all 
Parisian  sing  to  us  of  the  Parisian 
woman  and  of  her  charm,  b3cause  they 
know  only  her;  but  I  declare  here  that 
the  provincial  is  worth  a  hundred  times 
more  when  she  is  of  superior  quality. 

"The  provincial  has  an  attraction  all 
her  own;  she  is  more  discreet  than  the 
Parisian,  more  humble,  promising  noth- 
ing and  giving  much,  while  the  Parisian 
for  the  most  part,  promises  much  and 
gives  nothing  but  deshabille. 

"The  Parisian  is  a  triumph  in  the  ele- 


vincial,  an  example  of  the  modesty  ol 
truth. 

"Yet  the  provincial,  with  her  air  of 
homely  alertness,  her  deceitful,  school- 
girl candor,  her  smile  which  means  noth- 
ing, and  her  good  little  passions,  direct 
and  tenacious,  is  capable  of  a  thou- 
sand times  more  deceit,  artifice,  and 
feminine  invention  than  all  the  Pari- 
sians together,  for  gratifying  her  own 
tastes  or  vices,  and  that  without  awaken- 
ing suspicion,  or  scandal,  or  gossip  in 
the  little  town  which  watches  her  with 
all  its  eyes  from  all  its  windows. 

"Mrs.  Amandon  was  a  type  of  this 
rare  race,  but  charming.  Never  had 
anyone  suspected  her,  never  had  any* 
one  thought  that  her  life  was  not  as 
limpid  as  her  look,  a  sly  look,  trans- 
parent and  warm,  but  seemingly  so 
honest — you  should  have  seen  it! 

"Then  she  had  admirable  tact,  a 
marvelous  ingenuity  and  power  of  in- 
vention, and  unbelievable  simplicity. 

"She  picked  all  her  lovers  from  tha 
army  and  kept  them  three  years,  the 
time  of  their  sojourn  in  the  garrison. 
In  short,  she  not  only  had  love,  she 
had  sense. 

"When  some  new  regiment  arrived  at 
Perthuis-le-Long,  she  carefully  observed 
all  the  officers  between  thirty  and  forty 
years  of  age — >'or,  before  thirty  ohe  is 
not  discreet,  and  after  forty,  one  is 
often  feeble. 

"Oh!  she  knew  the  list  of  officers  as 
well  as  the  colonel.  She  knew  all,  all 
the  habits,  manners,  instruction,  educa- 
tion, physical  qualities,  the  power  of 
resistance  to  fatigue,  the  character, 
whether  patient  or  violent,  the  fortune, 


gar.t  <:ffrontery  of  falseness;   the  pro-     and  the  tendency  to  closeness  or  prod- 

462 


ROOM  NO.  ELEVEN 


463 


igality  of  each  of  them.  Then  she 
made  her  choice.  She  gave  the  pref- 
erence to  men  of  calm  allurement,  like 
nerself,  but  they  must  be  handsome. 
She  also  wished  them  to  have  bad  no 
previous  entanglements,  any  passion 
having  the  power  to  leave  traces,  or 
that  had  made  any  trouble.  Because 
the  man  whose  loves  are  mentioned  is 
never  a  very  discreet  man. 

"After  having  decided  upon  the  one 
she  would  love  for  the  three  years  of 
his  regulation  sojourn,  it  only  remained 
to  throw  down  the  gauntlet. 

•"While  some  women  would  find  them- 
selves enbarrassed,  would  have  taken 
ordinary  means,  following  the  way  of 
others,  having  court  paid  them  in 
marked-off  stages  of  conquest  and  re- 
sistance, allowing  her  fingers  to  be  kissed 
one  day,  her  wrist  the  next,  her  cheek 
the  following,  then  the  lips,  then  the 
rest,  she  had  a  method  more  prompt, 
more  discreet,  and  more  sure.  She  gave 
a  ball. 

"The  chosen  ofi5cer  was  invited  to 
dance  with  the  mistress  of  the  house. 
Then,  in  waltzing,  led  on  by  the  rapid 
movement,  bewildered  by  the  intoxica- 
tion of  the  dance,  she  would  throw  her- 
self against  him  as  if  giving  herself,  and 
hold  his  hand  with  a  nervous,  con- 
tinued pressure. 

"If  he  did  not  comprehend,  he  was 
only  a  fool,  and  she  passed  on  to  the 
next,  classed  as  number  two,  on  the 
list  of  her  desires. 

"If  he  comprehended,  the  thing  was 
done,  without  fuss,  without  compromis- 
ing gallantries,  without  numerous  visits. 

"What  could  be  more  simple  or  more 
'jractical? 

"Hovr  women  might  make  use  of  a 


process  similar  to  this  to  make  us  un- 
derstand their  pleasure!  How  much  it 
would  suppress  difficulties,  hesitations, 
and  trouble  from  misunderstandings! 
How  often  we  pass  by,  without  knowing 
it,  a  possible  happiness, — without  sus- 
pecting it,  because  we  are  unable  to  pen- 
etrate the  mystery  of  thought,  the  se- 
cret abandon  of  the  will,  the  mute  ap- 
peal of  the  flesh,  the  unknown  soul  of 
a  woman  whose  mouth  preserves  si- 
lence, whose  eye  is  impenetrable  and 
clear. 

"When  the  chosen  one  comprehended, 
he  asked  for  a  rendezvous.  But  she  al- 
ways made  him  wait  a  month  or  six 
weeks  in  order  to  watch  and  be  sure  that 
he  had  no  dangerous  faults. 

"During  this  time  he  was  racking 
his  brain  to  think  of  some  place  where 
they  could  meet  without  peril,  and 
imagining  combinations  difiicult  and  un- 
safe. 

"Then,  at  some  official  feast,  she 
would  say  to  him  in  a  low  voice: 

"  'Come  Tuesday  evening,  at  nine 
o'clock,  to  the  Golden  Horse  hotel  near 
the  ramparts,  on  the  Vouziers  road,  and 
ask  for  Miss  Clarisse.  I  shall  be  wait- 
ing for  you.  And  be  sure  to  be  in  civiJ 
dress.' 

"For  eight  years  she  had  in  fact 
rented  this  furnished  room  by  the  year, 
in  this  obscure  inn.  It  was  an  idea  of 
her  first  lover  which  she  found  practical, 
and  after  the  man  departed,  she  kept 
the  nest. 

"Oh!  it  was  a  mediocre  nest;  four 
walls  covered  with  gray  paper  adorned 
with  blue  flowers,  a  pine  bedstead  un- 
der muslin  curtains,  an  armchair 
bought  at  her  order  by  the  innkeeper's 
wife,   two   chairs,  and  some   necessary 


464 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


articles  for  the  toilette,— what  more  was 
needed? 

"Upon  the  walls  were  three  large 
photographs.  Three  colonels  on  horse- 
back; the  colonels  of  her  lovers!  Why 
not?  It  would  not  do  to  preserve  the 
true  likeness,  the  exact  likeness,  but 
she  could  perhaps  keep  some  souvenirs 
by  proxy. 

"And  she  had  never  been  recognized 
by  anyone  in  all  these  visits  to  the 
Golden  Horse,  you  ask? 

"Nevir,  by  anyone! 

"The  means  she  employed  were  ad- 
mirable and  simple.  She  had  thought 
out  and  organized  some  charity  re- 
unions and  religious  meetings,  some  of 
which  she  attended,  others  she  did  not. 
Ker  huirband,  knowing  her  good  works, 
which  cost  him  dear,  lived  without  sus- 
picions. Then,  when  a  rendezvous  had 
been  agreed  upon,  she  would  say  at  din- 
ner, before  the  servants: 

"  *I  am  going  this  evening  to  the  As- 
sociation for  making  flannel  bandages 
for  old  paralytics.' 

"And  she  went  out  about  eight  o'clock, 
went  straight  to  the  Association,  came 
out  again  very  soon,  passed  through 
divers  streets,  and,  finding  herself  alone 
in  some  little  street,  in  some  somber 
corner  without  a  light,  she  would  take 
off  her  hai,  replace  it  by  a  maid's  cap 
which  she  carried  under  her  mantle,  fold 
a  kerchief  after  the  same  fashion  and 
tie  it  over  her  shoulders,  carrying  her 
hat  and  the  garment  she  had  worn  in 
a  napkin;  she  would  go  trotting  along, 
full  of  courage,  the  hips  uncovered,  like 
a  good  little  maid  that  had  been  sent 
upon  some  errand;  and  sometimes  she 
would  even  run,  as  if  she  were  in  a 
great  hurrv. 


"Who  could  have  recognized  in  this 
trim  servant  the  Lvely  wife  of  President 
Amandon? 

"She  would  arrive  at  the  Gold^^ 
Horse,  go  up  to  her  room,  of  which 
she  had  the  key,  and  the  big  proprietor, 
master  Trouveau,  seeing  her  pass  his 
desk,  would  murmur: 

"  There  is  Miss  Clarisse  coming  tc 
meet  some  lover.' 

"He  had  indeed  guessed  something^ 
the  rogue,  but  did  not  try  to  learn  more, 
and  he  would  certainly  have  been  much 
surprised  to  find  that  his  client  was  Mrs. 
Amandon,  or  Madame  Marguerite,  as 
she  was  called  in  Perthuis-le-Long.  And 
this  is  how  the  horrible  discovery  took 
place. 

"Never  had  Miss  Clarisse  come  to 
her  meeting  place  two  evenings  in  suc- 
cession, never!  being  too  nice  and  too 
prudent  for  that.  And  master  Trou- 
veau knew  this  well,  since  not  once  in 
eight  years  had  he  seen  her  come  the 
next  day  after  a  visit.  Often,  therefore, 
in  days  of  need,  he  had  disposed  of  her 
room  for  a  night. 

"Now,  sometime  last  summer,  Mr. 
Amandon,  the  trustful  president,  ab- 
sented himself  from  home  for  a  week. 
It  was  in  July.  Madame  was  ardently 
in  love,  and  as  there  was  no  fear  of  be- 
ing surprised,  she  asked  her  lover,  the 
handsome  Commander  Varangelles,  one 
Tuesday  evening  on  leaving  him,  if  he 
wished  her  to  return  the  next  day. 

"He  replied:     'With  all  my  heart!' 

"And  it  was  agreed  that  they  should 
return  at  the  usual  hour  on  Wednesday. 
She  said  to  him  in  a  low  tone: 

"  'If  you  arrive  first,  my  dear,  you 
can  wait  for  me  in  bed.' 

"Then  they  embraced  and  separated. 


ROOM  NO.  ELEVEN 


465 


The  next  day,  as  master  Trouveau  sat 
reading  the  Terthuis  Tablet,'  the  Re- 
publican organ  cf  the  town,  he  cried 
out  to  his  wife,  who  was  plucking  a 
fowl  in  the  courtyard: 

"  'Here !  the  cholera  has  broken  out 
in  the  country.  There  was  a  man  died 
yesterday  of  it  in  Vauvigny.'  But  he 
thought  no  more  about  it,  his  inn  being 
full  of  people,  and  business  very  good. 

"Toward  noon  a  traveler  presented 
himself  on  foot,  a  kind  of  tourist,  who 
ordered  a  good  breakfast,  after  having 
drank  two  absinthes.  And,  as  he  was 
very  warm,  he  absorbed  a  bottle  of  wine 
and  two  bottles  of  water  at  least.  Then 
he  took  his  coffee  and  his  little  glass,  or 
rather  three  Tttle  glasses.  And  feel- 
ing a  little  heavy,  he  asked  for  a  room 
where  he  might  sleep  for  an  hour  or 
tv/o.  There  was  no  longer  a  vacant 
room,  and  the  proprietor,  alter  consult- 
ing his  wife,  gave  him  Miss  Clarisse's. 

"The  man  went  in  there  and,  toward 
five  o'clock  as  he  had  not  been  seen  to 
come  out,  the  landlord  went  to  wake 
him.  What  was  his  astonishment  to 
find  him  dead! 

"The  innkeeper  descended  to  find  his 
wife:  'Say,'  he  whispered  to  her,  'the 
tourist  I  put  in  number  11,  I  believe 
is  dead.' 

"She  raised  her  arms,  cr>'ing:  'It's 
,;  not  possible!  Lord  God!  It  is  the 
cholera!' 

Master  Trouveau  shook  his  head: 

"  'I  should  sooner  believe  that  it  was 
a  cerebral  congestion,  seeing  that  he  is 
as  black  as  the  dregs  of  wine.' 

"But  the  mistress  was  frightened  and 
kept  repeating: 

"  'It  is  not  necessary  to  say,  it  is 
Tiot  necessary  to  say  that  we  think  it  i.«< 


cholera.  Go  and  make  the  report  and 
say  nothing.  They  will  take  him  away 
in  the  night,  and  no  one  wid  know  about 
it.  What  is  neither  seen  nor  heard 
perplexes  nobody.' 

"The  man  murmured:  'M'ss  Clarisse 
was  here  yesterday,  the  room  will  be 
free  this  evening.' 

"And  he  found  the  doctor  who  made 
out  the  certificate,  'From  congestion 
after  a  copious  repast.'  Then  he  made 
an  agreement  with  the  commissioner  of 
police  to  remove  the  dead  body  toward 
midnight,  that  there  mioht  be  no  sus- 
picion about  the  hotel. 

"It  was  scarcely  nine  o'clock  when 
Madame  Amandon  went  secretly  up  the 
staircase  of  the  Golden  Horse,  without 
being  seen  by  anyone.  She  reached  her 
room,  opened  the  door,  and  entered.  A 
candle  was  burning  upon  the  chimney- 
piece.  She  turned  toward  the  bed.  The 
Commander,  she  thought,  was  already 
there  and  had  closed  the  curtains. 

"She  said  to  him:  'One  minute, 
dearie,  and  I  will  be  there.' 

"And  she  disrobed  with  a  feverish 
haste,  throwing  her  boots  upon  the  floor 
and  her  corset  upon  the  armchair.  Then, 
her  black  dress  and  skirts  having  fallen, 
in  a  circle  around  her,  she  stood  in  her 
red  silk  chemise  like  a  flower  that  is. 
ready  to  blossom. 

"As  the  Commander  said  not  a  word,, 
she  asked: 

"  'Are  you  asleep,  my  big  fellow?'' 

"He  did  not  answer,  and  she  began  to 
laugh,  murmuring: 

"  'Wait !  He  is  asleep.  It  is  too 
funny!' 

"She  kept  on  her  black  silk  stockings 
and,  running  to  the  bed,  glided  in  quick- 


466 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ly,  seizing  him  full  in  the  arm?  and 
kissing  him  on  the  lips,  in  order  to 
Wake  him  suddenly.  It  was  the  cold 
dead  body  of  the  traveler. 

"For  one  second  she  remained  im- 
movable, too  frightened  to  comprehend 
mything.  But  the  cold  of  this  inert 
fiesh  penetrated  her  own,  giving  her  an 
atrocious  fright  before  her  mind  had 
time  to  reflect. 

"She  made  a  boimd  out  of  the  bed, 
trembling  from  head  to  foot;  then  run- 
ning to  the  chimney-piece,  she  seized 
^he  candle;  returned,  and  looked!  And 
he  perceived  a  frightful  visage  that 
she  had  never  before  seen,  black,  swol- 
len, with  eyes  closed,  and  a  horrible 
grimace  of  the  jaw. 

"She  uttered  a  cry,  one  of  those  pierc- 
ing interminable  cries  which  v/omen  ut- 
ter in  their  fright,  and,  letting  fall  the 
candle,  she  opened  the  door  and  fled, 
unclothed,  dov;n  the  passage,  continu- 
ing to  screar  in  frightful  fashion.  A 
commercial  travelei,  in  his  socks,  who 
occupied  room  number  4,  came  out  im- 
mediately and  received  her  in  his  arms. 

"He  asked,  much  startled:  'What  is 
the  matter,  pretty  child?* 


"She  stammered  out,  terrified:  'Some 
one  has  been  killed — in — my  room!' 

"Other  guests  appeared.  The  land- 
lord himself  ran  out. 

"And  suddenly  the  Commander  showed 
his  tall  figure  at  the  end  of  the  corridor. 
When  she  saw  him,  she  threw  herself 
toward  him,  crying: 

"  'Save  me,  save  me,  Goniran —  Some 
one  has  been  killed  in  our  room.' 

"Explanations  were  difficult.  Master 
Trouveau  however,  told  the  truth  and 
demanded  that  they  release  Miss 
Clarisse,  for  whom  he  vouched  with  his 
own  head.  But  the  commercial  traveler 
in  socks,  having  examined  the  dead 
body,  declared  that  a  crime  had  been 
committed,  and  he  convinced  the  other 
strangers  that  Miss  Clarisse  and  her 
lover  should  not  be  allowed  to  depart. 

"They  were  obliged  to  await  the  ar- 
rival of  the  police  commissioner,  who 
gave  them  their  liberty,  but  was  not  dis- 
creet. 

"The  following  month,  President 
Amandon  received  promotion  with  a 
new  place  of  residence.'* 


One  Phase  of  Love 


The  walls  of  the  cell  were  bare  and 
whitewashed.  A  narrow,  barred  win- 
dow, so  high  that  it  could  not  easily  be 
reached,  lighted  this  little  room;  the 
crazy  man,  seated  on  a  straw  chair, 
looked  at  us  with  a  fixed  eye,  vague  and 
haunting.  He  was  thin,  with  wrinkled 
cheeks  and  almost  white  hair  that  one 


would  think  had  grown  white  in  a  few 
months.  His  clothes  seemed  too  large 
for  his  dried-up  limbs,  his  shrunken 
chest,  and  hollow  body.  One  felt  that 
this  man  had  been  ravaged  by  his 
thoughts,  by  a  thought,  as  fruit  is  by  a 
worm.  His  madness,  his  idea,  was  there 
in  his  head,  obstinate,  harassing,  devour- 


ONE  PHASE  OF  LOVE 


467 


ing.  It  was  eating  his  body,  little  by  lit- 
tle. It,  the  Invisible,  the  Impalpable,  the 
Unseizable,  the  Immaterial  Idea  gnawed 
his  flesh,  drank  his  blood,  and  extin- 
guished his  life. 

What  a  mystery,  that  this  man  should 
be  killed  by  a  Thought!  He  is  an  ob- 
ject of  fear  and  pity,  this  madman! 
What  strange  dream,  frighiful  and 
deadly,  can  dwell  in  his  forehead,  to  fold 
such  profound  and  ever-changing  wrin- 
kles in  it? 

The  doctor  said  to  me:  "He  has  ter- 
rible paroxysms  of  rage,  and  is  one  of 
the  most  singularly  demented  people  I 
have  ever  seen.  His  madness  is  of  an 
amorous,  erotic  kind.  He  is  a  sort  of 
necrophile.  He  has  written  a  journal 
which  shows  as  plainly  as  daylight  the 
malady  of  his  mind.  His  madness  is 
visible,  so  to  speak.  If  you  are  inter- 
ested, you  may  run  through  this  docu- 
ment." 

I  followed  the  doctor  into  his  office 
and  he  gave  me  the  journal  of  this 
miserable  man. 

*'Read  it,"  said  he,  "and  give  me  your 
opinion  about  it." 

Here  is  what  the  little  book  con- 
tained: 

"Up  to  the  age  of  thirty-two  years 
I  lived  tranquilly  without  love.  Life 
appeared  to  me  very  simple,  very  good, 
and  very  easy.  I  was  rich.  I  had  a 
taste  for  some  things,  but  had  never 
felt  a  passion  for  anything.  It  was 
good  to  live!  I  awoke  happy  each  day, 
to  do  things  which  it  pleased  me  to  do, 
and  I  went  to  bed  satisfied  with  calm 
hope  for  the  next  day  and  a  future  with- 
out care. 

"T  h,id  hiid  some  mistresses  without 


ever  having  my  heart  torn  by  desire  o? 
my  soul  bruised  by  love  after  the  pos- 
session. It  is  good  so  to  live.  It  is 
better  to  love,  but  terrible.  Still  thoE:t 
who  love  like  everybody  else  should 
find  happiness,  less  than  mine,  perhaps, 
for  love  has  come  to  me  in  an  unbe- 
lievable manner. 

"Being  rich,  I  collected  ancient  fur- 
niture and  antiques.  Often  I  thought  of 
the  unknown  hands  which  had  touched 
these  ihings,  of  the  eyes  that  had  ad- 
mired them,  and  the  hearts  that  had 
loved  them — for  one  does  love  such 
things !  I  often  remained  for  hours  and 
hours  looking  at  a  little  watch  of  the 
last  century.  It  was  so  dainty,  so 
pretty  with  its  enamel  and  gold  emboss- 
ing. And  it  still  went,  as  on  the  day 
when  some  woman  had  bought  it,  de- 
lighted in  the  possession  of  so  fine  a 
jewel.  It  had  not  ceased  to  palpitate, 
to  live  its  mechanical  life,  but  had  ever 
continued  its  rejjular  ticktack,  although 
a  century  had  passed.  Who  then  had 
first  carried  it  upon  her  breast,  in  the 
warmth  of  the  dress  —  the  heart  of 
the  watch  beating  against  the  heart  of  the 
woman?  What  hand  had  held  it  al 
the  ends  of  its  warm  fingers,  then  wiped 
the  enameled  shepherds,  tarnished  a  little 
by  the  moisture  of  the  skin?  What 
eyes  had  looked  upon  this  flowered  dial 
awaiting  the  hour,  the  dear  hour,  the 
divine  hour? 

"How  I  wished  to  see  her,  to  know 
her,  the  woman  who  had  chosen  this 
rare  and  exquisite  object.  But  she  is 
dead!  I  am  possessed  by  a  desire  for 
women  of  former  times;  I  love  all  those 
who  have  loved  long  ago.  The  story 
of  past  tenderness  fills  my  heart  with  re- 
gvets.     Oh!  beauty,  the  smiles,  the  ca- 


468 


resses    of    youlh,    the    hopes! 
things  should  be  eternal! 

'  How  I  have  wept,  during  whole 
nights,  over  the  women  of  old,  so  beau- 
tiful, so  tender,  so  sweet,  whose  lips 
have  opened  to  the  kiss,  and  who  are 
now  dead!  The  kiss  is  immortal!  It 
goes  fovm  lip  to  lip,  from  century  to 
century,  from  a:e  to  age!  Men  take 
it  and  give  it  and  die. 

'The  past  attracts  me,  the  present 
f.iChtens  me,  bccausr  the  future  is 
death.  I  rc-ret  all  t 'lat  which  is  gone, 
I  weep  for  those  who  have  lived;  I 
wish  to  stop  the  hour,  to  arrest  time. 
But  it  goes,  it  goes,  it  passes  away,  and 
it  takes  me,  from  second  to  second,  a 
little  of  me  for  the  annihilation  of  to- 
morrow. Ard  I  shall  never  live  again. 
"Ad>'  ^  women  of  yesterday,  I  love 
vou. 

"And  yet  I  have  nothing  to  complain 
of.  I  have  found  her  whom  I  awaited, 
and  I  have  tasted  through  her  of  in- 
conceivable pleasure. 

"I  v/as  roaming  around  Paris  on  a 
sunny  morning,  with  joyous  foot  and 
happy  soul,  looking  in  the  shops  with 
the  vague  interest  of  a  stroller.  All  at 
once  I  saw  in  a  shop  of  antiquities,  an 
Italian  piece  of  furniture  of  the  XVIIth 
century.  It  was  very  beautiful,  very 
rare.  I  attributed  it  to  a  Venetian  art- 
ist, named  Vitelli,  who  belonged  to  that 
epoch.    Then  I  passed  along. 

"Why  did  the  remembrance  of  this 
piece  cf  furniture  follow  me  with  so 
much  force  that  I  went  back  over  my 
steps?  I  stopped  again  before  the  shop 
to  look  at  it,  and  felt  that  it  tempted  me. 
"What  a  singular  thing  is  temptation'. 
One  looks  at  an  object,  and,  little  by 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MALPASSANT 
These 


possession  of  you  like  the  face  of  a 
woman.  Its  charm  enters  into  you,  a 
strange  charm  which  comes  from  its 
form,  its  color,  and  its  physiognomy. 
Already  one  loves  it,  wishes  it,  desires 
it.  A  need  of  possession  takes  you,  a 
pleasant  need  at  first,  because  timid, 
but  increasing,  becoming  violent  and  ir- 
resistible. And  the  merchants  seem  to 
suspect,  from  the  look  in  the  eye,  this 
secret,  increasing  desire.  I  bought  that 
piece  of  furniture  and  had  it  carried  to 
my  house  immediately.  I  placed  it  in 
my  room. 

"Oh!  I  pity  those  who  do  not  know 
this  sweet  hobby  of  the  collector  with 
the  trinket  which  he  finally  buys.  He 
caresses  it  v/ith  his  eye  and  hand  as 
if  it  were  flesh;  he  returns  every  mo- 
ment to  it,  thinks  of  it  continually, 
wherever  he  goes  and  whatever  he  may 
be  doing.  The  thought  of  it  follows  him 
into  the  street,  into  the  world,  every- 
where. And  when  he  re-enters  hi? 
house,  before  even  removing  his  gloves 
or  his  hat,  he  goes  to  look  at  it  with  the- 
tenderness  of  a  lover. 

"Truly;  for  eight  days  I  adored  that 
piece  of  furniture.  I  kept  opening  its 
doors  and  drawers;  I  handled  it  with 
delight  and  tasted  all  the  intimate  joys 
of  possession. 

"One  evening,  in  feeling  the  thickness 
of  a  panel,  I  perceived  that  there  might 
be  a  hiding-place  there.  My  heart  be* 
gan  to  beat  and  I  passed  the  night  in 
searching  out  the  secret,  without  being 
able  to  discover  it. 

"I  came  upon  it  the  next  day  by  forc- 
ing a  piece  of  metal  into  a  crevice  in 
the  paneling.     A   shelf   slipped,   and  I 


little,  it  seduces  you,  trouble^  you.  takes     saw.  exposed  upon  a  lining  of  black  vel- 


ONE  PHASE  OF  LOVE 


469 


vet,  3,  marvelous  head  of  hair  that  had 
belonged  to  some  woman. 

"Yes,  a  head  of  hair,  an  enormous 
twist  of  blond  hair,  also  red,  which  had 
been  cut  off  near  the  skin  and  tied  to- 
gether with  a  golden  cord. 

"I  stood  there  stupefied,  trembling 
and  disturbed!  An  almost  insensible 
perfume,  so  old  that  it  seemed  like  the 
soul  of  an  odor,  arose  from  this  mys- 
terious drawer  and  this  most  surprising 
'•^lic. 

"I  took  it  gently,  almost  religiously, 
and  lifted  it  from  its  resting-place.  Im- 
mediately it  unwound,  spreading  out  its 
golden  billows  upon  the  floor,  where  it 
fell,  thick  and  light,  supple  and  bril- 
Uant,  like  the  fiery  tail  of  a  comet. 

"A  strange  emotion  seized  me.  To 
whom  had  this  belonged?  When?  Un- 
der what  circumstances?  Why  had  it 
been  shut  up  in  this  piece  of  furniture? 
What  adventure,  what  drama  was  con- 
nected with  this  souvenir?  Who  had 
cut  it  off?  Some  lover,  on  a  day  of 
parting?  Some  husband,  on  a  day  of 
vengeance?  Or,  perhaps,  some  woman 
herself,  who  bore  on  her  brow  the  look 
of  despair?  Was  it  at  the  hour  of  enter- 
ing the  cloister  that  she  had  thrown 
there  this  fortune  of  love,  as  a  token  left 
to  the  world  of  the  living?  Was  it  the 
hour  closing  the  tomb  upon  the  young 
and  beautiful  dead,  that  he  who  adored 
her  took  this  diadem  of  her  head,  the 
only  thing  he  could  preserve  of  her,  the 
only  living  part  of  her  body  that  would 
not  perish,  the  only  thing  that  he  could 
still  love  and  care?D  and  kiss,  in  the 
transport  of  his  grief? 

*'Was  it  not  strange  that  this  hair 
shnnld   remain   there   thus,  when   there 


was  no  longer  any  vestige  of  the  body 
with  which  she  was  born? 

"It  curled  about  my  fingers  and 
touched  my  skin  wi^h  a  singular  caress, 
the  caress  of  death.  I  felt  myself  af- 
fected, as  if  I  were  going  to  weep. 

*1  kept  it  a  long  time  in  my  hands, 
then  it  seemed  to  me  that  it  had  some 
effect  upon  me,  as  if  something  of  the 
soul  still  remained  in  it.  And  I  laid 
it  upon  the  velvet  again,  the  velvet 
blemished  by  time,  then  pushed  in  the 
drawer,  shut  the  doors  of  the  closet,  and 
betook  myself  to  the  street  to  dream. 

"I  walked  straight  ahead,  full  of 
sadness,  and  full  of  trouble,  of  the  kind 
of  trouble  that  remains  in  the  heart  after 
the  kiss  of  love.  It  seemed  to  me  I 
had  lived  in  former  times,  and  that  I 
had  known  this  woman. 

"And  Villon's  lines  came  to  my  lips, 
bringing  with  them  a  sob : 

"  'Tell  me  in  ^vhat   far-off  hnd 

The  Roman  beauty,  Flora,  lives? 
Hipparchia,  'x'hais'   cousin,   and 

All  the  beauty  nature  gives; 
Echo  speak,  thy  voice  awake 
Over  river,  stream,  and  lake, 
Where  are  beauty's  smiles  an<i  tears? 
And  where  the  snows  of  other  years? 

"  'Blanche,  as  fair  as  lily's  chalice, 

Singing  sweet,  with  voice  serene, 
Bertha  Broadfoot,  Beatrice,  Alice, 

Ermengarde,     Le     Mayne's     dear 

queen  ? 
Where  is  Joan,  the  good  Lorraine, 
Whom   th'    English   brought  to   death 

and  fame? 
"Where  are  all,  O  wisest  seers, 
And  where  the  snows  of  other  years?' 

"When  I  returned  to  my  house  I  had 
a  strange  desire  to  see  my  strange  treas- 
ure aQ:ain.    I  took  it  ud  and  felt  it,  and 


470 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


in  touching  it  a  long  shiver  ran  through 
my  body. 

"For  some  days,  however,  I  remained 
in  my  ordinary  state,  although  the 
thought  of  this  hair  never  left  me. 
Whenever  I  came  in,  it  was  my  first  de- 
sire to  look  at  it  and  handle  it.  I  would 
turn  the  key  of  the  secretary  with  the 
same  trembling  that  one  has  in  open- 
ing the  door  of  his  well-beloved,  for 
I  had  in  two  hands  and  in  my  heart  a 
confused,  singular,  continued,  sensual 
need  of  burying  my  fingers  in  this 
charming  rivulet  of  dead  hair. 

'"Then,  when  I  had  finished  caressing 
it,  when  I  had  returned  it  to  its  resting- 
place,  I  always  felt  that  it  was  there,  as 
if  it  were  something  alive,  concealed, 
imprisoned;  I  felt  it  and  I  still  desired 
it;  again  I  had  the  imperious  need  of 
touching  it,  of  feeling  it,  of  enervating 
myself  to  the  point  of  weariness  from 
contact  with  this  cold,  glistening,  irritat- 
ing, exciting,  delicious  hair. 

"I  lived  thus  a  month  or  two,  I  know 
not  how  long,  with  this  thing  possessing 
me,  haunting  me.  I  was  happy  and  tor- 
tured, as  in  the  expectation  of  love,  as 
one  is  after  the  avowal  which  precedes 
the  embrace. 

"I  would  shut  myself  up  alone  with 
it  in  order  to  feel  it  upon  my  skin,  to 
bury  my  lips  in  it,  to  kill  it,  and  bite  it. 
I  would  roll  it  around  my  face,  drink 
it  in,  drown  my  eyes  in  its  golden  waves, 
and  finally  see  the  blond  life  beyond  it. 

"I  loved  it!  Yes,  I  loved  it.  I  could 
no  longer  live  away  from  it,  nor  be  con- 
tented an  hour  without  seeing  it.  I  ex- 
pected—  I  expected  —  what?  I  know 
not — ^her ! 

"One  night  I  was  suddenly  awakened 
with  a  feeding  that  I  was  not  alone  in 


my  room.  I  was  alone,  howevtr.  But 
I  could  not  go  to  sleep  again;  and,  as 
I  was  tossing  in  the  fever  of  insomnia, 
I  rose  and  went  to  look  at  the  twist  of 
hair.  It  appeared  to  me  sweeter  than 
usual,  and  more  animated. 

"Could  the  dead  return?  The  kisses 
with  which  I  had  warmed  it  failed  to 
give  me  happiness,  and  I  carried  it  to 
my  bed  and  lay  down  v;ith  it,  pressing 
it  to  my  lips,  as  one  does  a  mistress  he 
hopes  to  enjoy. 

**The  dead  returned  1  She  came! 
Yes,  I  saw  her,  touched  her,  posesssed 
her  as  she  was  v/hen  alive  in  former 
times,  large,  blond,  plump,  with  cool 
breasts,  and  with  hips  in  form  of  a  lyre. 
And  I  followed  that  divine,  undulating 
line  from  the  throat  to  the  feet,  in  all. 
the  curves  of  the  flash  with  my  caresses. 

"Yes,  I  possessed  her,  every  day  and 
every  night.  She  had  returned.  Death, 
Death  the  Beautiful,  the  Adorable,  the 
Mysterious,  the  Unknown,  and  returned 
every  night. 

"My  happiness  was  so  great  that  I 
could  not  conceal  it.  I  found  near  her 
a  superhuman  delight,  and  in  possess- 
ing this  Unseizable,  Invisible  Death, 
knew  a  profound,  inexplicable  joy.  No 
lover  ever  tasted  joys  more  ardent  or 
more  terrible. 

"I  knew  not  how  to  conceal  my  hap» 
piness.  I  loved  this  possession  so  much 
that  I  could  not  bear  to  leave  it.  I  car- 
ried it  with  me  always,  everywhere. 
I  walked  with  it  through  the  city,  as  if 
it  were  my  wife,  conducting  it  to  the 
theater  and  to  restaurants  as  one  would 
a  mistress.  But  they  saw  it,  —  and 
guessed — they  took  me,  and  threw  me 
into  prison,  like  a  malefactor.  The^y 
took  it  away — oh!  misery! — " 


GOOD  REASONS 


471 


The  manuscript  stopped  there.  And 
suddenly,  as  I  raised  my  wondeirng  eyes 
to  the  doctor,  a  frightful  cry,  a  howl  of 
fury  and  exasperated  desire  filled  the 
asylum. 

"Listen,"  said  the  doctor,  "it  is  neces- 
sary to  douse  that  obscene  maniac  with 
water  five  times  a  day.  It  is  only  Ser- 
geant Bertrand,  the  man  who  fell  in  love 
witi  the  dead." 

I  stammered,  moved  with  astonish- 
ment, horror,  and  pity:  "But  that  hair 
—did  it  really  exist?" 

The    doctor  got  up,  opened  a  closet 


full  of  vials  and  instruments,  and  threw 
toward  me,  across  his  office,  a  long  thick 
rope  of  blond  hair,  which  flew  toward 
me  like  a  bird  of  gold. 

I  trembled  at  feeling  upon  my  hands 
its  caressing,  light  touch.  And  I  stood 
there,  my  heart  beating  with  disgust  and 
desire,  the  disgust  we  have  in  coming  in 
contact  with  objects  connected  with 
crimes,  and  the  desire  like  that  which 
comes  with  the  temptation  to  test  some 
infamous  and  mysterious  thing. 

Shrugging  his  shoulders,  the  doctor 
added:  "The  mind  of  man  is  capable 
of  anything." 


Good  Reasons 


SOLLES  Villa,  July  30,  1883. 
My  dear  Lucy: 

There  is  nothing  nev/.  We  still  live 
in  the  parlor,  lookir.g  out  to  see  the  rain 
fall.  One  can  scarcely  go  cut  at  all  in 
this  frightful  weather.  We  can  only 
play  comedies.  And  now  stupid  they 
are,  my  dear,  these  pieces  in  a  drawing- 
room  repertory.  So  forced,  so  heavy, 
and  gross!  The  jokes  are  like  bullets 
from  a  cannon,  always  hitting  some  one. 
Nothing  bright,  nothing  natural,  good 
natured,  or  elegant.  These  writers, 
truly,  can  know  nothing  of  the  world. 
They  ax«  entirely  ignorant  of  how  peo- 
ple think  or  speak  among  us.  I  could 
easily  forgive  them  for  scorning  our  cus- 
toms or  our  Planners,  but  I  cannot  for- 
give them  fot  being  ignorant  of  them. 
In  order  to  be  pointed,  they  make  a 
play  upon  words  ^hat  a  barracks  would 
do  well  to  deride:  in  order  to  be  gay> 


they  serve  us  the  wit  they  have  culled 
outside  the  Boulevard,  m  the  beer-shops 
of  so-called  artists,  where  the  same 
studied  paradoxes  have  been  repeated 
for  fifty  years. 

Yes,  we  play  a  comedy.  As  there  are 
only  two  women,  my  husband  takes  the 
part  of  a  soubrette,  shaving  his  face  for 
it.  You  cannot  imagine,  my  dear  Lucy, 
how  it  changed  him !  I  should  not  have 
known  him — either  by  day  or  night.  If 
he  had  not  allowed  his  mustache  to  grow 
again  immediately  I  believe  that  I 
should  have  become  unfaithful,  so  much 
did  I  dislike  it. 

Truly,  a  man  without  a  mustache  is 
not  a  man.  I  do  not  care  much  for  a 
beard;  it  always  gives  an  appearance  of 
neglect;  but  the  mustache,  oh!  the 
mustache  is  indispensable  to  a  manly 
physiognomy.  No,  one  never  could  im- 
agine how  useful  this  little  brush  of  haij 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  ^lAUPASSANT 


472 

upon  the  lip  is  to  the  eye  and— to  the 
relation  of  married  people.  There  have 
come  to  me  many  reflections  upon  this 
subject,  which  I  scarcely  dare  write  to 
you.  I  could  say  them  to  you  easily— 
in  a  low  voice.  But  it  is  difficult  to 
find  words  to  express  certain  things,  and 
some  of  these,  which  it  would  be  hard 
to  replace,  cut  a  villainous  figure  upon 
paper,  so  that  I  can  scarcely  pen  them. 
Then,  the  subject  is  so  delicate,  so  diffi- 
cult, so  awkward,  that  an  infinite  knowl- 
edge is  necessary  to  approach  it  with- 
out danger. 

Well!  so  much  Iht  worse  if  you  do 
not  understand.  And  now,  my  dear,  try 
to  read  a  little  between  the  lines. 

When  my  husband  came  to  me  shaved, 
I  understood  for  the  first  time  that  I 
could  never  have  a  weakness  for  a 
strolling  player,  nor  for  a  preacher,  were 
he  Father  Didon  himself,  the  most  se- 
ductive of  all!  Then,  when  I  found 
myself  alone  v.ith  him  (my  husband), 
it  was  much  worse. 

Oh!  my  dear  Lucy,  never  allow  your- 
self to  be  embraced  by  a  man  without 
mustaches;  his  L*ps  have  no  taste,  none 
whatever!  There  is  no  longer  that 
charm,  that  softness,  and  that — pepper, 
yes,  that  pepper  of  the  true  kiss.  The 
mustache  is  the  spice  of  it. 

Imagine  a  piece  of  dry,  or  even  humid 
parchment  applied  to  your  lips.  That  is 
the  caress  of  the  shaven  man.  One 
wants  very  few  of  them,  assuredly. 

But  whence  comes  the  seduction  of 
the  mustache,  you  ask  me?  How  do  I 
know?  At  first  it  tickles  in  delicious 
fashion.  One  feels  it  before  the  mouth 
and  it  makes  a  charming  shiver  pass 
through  the  whole  body,  even  to  the 
tips  of  the  toes.    It  is  that  which  ca- 


resses, which  makes  the  flesh  tremble 
and  start,  which  gives  the  nerves  that 
exquisite  vibration  and  causes  the  utter- 
ance of  that  little  "ah!"  as  if  one  had  re- 
ceived a  sudden  chill. 

And  upon  the  neck!  Yes,  have  you 
never  felt  a  mustache  upon  your  neck? 
It  intoxicates  and  makes  you  shiver, 
runs  down  your  back  and  to  the  ends 
of  your  fingers.  You  turn,  shake  your 
shoulders,  twist  your  head;  you  wish 
to  go  and  to  stay;  it  is  adorable  yet  ir- 
ritating!    But  it  is  good! 

And  then  again — truly,  do  I  dare  say 
more?  A  husband  v/ho  loves  you,  yes, 
entirely,  knows  how  to  find  spots  and 
little  corners  for  concealing  kisses,  lit- 
tle corners  one  would  scarcely  dream  of 
alone.  Well,  without  a  mustache  these 
kisses  lose  much  of  their  zest,  without 
saying  that  they  are  unbecoming!  Ex- 
plain that  as  you  will!  Fcr  my  part, 
here  is  the  reason  I  find  for  it.  A  lip 
without  m-ustaches  is  bare,  like  a  body 
without  clothes;  and  it  is  necessary  to 
have  clothes,  very  few  if  you  wish,  but 
still  some ! 

The  Creator  (I  dare  not  use  any  other 
word  in  speaking  of  these  things),  the 
Creator  saw  the  need  of  veiling  the 
nooks  of  our  flesh  where  love  is  con- 
cealed. A  shaven  mouth  appears  to  me 
to  resemble  a  forest,  cut  down,  which 
sheltered  a  fountain  where  one  came 
to  drink  and  sleep. 

This  recalls  to  me  the  saying  of  a 
political  man,  which  has  been  in  my 
head  for  three  months  now.  My  hus- 
band, who  reads  the  newspapers,  read 
a  very  singular  thing  to  me  one  eve- 
ning, by  our  Minister  of  Agriculture, 
who   was   then   called   M.   Melinc     U 


GOOD  REASONS 


473 


there  another  one  by  this  time?  I  am 
sure  I  do  not  know. 

I  was  not  listening,  but  this  name, 
Meline,  struck  me.  It  recalled,  I  know 
not  why,  ''Scenes  of  Bohemian  Life." 
I  believed  at  once  that  he  lived  with  a 
grisette.  Only  certain  scraps  of  this 
piece  entered  my  head.  But  M.  Meline 
made  to  the  inhabitants  of  Amiens,  I 
believe,  this  statement,  the  meaning  of 
which  I  have  sought  until  now:  "There 
is  no  partriotism  without  agriculture  1" 
Well,  this  means,  I  have  found  out  re- 
cently, and  now  declare  to  you  in  my 
turn,  that  there  is  no  love  without  a 
mustache.  If  one  should  tell  him  that, 
it  would  seem  strange,  would  it  not? 

There  is  no  love  without  a  mustache! 

"There  is  no  patriotism  without  agri- 
culture," asserts  M.  Meline;  he  is  right, 
this  minister,  I  know  it  now^! 

From  another  point  of  view  the  mus- 
tache is  essential.  It  determines  the 
physiognomy.  It  gives  it  a  sweet,  ten- 
der, violent,  foolish,  rakish,  or  enter- 
prising air!  The  bearded  man,  really 
bearded,  he  who  carries  all  his  hair  (oh ! 
villainous  word)  upon  his  cheeks  never 
has  any  delicacy  of  expression,  because 
his  features  are  concealed.  And  the 
form  of  the  jaw  and  the  chin  show  many 
things  to  him  who  can  see. 

In  a  mustache,  a  man  preserves  at  the 
same  time  his  attraction  and  his  finesse. 

And  of  what  varied  appearance  they 
are,  these  mustaches !  Some  are  curved, 
curled,  and  coquettish.  These  seem  to 
love  women  above  all  things ! 

Some  are  pointed,  sharp  as  a  needle, 
wicked.  These  have  a  preference  for 
wine,  horses,  and  fights. 

Some  are  enormous,  drooping,  fright- 
ful    These  great  ones  generally  conceal 


an  excellent  character,  a  goodness  that 
approaches  weakness  and  a  gentleness 
that  borders  on  timidity. 

And  then,  above  all  else,  why  I  adore 
a  mustache  is  because  it  is  French.  It 
has  descended  to  us  from  our  fathers, 
the  Gauls,  and  has  continued  as  a  sign 
of  our  national  character. 

It  is  romantic,  gallant,  and  brave.  It 
dips  itself  daintily  in  wine  and  knows 
how  to  laugh  with  elegance,  while  large 
bearded  jaws  are  heavy  in  all  that  they 
do. 

Wait !  I  recall  something  which  made 
me  weep  bitter  tears,  and  which  also 
made  me  love  a  mustache  upon  a  man's 
lip,  as  I  now  plainly  see. 

It  was  during  the  war,  when  I  was  at 
home  in  papa's  house.  I  was  a  young 
girl  then.  One  day  there  was  r.  battle 
near  the  house.  Since  morning  I  had 
heard  cannons  and  guns  and,  in  the 
evening,  a  German  colonel  entered  our 
house  and  installed  himself  there.  He 
went  away  ths  aext  day.  They  came 
to  tell  my  father  that  there  had  been 
many  deaths  on  the  field.  He  went  to 
find  them  and  bring  them  home,  in  or- 
der to  bury  them  together.  They  laid 
them  all  along  the  avenue  of  pines,  on 
both  sides,  from  the  stretcher  on  which 
they  brought  them.  And,  as  they  com- 
menced to  smell  badly,  they  threw  some 
earth  on  the  bodies  to  await  the  digging 
of  the  great  ditch.  In  this  way  only 
their  heads  were  to  be  seen,  which 
seemed  to  come  up  out  of  the  soil,  yel- 
low as  the  soil  itself,  with  their  eyes 
closed. 

I  wished  to  see  them ;  but  when  I  per- 
ceived these  two  lines  of  frightful  faces 
I  thought  it  would  make  me  ill.  I  be- 
gan  to    examine    them,    however,    ob^ 


474 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


by  one,  seeking  to  find  out  to  what  na- 
tion they  belonged.  Their  uniforms 
were  buried,  concealed  by  the  earth,  but 
immediately,  yes,  immediately,  my  dear, 
I  recognized  them  as  Frenchmen  by 
their  mustaches! 

Some  had  been  shaved  the  day  of  the 
battle,  as  if  wishing  to  be  attractive  to 
the  last  moment!  Their  beard,  never- 
theless, had  grown  a  little,  for  you  know 
It  grows  a  little  even  after  death. 
Others  seemed  to  have  gone  a  week 
without  shaving ;  but  all  wore  the  French 
mustache,    distinctlv.    the    proud    mus- 


tache which  seemed  to  say:  "Do  not 
confound  me  with  my  bearded  friend, 
little  one,  I  am  your  brother." 

And  I  wept,  oh!  I  wept  more  than  if 
I  had  not  thus  recognized  them,  the 
poor  dead  men! 

I  did  wrong  to  tell  you  this  story. 
Here  I  am  now,  sad  and  incapable  of 
chatting  any  more.  Adieu,  then,  my 
dear  Lucy;  I  emb-ace  you  with  all  my 
heart.    Long  live  the  mustache! 

JZANNE. 

Submitted  to  Guy  de  Maupassant. 


A  Fair  Exchange 


M.  BoNTRAM,  the  celebrated  Parisian 
advocate  who  for  the  last  ten  years  had 
obtained  many  separations  between 
badly  matched  husbands  and  wives, 
opened  the  door  of  his  office  and  stood 
back  to  allow  a  new  client  to  enter. 

He  was  a  large,  red  man,  with  close, 
blond  whiskers,  a  corpulent  man,  full- 
blooded  and  vigorous.    He  bowed. 

"Take  a  seat,"  said  the  advocate. 

The  client  was  seated  and,  after  some 
hemming,  said: 

"I  came  to  ask  ycu,  sir,  to  plead  a  di- 
vorce case  for  r..  e." 

"Speak,  sir,'*  said  the  advocate,  "I 
am  listening." 

"I  am,  sir,  an  old  no^^ry." 

"Already!" 

"Yes,  already,  i  am  thirty-seven 
years  of  age." 

"Continue." 

"Sir,  I  have  made  an  unfortunate 
maiTiage,  very  unfoL-tnnate." 


"You  are  no^  chc  only  one.'* 
"I  know  it,  and  I  pity  the  others. 
But  my  case  is  jntirely  different,  and  my 
complaint  against  my  wife  is  of  a  very 
particular  nature.  X  will  commence  at 
the  marriage  rite.  I  was  married  in 
strange  fashion.  Do  you  believe  in  dan- 
gerous ideas?" 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?" 
"Do  you  believe  that  certain  ideas  are 
as  dangerous  for  the  mind  as  poison  is 
to  the  body?" 

"Well,  yes,  perhaps." 
"It  is  certain.  There  are  ideas  which 
enter  into  us,  corrode  ms,  and  kill  us 
or  render  us  mad,  if  we  do  not  know 
how  to  resist  them.  They  are  a  sort  of 
poison  to  the  soul.  If  we  have  the  mis- 
fortune to  allow  one  of  these  thoughts  to 
glide  in  upon  us,  if  we  do  not  perceive 
at  the  beginning  that  it  is  an  invader, 
a  mistress,  a  tyrant,  then  it  will  extend 
itself  hour  by  hour  and  day  by  day.  wiU 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE 


475 


keep  returning  and  finally  install  itself, 
driving  out  all  ordinary  occupation  of 
our  minds,  absorbing  our  attention, 
changing  our  views  and  our  judgment 
until  we  are  lost. 

"That  is  what  happened  to  me,  sir. 
As  I  have  told  you,  I  am  a  notary  at 
Rouen,  not  poor  but  in  straitened  cir- 
cumstances, full  of  care,  forced  to  a 
constant  economy,  obliged  to  limit  my 
tastes,  yes,  in  everything!  And  it  is 
hard,  at  my  age. 

*'As  a  notary,  I  read,  with  great  care, 
the  advertisements  on  four  pages  of 
the  newspapers,  the  wants,  offers,  little 
correspondence,  etc.,  etc.,  and  I  had 
been  enabled  sometimes  by  this  means 
to  make  advantageous  marriages  for  my 
clients. 

One  day,  I  fell  upon  this: 

"  *A  pretiy  girl,  fashionable,  well 
brought  up.  would  marry  honorable 
gentleman  and  bring  him  two  million  five 
hundred  thousand  francs,  clear.  No 
agencies.* 

"On  that  very  day  I  dined  with  two 
friends,  one  an  attorney  and  the  other 
the  proprietor  of  a  spinning  mill.  I 
don't  know  how  the  conversation  turned 
to  marriages,  but  I  told  them,  laughing, 
about  the  pretty  young  lady  with  the 
two  million  five  hundred  thousand 
francs. 

"The  spinner  said:  'V/hat  can  these 
women  be  thinking  of?* 

"The  attorney  affirmed  that  he  had 
several  times  seen  e:icellent  marriages 
made  under  these  conditions,  and  gave 
some  details.  Then  he  added,  turning 
to  me:  'Why  the  devil  don't  you  look 
this  up  for  yourself?  Jove!  that  would 
drive  away  care,  two  million  five  hun- 
dred thousand  francs.* 


"We  all  three  laughed  over  it  and 
then  spoke  of  other  things.  An  hour 
later  I  returned  home. 

"It  grew  cold  that  night.  Besides, 
I  lived  in  an  oM  house,  one  of  those  old 
houses  of  the  provinces  which  resemble 
mushroom-beds.  In  taking  hold  of  the 
iron  balustrade  of  the  staircase,  a  cold- 
ness penetrated  my  arm,  and  as  I  put 
out  the  other  to  find  the  wall,  in  coming 
in  contact  with  it,  a  second  shiver  en- 
veloped me,  joining  with  the  other  in 
my  lungs,  filling  me  with  pain,  with  sad- 
ness, and  v/eakness.  And,  seized  by  a 
sudden  remembrance,  I  murmured  i 
*Gad !  if  I  only  had  the  two  million  five 
hundred  thousand!' 

"My  room  was  dreary,  the  room  of  a. 
bachelor  in  Rouen,  which  is  taken  car© 
of  by  a  maid  who  is  also  in  charge  of  the 
kitchen.  You  know  that  kind  of  room! 
A  great  bed  without  curtains,  a  ward- 
robe, a  commode,  and  a  dressing  table; 
no  fire.  Some  coats  were  on  the  chairs, 
papers  on  the  floor.  I  be^an  to  sing, 
to  the  air  of  a  concert-hall  tune  that  I 
frequently  heard  about  that  time : 

**  *Two   millions,   two   millions 
Are  fine, 
With  f:ve  hundred  thousand 
And  v/oman  divine.' 

"In  fact  I  had  not  yet  thought  about 
the  woman,  but  I  thought  of  her  then  as 
I  was  sliding  into  my  bed.  I  even 
thought  of  her  so  much  that  I  was  a 
long  time  getting  to  sleep. 

"The  next  day,  on  opening  my  eyes, 
I  remembered  hat  i'  ought  to  be  at 
Darnetal  at  ?igat  o'clock  on  important 
business,  lo  do  this  I  must  be  up  at 
six — and  it  was  cold!  Only  think  of 
two  million  five  hundred  thousand! 


476 

"I  returned  to  my  study  about  ten 
o'clock.  In  it  was  the  odor  of  the  red- 
hot  stove,  of  old  papers,  with  the  pa- 
pers of  advance  proceedings, — nothing 
can  equal  these, — and  an  odor  of  clerks 
—boots,  overcoats,  hair,  and  skin,  skin 
in  winter,  too  little  bathed,  and  all 
heated  to  seventy  degrees. 

*1  breakfasted,  as  I  do  every  day, 
on  a  cutlet  and  a  piece  of  cheese.  Then 
I  put  myself  to  work.  P'or  the  first 
time,  I  then  began  to  think  seriously  of 
the  pretty  young  lady  with  the  two  mil- 
lion five  hundred  thousand.  Who  was 
she?  Why  not  write  to  her?  Why  not 
find  out? 

"Finally,  sir,  to  abridge,  for  two 
weeks  this  idea  haunted  me,  possessed 
me,  and  tortured  me.  All  my  little 
cares  and  troubles,  cf  v;hich  I  had  plenty 
but  had  thought  little  about  before  this 
time,  began  to  sting  me  now  like  the 
sharp  points  of  needles,  and  each  of 
my  sufferings  made  me  think  still  more 
of  the  pretty  young  lady  with  the  two 
millions. 

"I  ended  by  imagining  all  her  history. 
When  one  desires  a  thing,  sir,  he  is  very 
apt  to  figure  it  as  he  hopes  it  to  be. 
Certainly  it  was  not  natural  that  a  young 
girl  of  good  family,  dowered  in  such  a 
generous  fashion,  should  be  seeking  a 
husband  by  means  of  the  newspapers. 
Yet,  it  might  be  that  this  girl  was  hon- 
orable but  unhappy. 

"Then,  at  fi~st  this  fortune  of  two 
million  five  hundred  thousand  had  not 
struck  me  as  anything  fairylike.  We  are 
accustomed,  we  who  read  the  offers  of 
this  nature,  to  propositions  of  marriage 
ftcccmpanied  by  six,  eight,  ten,  or  even 
fT/clve  millions.  The  figure  of  twelve 
VniUions  is  common  enough.    It  pleases. 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


1  know  well  that  we  can  scarcely  believe 
the  validity  of  these  promises.  They, 
however,  make  us  enter  into  the  spirit 
of  fantastic  numbers,  render  probable, 
up  to  a  certain  point  in  our  listless 
credulity,  the  prodigious  sums  whicn 
they  represent  and  dispose  us  to  con' 
sider  a  dowry  of  two  million  five  hun- 
dred thousand  as  very  possible  and 
right. 

"Then  a  young  girl,  the  natural  child 
of  a  rich  man  and  a  chambermaid,  hav- 
ing suddenly  inherited  from  her  father, 
could  have  learned  at  the  same  time  of 
the  stain  upon  her  birth,  and  in  order 
not  to  have  to  reveal  it  to  some  man 
whom  she  might  have  loved,  she  might 
make  an  appeal  to  the  unknown  by  this 
means,  which  carries  in  itself  a  sort  of 
avowal  of  defect. 

"My  supposition  was  stupid.  I  be- 
lieved in  it,  nevertheless.  We  notaries 
ought  never  to  read  romances,  but  I 
read  one  in  this,  sir. 

"Then  I  wrote,  as  a  notary,  in  the 
name  of  a  client,  and  I  waited.  Five 
days  later,  toward  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  when  I  was  hard  at  work  in 
my  office,  the  chief  clerk  announced: 

"  'Mile.  Chantefrise.* 

"  'Let  her  come  in.' 

"There  appeared  a  woman  about 
thirty,  a  little  stout,  dark,  and  some- 
what embarrassed. 

"  'Be  seated,  Mademoiselle.' 

"She  sat  down,  and  murmured:  'It 
is  I,  sir.' 

"  'But  I  have  not  the  honor  of  know- 
ing you.' 

"  'The  person  to  whom  you  wrote.' 

"  'About  a  marriage?* 

"  'Yes,  sir.' 

"^Ah!  very  well!' 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE 


477 


'*  'I  have  come  myself  because  I 
thought  it  better  to  attend  to  those 
things  in  person.' 

"  'I  am  of  your  opinion,  Mademoi- 
selle.   And  so  you  desire  to  marry?* 

"  'Yes,  sir.' 

"  'You  have  some  family?* 

"She  hesitated,  lowered  her  eyes,  and 
stammered:  'No,  sir.  My  mother  and 
my  father — are  dead.' 

"I  started.  Then  I  had  guessed  right 
— and  a  lively  sympathy  was  suddenly 
awakened  in  my  heart  for  this  poor 
creature.  I  could  not  altogether  spare 
her  delicacy  of  feeling  and  I  inquired: 

"  'Your  fortune  is  in  your  own  right  ?^ 

"She  responded  this  time  without 
hesitating:     'Oh!  yes,  sir!' 

"I  looked  at  her  with  close  attention 
and  truly  she  did  not  displease  me,  only 
a  little  hard,  harder  than  I  would  have 
liked.  She  was  a  beautiful  person,  a 
strong  person,  a  masterly  woman.  And 
the  idea  came  to  me  of  playing  with  her 
a  little  comedy  of  sentiment,  of  becom- 
ing her  lover,  of  supplanting  my  im- 
aginary client,  when  I  was  once  assured 
that  the  dowry  was  not  illusory.  I 
spoke  to  her  of  this  client  whom  I  de- 
picted as  a  sad  man,  very  honorable, 
but  a  little  of  an  invalid. 
^  "She  said  v'vaciously:  *0h!  sir,  I 
love  people  to  be  well.' 

"  'But  you  will  see  him — only  not  for 
I    three  or  four  days,  because  he  left  for 
England  yesterday.' 

"  *0h !  how  annoying,'  she  replied. 

"  'Well,  yes  and  no.  Are  you  in  a 
hurry  to  return  home?' 

"  'Not  nt  all.' 

"  'Then  stay  here,  and  I  will  attempt 
to  make  the  time  pass  pleasantly  for 
you,* 


"  'You  are  very  amiable,  sir.' 

"  'You  are  at  some  hotel?' 

"She  named  the  best  hotel  in  Rouen, 

"  'Well,  then,  Madmoiselle  Chante^ 
frise,  will  you  permit  your  future — 
notary  to  offer  to  take  you  to  dinner 
this  evening?' 

"She  appeared  to  hesitate,  seemed  dis- 
turbed, and  undecided.  Then  she  said: 
'Yes,  sir.' 

"  'I  will  be  at  your  hotel  at  seven 
o'clock.' 

"  'Yes,  sir.' 

"  'Then  until  this  evening.  Mademoi- 
selle?' 

"  'Yes,  sir.' 

"And  I  conducted  her  as  far  as  my 
door. 

"At  seven  o'clock  I  was  at  her  hotel. 
She  had  made  a  fresh  toilette  for  me 
and  received  me  in  a  very  coquettish 
fashion.  I  took  her  to  dine  in  a  res- 
taurant where  I  was  known  and  ordered 
a  troublesome  me7iu.  An  hour  later  we 
were  very  friendly  and  she  had  told  me 
her  story. 

"She  was  the  daughter  of  a  great  lady 
seduced  by  a  gentleman,  and  she  had 
been  brought  up  among  peasants.  She 
was  lich  now,  having  inherited  large 
sums  from  her  father  and  from  her 
mother,  whose  name  she  would  never 
divulge,  never.  It  was  useless  to  ask  it 
of  her,  useless  to  beg,  she  would  never 
tell  it.  As  I  cared  little  to  know  these 
things,  I  asked  about  her  fortune.  She 
spoke  about  it  like  a  practical  woman, 
sure  of  herself,  sure  of  her  figures,  of 
her  titles,  of  her  income,  her  interest, 
and  investments.  Her  understanding  of 
these  matters  gave  me  preat  confidence 
Ai  her,  and  I  became  gallant,  with  soiti« 


478 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


reserve,  nevertheless.  But  I  showed  her 
clearly  that  I  had  a  liking  for  her. 

'She  affected  an  excessive  refinement, 
not  without  grace.  I  offered  her  some 
champigr.c,  and  I  drank  some,  which 
blurred  my  ideas.  I  then  felt  clearly 
that  I  was  going  to  be  entrapped,  and  I 
was  afraid,  afraid  of  myself  and  afraid 
of  her,  afraid  that  she  was  not  moved 
and  that  she  would  not  succumb.  In 
order  to  calm  myself,  I  began  again  to 
speak  to  her  of  her  fortune,  saying  that 
it  would  be  necessary  to  precisely  un- 
derstand matters,  since  my  client  was  a 
man  of  affairs. 

"She  answered  with  gaiety:  'Oh!  I 
know.     I  have  brought  all  the  proofs.' 

***Here,  to  Rouen?* 

"  'Yes,  to  Rouen.' 

"  *You  hev3  t!:.cm  at  the  hotel?' 

"  'Yes,  I  have  them  all  there.' 

"  'Could  ycu  show  them  to  me?* 

"  'Yes,  indeed.' 

"  'Th"s  cvcnirgp' 

**'Yes,  indeed.' 

*That  pleased  me  in  every  way.  I 
paid  the  score  and  we  went  back  to  the 
hotel.  She  had,  in  fact,  brought  all  ber 
certificates.  I  could  not  doubt  them, 
for  I  held  them  in  my  hands,  felt  them, 
and  read  them.  They  put  such  a  joy  in 
my  heart  that  I  suddenly  felt  a  violent 
desire  to  embrace  her.  I  understood 
this  as  a  chaste  desire,  the  desire  of  a 
contented  man.  And  I  did  embrace  her, 
in  fact,  once,  twice,  ten  times — so  much 
that — with  the  aid  of  the  champagne — I 
succumbed — or  rather — ^no — ^she  suc- 
cumbed. 

"Ah!  sir,  I  had  a  head  after  that,  and 
she!  She  wept  like  a  fountain,  begging 
me  not  to  expose  her  or  she  should  be 
lost     I  promised  all  that  she  wished, 


and  I  myself  got  into  a  terrible  state 
of  mind. 

''What  was  to  be  done?  I  had  abused 
my  client's  confidence.  That  would  not 
have  been  so  bad  if  I  had  had  a  client 
for  her,  but  I  had  none.  I  was  the 
client,  the  simple  client,  the  deceived 
cHent,  and  deceived  by  herself.  What 
a  situation!  I  could  let  her  go,  it  is  true. 
But  the  dowry,  the  handsome  dowry, 
the  good  dowry,  palpable  and  sure !  And 
then,  had  I  the  right  to  let  her  go,  the 
poor  girl,  after  having  thus  surprised 
her?  But  what  of  the  disquiet  later  on? 
How  much  security  would  one  have  with 
a  woman  who  thus  yielded? 

"I  passed  a  terrible  night  of  indeci- 
sion, tortured  by  remorse,  ravaged  by 
fears,  buffeted  by  every  scruple.  But 
in  the  morning,  my  reason  cleared.  I 
dressed  myself  with  care,  and,  as  eleven 
o'clock  struck,  presented  myself  at  the 
hotel  where  she  was  staying. 

"On  seeing  me,  she  blushed  to  the 
eyes.  I  said  to  her:  'Mademoiselle 
Chantefrise,  there  is  only  one  thing  to 
do  to  repair  our  wrong.  I  ask  your 
hand  in  marriage.' 

"She  murmured:    'I  give  it  to  you.' 

*'l  married  ter  and  all  went  v;ell  for 
six  months.  I  had  giveii  up  my  office 
and  lived  as  a  stockholder,  and  truly  I 
had  not  a  reproach,  not  a  single  fault  to 
find  with  my  wife. 

"Then  I  noticed  that,  from  time  to 
time,  she  made  long  visits.  This  hap- 
pened on  a  certain  day,  one  week  Tues- 
day, the  next  week  Wednesday.  I  be- 
gan to  believe  myself  deceived  and  I 
followed  her.  It  was  on  a  Tuesday.  She 
went  out  on  foot  about  one  o'clock  into 
Republic  street,  turned  tn  the  right,  by 


THE  TOBACCO  SHOP 


479 


the  street  which  follows  the  archiepis- 
copal  palace,  and  took  Great-Bridge 
street  to  the  Seine,  followed  the  wharf 
up  to  Peter's  bridge  and  crossed  the 
water.  From  this  moment  she  appeared 
disturbed,  turning  around  often  and 
looking  sharply  at  all  passers. 

"As  I  was  dressed  like  a  coal  driver 
she  did  not  know  me.  Finally,  she  en- 
tered a  dock  on  the  left  bank.  I  no 
fonger  doubted  that  her  lever  would  ar- 
rive on  the  one-forty-five  train. 

"I  seated  myself  behind  a  dray  and 
waited.  A  blow  of  the  whistle — a  crowd 
of  passengers.  She  advanced,  rushed 
forward,  seized  in  her  arms  a  little  girl 
of  three  years,  whom  a  large  peasant 
accompanied,  and  embraced  her  with 
passion.  Then  she  turned,  perceived 
another  child,  younger,  either  girl  or  boy, 
it  might  be,  carried  by  fjiother  nurse, 
threw  herself  upon  it,  drew  it  to  her 
with  violence,  and  went  along  escorted 
by  the  two  monkeys  and  the  two  nvirses 


toward  the  long,  somber,  deserted  prom- 
enade of  the  Queen's  Course. 

"I  returned  home  dismayed,  distressed 
in  mind,  comprehending  and  still  not 
comprehending,  nor  daring  to  guess. 
When  she  returned  for  dinner,  I  threw 
these  words  at  her: 

"  'Whose  children  are  those?* 

"  'What  children?*  she  asked. 

"  'Those  that  you  waited  at  the  Saint- 
Sever  train  for.* 

"She  gave  a  great  cry  and  fainted. 
When  she  returned  to  consciousness  she 
confessed  to  me,  in  a  deluge  of  tears, 
that  she  had  four.  Yes,  sir,  two  for 
Tuesday,  two  girls,  and  two  for  Wed- 
nesday, two  boys. 

"And  this  was — ^what  shame !  this  was 
the  origin  of  her  fortune.  The  four 
fathers!  She  had  amassed  her  dowry! 
Now  sir,  what  do  you  advise  me  to 
do?" 

The  advocate  replied  with  gravity: 
'Recognize  your  children,  sir." 


The  Tobacco  Shop 


I  WEN?  down  to  Barviller  alone  be- 
eiuse  I  saw  in  the  guidebook  (I  do  not 
remember  which  one) :  "A  beautiful 
museum,  two  Rubens,  one  Tenier,  and  a 
\  Ribera."  I  thought  to  myself:  "I  will 
see  that.  Then  I  will  dine  at  the  Hotel 
Europe,  which  the  guidebook  affirms  ex- 
cellent, and   return   to-morrow." 

The  museum  was  closed.  They  only 
opened  it  at  the  request  of  travelers. 
It  was  opened  for  my  benefrt  and 
I  was  able  to  look  upon  some  daubs 
attributed  by  a  whimsical  collector  to 
the  first  masters  of  painting. 


After  that,  I  found  myself  alone  with 
absolutely  nothing  to  do.  I  was  in  a 
long  street  of  a  little  unknown  town, 
a  kind  of  artery,  through  which  I  wan- 
dered, examining  some  of  the  poor 
little  shops.  I  found  it  was  only  four 
o'clock,  and  I  was  suddenly  seized  with 
that  feeling  of  discouragement  which 
makes  simpletons  of  the  most  energetic. 

What  could  I  do?  Great  heavens! 
what  was  there  to  do?  I  would  have 
paid  five  hundred  francs  for  some  dis- 
tracting idea.  Finding  myself  barren  of 
invention.  I  simply  ddcided  to  smoke  a 


480 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


good  cigar,  and  looked  about  for  a 
tobacco  shop.  I  soon  recognized  one  by 
its  red  lantern  and  entered  it.  The 
saleswoman  held  out  several  boxes  for 
me  to  chooce  from.  Having  looked 
carefully  at  the  cigars,  all  of  which  ap- 
peared detestable,  I  turned  by  chance 
and  glanced  at  the  proprietress. 

She  was  a  woman  of  about  forty-five, 
strong  ar.d  gray-haired.  She  had  a  f?t, 
respectable  face,  in  which  I  seemed  to 
see  something  familiar.  Could  I  have 
known  this  woman  somewhere;  No, 
assuredly  not.  But  it  might  be  that  I 
had  seen  her  somewhere?  Yes,  that  was 
possible.  The  face  before  me  must 
be  an  acquaintance  of  my  eyes,  some 
old  acquaintance  lost  to  sight  and,  with- 
out doubt,  changed  by  being  enormously 
fattened. 

I  murmured :  ^'Excuse,  me,  Madame, 
for  looking  at  you  so  closely,  but  it 
seems  to  me  that  I  have  seen  you  be- 
fore, long  ago." 

She  responded,  blushing  a  little:  "It 
is  strange — but  I  also — " 

I  exclaimed:     **Ah!  so  it  goes!" 

She  raised  both  hands  in  a  comical 
despair,  frightened  by  the  sound  of  the 
old  name,  and  stammered:  "Oh!  oh! — 
if  anyone  should  hear  you — "  Then 
suddenly  she  cried  out,  in  her  turn: 
"Wait!  It  is  you— George!"  Then  she 
looked  around  in  terror  to  see  if  any- 
one were  listening.  But  we  were  alone, 
all  alone! 

"So-it-Goes!"  How  had  I  ever  recog- 
nized her!  "So-it-Goes,"  the  poor  "So- 
it-Goes,"  the  thin,  the  desolate  "So-it- 
Goes,"  transformed  into  this  fat,  tran- 
quil functionary  of  the  government? 

"So-it-Goes!"  How  many  memories 
this  name  awakened  in  me:     Bougival. 


"The  Frog,"  Chatou,  the  Foumaise 
restaurant,  long  journeys  in  a  yawl  along 
the  steep  banks,  in  short,  ten  years  of 
my  life,  passed  in  that  corner  of  the 
country,  upon  that  delicious  part  of  the 
river. 

There  was  a  band  of  a  dozen  of  us 
inhabiting  the  Galopois  house,  at 
Chatou,  living  a  queer  kind  of  life,  half 
nude  and  half  tipsy.  The  customs  of 
canoeists  have  changed  since  then. 
Now,  these  gentlemen  wear  monocles. 

Our  band  was  composed  of  twenty 
canoeists,  regular  and  irregular.  On 
certain  Sundays  there  would  only  be 
four  of  them,  on  others,  all.  That  is 
to  say,  som.e  there  were  there  to  stay, 
others  came  when  they  had  nothing 
better  to  do.  Five  or  six  of  them  Hved 
together,  after  the  fashion  of  men  with- 
out wives,  and  among  them  dwelt  "So- 
it-Goes." 

She  was  a  poor,  thin  girl  who  limped. 
This  gave  her  some  of  the  attractions 
of  a  grasshopper.  She  was  timid,  awk- 
ward, and  unskillful  in  all  that  she  did. 
With  fear,  she  attached  herself  to  the 
humblest,  the  most  unnoticed  of  us» 
anyone  who  would  keep  her  a  day  or 
a  month,  according  to  his  means.  How 
she  ever  came  to  be  among  us,  nobody 
knew.  Some  one  had  met  her  one 
evening  at  poker-dice,  at  a  riverside 
ball,  and  had  been  led  into  one  of  those 
raffles  for  wives  that  were  so  much 
the  fashion.  We  invited  her  to  lunch, 
seeing  her  seated  alone  at  a  little  table 
in  the  corner.  No  one  could  have 
asked  her,  but  she  made  a  part  of  our 
band. 

We  baptized  her  "So-it-Goes"  (fa 
Ira),  because  she  was  already  complain- 
ing of  her  destiny,  of  her  misfortune. 


THE  TOBACCO  SHOP 


481 


I 


and  her  sorrows.  Each  Sunday  morn- 
ing they  would  say  to  her:  *'Well,  'So- 
it-Goes,'  how  goes  it?"  And  she 
would  always  answer:  "Not  so  bad, 
but  we  must  always  hope  that  it  will 
be  better  some  day." 

How  this  poor,  ungraceful,  awkward 
being  came  to  adopt  the  trade  which 
demands  the  most  grace,  tact,  clever- 
ness, and  beauty,  was  a  mystery.  How- 
ever, Paris  is  full  of  girls  of  love  that 
are  ugly  enough  to  disgust  a  policeman. 

What  did  she  do  the  other  six  days 
of  the  week?  She  told  us  many  times 
that  she  worked.  At  what?  We  were 
as  ignorant  of  it  as  we  were  indifferent 
to  her  existence. 

After  that,  I  nearly  lost  sight  of  her. 
Our  group  had  dispersed,  Kttle  by  little, 
leaving  its  place  to  another  generation, 
to  whom  we  also  left  "Qa  Ira."  I  heard 
of  her  in  going  to  breakfast  at  the 
Fournaise  from  time  to  time. 

Our  successors,  not  knowing  why  we 
had  christened  her  as  we  did,  believed 
her  name  to  be  Oriental  and  called  her 
Zai'ra;  then  they  bestowed  her,  with  all 
their  canoes  and  some  of  the  canoeists, 
to  the  following  generation.  (A  gener- 
ation of  canoeists  generally  lives  three 
years  upon  the  water,  then  leaves  the 
Seine  to  enter  the  law,  medicine,  or 
politics.) 

Zaira  had  now  become  Zara,  and  later 
Zara  was  modified  into  Sarah.  Then 
they  thought  she  was  an  Israelite. 

The  last  ones,  those  with  the  mono- 
cles, called  her  simply  "the  Jewess." 
Then  she  disappeared.  And  behold!  I 
had  found  her  in  Barviller,  selling  to- 
bacco. 

I  said  to  her:  "Well,  how  goes  it 
now?" 


She  answered:  "A  little  better." 
I  had  a  curiosity  to  know  the  life  of 
this  woman.  At  any  other  time  I  would 
not  have  cared ;  to-day  I  felt  interested, 
puzzled,  attracted.  I  asked  her:  "How 
did  you  com.e  to  get  this  place?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  she,  "it  came 
to  me  when  I  was  expecting  the  lease." 

"Was  it  at  Chatou  that  you  came 
upon  it?" 
"Oh!  no." 
"Then  where?" 

"At  Paris,  in  a  hotel  where  I  lived." 
"Ah!  then  you  had  a  place  in  Paris?" 
"Yes,  I  was  with  Madame  Ravelet." 
"Who  is  she,  this  Madame  Ravelet?" 
"And  you  don't  know  who  Madame 
Ravelet  is?  Well!" 
"No,  I  do  not." 

"The  dressmaker,  the  great  dress* 
maker  of  Rivoli  street." 

And  then  she  told  me  a  thousand 
things  of  her  former  life,  a  thousand 
things  of  the  secret  life  of  the  Parisian 
woman,  the  interior  workings  of  a  great 
dressmaking  establishment,  the  life  of 
the  young  ladies  there,  their  adventures, 
their  ideas,  the  whole  story  of  the  heart 
of  a  working  girl,  that  sparrow-hawk  of 
the  sidewalk  who  haunts  the  streets— 
in  the  morning  in  going  to  the  shop,  at 
midday,  strolling  along  bareheaded  after 
her  luncheon,  and  in  the  evening  when 
she  comes  out  to  show  herself. 

Happy  to  speak  of  other  days,  she 
said:  "You  don't  know  what  a  mob  it  is, 
nor  what  raids  they  make.  We  used 
to  tell  each  other  about  them  every  day. 
Truly  one  can  make  a  fool  of  a  man, 
you  know. 

"The  first  tale  I  have  to  tell  is  on 
the  subject  of  an  umbrella.  I  had  an 
old    alnaca    one,    an    umbrella    to    be 


«&2 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ishamed  of.  As  I  was  closing  it  upon 
my  arrival  one  day,  there  wais  the  tall 
Louise  before  me,  saying: 

"•What!  You  dare  to  go  out  with 
that?" 

"  'But  I  have  no  other,  and  at  this 
moment  funds  are  low.' 

'They  were  always  low,  funds  were. 

"She  said  to  me:  'Go  and  get  one  at 
tnc  Madeleine.* 

"I  was  astonished.  She  continued: 
'That  is  where  v.-e  ail  get  ours;  one  can 
get  all  one  wants  there.'  And  then  she 
explained  the  thing  to  me.  It  was  very 
simple. 

"I  went  with  Irma  to  the  Madeleine. 
We  found  the  sexton  and  explained  to 
him  how  we  had  forgotten  an  umbrella 
the  week  before.  He  asked  us  to  des- 
cribe the  handle  and  I  gave  him  a  des- 
cription of  a  handle  with  an  agate  apple 
on  it.  He  took  us  into  a  room  where 
there  were  more  than  fifty  lost  umbrel- 
las; we  looked  them  all  over  but  I  did 
not  find  mine;  I  had,  however,  chosen 
a  beauty,  a  perfect  beauty  witL  a  carved 
ivory  handle.  A  few  days  after,  Louise 
went  and  reclaimed  it.  She  described 
it  before  seeing  it,  and  he  gave  it  to  her 
without  a  suspicion. 

"In  order  to  do  that  sort  af  thing, 
one  has  to  dress  very  stylish." 

And  she  laughed,  opening  the  cover 
of  a  large  box  of  tobacco  and  letting 
it  fail  again  upon  its  hinges.  She  con- 
tinued ' 

"Oh!  we  each  had  our  turn  at  it  and 
we  did  have  some  queer  experiences. 
There  were  five  of  us  living  in  the 
studio,  four  ordinaries  and  one  very 
pretty,  Irma,  the  beautiful  Irma.  She 
was  very  distinguished,  as  she  had  a 
lover  in  the  Cabinet  Council,  but  that 


did  not  hinder  her  from  making  him 
support  her  prettily.  And  one  winter 
she  said  to  us:  'You  don't  know  what 
a  way  I  have  thought  of  to  make  a 
good  thing?'  And  she  told  us  her 
idea. 

"You  know,  Irma  had  such  a  face  to 
trouble  the  heads  of  all  men,  and  such 
a  figure!  and  hips  that  would  make  the 
water  come  in  your  mouth.  So  she 
thought  of  a  way  for  each  of  us  to 
make  a  hundred  francs  to  buy  some 
rings  with,  and  she  arranged  the  thing 
like  this: 

"You  must  know  that  I  was  not  rich 
at  that  moment,  any  more  than  the 
others ;  ar^d  we  were  scarcely  making  a 
hundred  francs  in  a  month  at  the  shop, 
certainly  not  more.  We  wished  to 
know  her  plan.  We  each  had  two  or 
three  lovers  who  gave  a  little,  but  not 
much;  and  it  sometimes  happened  that 
in  the  noonday  walk  we  nabbed  a  gen- 
tleman who  would  come  the  next  day; 
we  would  keep  him  for  two  weeks  and 
then  give  him  up.  Such  men  as  that 
never  give  very  much.  Those  at  Cha- 
tou — that  was  for  pleasure.  Oh!  if 
you  only  knew  some  of  the  sly  things 
we  did;  truly  you  would  die  from 
laughter.  So,  when  Irma  proposed  to 
us  to  make  a  hundred  francs,  we  were 
all  on  fire.  It  is  ver>'  bad,  what  I 
am  going  to  tell  you,  but  that  makes  no 
difference;  you  know  what  life  is,  and 
when  one  has  stayed  four  years  at 
Chatou — 

"Well,  she  said  to  us:  'At  the  Opera 
Ball,  we  are  going  to  get  hold  of  some 
of  the  best  men  in  Paris,  the  most  dis- 
tinguished and  the  richest.  I  know  who 
they  are.' 

"We  did  not  believe  it  at  first;  be- 


THE  TOBACCO  SHOP 


483 


cause  such  men  are  not  made  for  dress- 
makers; for  Irma,  yes,  but  not  for  us. 
Oh!  she  was  so  stylish,  that  Irma!  Do 
you  know,  we  had  the  habit  at  the 
studio  of  saying  that  if  the  Emperor  had 
seen  her,  he  would  certainly  have  mar- 
ried her. 

"She  made  us  dress  ourselves  in  our 
best,  and  said  to  us:  'You,  none  of 
you  will  enter  the  ballroom,  but  will 
stay  outside  in  cabs  in  the  neighboring 
streets.  A  gentleman  will  come  and  get 
into  your  carriage.  When  he  has  en- 
tered, you  will  embrace  him  as  prettily 
as  you  can;  and  then,  you  will  utter  a 
great  cry  to  show  that  you  have  made 
a  mistake  and  that  you  expected  some 
one  else.  This  will  excite  the  pigeon 
to  take  the  place  of  another,  and  he 
will  try  to  remain  by  force;  you  will 
resist,  you  will  give  him  a  hundred 
blows  to  drive  him  away — and  then — 
you  will  go  to  supper  with  him — ^and 
you  ought  to  get  good  damages.' 

"You  do  not  quite  understand  it  yet, 
do  you?  Well,  here  is  what  she  did, 
the  rogue! 

"She  made  all  four  of  us  get  into  car- 
riages, four  carriages  of  the  circle,  that 
were  just  as  they  should  be,  then  she 
placed  us  in  streets  near  the  Opera.  She 
went  to  the  ball  alone.  As  she  knew 
by  name  the  most  conspicuous  men  in 
Paris,  because  our  establishment  catered 
to  their  wives,  she  chose  them  for  her 
intrigue.  She  could  talk  with  them 
about  anything,  for  she  had  a  mind  also. 
When  she  saw  that  one  was  half  drunk, 
she  threw  off  her  mask,  and  he  was 
taken  as  in  a  net.  He  wished  to  take 
her  away  immediately,  but  she  pre- 
ferred to  make  an  appointment  with  him 
in  half  ar«  hour,  in  a  carriage  opposite 


No.  20  Taitbout  street.  It  was  1  who 
was  in  that  carriage!  I  was  well 
wrapped  up  and  my  face  veiled.  Sud- 
denly a  gentleman  put  his  head  in  the 
door  and  asked:  "Is  it  you?' 

*'And  I  answered  in  a  low  tone:  'Yes, 
it  is  I;  get  in  quickly.' 

"He  does  so  and  I  seize  him  in  my 
arms  and  embrace  him,  until  his  breath 
is  almost  gone;  then  I  say: 

"  'Oh!  I  am  so  happy!  I  am  so 
happy!' 

"But  suddenly  I  cry  out:  'But  it 
is  not  you!  Oh!  dear!  oh!  dear!'  And 
I  begin  to  weep. 

"You  can  judge  whether  the  man  is 
embarrassed  or  not!  He  tries  to  con- 
sole me;  he  excuses  himself  and  protests 
that  he  is  also  mistaken.  As  for  me, 
I  keep  on  weeping,  but  less  and  less ;  and 
I  utter  great  sighs.  Then  he  says  very 
sweet  things  to  me. 

"He  was  a  man  that  was  a  man; 
and  it  pleased  him  to  see  me  weeping 
less  and  less.  To  put  a  short  thread  in 
the  needle,  he  proposed  to  take  me  to 
supper.  I  refused;  I  tried  to  leap  from 
the  carriage;  he  held  me  by  taking  me 
around  the  waist;  then  he  embraced  me, 
as  I  had  him  upon  his  entrance. 

"And  then —  and  then — ^we  had  sup- 
per—you understand — and  he  gave  me 
— think  of  it— he  gave  me  five  hundred 
francs!  Would  you  believe  that  there 
are  such  generous  men? 

"And  the  thing  was  a  success  for 
everybody.  Louise,  who  received  the 
least,  got  two  hundred  francs.  But  you 
know,  Louise — truly,  she  was  very 
thin!" 

The  woman  of  the  tobacco  shop  went 
on  thus,  emptying  her  heart  of  all  the 


4G4 


WC:iKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


memories  amassed  in  the  long  time  that 
she  had  been  shut  up  with  her  official 
duties.  The  past,  poor  and  queer  though 
it  was,  moved  her  soul.  She  regretted 
this  gallant,  Bolicmian  life  of  the  Pari- 
sian sidewalk,  made  up  of  privations  and 
paid-for  caresses,  of  laughter  and  mis- 
ery, and  moments  of  stratagem  and  true 
love. 

I  said  to  her:  "But  how  did  you  get 
into  the  tobacco  business?" 

She  smiled,  s::ying:  "Oh!  that  is  a 
story,  too.  You  mu3t  know  that  I  had 
for  a  neighbor  in  my  apartment,  exactly 
opposite  my  door,  a  student — but  one  of 
those  students  v;ho  amount  to  nothing. 
This  one  lived  at  the  caje  from  morning 
until  evening;  he  loved  billiards,  as  I 
have  never  seen  anyone  love  the  game. 

"When  I  was  alone,  v>^e  sometimes 
i:>assed  the  evening  together.  It  is  by 
lim  that  I  had  Roger." 

"Who  is  Roger?" 

"My  son." 

"Ah!" 

"He — ^he  gave  me  a  little  pension  for 
the  boy's  education,  but  I  did  n©t  think 
that  man  would  ever  amount  to  any- 
5.hing,  as  I  had  never  seen  a  man  so  idle, 


never.  .At  the  end  of  ten  years,  he  'vas 
still  *n  his  first  examinations.  When  {ii£| 
family  saw  that  he  would  do  nothing, 
they  called  him  home  to  the  provinces; 
but  we  remained  in  correspondence  on 
account  of  the  child.  And  then,  imag- 
ine at  the  last  elections,  two  years 
ago,  I  learned  that  he  had  been  made  a 
deputy  in  his  county.  And  then  he 
made  some  speeches  in  the  Assembly 
Truly,  in  a  kingdom  of  blind  men,  as  the 
saying  is — But,  to  finish,  I  went  to  finO 
him,  and  immediately  he  obtained  thi^ 
tobacco  business  for  me,  r.s  the  daugh- 
ter of  an  exile — It  is  true  my  father  was 
exiled,  but  I  never  thought  of  this  fact 
serving  me  in  any  way. 

"Briefly — ^wait!  here  is  Roger." 

A  tall,  young  man  entered,  grave,  cor« 
rect,  and  proper. 

He  kissed  his  mother  en  the  brow  and 
she  said:  "This,  sir,  is  my  son,  head* 
clerk  at  the  mayor's  office.  You  know^ 
ho  may  be  a  future  subprefect." 

I  saluted  this  functionary  in  a  worthy 
manner,  and  went  back  to  my  hotel, 
after  having  pressed  with  gravity  the 
extended  hand  of  "So-it-Goes." 


A  Poor  Girl 


Yes,  the  memory  of  that  evening  can 
never  be  effaced.  For  half  an  hour  I 
had  the  sinister  sensation  of  invincible 
fatality;  I  had  the  same  shivers  that 
one  has  in  descending  the  shaft  of  a 
mine.  I  touched  the  black  depths  of 
human  misery;  I  seemed  to  comprehend 
fully  how  impossible  an  honest  life  is 
under  some  conditions. 


It  was  just  past  midnight.  I  was 
going  from  the  Vaudeville  to  Drouot 
street,  following  a  crowd  on  the  Boule- 
vard, all  carrying  umbrellas.  A  deluge 
of  water  poured  rather  than  fell,  veiling 
the  gas  jets  and  giving  the  street  a  sad 
appearance.  The  sidewalk  glittered, 
more  sticky  than  wet.  The  mass  of 
people  pressed  on,  seeing  nothings 


A  POOR  GIRL 


485 


Girls,  with  skirts  raised,  showed  their 
ankles,  allowing  a  white  stocking  to 
peep  out  in  the  dim  nocturnal  light,  and 
waited  in  shadowed  doorways.  Some 
called  to  and  some,  bolder,  jostled  the 
passers,  pronouncing  in  their  ears  two 
obscene,  stupid  words.  They  would  fol- 
low a  man  some  seconds,  and  push 
against  h*m,  breathing  in  his  face  their 
putrid  breath.  Then,  seeing  their  bc- 
guilements  useless,  they  would  leave  him 
with  an  abrupt,  discontented  motion  and 
start  on  again,  swinging  their  hips. 

I  went  alonj,  spoken  to  by  all,  taken 
by  the  sleeve,  harassed  and  moved  with 
disgust.  Suddenly,  I  saw  three  of  them 
running  as  if  frightened,  talking  to  each 
other  in  rapid  fashion.  Others  also 
began  to  run,  to  flee,  holding  their 
robes  with  both  hands,  in  order  to  run 
more  quickly.  That  day  a  blow  had 
been  given  to  the  network  of  prostitu- 
tion. 

All  at  once  I  felt  an  arm  under  mine, 
while  a  terrified  voice  murmured  in  my 
ear:  "Save  me,  sir,  save  me;  do  not 
leave  me." 

I  looked  at  the  girl.  She  was  not 
twenty  years  old,  yet  faded  already. 
I  said  to  her:  "Remain  with  me."  And 
she  murmured:  "Oh!  thank  you!" 

We  arrived  at  the  line  of  agents.  She 
disclosed  herself  in  order  to  let  me  pass. 
I  met  her  farther  on    in  Drouot  street. 

My  companion  asked:  "Will  you 
come  home  with  me?" 

"No." 

"Why  not?  You  have  rendered  me  a 
service  that  I  shall  not  forget." 

I  answered,  so  not  to  embarrass  her: 
"Because  I  am  married." 

"What  difference  does  that  make?" 

**You  see,  my  child,  that  is  sufficient. 


I  have  helped  you  out  of  your  difficulty, 
leave  me  quietly  now." 

The  street  was  deserted  and  dark, 
truly  unpleasant.  And  this  woman,  who 
held  me  by  the  arm,  rendered  more 
frightful  still  the  sensation  of  sadness 
which  enveloped  me.  She  wished  to  em- 
brace me.  I  recoiled  with  horror.  And 
in  a  hard  voice  she  said:  "Once,  for 
peace,  won't  you?" 

And  she  made  a  movement  of  rage, 
then  abruptly  began  to  sob.  I  stood 
lost  in  wonder,  not  quite  comprehend- 
ing.   Finally  I  said: 

"Tell  me,  what  is  the  matter  with 
you?" 

She  murmured  through  her  tears :  "If 
you  only  knew  it,  it  is  not  gay,  this 
isn't." 

"What  is  not  gay?" 

"This  kind  of  life." 

"Why  have  you  chosen  it,  then?" 

"It  v/as  not  my  fault." 

"Whose  fault  was  it?" 

"I  know  whose,  I  do." 

A  kind  of  interest  in  this  abandoned 
creature  took  me  and  I  said: 

"Tell  me  your  story.'* 

And  she  told  it  to  me. 

"I  was  sixteen  years  old  and  in  ser- 
vice at  Yvetot  at  the  house  of  Mr. 
Lerable,  a  grain  dealer.  My  parents 
were  dead.  I  had  no  one.  I  saw,  of 
course,  that  my  master  looked  at  me  in 
a  queer  way,  and  that  he  pinched  my 
cheeks;  and  I  had  not  long  to  ask  myself 
what  he  meant.  I  knew  things,  cer- 
tainly. In  the  country,  one  is  sharp- 
ened. But  Mr.  Lerable  was  old  and  de- 
vout, going  to  m.ass  every  Sunday.  T 
somehow  never  believed  him  capable! 
"But  the  day   came  when  he  wi.shed  to 


486 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


take  me  in  my  kitchen.    I  resisted  him, 
but  it  was  done. 

'•There  was  opposite  us  a  grocer,  Mr. 
Dunstan,  who  had  a  very  pleasant  boy 
in  his  shop;  so  much  so  that  I  allowed 
myself  to  be  cajoled  by  him.  That  hap- 
pens to  everybody,  does  it  not?  I 
would  leave  the  door  open  evenings  that 
he  might  come  in. 

"But  one  night  M.  Lerable  heard 
some  noise.  He  went  up  and  found 
Antoine  and  tried  to  kill  him.  It  was 
a  battle  with  chairs,  jugs  of  water,  and 
everything.  As  for  me,  I  found  my 
courage  and  fled  into  the  street.  That 
was  how  I  started  out. 

"I  was  afraid,  afraid  of  the  world. 
But  I  dressed  myself  under  a  doorway 
and  began  to  walk  straight  on.  I  be- 
lieved of  a  truth  that  some  one  had  been 
killed  and  that  the  policemen  were  after 
me  already.  I  reached  the  highway  to 
Rouen.  I  told  myself  that  at  Rouen 
I  should  be  concealed  well  enough. 

"It  was  so  dark  I  could  not  see  the 
ditches,  and  I  heard  the  dogs  barking 
on  the  farms.  Do  you  know  all  the 
things  one  hears  at  night?  There  are 
birds  that  cry  like  a  man  being  mur- 
dered, beasts  that  yap  and  beasts  that 
whistle,  and  many  other  things  that  I 
do  not  understand.  I  was  all  goose 
flesh.  Each  step  I  made  the  sign  of 
the  cross.  One  cannot  imagine  how  the 
heart  can  be  helped  by  that.  When  the 
day  appeared,  the  idea  of  the  police- 
men always  took  me  by  force,  and  I  ran 
all  that  I  could.  Then  I  tried  to  calm 
myself. 

"I  felt  hungry,  all  the  same,  in  spite 
of  my  fear;  but  I  had  not  anything,  not 
one  sou,  for  I  had  forgotten  my  money, 
all    that    I   had    on    earth,    which   was 


eighteen  francs.     So  I  was  obliged  to 
walk  with  an  empty  stomach. 

"It  was  hot.  The  sun  burned.  Mid 
day  was  past,  and  I  kept  going  on.  Sud- 
denly I  heard  some  horses  behind  me. 
I  turned  to  look.  The  mounted  police- 
men! My  blood  gave  a  leap;  I  thought 
I  should  fall;  but  I  went  on.  Tbcy 
would  catch  me.  They  were  looking  at 
me  now.  Then  one  of  them,  the  elder 
said : 

"  'Good  day.  Mademoiselle.* 

"  'Good  day,  sir.' 

"  'Where  are  you  going  to?* 

''  T  am  going  to  Rouen,  in  service  at 
a  place  ihat  has  been  offered  me.' 

"  'Walking,  like  this?' 

"  *Yes,  walking.' 

"My  heart  beat,  sir,  so  uiui  j  couia 
say  no  more.  I  kept  thinking  to  my- 
self: *Now  they  will  take  mc.'  And  1 
had  such  a  desire  to  run  that  my  leg'^ 
danced.  But  they  would  have  caught 
me  immediately,  you  see. 

"The  old  one  began:  'We  can  jour- 
ney together  as  far  as  Barantin,  Made- 
moiselle, since  we  are  taking  the  same 
route.' 

"  'With  pleasure,  sir,*  I  said. 

"And  we  chatted  a  little.  I  made  my- 
self as  pleasant  as  I  could,  you  see;  so 
much  so  that  they  believed  what  was 
not  so.  Then,  as  we  passed  into  a  wood, 
the  old  one  said:  'Would  you  like  to 
stop  and  rest  a  little  on  this  moss?* 

"And  I,  without  thinking,  said:  'As 
you  wish,  sir.' 

"Then  he  dismounted  and  gave  his 
horse  to  the  other,  and  we  two  went 
away  in  the  wood.  There  was  nothing 
to  be  said.  What  could  you  have  done 
in  my  place?    He  took  what  he  wisheC 


A  POOR  GIRL 


487 


iiid  then  said  to  me:  *It  won't  do  to 
forget  the  comrade.' 

"He  returned  to  the  horses  and  the 
other  rejoined  me.  I  was  so  much 
ashamed  that  I  could  have  wept,  sir. 
But  I  dared  not  resist,  you  understand. 
Then  we  went  on  our  way.  I  could 
speak  no  more,  I  had  too  much  grief 
in  my  heart.  And  then  I  could  no 
longer  walk,  I  was  so  hungry.  But  in 
the  village  they  gave  me  a  glass  of 
wine,  which  gave  me  new  force  for 
some  time.  And  then  they  took  to  the 
trot,  so  not  to  go  through  Barantin  in 
my  company.  And  I  seated  myself  by 
a  ditch  and  wept  until  I  had  no  more 
tears. 

"I  walked  then  for  three  hours  more 
uefore  reaching  Rouen.  It  was  seven 
o'clock  in  the  evening  when  I  arrived 
there.  At  first  all  the  lights  oazzled  me. 
And  then,  I  did  not  know  where  I  could 
sit  down  to  rest.  On  the  way  there  were 
the  ditches  and  the  grass  where  I  could 
even  lie  down  and  sleep.  But  in  the 
city,  nothing. 

*'My  limbs  refused  to  hold  my  body, 
and  I  felt  as  if  I  were  going  to  fall. 
And  then  it  began  to  rain,  a  little  fine 
rain,  like  this  evening,  which  goes 
through  you  without  your  knowing  it. 
I  have  no  luck  when  it  rains.  I  com- 
menced to  walk  the  streets.  I  looked 
at  all  the  houses,  saying  to  myself: 
*There  are  beds  and  bread  in  there;  but 
I  cannot  find  as  much  as  a  crust  or  a 
bed  of  straw.' 

"I  went  through  some  streets  where 
women  were  speaking  to  men  along  the 
way.  In  such  cases,  sir,  one  must  do 
what  one  can.  I  took  my  place  with  the 
others,  inviting  everybody.  But  no  one 
answered  ma     T  wished  I  was  dead. 


This  must  have  been  near  midnight.  I 
no  longer  knew  what  I  did.  Finally,  a 
man  listened  to  me.  He  asked  me: 
'Where  do  you  live?  Some  kind  of 
ruse  was  necessary,  and  I  answered: 
*I  cannot  take  you  to  my  house  for  I 
live  with  mamma.  But  are  there  not 
some  houses  where  we  could  go?' 

"He  answered.  'It  is  not  often  that  I 
spend  twenty  sous  for  a  room.'  Then 
he  added:  'Come  along.  I  know  a 
quiet  spot  where  we  shall  not  be  in- 
terrupted.' 

"He  made  me  pass  over  a  bridge,  then 
led  me  to  the  end  of  the  town,  into  a 
meadow  near  the  river.  I  could  do  noth- 
ing but  follow  him.  He  made  me  sit 
down  and  then  began  to  ask  why  we 
had  come  there.  As  he  was  long  in  his 
affair,  I  found  myself  so  worn  out  with 
fatigue  that  I  fell  asleep.  He  went  away 
without  giving  me  anything.  I  could 
not  see  a  single  step.  Since  that  day 
I  have  had  troubles  that  I  can  never 
be  cured  of,  because  I  slept  all  that 
night  in  the  wet. 

*'I  was  awakened  by  two  officers  who 
took  me  to  the  station  house  and  then 
to  prison,  where  I  stayed  eight  days, 
while  they  tried  to  find  out  who  I  was 
and  where  I  had  come  from.  I  would 
not  tell  for  fear  of  the  consequences. 
They  found  out,  however,  and  released 
me,  after  a  verdict  of  innocence. 

"Then  it  was  necessary  for  me  to 
make  my  living.  I  tried  to  find  a  place, 
but  I  could  not  because  I  had  come  out 
of  prison.  Then  I  recalled  the  old  judge, 
who  had  a  turn  to  his  eye,  while  he  was 
judging  me,  like  that  of  father  Lerable 
of  Yvetot.  And  I  went  to  find  him  I 
was  not  deceived.  He  gave  me  a  hun- 
dred  sous  when  I  left  him  saying:  '  You 


488 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


shall  have  as  much  every  time;  but 
don't  come  too  often;  not  more  than 
twice  a  week.'  I  understood  that  well, 
because  of  his  age.  But  it  gave  me  a 
reflection:  I  said  to  myself;  'Young  peo- 
ple make  merry  and  amuse  themselves, 
but  they  are  never  fat,  while  with  the 
old  it  is  the  other  way.'  And  since 
then  I  can  always  tell  them,  these  old 
apes  with  their  eyes  in  a  groove  and  a 
little  ghost  of  a  head. 

"Do  you  know  what  I  did,  sir?     I 
dressed  up  like  a  country  girl  who  had 
come  to  market  and  I  walked  the  streets 
for  my  living.    Oh!  I  could  pinch  them 
at  the  first  blow.    I  would  say  to  my- 
self: 'Here  is  one  who  will  bite.*     He 
would  approach.    And  then  commence: 
"  'Good  day.  Mademoiselle.* 
**  *Good  day,  sir.* 
•*  'Where  are  you  going,  like  this?* 
•*  'I  am  returning  home  to  master's.* 
•*  *Do  they  live  far,  your  people?* 
**  'Rather  far,  but  not  so  very.* 
"Then  he  would  not  know  what  to 
say,  and  I  would  make  my  step  a  little 
slower  to  allow  him  to  explain.    Then 
he  would  give  me  some  compliments,  in 
a  low  voice,  and  then  ask  me  to  go 
home  with  him.    I  would  refuse  at  first, 
you  understand,  and  then  yield.    I  had 
two  or  three  of  that  sort  each  morning, 
and  all  my  afternoons  fiee.     That  was 


the  good  time  of  my  life.  I  was  not 
made  of  spleen. 

"But  it  seems  one  can  never  be  quiet 
for  a  long  time.  It  was  my  misfortune 
to  make  the  acquaintance  of  a  rich  man 
of  the  world,  an  old  president,  who  was 
all  of  seventy-five  years  old.  One  eve- 
ning he  took  me  to  dine  in  a  restaurant 
of  the  neighborhood.  Ard  then,  you  un- 
derstand, he  did  not  know  how  to  be 
moderate.    He  was  dead  at  the  dessert. 

"I  had  three  months  in  prison,  be- 
cause I  was  not  under  superintendence. 
Then  I  came  to  Paris.  And,  oh!  sir,  it 
is  hard  here!  hard  to  live  I  One  cannot 
expect  to  eat  every  day,  there  are  too 
many.  But  that  is  only  so  much  the 
worse.  Each  to  his  trouble,  don't  you 
say  so?'* 

She  was  silent.  I  walked  along  by  heJ 
side,  my  heart  touched.  S'lddenly  she 
began  to  be  familiar  with  me,  saying: 

"So  you  will  not  go  home  with  me. 
my  dear?" 

"No,  I  have  told  you  so  r^ready.'* 

"Oh!  well,  good-bye,  and  thanks  all 
the  same,  without  any  hard  feelmg;  but 
I  assure  you  that  you  are  wrong," 

And  she  went  away,  plunging  into  the 
rain  which  was  as  fine  as  a  veil.  I 
watched  her  pass  under  a  gas  je^  and 
then  disappear  in  a  shadow.    Poor  girU 


The  Substitute 


"Madame  Bonderoi?" 

'Yes,  Madame  Bonderoi." 

"Impossible." 

"I  teil  you  it  is.** 

"Madame  Bonderoi,  the  old  lady  in  a 


hce  cap,  the  devout,  the  holy,  the 
y-onorable  Madame  Bonderoi,  whose 
I  ttle  false  curls  look  as  if  they  weiC 
pfued  round  her  head." 

"That  is  the  very  woman.** 


THE  SUBSTITUTE 


489 


"*Oiir  Come  you  must  be  mad." 
^T  swear  to  you  that  it  is  Madame 
Bondcroi." 
"Tlifn  please  give  me  the  details." 

"He^e  they  are:  During  the  life  of 
Monsieur  Bonderoi,  the  lawyer,  peo- 
ple Slid  that  she  utiliz^ed  his  clerks  for 
her  own  particular  service.  She  is  one 
of  these  respectable  middle-class  women, 
with  secret  vices  and  inflexible  princi- 
ples, of  whom  there  are  so  many.  She 
liked  good-looking  young  fellows,  and 
I  should  like  to  know  what  is  more  nat- 
ural than  that?  Do  not  we  all  like 
pretty  girls? 

"As  soon  as  old  Bonderoi  was  dead, 
his  widow  began  to  live  the  peaceful  and 
irreproachable  life  of  a  woman  with  a 
fair,  fixed  income.  She  went  to  church 
assiduously,  and  spoke  evil  of  hei  neigh- 
bors, but  c^ve  no  chance  to  anyone  to 
speak  ill  ot  her,  and  when  she  grew 
old  she  became  the  little  wizened,  sour- 
faced  mischievous  woman  whom  you 
know.  Well,  this  adventure,  which  you 
would  scarcely  believe,  happened  last 
Friday. 

"My  friend,  Jean  d'Anglemare,  is,  as 
you  know,  a  captain  in  a  dragoon  regi- 
ment, which  is  quartered  in  the  bar- 
racks in  the  Rue  de  la  Rivette.  When 
he  got  to  his  quarters  the  other  morn- 
ing, he  found  that  two  men  of  his 
squadron  had  had  a  terrible  quarrel. 
The  duel  took  place  between  them. 
After  the  duel  they  ber.ime  reconciled, 
and  when  their  officer  questioned  them, 
they  told  him  what  then-  quarrel  had 
been  about.  They  had  fought  on  Ma- 
dame Bonderoi's  account." 

«Uh!" 

"Yes.  my  dear  fellow,  about  Madame 


Bonderoi.    But  I  will  let  trooper  Siballe 
speak" : 

"  'This  is  how  it  was,  Captain.  About 
a  year  and  a  half  ago,  I  was  lounging 
about  the  barrack-yard,  between  six  and 
seven  o'clock  in  the  evening,  v/hen  a  wo- 
Qian  came  up  and  spoke  to  me,  and 
said,  just  as  if  she  had  been  disking  her 
way:  "Soldier,  would  you  like  to  earn 
ten  francs  a  week,  honestly?"  Of 
course  I  told  her  that  I  should,  and  so 
she  said:  "Come  and  see  me  at  twelve 
o'clock  to-morrow  morning.  I  am  Ma- 
dame Bonderoi,  and  my  address  is  No. 
6,  Rue  de  la  Tranchee. 

"  *  "You  may  rely  upon  my  being 
there,  Madame."  And  then  she  went 
away,  looking  very  pleased,  and  added. 
"I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you,  sol- 
dier." 

"  *  "I  am  obliged  lo  you,  Madame," 
I  replied.  But  I  plagued  my  head  about 
the  matter,  until  the  time  came,  all  the 
same. 

"  'At  twelve  o^clock,  exactly,  I  rang 
the  bell,  and  she  let  me  in  herself.  She 
had  a  lot  of  ribbons  on  her  head. 

"  *  "We  must  make  haste,"  she  said; 
"as  my  servant  might  come  in." 

"  *  "I  am  quite  willing  to  make  haste," 
I  replied,  "but  whst  am  I  to  do?" 

"  'But  she  only  laughed,  and  replied: 
"Don't  you  understand,  you  great 
stupid?*' 

"  'I  was  no  nearer  her  meaning,  I  give 
you  my  word  of  honor.  Captain,  but 
she  came  and  sat  down  by  me,  and  said: 

" '  "If  you  mention  thi?  to  anyone,  I 
will  have  you  put  in  prison,  so  swear 
that  you  will  never  open  your  lips  about 
it." 

**  'I  swnvL  whatever  she  liked,  thoug!: 


490 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


i  did  not  at  all  understand  what  she 
meant.  My  forehead  was  covered  with 
perspiration,  so  I  took  my  pocket-hand- 
kerchief out  of  my  helmet.  She  took 
it  and  wiped  my  brow  with  it;  then  she 
kissed  me,  and  whispered:  "Then  you 
will?" 

"  *  ''I  will  do  anything  you  like,  Ma- 
dame," I  replied;  "as  that  is  what  I 
came  for." 

"  Then  she  made  herself  clearly  un- 
derstood by  her  actions,  and  when  I  saw 
what  it  was,  I  put  my  helmet  on  a  chair 
and  showed  her  that  in  th3  dragoons  a 
man  never  retires,  Captain. 

"  'Not  that  I  cared  much  about  is, 
for  she  was  certainly  not  in  her  prime, 
but  it  is  no  good  being  too  particular  in 
such  a  matter,  as  francs  are  scarce,  and 
then  I  have  relations  whom  I  like  to 
help.  I  said  to  myself:  "There  will  be 
five  francs  for  my  father,  out  of  that.'* 

"  'When  I  had  finished  my  allotted 
task.  Captain,  I  got  ready  to  go,  though 
she  wanted  me  to  stop  longer,  but  I 
said  to  her: 

"  *  "To  everyone  their  due,  Madame. 
A  small  ghss  of  brandy  costs  two  sous, 
and  two  glasses  cost  four." 

"  'She  understood  my  meaning,  and 
put  a  gold  ten-franc  piece  into  my  hand. 
I  do  not  like  that  coin.  It  is  so  small 
that  if  your  pockets  are  not  very  well 
made,  and  come  at  all  unsewn,  one  is  apt 
to  find  it  in  one's  boots,  cr  not  to  find 
it  at  all,  and  so,  while  I  was  looking  at 
it,  she  was  looking  at  me.  She  got 
red  in  the  face,  as  i>he  had  misunder- 
stood my  looks,  and  said:  "Is  not  that 
enough?" 

*'  *  "I  did  not  mean  that,  Madame,** 
I  replied;  "but  if  it  is  all  the  same  to 
you,  I  would  rather  Have  two  five-franc 


pieces."  And  she  gave  them  to  me,  and 
I  took  my  leave. 

"  'This  has  been  going  on  for  a  year 
and  a  half,  Captain.  I  go  every  Tues' 
day  evening,  when  you  give  me  leave 
to  go  out  of  barracks;  she  prefers  that, 
as  her  servant  has  gone  to  bed  then,  but 
last  week  I  was  not  well,  and  I  had  to 
go  into  the  infirmary.  When  Tuesday 
came  I  could  not  get  out,  and  I  was 
very  vexed,  because  of  the  ten  francs 
v/hich  I  had  been  receiving  every  week, 
and  I  said  to  myself: 

"  *  "If  anybody  goes  there,  I  shall  be 
done  for;  and  she  will  b3  sure  to  take 
an  artilleryman,"  and  that  made  me 
angry.  So  I  sent  for  Paumelle,  who 
comes  from  my  part  of  the  country,  and 
I  told  him  how  matters  stood: 

"  *  "There  will  be  five  francs  for  you, 
and  five  for  me,"  I  said.  He  agreed, 
and  went,  as  I  had  given  him  full  in- 
structions. She  opened  the  door  as  soon 
as  he  knocked,  and  let  him  in,  and  as 
she  did  net  look  at  his  face,  she  did  not 
perceive  that  it  was  not  I,  for  you  know, 
Captain,  one  dragoon  is  very  like 
another  with  a  helmet  en. 

"  'Suddenly,  however,  she  noticed  the 
change,  and  she  asked,  angrily:  "Who 
are  you?  What  do  you  want?  I  do  not 
know  you." 

"  'Then  Paumelle  explained  matters, 
he  told  her  that  I  was  not  well,  and  that 
I  had  sent  him  as  my  substitute ;  so  she 
looked  at  him,  made  him  also  swear  to 
keep  the  matter  secret,  and  then  she 
accepted  him.  as  you  may  suppose,  for 
Paumelle  is  not  a  bad-looking  fellow, 
cither.  But  when  he  came  back.  Cap- 
tain, he  would  rot  give  me  n  v  five 
francs.  If  they  had  been  for  n  'self, 
T   .should   not   have    said    a   word     buj 


I 


A  PASSION 


491 


they  were  for  my  father,  and  on  that 
score  I  would  stand  no  nonsense,  and 
said  to  him: 

"  '  "You  are  not  particular  in  "what 
you  do,  for  a  dragoon;  you  are  a  dis- 
credit to  your  uniform." 

"  'He  raised  his  fist,  Captain,  saying 
that  fatigue  duty  like  that  was  worth 
double.  Of  course,  everybody  has  his 
own  ideas,  and  he  ought  not  to  have 
accepted  it.    You  know  the  rest.' 

"Captain  d'Anglemare  laughed  until 
he  cried  as  he  told  me  the  story,  but  he 
also  made  me  promise  to  keep  the  mat- 
Kp''  a  secret,  just  as  he  had  promised  the 


two  soldiers.  So,  above  all,  do  not  be- 
tray me,  but  promise  me  to  keep  it  to 
yourself." 

"Oh!  You  may  be  quite  easy  about 
that.  But  how  was  it  all  arranged  in  the 
end?" 

"How?  It  is  a  joke  in  a  thousand! 
Mother  Bonderoi  keeps  her  two  dra- 
goons, and  reserves  his  own  particular 
day  for  each  of  them,  and  in  that  way, 
everybody  is  satisfied.'* 

"Oh!  That  is  capital!  Really  capi- 
tal!" 

"And  he  can  send  his  old  father  and 
mother '  the  money  as  usual,  and  thus 
morality  is  satisfied." 


A  Passion 


The  sea  was  brilliant  and  unrufiied, 
scarcely  stirred,  and  on  the  pier  the 
entire  town  of  Havre  watched  the  ships 
as  they  came  on. 

They  could  be  seen  at  a  distance,  in 
great  numbers,  some  of  them,  the 
steamers,  with  plumes  of  smoke;  the 
others,  the  sailing  vessels,  drawn  by  al- 
most invisible  tugs,  lifting  toward  the 
sky  their  bare  masts,  like  leafless  trees. 

They  hurried  from  every  end  of  the 
horizon  toward  the  narrow  mouth  of  the 
jetty  which  devoured  these  monsters; 
and  they  groaned,  they  shrieked,  they 
hissed  while  they  spat  out  puffs  of  steam 
like  animals  panting  for  breath. 

Two  young  oflEicers  were  walking  on 
the  landing-stage,  where  a  number  of 
people  were  waiting,  saluting  or  return- 
ing salutes,  and  sometimes  stopping  to 
chat. 


Suddenly,  one  of  them,  the  taller, 
Paul  d'Henricol,  pressed  the  arm  of  his 
comrade,  Jean  Renoldi,  then,  in  a  whis- 
per, said: 

"Hallo,  here's  Madame  Poincot;  give 
a  good  look  at  her.  I  assure  you  that 
she's  making  eyes  at  you." 

She  was  moving  along  on  the  arm  of 
her  husband.  She  was  a  woman  of 
about  forty,  very  handsome  still,  slightly 
stout,  but,  owing  to  her  graceful  full- 
ness of  figure,  as  fresh  as  she  was  at 
twenty.  Among  her  friends  she  was 
known  as  the  Goddess,  on  account  of 
her  proud  gait,  her  large  black  eyes, 
and  the  air  of  nobility  attached  to  her 
person.  She  remained  irreproachable; 
never  had  the  least  suspicion  cast  a 
breath  on  her  life's  purity.  She  was 
regarded  as  the  very  type  of  a  virtuous, 
uncorrupted  woman — so  upright  that  no 


492 


r/ORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


man  had  evor  dared  to  think  of  her. 

And  yet  for  the  last  month  Paul 
d'Henricoi  had  been  assuring  his  friend 
Renoldi  that  Madame  Poincot  was  in 
wve  with  him,  and  he  maintained  that 
there  was  no  doubt  of  it. 

"Be  sure  I  don't  deceive  myself.  I 
see  it  clearly.  She  loves  you — she  loves 
you  passionately,  like  a  chaste  woman 
who  had  never  loved.  Forty  years  is  a 
terrible  age  for  virtuous  women  when 
they  possess  senses;  they  become  fool- 
ish, and  commit  utter  follies.  She  is 
bit,  my  dear  fellow;  she  is  falling  like 
a  wounded  bird,  and  is  ready  to  drop 
into  your  arms.  I  say — ^just  look  at 
her!" 

The  tall  woman,  preceded  by  her  two 
daughters,  aged  twelve  and  fifteen  years, 
suddenly  turned  pale,  on  t\<tv  approach, 
as  her  eyes  lighted  on  the  officer's  face. 
She  gave  him  an  ardcr.t  glance,  concen- 
trating her  gaze  upon  him,  and  no  longer 
seemed  to  have  any  eyes  for  her  chil- 
dren, her  liusband,  or  any  other  person 
around  hei.  She  returned  the  saluta- 
tion of  the  two  young  men  without  low- 
ering her  eyes,  glowing  with  such  a  flame 
that  a  doubt,  at  last,  forced  its  way 
into  Lieutenant  Renoldi's  mind. 

His  friend  said,  in  the  same  hushed 
voice:    "I  was  sure  of  it.    Did  you  not 
notice  her  this  time?     By  Jove,  she  is 
a  nice  woman!" 
»         ¥  -u  ♦  *  *         ♦ 

But  Jean  Renoldi  had  no  desire  for 
a  society  intrigue.  Caring  little  for  love, 
he  longed,  above  all,  for  a  quiet  life,  and 
contented  himself  with  occasional 
amours  Fuch  as  a  young  man  can  always 
have.  All  the  sentimentality,  the  atten- 
tions, and  the  tenderness  which  a  well- 
bred   woman   exacts   bored  him.     The 


chain,  however  slight  it  might  be,  which 
is  always  formed  by  an  adventure  of 
this  sort,  filled  him  with  fear.  He  said: 
"At  the  end  of  a  month  I'll  have  had 
enough  of  it.  and  I'll  be  forced  to  wait 
patiently  for  six  months  through  polite- 
ness." 

Then  a  rupture  would  exasperate  him, 
with  the  senses,  the  illusions,  the  cling- 
ing attachment,  of  the  abandoned 
woman. 

He  avoided  meeting  Madame  Poincot. 

But  one  evening  he  found  himself  by 
her  side  at  a  dinner-party,  and  he  felt 
on  his  skin,  in  his  eyes,  and  even  in  his 
heart,  the  burning  glance  of  his  fair 
neighbor.  Their  hands  met,  and  almost 
involuntarily  were  pressed  together  in  a 
warm  clasp.  Already  the  intrigue  was 
almost  begun. 

He  saw  her  again,  always  in  spite  of 
himself.  He  realized  that  he  was  loved. 
He  felt  himself  moved  by  a  kind  of 
pitying  vanity  when  he  saw  what  a  vio- 
lent passion  for  him  swayed  this  wo- 
man's breast.  So  he  allowed  himself  to 
be  adored,  and  merely  displayed  gallan- 
try, hoping  that  the  affair  would  be  only 
sentimental. 

But,  one  day,  she  made  an  appoint- 
ment with  him  for  the  ostensible  purpose 
of  seeing  him  ard  talking  freely  to  him. 
She  fell,  swooning,  into  his  arms;  and 
he  had  no  alternative  but  to  be  her 
lover. 

And  this  lasted  six  months.  She  loved 
him  with  an  unbridled,  panting  love,  | 
Absorbed  in  this  frenzied  passion,  she 
no  longer  bestowed  a  thought  on  any- 
thing else.  She  surrendered  herself  to  it 
utterly;  her  body,  her  soul  her  reputa- 
tion, her  position,  her  happiness, — she 
had  cast  all  into  that  fire  of  her  hearty 


A  PASSION 


495 


as  one  casts,  as  a  sacrifice,  every  preci- 
ous object  into  a  funeral  pyre. 

He  had  for  some  time  grown  tired  of 
her,  and  deeply  regretted  his  easy  con- 
quest as  a  fascinating  officer;  but  he 
was  bound,  held  prisoner.  At  every  mo- 
ment she  said  to  him:  ''1  have  ^iven 
you  everything.  What  more  would  you 
have?"    He  felt  a  desire  to  answer: 

"But  I  have  asked  nothing  from  you, 
and  I  beg  of  you  to  take  back  what 
vou  gave  me." 

Without  caring  about  being  seen,  com- 
promised, ruined  she  came  to  see  him 
every  evening,  her  passion  becoming 
more  inflamed  each  time  they  met.  She 
flung  herself  into  his  arms,  strained  him 
in  a  fierce  embrace,  fainted  under  the 
force  of  rapturous  kisses  which  to  him 
were  now  terribly  wearisome. 

He  said  in  a  languid  tone:  "Look 
Uere!  be  reasonable!" 

She  replied: 

"I  love  you,"  and  sank  on  her  knees 
gazing  at  him  for  a  long  time  in  an  at- 
titude of  admiration.  At  length,  exas- 
perated by  her  persistent  gaze,  he  tried 
to  make  her  rise. 

"Sit  down.    Let  us  talk,**  he  said. 

She  murmured:  "No,  leave  me"; 
and  remained  there,  her  soul  in  a  state 
(Of  ecstasy. 

He  said  to  his  friend  D'Henricol: 

"You  know,  'twill  end  by  my  beating 
her.  I  won't  have  any  more  of  it!  It 
must  end,  and  that  without  further  de- 
lay!'* Then  he  went  on:  "What  do 
you  advise  me  to  do?'* 

The  other  replied:  "Break  it  off.*' 

And  Renoldi  added,  shrugging  his 
jhoulders : 

*'You  speak  indifferently  about  the 
master;  you  believe  that  it  is  easy  to 


break  with  a  woman  who  tortures  you 
with  attention,  who  annoys  you  with 
kindness,  who  persecutes  you  with  hei 
affection,  whose  only  care  is  to  please 
you,  and  whose  only  wrong  is  that  she 
gave  herself  to  you  in  sp'te  of  you.'* 

But  suddenly,  one  morning  the  news 
came  that  the  regiment  was  about  to  be 
removed  from  the  garrison.  Renoldi  bC' 
gan  to  dance  with  joy.  He  was  saved! 
Saved  without  scenes,  without  cries! 
Saved!  All  he  had  to  do  now  was  to 
wait  patiently  for  two  months  more. 
Saved ! 

In  the  evening  she  came  to  him  more 
excited  than  she  had  ever  been  before. 
She  had  heard  the  dreadful  news,  and, 
without  taking  off  her  hat,  sh-?  caught 
his  hands  and  pressed  them  nervously, 
with  her  eyes  fixed  on  his  and  her  voice 
vibrating  and  resolute. 

**You  are  leaving,"  she  said ;  "I  know 
it.  At  first,  I  felt  heartbroken;  then,  I 
understood  what  I  had  to  do.  I  don't 
hesitate  about  doing  it.  I  have  come  to 
give  you  the  greatest  proof  of  love  that 
a  woman  can  offer.  I  follow  you.  For 
you  I  am  abandoning  my  husband,  my 
children,  my  family.  I  am  ruining  my- 
self, but  I  am  happy.  It  seems  to  me 
that  I  am  giving  myself  to  you  over 
again.  It  is  the  last  and  the  greatest 
sacrifice.    I  am  yours  forever!'* 

He  felt  a  cold  sweat  down  his  back, 
and  was  seized  with  a  dull  and  violent 
rage,  the  anger  of  weakness.  However, 
he  became  calm,  and,  in  a  disinterested 
tone,  with  a  show  of  kindness,  he  re- 
fused to  accept  her  sacrifice,  tried  to 
appease  her,  to  bring  her  to  reason,  to 
make  her  see  her  own  folly!  She  lis- 
tened to  him,  staring  at  him  with  her 
great  black  eyes  and  with  a  smile  ol 


494 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


disdain  on  her  lips,  and  said  not  a  word 
in  reply.  He  went  on  talking  to  her, 
and  when,  at  length,  he  stopped,  she  said 
merely ; 

"Can  you  really  be  a  coward?  Can 
you  be  one  of  those  who  seduce  a  woman 
and  then  throw  her  over,  through  sheer 
caprice?" 

He  became  pale,  and  renewed  his  ar- 
guments; he  pointed  out  to  her  the  in- 
evitable consequences  of  such  an  action 
to  both  of  them  as  long  as  they  lived — 
how  their  lives  would  be  shattered  and 
how  the  world  would  shut  its  doors 
against  them.  She  replied  obstinately: 
"What  docs  it  matter  when  we  love  each 
other?"  Then,  all  of  a  sudden,  he  burst 
out  furiously: 

"Well,  then,  I  will  not.  No— do  you 
understand?  I  will  not  do  it,  and  I  for- 
bid you  to  do  it."  Then  carried  away 
by  the  rancorous  feeling  which  had 
seethed  within  him  so  long,  he  relieved 
his  heart : 

"Ah!  damn  it  all,  you  have  now  been 
sticking  on  to  me  for  a  long  time  in 
spite  of  myself,  and  the  best  thing  for 
you  now  is  to  take  yourself  off.  I'll  be 
much  obliged  if  you  do  so,  upon  my 
honor!" 

She  did  not  answer  him,  but  her  livid 
countenance  began  to  look  shriveled  up, 
ias  if  all  her  nerves  and  muscles  had 
been  twisted  out  of  shape.  And  she 
went  away  without  saying  good-bye. 

The  same  night  she  poisoned  herself. 

For  a  week  she  was  believed  to  be  in 
a  hopeless  condition.  And  in  the  city 
people  gossiped  about  the  case,  and 
pitied  her,  excusing  her  sin  on  account 
of  the  violence  of  her  passion,  for  over- 
strained emotions,  becoming  heroic 
through  their   intensity,  always   obtaui 


forgiveness  for  whatever  is  blame^ 
worthy  in  them.  A  woman  who  kills 
herself  is,  so  to  speak,  not  an  adulteress. 
And  ere  long  there  was  a  feeling  of  gen- 
eral reprobation  against  Lieutenant 
Renoldi  for  refusing  to  see  her  again — ^a 
unanimous  sentiment  of  blame. 

It  was  a  matter  of  common  talk  that 
he  had  deserted  her,  betrayed  her,  ill 
treated  her.  The  Colonel,  overcome  by 
compassion,  brought  his  officer  to  book 
in  a  quiet  way.  Paul  d'Henricol  called 
on  his  friend:  "Deuce  take  it,  Renoldi, 
it's  a  damnable  shame  to  let  a  woman 
die;  it's  not  the  right  thing  anyhow." 

The  other,  enraged,  told  him  to  hold 
his  tongue,  whereupon  D'Henricol  made 
use  of  the  word  "infamy."  The  result 
was  a  duel,  Renoldi  was  wounded,  to 
the  satisfaction  of  everybody,  and  was 
for  some  time  confined  to  his  bed. 

She  heard  about  it,  and  only  loved 
him  the  more  for  it,  believing  that  it 
was  on  her  account  he  had  fought  the 
duel;  but,  as  she  was  too  ill  to  move, 
she  was  unable  to  see  him  again  before 
the  departure  of  the  regiment. 

He  had  been  three  months  in  Lille 
when  he  received,  one  morning,  a  visit 
from  the  sister  of  his  former  mistress. 

After  long  suffering  and  a  feeling  of 
dejection,  which  she  could  not  conquer, 
Madame  Poincot's  life  was  now  de- 
spaired of,  and  she  merely  asked  to  see 
him  for  a  minute,  only  for  a  minute, 
before  closing  her  eyes  forever. 

Absence  and  time  had  appeased  the 
young  man's  satiety  and  anger;  he  was 
touched,  moved  to  tears,  and  he  started 
at  once  for  Havre. 

She  seemed  to  be  in  the  agonies  of 
death.  They  were  left  alone  together; 
and  by  the  bedside  of  this  woman  whom 


A  PASSION 


495 


he  now  believed  to  be  dying  and  whom 
he  blamed  himself  for  killing,  though 
it  was  not  by  his  own  hand,  he  was 
fairly  crushed  with  grief.  He  burst  out 
sobbing,  embraced  her  with  tender,  pas- 
sionate kisses,  more  lovingly  than  he  had 
ever  done  in  the  past.  He  murmured 
in  a  broken  voice : 

"No,  no,  you  shall  not  die !  You  shall 
get  better!  We  shall  love  each  other 
forever — forever ! " 

She  said  in  faint  tones: 

"Then  it  is  true.  You  do  love  me, 
after  all?" 

And  he,  in  his  sorrow  for  her  misfor- 
tunes, swore,  promised  to  wait  till  she 
had  recovered,  and  full  of  loving  pity, 
kissed  again  and  again  the  emaciated 
hands  of  the  poor  woman  whose  heart 
was  panting  with  feverish,  irregular 
pulsations. 

The  next  day,  he  returned  to  the 
garrison. 

Six  weeks  later  she  went  to  meet  him, 
quite  old-looking,  unrecognizable,  and 
more  enamored  than  ever. 

In  his  condition  of  mental  prostration, 
he  consented  to  live  with  her.  Then, 
when  they  remained  together  as  if  they 
had  been  legally  united,  the  same  col- 
onel who  had  displayed  indignation  with 
him  for  abandoning  her,  objected  to  this 
inegular  connection  as  being  incompat- 
ible with  the  good  example  officers 
ought  to  give  in  a  regiment.  He  warned 
the  lieutenant  on  the  subject,  and  then 
furiously  denounced  his  conduct,  so 
Renoldi  retired  from  the  army. 

He  went  to  live  in  a  village  on  the 
shore  of  the  Mediterranean,  the  classic 
sea  of  lovers. 

And  three  years  passed.  Renoldi, 
bent  under  the  yoke,  was  vanauished. 


and  became  accustomed  to  the  woman's 
unchanging  devotion.  His  hair  had  now 
turned  white. 

He  looked  upon  himself  as  a  man 
done  for,  gone  under.  Henceforth,  he 
had  no  hope,  no  ambition,  no  satisfac- 
tion in  life,  and  he  looked  forward  to 
no  pleasure  in  existence. 

But  one  morning  a  card  was  placed  in 
his  hand,  with  the  name — "Joseph  Poin- 
cot.  Shipowner,  Havre." 

The  husband!  The  husband,  who 
had  said  nothing,  realizing  that  there 
was  no  use  in  struggling  against  the 
desperate  obstinacy  of  women.  What 
did  he  want? 

He  was  waiting  in  the  garden,  having 
refused  to  come  into  the  house.  He 
bowed  politely,  but  would  not  sit  down, 
even  on  a  bench  in  a  gravel-path,  and 
he  commenced  talking  clearly  and 
slowly. 

"Monsieur,  I  did  not  come  here  to 
address  reproaches  to  you.  I  know  too 
well  how  things  happened.  I  have  been 
the  victim  of — we  have  been  the  vic- 
tims of — a,  kind  of  fatality.  I  would 
never  have  disturbed  you  in  your  retieat 
if  the  situation  had  not  changed.  I  have 
two  daughters.  Monsieur.  One  of  them, 
the  elder,  loves  a  young  man,  and  is 
loved  by  him.  But  the  family  of  this 
young  man  is  opposed  to  the  marriage, 
basing  their  objection  on  the  situation  of 
— my  daughter's  mother.  I  have  no 
feeling  of  either  anger  or  spite,  but  I 
love  my  children.  Monsieur.  I  have, 
therefore,  come  to  ask  my  wife  to  re- 
turn home.  I  hope  that  to-day  she  will 
consent  to  go  back  to  my  house — to  her 
own  house.  As  for  me,  I  will  make  a 
show  of  having  forgotten,  for — for  the 
sake  of  mv  daughters.*' 


''.'ORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


496 

Renoldi  felt  a  wild  movement  in  his 
heart,  and  he  was  inundated  with  a  de- 
lirium of  joy  hke  a  condemned  man 
who  receives  a  pardon. 

He  stammered:  "Why,  yes— cer- 
tainly, Monsieur— I  myself— be  assured 
of  it— no  doubt— it  is  right,  it  is  only 
quite  right." 

This  time  M.  Poincot  no  longer  de- 
clined to  sit  down. 

Renoldi  then  rushed  up  the  stairs,  and 
pausing  at  the  door  of  his  mistress's 
room,  to  collect  his  senses,  entered 
gravely. 

"There  is  somebody  below  waiting  to 
see  you,"  h,*  ?aid.  "  'Tis  to  telJ  you 
something  about  your  daughteis.*' 

She  rose.  "My  daughters?  What 
about  them?    They  arc  not  dead?" 

He  replied:  "No;  but  a  serious  sit- 
uation has  arisen,  which  you  alone  can 
settle." 

She  did  not  wait  to  hear  more,  but 
rapidly  descended  the  stairs. 

Then  he  sank  down  on  a  chair,  greatly 
moved,  and  waited. 

He  waited  a  long,  long  time.  Then 
he  heard  angry  voices  below  stairs,  and 
made  up  his  mind  to  go  down. 

Madame  Poincot  was  standing  up  ex- 
asperated, just  on  the  point  of  going 
away,  while  her  husband  had  seized  hold 
of  her  dress,  exclaiming:  "But  remem- 
ber that  you  are  destroying  our  daugh- 
ters, your  daughters,  our  children!" 

She  answered  stubbornly: 

"I  will  not  go  back  to  you!" 

Renoldi  understood  everything,  came 
over  to  them  in  a  state  of  great  agita- 
tion, and  gaspecj : 


"What,  does  she  refuse  to  go?'* 

ohe  turned  toward  him,  and,  with  a,- 
kind  of  shamefacedness,  addressing  him 
without  any  familiarity  of  tone  in  the 
presence  of  her  legitimate  husband,  said : 

"Do  you  know  what  he  asks  me  to 
do?  He  wants  me  to  go  back,  and  live 
under  one  roof  with  him!" 

And  she  tittered  with  a  profound  dis- 
dain for  this  man,  who  was  appealing  to 
her  almost  on  h's  knees. 

Then  Renoldi  with  the  determination 
of  a  desperate  man  playing  his  last  card 
began  talking  to  her  in  his  turn,  and 
pleaded  the  cause  of  the  poor  girls,  the 
cause  of  the  husband,  his  own  cause. 
And  when  he  stopped,  trying  to  find 
some  fresh  argument,  M.  Poincot,  at  his 
wits'  end,  murmured,  in  the  affectionate 
style  in  which  he  used  to  speak  to  her 
in  days  gone  by: 

"Look  here,  Delphine !  Think  of  your 
daughters!" 

Then  she  turned  on  both  of  them  a 
glance  of  sovereign  contempt,  and,  after 
that,  flying  with  a  bound  toward  the 
staircase,  she  flung  at  them  these  scorn- 
ful words: 

"You  are  a  pair  of  wretches!" 

Left  alone,  they  gazed  at  each  other 
for  a  moment,  both  equally  crestfallen, 
equally  crushed.  M.  Poincot  picked  up 
his  hat,  which  had  fallen  down  near 
where  he  sat,  dusted  c.^  his  knees  the 
signs  of  kneeling  on  the  floor,  then  rais- 
ing both  hands  sorrowfully,  while 
Renoldi  was  seeing  him  to  the  door,  re- 
marked with  a  parting  bow: 
"We  are  very  unfortunate.  Monsieur." 
Then  he  walked  away  from  the  hoJise 
with  a  heavy  step. 


I 


Caught 


A  ^ouNG  and  charming  lady,  who 
was  a  member  of  the  Viennese  aristoc- 
racy, went  last  summer,  without  her 
husband,  as  many  young  and  charming 
ladies  do,  to  a  fashionable  Austrian 
watering  place,  Karlsbad,  much  fre- 
quented by  foreigners. 

As  is  usually  the  case  in  their  rank 
of  life,  she  had  married  from  family 
considerations  and  for  money;  and  the 
short  spell  of  love  after  marriage  was 
not  sufficient  to  take  deep  root.  After 
she  had  satisfied  family  traditions  and 
her  husband's  wishes  by  giving  birth  to 
a  son  and  heir,  they  both  went  their 
way;  the  young,  handsome,  and  fas- 
cinating man  to  his  clubs,  to  the  race- 
course, and  behind  the  scenes  at  the 
theaters,  and  his  charming,  coquettish 
wife  to  her  box  at  the  opera,  to  the 
south  in  winter,  and  to  some  fashionable 
watering-place  in  the  summer. 

On  the  present  occasion  she  brought 
with  her  from  one  of  the  latter  resorts  a 
young,  very  highly-connected  Pole  who 
enjoyed  all  the  rights  and  the  liberty  of 
an  avowed  favorite,  and  performed  all 
the  duties  of  a  slave. 

As  is  usual  in  such  cases,  the  lady 
rented  a  small  house  in  one  of  the 
suburbs  of  Vienna,  had  it  beautifully 
furnished,  and  received  her  lover  there. 
She  was  always  dressed  very  attrac- 
tively, sometimes  as  "La  Belle  Helene" 
in  Offenbach's  opera,  only  rather  more 
after  the  ancient  Greek  fashion;  another 
time  as  an  odalisque  in  the  Sultan's 
harem,  and  another  time  as  a  light- 
hearted  Suabian  girl,  and  so  forth.  In 
winter,  however,  she  grew  tired  of  such 
meetings,  and  as  she  wanted  to  have 
matters  arranged  more  comfortably  she 


took  it  into  her  head  to  receive  her  lovei 
in  her  own  house.  But  how  was  it  to 
be  done? 

That,  however,  gave  her  no  particular 
difficulty,  as  is  the  case  with  every  wo- 
man, when  once  she  has  made  up  her 
mind  to  a  thing..  After  thinking  it  over 
for  a  day  or  two  she  went  to  the  next 
rendezvous,  with  a  fully  prepared  plan 
of  war. 

The  Pole  was  one  of  those  types  of 
handsome  men  which  are  rare.  He  was 
almost  womanly  in  the  delicacy  of  his 
features,  of  middle  height,  slim,  and 
well-made,  and  resembled  a  youthful 
Bacchus  who  might  very  easily  be  made 
to  pass  for  a  Venus  by  the  help  of  false 
locks — the  more  so  as  there  was  not 
even  the  slightest  down  on  his  lips.  The 
lady,  therefore,  who  was  very  fertile  in 
resources,  suggested  to  the  handsome 
Pole  that  he  might  just  as  well  trans- 
form himself  into  a  handsome  Polish 
lady,  so  that  he  might,  under  cover  of 
the  feminine,  be  able  to  visit  her  un- 
disturbed. As  it  was  winter,  a  thick, 
heavy,  voluminous  dress  assisted  the 
metamorphosis. 

The  lady,  accordingly,  bought  a  num- 
ber of  very  beautiful  costumes  for  her 
lover,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  days 
told  her  husband  that  a  charming  young 
Polish  lady,  whose  acquaintance  she  had 
made  in  the  summer  at  Karlsbad,  was 
going  to  spend  the  winter  in  Vienna, 
and  would  very  frequently  come  and  see 
her.  Her  husband  listened  to  her  with 
the  greatest  indifference,  for  it  was  one 
of  his  fundamental  rules  never  to  make 
love  to  any  of  his  wife's  female  friends. 
He  went  to  his  club  as  usuaJ  at  night, 


407 


4V8 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  the  next  day  had  forgotten  all  about 
the  Toiish  lady. 

Half  a:i  hour  after  the  husband  had 
left  the  house,  a  cab  drove  up,  and  a 
tall,  slim,  heavily  veiled  lady  got  out  and 
went  up  the  thickly  carpeted  suirs,  cnly 
to  be  metamorphosed  into  the  most  ar- 
dent lover  in  the  young  woman's  bou- 
doir. The  young  Pole  grew  accustomed 
to  hii  female  attire  so  quickly  that  he 
even  ventured  to  appear  in  the  streets 
h  it,  and  when  he  be^an  to  make  con- 
quests, and  aristocrat'^  gentlemen  and 
successful  speculators  on  the  Stock  Ex- 
change looked  at  him  significantly  and 
even  followed  him,  he  took  a  real  plea- 
sure in  the  part  he  was  playing,  begin- 
ning to  understand  the  pleasure  a  co- 
quette feels  in  tormenting  men. 

The  /'Jung  Pole  became  more  and 
more  daring,  until  one  evening  he  went 
to  a  private  bcx  at  the  opera,  wrapped 
in  an  ermine  cloak,  on  to  which  his  dark, 
false  curls  fell  iu  heavy  waves. 

A  handsome  young  man  in  a  box  op- 
posite to  him  ogled  him  incessantly 
from  the  first  moment,  and  the  young 
Pole  responded  in  a  manner  which  made 
the  other  bolder  every  minute.  At  the 
end  of  the  third  act  the  box-opener 
Drought  the  fictitious  Venus  a  small 
bouquet  with  a  card  concealed  in  it,  on 
which  was  written  in  pencil: 

"You  are  the  most  lovely  woman  in 
the  worldj  and  I  implore  you  on  my 
knees  to  grant  me  an  interview." 

The  young  Pole  read  the  name  of  the 
man  who  had  been  captivated  so 
quickly,  and,  with  a  peculiar  smile, 
wrote  on  a  card  on  which  nothing  but 
the  name  **Valeska"  was  prmted :  "After 


the  theater,"  and  sent  Cupid's  messenger 
back  with  it. 

When  the  spurious  Venus  was  about 
to  enter  her  carriage  after  the  per- 
formance, thickly  veiled  and  wrapped  in 
her  ermine  cloak,  the  handsome  young 
man  was  standing  by  it  with  his  hat  off, 
and  he  opened  the  door  for  her.  She 
was  kind  enough  to  allow  him  to  get  in 
with  her,  and  during  their  drive  she 
talked  to  him  iu  the  most  charming  man- 
ner, but  she  was  cruel  enough  to  dis- 
miss him  without  pity  before  they 
reached  her  house.  She  went  to  the 
theater  each  night  now,  and  every  eve- 
ning received  an  ardent  note.  Each 
evening  she  allowed  the  amorous  swain 
to  accompany  her  as  far  as  her  house, 
and  men  were  beginning  to  envy  him  his 
brilliant  conquest,  when  a  catastrophe 
happened  which  was  very  surprising  for 
all  concerned. 

The  husband  of  the  lady  in  whose 
eyes  the  Pole  had  found  favor  surprised 
th^  loving  couple  one  day  under  circum- 
stances which  made  any  justification 
impossible.  But  while  he,  trembling 
with  rage  and  jealousy,  was  drawing  a 
small  Circassian  dagger  which  hung 
against  the  wall  from  its  sheath,  and 
as  his  wife  threw  herself,  half  fainting 
on  to  a  couch,  the  young  Pole  had  hastily 
put  the  false  curls  on  to  his  head  and 
had  slipped  into  the  silk  dress  and  the 
sable  clock  which  he  had  been  wearing 
when  he  came  into  his  mistress's  boudoir. 

''What  does  this  mean,"  the  husband 
stammered,  'Valeska?" 

"Yes,  sir"  the  young  Pole  replied; 
"Valeska,  who  has  come  here  to  show 
your  wife  a  few  love  letters,  which — '' 

"No,  no,"  the  deceived,  but  never- 
theless guilty,  husband  said  in  implor^ 


THE  ORDERLY 


49^ 


ing  accents;  "no  that  is  quite  unneces- 
sary." And  at  the  same  time  he  put  the 
dagger  back  into  its  sheath. 

"Very  well,  then,  there  is  a  truce  be- 
tween us,"  the  Pole  observed  coolly, 
"but  do  not  forget  what  weapons  I 
possess,  and  which  I  mean  to  retain 
against  all  contingencies." 

Then  the  gentlemen  bowed  politely 
to  each  other,  and  the  unexpected  meet- 
ing came  to  an  end. 


From  that  time  forward  the  terms  on 
which  the  young  married  couple  lived 
together  assumed  the  character  of  that 
everlasting  peace  which  President  Grant 
once  promised  the  whole  world  in  his 
message  to  all  nations.  The  young 
woman  did  not  find  it  necessary  to  make 
her  lover  put  on  petticoats,  and  the  hus- 
band constantly  accompanies  the  real 
Valeska  a  good  deal  further  than  he  did 
the  false  one  on  that  memoiable  occa 
sion. 


The  Orderly 


The  cemetery,  filled  with  ofi&cers, 
looked  like  a  field  covered  with  flowers. 
The  kepis  and  the  red  trousers,  the 
stripes  and  the  gold  buttons,  the  shoul- 
der-knots of  the  staff,  the  braid  of  the 
chasseurs  and  the  hussars,  passed 
through  the  midst  of  the  tombs,  whose 
crosses,  white  or  black,  opened  their 
mournful  arms — ^their  arms  of  iron,  mar- 
ble, or  wood — over  the  vanished  race  of 
the  dead. 

Colonel  Limousin's  wife  had  just  been 
buried.  She  had  been  drowned,  two 
days  before,  while  taking  a  bath.  It  was 
over.  The  clergy  had  left;  but  the 
Colonel,  supported  by  two  brother- 
ofificers,  remained  standing  in  front  of 
the  pit,  at  the  bottom  of  which  he  saw 
still  the  oaken  coffin,  wherein  lay,  al- 
ready decomposed,  the  body  of  his 
young  wife. 

He  was  almost  an  old  man,  tall  and 
thin,  with  white  mustaches;  and,  three 
years  ago,  he  had  married  the  daughter 
of  a  comrade,  left  an  orphan  on  the 
death  of  her  father.  Colonel  Sortis. 


The  Captain  and  the  Lieutenant,  on 
whom  their  commanding  officer  was 
leanmg,  attempted  to  lead  him  away. 
He  resisted,  his  eyes  full  of  ears,  which 
he  heroically  held  back,  and  murmur- 
ing, "No,  no,  a  little  while  longer!"  he 
persisted  in  remaining  there,  his  legs 
bending  under  h*m,  at  the  side  of  tliat 
pit,  which  seemed  to  him  bottomless, 
an  abyss  into  which  had  fallen  his  heart 
and  his  life,  all  that  he  held  dear  on 
earth. 

Suddenly,  General  Ormont  came  up, 
seized  the  Colonel  by  the  arm,  and 
dragging  him  from  the  spot  almost  by 
force,  said:  "Come,  come,  my  old 
comrade!  you  must  not  remain  here.'* 

The  Colonel  thereupon  obeyed,  and 
went  back  to  h!s  quarte'*:.  As  he  opened 
the  door  of  his  study,  saw  a  letter  on 
the  table,  when  he  took  it  in  his  hands, 
he  was  near  fallin^^  with  surprise  and 
emotion:  he  recognized  his  wife's  hand- 
writing. And  the  letter  bore  the  post- 
mark and  the  date  of  the  same  day.  He 
tore  open  the  envelope  and  read : 


sue 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"Father:  Permic  me  to  call  you  still 
father  as  in  days  gone  by.  When  you 
receive  this  letter,  I  shall  be  dead,  and 
under  the  clay.  Therefore,  perhaps, 
you  may  forgive  me. 

"I  do  not  want  to  excite  your  pity  or 
to  extenuate  my  sin.  I  only  want  to  tell 
the  entire  and  complete  truth,  with  all 
the  sincerity  of  a  woman  who,  in  an 
hour's  time,  is  going  to  kill  herself. 

"When  you  married  me  through  gen- 
erosity, I  gave  myself  to  you  through 
gratitude,  and  I  loved  you  with  all  my 
girlish  heart.  I  loved  you  as  I  loved  my 
own  father — almost  as  much;  and  one 
d^y,  while  I  sat  on  your  knee,  and  you 
were  kissing  me,  I  called  you  'Father'  in 
spite  of  myself.  It  was  a  cry  of  the 
tieart,  instinctive,  spontaneous.  Indeed, 
you  were  to  me  a  father,  nothing  but  a 
father.  You  laughed,,  and  said  to  me, 
'Address  me  always  in  that  way,  my 
child;  it  gives  me  pleasure.' 

"We  came  to  the  city;  and — forgive 
me,  father — I  fell  in  love.  Ah!  I  re- 
sisted long,  well,  nearly  two  years — ^and 
then  I  yielded,  I  sinned,  I  became  a 
fallen  woman. 

"And  as  to  him?  You  will  never  guess 
who  he  is.  I  am  easy  enough  about  that 
matter,  since  there  were  a  dozen  officers 
always  around  me  and  with  me,  whom 
you  called  my  twelve  constellations. 

"Father,  do  not  seek  to  know  him,  and 
do  not  hate  him.  He  only  did  what  any 
man,  no  matter  whom,  would  have  done 
in  his  place,  and  then  I  am  sure  that  he 
ioved  me,  too,  with  all  his  heart. 

"But  listen!  One  day  we  had  an  ap- 
pointment in  the  isle  of  Becasses — ^you 
know  the  little  isle,  close  to  the  mill.  I 
had  to  get  there  by  swimming,  and  he 
had  to  wait  for  me  in  a  thicket,  and  then 


to  remain  there  till  nightfall  so  that 
nobody  should  see  him  going  away.  1 
had  just  met  him  when  the  branches 
opened,  and  we  saw  Philippe,  your  or- 
derly, who  had  surprised  us.  I  felt  that 
we  were  lost,  and  I  uttered  a  grea*  cry. 
Thereupon  he  said  to  me,— he,  my  lover, 
— 'Go,  swim  back  quietly,  my  darling, 
and  leave  me  here  with  this  man.* 

"I  went  away  so  excited  that  I  was 
near  drowning  myself,  and  I  came  back 
to  you  expecting  that  something  dread- 
ful was  about  to  happen. 

"An  hour  later,  Philippe  said  to  me  in 
a  low  tone,  in  the  lobby  outside  the 
drawing-room  where  I  met  him:  *I  am 
at  Madame's  orders,  if  she  has  any  let- 
ters to  give  me.'  Then  I  knew  that  he 
had  sold  himself  and  that  my  lover  had 
bought  him. 

'T  gave  him  seme  letters,  in  fact— -all 
my  letters  —  he  took  them  away,  and 
brought  me  back  the  answers. 

"This  lasted  about  two  months.  We 
had  confidence  in  him,  as  you  had  con- 
fidence in  him  yourself. 

"Now,  father,  here  is  what  happened. 
One  day,  in  the  same  isle  which  I  had 
to  reach  by  swimming,  but  this  time 
alone,  I  found  your  orderly.  This  man 
had  been  waiting  for  me;  and  he  in- 
formed me  that  he  was  going  to  reveal 
everything  about  us  to  you,  and  deliver 
to  you  letters  he  had  kept,  stolen,  if  I 
did  not  yield  to  his  desires. 

"Oh!  father,  father,  I  was  filled  with 
fear — a  cowardly  fear,  an  unworthy 
fear,  a  fear  above  all  of  you,  who  had 
been  so  good  to  me,  and  whom  I  had 
deceived — fear  on  his  account  too — you 
would  have  killed  him — for  myself  also 
perhaps!  I  cannot  tell;  I  was  mad. 
desperate;  I  thought  of  once  more  buv« 


JOSEPH 


SOX 


liig  this  wretch,  who  loved  me,  too — 

how  shameful! 

"We  are  so  weak,  we  women,  we  lose 
our  heads  more  easily  than  you  do. 
And  then,  when  a  woman  once  falls,  she 
always  falls  lower  and  lower.  Did  I 
know  what  I  was  doing?  I  understood 
only  that  one  of  you  two  and  I  were 
going  to  die — and  I  gave  myself  to  this 
brute. 

"You  see,  father,  that  I  do  not  seek 
to  excuse  myself.  Then,  then — then 
what  I  should  have  foreseen  happened — 
he  had  the  better  of  me  again  and 
again,  v/hen  he  wished,  by  terrifying  me. 
He,  too,  has  been  my  lover,  like  the 
other,  every  day.  Is  not  this  abomi- 
nable?    And  what  punishment,  father? 

"So  then  it  is  all  over  with  me.  I 
must  die.  While  I  lived,  I  could  not 
confess  such  a  crime  to  you.  Dead,  I 
dare  everything.  I  could  not  do  other- 
wise than  die — nothing  could  have 
washed  me  clean — I  was  too  polluted. 
I  could  no  longer  love  or  be  loved.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  I  stained  everyone 
by  merely  allowing  my  hand  to  be 
touched. 

"Presently  I  am  going  to  take  my 
bath,  and  I  will  never  come  back.  This 
letter  for  you  will  go  to  my  lover.  It 
will  reach  him  when  I  am  dead,  and 
without  anyone  knowing  anything  about 
it,  he  will  forward  it  to  you,  accomplish- 


ing my  last  wishes.    And  you  shall  read 
it  on  your  return  from  the  cemetery. 

"Adieu,  father!  I  have  no  more  te 
tell  you.  Do  whatevei  you  wish,  and 
forgive  me." 

The  Colonel  wiped  his  forehead, 
which  was  covered  with  perspiration. 
His  coolness,  the  coolness  of  days  when 
he  had  stood  on  the  field  of  battle  sud- 
denly came  back  to  him.     He  rang. 

A  manservant  made  his  appearance. 
"Send  in  Philippe  to  me,"  said  the  Colo- 
nel. Then  he  opened  the  drawer  of  his 
table. 

The  man  entered  almost  immediatel;* 
— a  big  soldier  with  red  mustaches,  a 
malignant  look,  and  a  cunning  eye. 

The  Colonel  looked  him  straight  in 
tue  face. 

"You  are  going  to  tell  me  the  name  of 
my  wife's  lover." 

"But,  my  Colonel—" 

The  officer  snatched  his  revolver  out 
of  the  half-open  drawer. 
"Come!  quick!     You  know  I  do  not 

jest!" 

"Well — ^my  Colonel — ^it  is  Captain 
Saint-Albert." 

Scarcely  had  he  pronounced  this  name 
when  a  flame  flashed  between  his  eyes, 
and  he  fell  on  his  face,  his  forehead 
pierced  by  a  ball. 


Joseph 


'0 


They  were  both  of  them  drunk,  quite 
«1runk,  tiny  Baroness  Andree  de  la 
Fraisieres  and  little  Countess  Noemi  de 


Gardens.  They  had  dined  alone  to* 
gether,  in  the  large  room  facing  the  sea. 
The  soft  breeze  of  a  summer  evening 


t02 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MaUPASSA>T 


blew  in  at  the  open  window,  soft  and 
fresh  at  the  same  time,  a  breeze  that 
rmelled  of  the  sea.  The  two  young 
women,  stretched  at  length  in  their 
lounging  chairs,  sipped  their  Char- 
treuse as  they  smoked  their  cigarettes, 
talking  most  confidentially,  telling  each 
other  details  which  nothing  but  this 
charming  intoxication  could  have  per- 
mitted their  pretty  lips  to  utter. 

Their  husbands  had  returned  to  Paris 
that  afternoon,  leaving  them  alone  in 
that  little  watering-place  which  they 
had  chosen  so  as  to  avoid  those  gallant 
marauders  who  are  constantly  encoun- 
tered at  fashionable  seaside  resorts.  As 
they  were  absent  for  five  days  in  the 
week,  they  objected  to  country  excur- 
sions, luncheons  on  the  grass,  swim- 
ming lessons,  and  those  sudden  familiar- 
ities which  spring  up  in  the  idle  life  of 
similar  resorts.  To  them  Dieppe, 
Etretat,  Trouville  seemed  places  to  be 
avoided,  and  they  had  rented  a  house 
which  had  been  built  and  abandoned  by 
an  eccentric  individual  in  the  valley  of 
Roqueville,  near  Fecamp,  and  there 
they  buried  their  wives  for  the  whole 
summer. 

The  two  ladies  were  drunk.  Not 
knowing  what  to  hit  upon  to  amuse 
themselves,  the  little  Baroness  had  sug- 
gested a  good  dinner  and  champagne. 
To  begin  with,  they  had  found  great 
amusement  in  cooking  this  dinner  them- 
selves; then  they  had  eaten  it  merrily, 
and  had  imbibed  freely,  in  order  to 
allay  the  thirst  excited  by  the  heat  of 
the  fire.  Now  they  were  chattering  and 
talking  nonsense,  from  time  to  time  gen- 
tly moistening  their  throats  with  Char- 
treuse.    In  fact  they  did  not  in  the 


least  know  any  longer  whai  they  werp 
saying. 

The  Countess,  with  her  feet  in  the  ait 
on  the  back  of  a  chair,  was  further 
gone  than  her  fnend. 

"To  complete  an  evening  like  this," 
she  said,  "we  ought  to  have  a  ijallant 
apiece.  Had  I  foreseen  this  some  time 
ago,  I  would  have  sent  to  Paris  for  two 
men  I  know,  and  would  have  let  you 
have  one." 

"I  can  always  find  one,"  the  other  re- 
plied; "I  could  have  one  this  very  eve- 
ning, if  I  wished." 

"What  nonsense!  At  Roqueville,  my 
dear?  It  would  have  to  be  some  peas- 
ant, then." 

"No,  not  altogether." 

"Well,  tell  me  all  about  it." 

"What  do  you  want  me  to  tell  you?" 

"About  your  lover." 

"My  dear,  I  do  not  want  to  live  with- 
out being  loved,  for  I  should  fancy  I 
was  dead  if  I  were  not  loved." 

"So  should  I." 

"Is  not  that  so?" 

'"Yes.  Men  cannot  understand  it! 
And  especially  our  husbands!" 

"No,  not  in  the  least.  How  can  you 
expect  it  to  be  different?  The  love 
which  we  want  is  made  up  of  being 
spoiled,  of  gallantries,  and  of  pretty 
words  and  actions.  That  is  the  nour- 
ishment of  our  hearts;  it  is  indispensa- 
ble to  oui  life,  indispensable,  indis- 
pensable." 

"True,  dear.*' 

**I  must  feel  that  somebody  is  think- 
ing of  me,  always,  everywhere.  When 
I  go  to  sleep  and  when  I  wake  up,  I 
must  know  that  somebody  loves  me 
somewhere,  that  I  am  being  dreamed  of, 
longed  for.     Without  that,  I  should  be 


JOSEPH 


503 


wretched,  wretched!  Oh!  yes,  unhappy 
enough  to  do  nothing  but  cry." 

"I  am  just  the  same.'' 

'You  must  remember  that  anything 
else  is  impossible.  After  a  husband  has 
been  nice  for  six  months,  or  a  year,  or 
tv/o  years,  he  usually  degenerates  into  a 
brute,  yes,  a  regular  brute.  He  won't 
put  himself  out  for  anything,  but  shows 
his  real  self;  he  makes  a  scene  on  the 
shghtcst  provocation,  and  sometimes 
without  any  provocation  whatever.  One 
cannot  love  a  man  with  whom  one  lives 
constantly." 

"Th2t  is  quite  true." 

"Isn't  it?  What  was  I  saying?  I 
cannot  in  the  least  remember?" 

"You  were  saying  that  all  husbands 
are  biutcs!" 

**Yes,  brutes.    All  of  them." 

"That  is  true." 

"And  then?" 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"What  was  I  saying  just  then?" 

*'I  don't  know,  because  vou  did  not 
say  it!" 

"But  I  had  something  to  tell  you." 

"Oh!  yes;  well,  go  on." 

"Oh!     I  have  got  it." 

"Well,  I  am  listening." 

"I  was  tellirg  you  that  I  can  find 
lovers  everywhere." 

"How  do  you  manage  it?" 

"Like  this.  Now  follow  me  carefully. 
When  T  get  to  some  fresh  place,  I  take 
notes  and  make  my  choice." 

"You  make  your  choice?" 

"Yes,  of  course  I  do.  First  of  all,  I 
take  notes.  I  ask  questions.  Above  all, 
a  man  must  be  discreet,  rich,  and  gen- 
erous; is  not  that  so?" 

"Ouite  tru**'" 


"And  then  he  must  please  me,  as  h 
man." 

"Of  course." 

"ITien  I  bait  the  hook  for  him." 

"Bait  the  hook?" 

"Yfis,  just  as  one  does  to  catch  fish 
Have  you  never  fished  with  a  hook  and 
line?" 

"No,  never." 

"You've  lost  some  fun,  then;  it  is 
very  amusing,  and  besides  that,  instruc- 
tive.    Well,  then,  I  bait  the  hook.'' 

"How  do  you  do  it?" 

"How  dense  you  arc.  Don't  we  catch 
the  men  we  want  to  catch,  vv^ithout  their 
having  any  choice?  And  they  really 
think  that  they  choose — the  iooh — ^but 
it  is  we  who  choose — ^always.  Just 
think,  when  one  is  not  u^ly,  or  stupid,  as 
is  the  case  with  us,  all  m^n  run  after 
us,  all — without  exception.  Wc  look 
them  over  from  morning  till  night,  and 
when  we  have  selected  one,  v/e  fish  for 
him." 

"But  that  does  no*-,  tell  me  hov;  you 
do  it." 

"How  I  do  iil  Why,  I  do  nothing;  I 
cllow  myself  to  be  looked  at,  that  is 
all." 

"Only  allow  yourself  to  be  looked  at?" 

"Why  yes;  that  is  quite  enough. 
"When  you  have  allowed  yourself  to  be 
looked  at  several  times,  a  man  imme- 
diately thinks  you  the  most  lovely,  the 
most  seductive  of  women,  and  then  he 
begins  to  make  love  to  you.  You  give 
him  to  understand  that  he  is  not  bad 
looking,  without  actually  saying  any- 
thing to  him,  of  course,  and  he  falls  in 
love,  like  a  log.  You  have  him  fast,  and 
it  lasts  a  longer  or  a  shorter  time,  ac- 
cording to  his  qualities." 


504 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"And    do   you    catch   all   whom    you 
please  like  that?" 
"Nearly  all." 
**0h!     So  there  are  some  who  resist?" 

"Sometimes." 

"Wliy?" 

"Oh!  A  man  is  a  Joseph  for  three 
reasons:  First,  because  he  is  in  love 
with  another  wjiiian;  secondly,  because 
be  is  excessively  timid,  or  thirdly,  be- 
tduse  he  is — ^how  shall  I  say  it? — in- 
capable of  carrying  out  the  conquest  of 
c(  woman  to  the  end." 

'Oh!  my  ear!  Do  you  really  be- 
lieve—" 

"I  am  sure  of  it.  There  are  many  of 
this  latter  class,  many,  many,  many 
more  than  pe  ople  think.  Oh !  they  look 
just  like  everybody  pise — they  strut 
♦ike  peacockij.  No.  when  I  said  pea- 
cocks, I  made  a  mistaice,  for  they  have 
not  a  peacock's  virility.'* 

"Oh:  my  dear.^" 

"As  to  the  timid,  they  are  sometimes 
unspeakably  stupid.  They  are  the  sort 
of  men  who  ouf^ht  not  to  undress  them- 


there  are  no  nien,  as  in  this  place,  for 
instance?" 

"I  find  them!" 

"You  find  them.     But  where?" 

"Everywhere.  But  that  reminds  me 
of  my  story. 

"Now  listen.  Just  two  years  ago  my 
husband  made  me  pass  the  summer  on 
his  estate  at  Eougrolles.  There  was 
nothing  there — you  know  what  I  mean, 
nothing,  nothing,  nothing  whatever !  In 
the  neighboring  country  houses  there 
were  a  few  disgusting  boors,  men  who 
cared  for  nothing  but  shooting,  and  lived 
in  country  houses  which  had  not  even  a 
bathroom.  They  were  the  sort  of  men 
who  go  to  bed  covered  with  perspira- 
tion, men  you  can't  improve,  because 
their  daily  lives  are  dirty.  Now  just 
guess  what  I  did!" 

"I  cannot  possibly.*' 

"Ha!  ha!  ha!  I  had  just  been  read- 
ing a  number  of  George  Sand's  novels 
which  exalt  the  man  of  the  people, 
novels  in  which  the  workmen  are  sub- 
lime, and  the  men  of  the  world  are 
criminals.     In  addition  to   this   I   had 


selves,  even  when  they  are  going  to  bed     seen  "Ruy  Bias"  the  winter  before,  and 
alone,  where  there  is  a  lookmg-giass  in     it  had  impressed  me  very  much.    Well, 

one  of  our  farmers  had  a  son,  a  good- 
looking  young  fellow  of  two-and-twenty 
who  had  studied  for  the  priesthood,  but 
had  left  the  seminary  in  disgust.  Well, 
I  took  him  as  footman!" 
"Oh!  And  then?  What  afterward?" 
"Then — then,  my  dear,  I  treated  him 
very  haughtily,  but  let  him  see  a  good 
deal  of  my  person.  I  did  not  entice 
this  rustic  on,  I  simply  inflamed  him!" 

"Oh!  Andree!" 

"Yes,  and  I  enjoyed  the  fun  very 
much.  People  say  that  servants  count 
for  nothing!     Well  he  did  not  count  for 


the  room.  With  them,  one  must  be 
energetic,  make  use  of  looks,  and 
equeese  their  lands,  and  even  that  is 
useless  sometimes.  They  never  know 
now  or  where  to  begin.  When  one 
faints  in  their  presence — as  a  last  re- 
source— they  try  to  bring  you  round; 
and  if  you  do  not  recover  your  senses 
immediately  they  go  and  get  assistance. 
"For  myself  I  confess  to  a  preference 
for  other  women's  lovers.  I  carry  them 
by  assault  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet, 
my  dear!" 

"That    is   4II   verv    well    but    when 


JOSEPH 


505 


much.  I  used  to  give  him  his  orders 
every  morning  while  my  maid  was  dress- 
ing me,  and  every  evening  as  well,  while 
she  was  undressing  me." 

"Oh!  Andree!" 

"My  dear,  he  caught  fire  like  a 
thatched  roof.  Then,  at  meals,  I  used 
continually  to  talk  about  cleanliness, 
about  taking  care  of  one's  person,  about 
baths  and  shower  baths,  until  at  the  end 
of  a  fortnight  he  bathed  in  the  river 
morning  and  night,  and  used  so  much 
scent  as  to  poison  the  whol?  chateau.  I 
had  to  forbid  him  to  use  perfume,  tell- 
ing him,  with  furious  looks,  that  men 
ought  never  to  use  any  scent  but  Eau 
de  Cologne." 

"Oh!  Andree!" 

"Then,  I  took  it  into  my  head  to  get 
together  a  library  suitable  to  the  coun- 
try. I  sent  for  a  few  hundred  moral 
novels,  which  I  lent  to  all  our  peasants, 
and  all  my  servants.  A  few  books — a 
few  poetical  books,  such  as  excite  the 
minds  of  schoolboys  and  schoolgirls,  had 
found  their  way  into  my  collection. 
These,  I  gave  to  my  footman.  That 
taught  him  life — a  funny  sort  of  life." 

"Oh!   Andree!" 

"Then  I  grew  familiar  with  him,  and 
used  to  'thou'  *  him.  I  had  given  him 
the  name  of  Joseph.  My  dear,  he  was 
in  a  terribie  state.  He  got  as  thin  as  a 
barn-door  cock,  and  rolled  his  eyes  like 
an  idiot.  I  was  extremely  amused;  it 
was  one  of  the  most  delightful  summers 
I  ever  spent." 

"And  then?" 

"Then?  Oh!  yes,  one  day  when  my 
husband  was  away  from  home,  I  told 
him  to  order  the  basket  carriage  and  to 
drive  me  into  the  woods.  It  was  warm, 
very  warm.    There!" 


"Oh!  Andree,  do  tell  me  all  about  it. 
It  is  so  amusing." 

"Here,  have  a  glass  of  Chartreuse, 
otherwise  I  shall  empty  the  decanter 
myself.    Well,  I  felt  ill  on  the  road." 

"How?" 

"You  are  dense.  I  told  him  that  I 
was  not  feeling  well  and  that  he  must 
lay  me  on  the  grass,  and  when  I  was 
lying  there,  I  told  him  I  was  choking 
and  that  he  must  unlace  ir.e.  And  then 
when  I  was  unlaced,  I  fainted." 

"Did  you  go  right  off?" 

"Oh!  dear  no,  not  the  least." 

"Well?" 

"Well,  I  was  obliged  to  remain  un- 
conscious for  nearly  an  hour,  as  he 
could  find  no  means  of  bringing  me 
round.  But  I  was  very  patient,  and  did 
not  open  my  eyes." 

"Oh!  Andree!" 

"And  what  did  you  say  to  him?" 

"I?  Nothing  at  all!  How  was  I  to 
know  anything,  as  I  was  unconscious? 
I  thanked  him,  and  told  him  to  help  me 
into  the  carriage,  and  he  drove  me  back 
to  the  chateau ;  but  he  nearly  upset  us  in 
turning  into  the  gate!" 

"Oh!  Andree!     And  is  that  all?" 

"That  is  all." 

"You  did  not  faint  more  than  that 
once?" 

"Onl>  once,  of  course!  I  did  not  want 
to  take  such  a  fellow  for  my  lover '' 

"Did  you  keep  him  long  after  that?" 

"Yes,   of   course.     I   have  him   still. 

Why  should  I  ha\'e  sent  him  away?     I 

had  nothing  to  complain  of." 


*The  second  person  singular  is  used 
in  French — as  in  German — among  rela- 
tions and  intimate  friends,  and  to  ser^ 
vanti- 


506 


WORK^  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"Oh !  Andree !  And  is  he  in  love  with 
you  still?" 

"Of  course  he  is." 

"Where  is  he?" 

The  little  Baroness  put  out  her  hand 
to  the  wall  and  touched  the  electric  bell. 
The  door  opened  almost  immediately, 
and  a  tall  footman  came  in  who  diffused 
a  scent  of  Eau  de  Cologne  all  round 
him. 

"Joseph,"  said  the  Baroness  to  him, 
"I  am  afraid  I  am  going  to  faint;  send 
my  lady's  maid  to  me." 

The    man    stood    motionless,    like    a 


soldier  before  his  oaicer,  looking  ardently 
at  his  mistress,  wlio  continued:  "Be 
quick,  you  great  idiot,  v;e  are  not  in  the 
woods  to-dcy,  ar.d  Rosalie  will  attend 
to  me  better  than  you  can."  lie  turned 
on  his  heels  and  went,  and  the  Countess 
asked  nervously:  "What  shall  you  say 
to  your  maid?" 

"I  shall  tell  her  what  we  have  been 
doing!  No,  I  shall  merely  get  her  to  un- 
lace me;  it  will  relieve  my  chest,  for  I 
can  scarcely  breathe.  I  am  drunk,  my 
dear — so  drunk  thet  I  should  fall,  if  I 
were  to  get  up  from  my  chair." 


Regret 


Monsieur  Cavkl,  who  was  called  in 
Mantes  "Father  Savel,"  had  just  risen 
from  bed.  He  wept.  It  was  a  dull 
autumn  day;  the  leaves  were  falling. 
They  fell  slowly  in  the  rain,  resembhng 
another  rain,  but  heavier  and  slower. 
M.  Savel  was  not  in  good  spirit.  He 
walked  from  the  fireplace  to  the  window, 
and  from  the  window  to  the  fireplace. 
Life  has  its  somber  days.  It  will  no 
longer  have  any  but  somber  days  of 
sixty-two.  He  is  alone,  an  old  bachelor, 
with  nobody  about  him.  How  sad  it  is 
to  die  alone,  all  alone,  without  the  dis- 
interested affection  of  anyone! 

He  pondered  over  his  life,  so  barren, 
so  void.  He  recalled  the  days  gone  by, 
the  days  of  his  infancy,  the  house,  the 
house  of  his  parents;  his  college  days, 
his  follies,  the  time  of  his  probation  in 
Paris,  the  illness  of  his  father,  his  death. 
He  then  returned  to  live  with  his  mother. 
They  lived  together,  the  young  man  and 


tlic  old  v/oman,  very  quietly,  and  de- 
sired nothing  more.  At  last  the  mothei 
died.  How  sad  a  thing  is  life!  He  has 
lived  always  alcne,  and  now,  in  his  turn, 
he  too,  will  soon  be  dead.  He  will  dis- 
appear, and  that  will  be  the  finish. 
There  will  be  no  more  of  Savel  upon  the 
earth.  What  a  frightful  thing!  Other 
people  will  live,  they  will  live,  they  will 
laugh.  Yes,  people  will  go  on  amusing 
themselves,  and  he  will  no  longer  exist! 
Is  it  not  strange  that  people  can  laugh, 
amuse  themselves,  be  joyful  under  that 
eternal  certainty  of  death!  If  this  death 
were  only  probable,  one  could  then  have 
hope;  but  no,  it  is  inevitable,  as  in- 
evitable as  that  night  follows  the  day. 
If,  however,  his  life  had  been  com- 
plete! If  he  had  done  something;  if  he 
had  had  adventures  grand  pleasures, 
successes,  satisfaction  of  some  kind  or 
another.  But  now,  nothing.  He  had 
done  noihmg,  never  anything  but  rise 


REGRET 


507 


from  bed,  ect,  at  the  same  hours,  and 
go  to  bed  again.  And  he  has  gone  on 
like  that  to  the  age  of  sixty-tv/o.  He 
had  not  even  taken  unto  himself  a  v^^ife, 
as  other  men  do.  Why?  Yes,  why  was 
it  that  he  was  not  married?  He  might 
have  been,  for  he  possessed  considerable 
means.  Was  it  an  opportunity  which 
had  failed  him  ?  Perhaps !  But  one  can 
create  opportunities.  He  was  indiffer- 
ent ;  that  was  all.  Indifference  had  been 
his  greatest  drawback,  his  defect,  his 
vice.  How  some  men  miss  their  lives 
through  indifference!  To  certain  na- 
tures, it  is  so  difncult  to  get  out  of  bed, 
to  move  about,  to  take  long  walks,  to 
speak,  to  study  any  question. 

He  had  not  even  been  in  love.  No 
woman  had  reposed  on  his  bosom,  in  a 
complete  abandon  of  love.  He  knew 
nothing  of  this  delicious  anguish  of  ex- 
pectation, of  the  divine  quivering  of  the 
pressed  hand,  of  the  ecstasy  of  tri- 
umphant passion. 

What  superhuman  happiness  must  in- 
undate your  heart  when  lips  encounter 
lips  for  the  first  time,  when  the  grasp 
of  four  arms  makes  one  being  of  you,  a 
being  unutterably  happy,  two  beings  in- 
fatuated with  each  other. 

M.  Savel  was  sitting  down,  his  feet 
on  the  fender,  in  his  dressing  gown.  As- 
suredly his  life  had  been  spoiled,  com- 
pletely spoiled.  He  had  however,  loved. 
He  had  loved  secretly,  dolorously,  and 
indifferently,  just  as  was  characteristic 
of  him  in  everything.  Yes,  he  had  loved 
his  old  friend,  Madame  Saudres,  the 
wife  of  his  old  companion,  Saudres. 
Ah!  if  he  had  known  her  as  a  young 
(rfrl!  But  he  had  encountered  her  too 
hte;  she  was  already  married.  Unques- 
tfenably  he  would  have  asked  her  liind; 


that  he  wojld!  How  he  had  loved  her, 
nevertheless,  without  respite,  since  the 
first  day  he  had  set  eyes  on  her! 

He  recalled,  without  emotion,  all  the 
times  he  had  seen  her,  his  grief  on  leav- 
ing her,  the  many  nights  thit  he  could 
not  sleep  because  of  his  thinking  of  her 

In  tl:e  mornings  he  always  got  up 
somewhat  less  amorous  than  in  the  eve- 
ning. 

Why?  Seeing  that  she  was  formerly 
pretty  and  plump,  blond  and  joyous. 
Saudres  was  not  tlie  man  she  would 
have  selected.  She  was  now  fifty-two 
years  cf  ac;e.  She  seemed  happy.  Ah! 
if  she  had  only  loved  him  in  days  gone 
by!  yes,  if  she  had  only  loved  him! 
And  why  should  she  not  have  loved  him, 
he,  Savel,  seeing  that  he  loved  her  so 
much,  yes,  her,  Madame  Saudres! 

If  only  she  could  have  divined  some- 
thing—  Had  she  not  divined  anything, 
had  she  not  seen  anything,  never  com- 
prehended anything?  But  then,  what 
would  she  have  thought?  If  he  had 
spoken  what  would  she  have  answered? 

And  Savel  asked  himself  a  thousand 
other  things.  He  reviewed  his  whole  life, 
seeking  to  grasp  again  a  multitude  of 
details. 

He  recalled  all  the  long  evenings  spent 
at  the  house  of  Saudres,  when  the  lat- 
ter's  wife  was  young  and  so  charming. 

He  recalled  many  things  that  she  had 
said  to  him,  the  sweet  intonations  of  her 
voice,  the  little  significant  smiles  that 
meant  so  much. 

He  recalled  the  walks  that  the  three 
of  them  had  had,  along  the  banks  of  the 
Seine,  their  lunches  on  the  grass  on  the 
Sundays,  for  Saudres  was  employed  at 
the  subprefecture.  And  all  at  once  the 
distinct  recollection  came  to  him  of  an 


508 


WORKS  OF  GXTV  DE  MAUPASSANT 


afternoon   spent    with   her    in    a    little 
plantation  on  the  banks  of  the  river. 

They  had  set  out  in  the  morning,  car- 
rying their  provisions  in  baskets.  It 
was  a  bright  spring  morning,  one  of 
those  days  which  inebriate  one.  Every- 
thing smelled  fresh,  everything  seemed 
happy.  The  voices  of  the  birds  sounded 
more  joyous,  and  the  flapping  of  their 
wings  more  rapid.  They  had  lunch  on 
the  grass,  under  the  willow-trees,  quite 
close  to  the  water,  which  glittered  in  the 
sun's  rays.  The  air  was  balmy,  charged 
mth.  odors  of  fresh  vegetation ;  they  had 
drunk  the  most  delicious  wines.  How 
pleasant  everything  was  on  that  day! 

After  lunch,  Sardres  went  to  sleep  on 
the  broad  of  his  back,  "The  best  nap  he 
had  in  his  life,"  said  he,  when  he  woke 
up. 

Madame  Saudres  had  taken  the  arm 
of  Savel,  and  they  had  started  to  walk 
along  the  river's  bank. 

She  leaned  tenderly  on  his  arm.  She 
iaughed  and  said  to  him:  "I  am  in- 
toxicated, my  friend,  I  am  quite  intoxi- 
cated." He  looked  at  her,  his  heart 
beating  rapidly.  He  felt  himself  grow 
pale,  hoping  that  he  had  not  looked  too 
boldly  at  her,  and  that  the  trembling  of 
his  hands  had  not  revealed  his  passion. 

She  had  decked  her  head  with  wild 
flowers  and  water-Hlies,  and  she  had 
asked  him:  "Do  you  not  like  to  see 
me  appear  thus?" 

As  he  did  not  answer — for  he  could 
find  nothing  to  say,  he  should  rather 
have  gone  down  on  his  knees — she  burst 
out  laughing,  a  sort  of  discontented 
laughter  which  she  threw  straight  in  his 
face,  saying:  "Great  goose,  what,  ails 
you?    You  might  at  least  speak?" 


He  felt  like  crying,  and  could  not  even 
yet  find  a  word  to  say. 

All  these  things  came  back  to  him 
now,  as  vividly  as  on  the  day  when  they 
took  place.  Why  had  she  said  this  to 
him,  "Great  goose,  what  ails  you?  You 
might  at  least  speak!" 

And  he  recalled  how  tenderly  she  had 
leaned  on  his  arm.  And  in  passing  un- 
der a  shady  tree  he  had  felt  her  ear 
leaning  against  his  cheek,  and  he  had 
tilted  his  head  abruptly,  for  fear  that 
she  had  not  meant  to  bring  their  flesh 
into  contact. 

When  he  had  said  to  her:  "Is  it  not 
time  to  return?"  she  darted  at  him  a 
singular  look.  "Certainly,"  she  said, 
"certainly,"  regarding  him  at  the  same 
time,  in  a  curious  manner.  He  had  not 
thought  of  anything  then;  and  now  the 
whole  thing  appeared  to  him  quite  plain. 

"Just  as  you  Hke,  my  friend.  If  you 
are  tired  let  us  go  back." 

And  he  answered: 

"It  is  not  that  I  am  fatigued;  but 
Saudres  has  perhaps  waked  up  now." 

And  she  had  said :  "If  you  are  afraid 
of  my  husband's  being  awake,  that  is 
another  thing.    Let  us  return." 

In  returning  she  remained  silent  and 
leaned  no  longer  on  his  arm.    Why? 

At  this  time  it  had  never  occurred  te 
him  to  ask  himself,  "Why."  Now  he 
seemed  to  apprehend  something  that  he 
had  not  then  understood. 

What  was  it? 

M.  Savel  felt  himself  blush,  and  he 
got  up  at  a  bound,  feeling  thirty  years 
younger,  believing  that  he  now  under- 
stood Madame  Saudres  then  to  say,  "I 
love  you" 

Was    it     possible?      That    susiMcioa 


REGRET 


509 


which  had  just  entered  into  his  soul,  tor- 
tured him.  Was  it  possible  that  he 
could  not  have  seen,  not  have  dreamed? 

Oh!  if  that  could  be  true,  if  he  had 
rubbed  against  such  good  fortune  with- 
out laying  hold  of  it! 

He  said  to  himself:  "I  wish  to  know. 
I  cannot  remain  in  this  state  of  doubt. 
I  wish  to  know!"  He  put  on  his  clothes 
quickly,  dressed  in  hot  haste.  He 
thought:  "I  am  sixty-two  years  of 
age,  she  is  fifty-eight;  I  may  ask  her 
that  now  without  giving  offense." 

He  started  out. 

The  Saudres'  house  was  situated  on 
the  other  side  of  the  street,  almost  di- 
rectly opposite  his  own.  He  went  up  to 
it,  knocked,  and  a  little  servant  came  to 
open  the  door. 

"You  there  at  this  hour,  M.  Savel? 
Has  some  accident  happened  to  you?" 

M.  Savel  responded: 

"No,  my  girl;  but  go  and  tell  your 
mistress  that  I  want  to  speak  to  her  at 
once." 

"The   fact  is,   Madame  is  preparing 

her  stock  of  pear- jams  for  the  winter, 

and  she  is  standing  in  front  of  the  fire. 

She  is  not  dressed,  as  you  may  well  un- 

[.  derstand." 

I       "Yes,  but  go  and  tell  her  that  I  wish 
^'  to  see  her  on  an  important  matter." 

The  little  servant  went  away  and 
Save!  began  to  walk,  with  long,  nervous 
strides,  up  and  down  the  drawing-room. 
He  did  not  feel  himself  the  least  em- 
barrassed, however.  Oh !  he  was  merely 
going  to  ask  her  something,  as  he  would 
have  asked  her  about  some  cooking  re- 
ceipt, and  that  was:  "Do  you  know 
that  I  am  sixty-two  years  of  age?" 

The   door   opened  and   Madame   ap- 


peared. She  was  now  a  gross  woman, 
fat  and  round,  with  full  cheeks,  and  a 
sonorous  laugh.  She  walked  with  her 
arms  away  from  her  body,  and  her 
sleeves  tucked  up  to  the  shoulders,  her 
bare  arms  all  smeared  with  sugar  juice. 
She  asked,  anxiously: 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you,  my 
friend;  you  are  not  ill,  are  you?" 

"No,  my  dear  friend;  but  I  wish  to 
ask  you  one  thing,  which  to  me  is  of 
the  first  importance,  something  which 
is  torturing  my  heart,  and  I  want  you 
to  promise  that  you  will  answer  me  can- 
didly." 

She  laughed,  "I  am  always  candid 
Say  on." 

"Well,  then.  I  have  loved  you  from 
the  first  day  I  ever  saw  you.  Can  you 
have  any  doubt  of  this?" 

She  responded  laughing,  with  some- 
thing of  her  former  tone  of  voice: 

"Great  goose!  what  ails  you?  I 
knew  it  well  from  the  very  first  day!" 

Savel  began  to  tremble.  He  stair, 
mered  out:    "You  knew  it?    Then — " 

He  stopped. 

She  asked: 

"Then?  What?" 

He  answered: 

"Then — what  would  you  think?  — 
what — what — what  would  you  have  an- 
swered?" 

She  broke  forth  into  a  peal  of  laugh- 
ter, which  made  the  sugar  juice  run  off 
the  tips  of  her  fingers  on  to  the  carpet. 

"I?  But  you  did  not  ask  me  anything. 
It  was  not  for  me  to  make  a  declara- 
tion." 

He  then  advanced  a  step  toward  her 

"Tell  me — tell  me —  You  remember 
the   day  when   Saudres  went   to   sleep 


510 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


on  the  grass  after  lunch — when  we  had 
walked  together  as  far  as  the  bend  of 
the  river,  below — " 

He  waited,  expectantly.  She  had 
ceased  to  laugh,  and  looked  at  him, 
straight  in  the  eyes. 

"Yes,  certainly.    I  remember  it/' 

He  answered,  shivering  all  over. 

"Well,— th-Ti  day— if  I  had  been— if 
1  had  been — enterprising — ^what  would 
you  have  done?" 

She  began  to  laugh  as  only  a  happy 
woman  can  laugh,  who  has  nothing  to 
regret,  and  responded  frankly,  in  a 
/oice  tinged  with  irony: 

"I  would  have  yielded,  my  friend.'' 

wShe  then  turned  on  her  heek  and  went 
aack  to  her  jamrmaking. 


Savel  rushed  into  the  street,  cast 
down,  as  though  he  had  encountered 
some  great  disaster.  He  walked  with 
giant  strides,  through  the  rain,  straight 
on,  until  he  reached  the  river,  without 
thinking  where  he  was  going.  When  he 
reached  the  bank  he  turned  to  the  right 
and  followed  it.  He  walked  a  long  time, 
as  if  urged  on  by  some  instinct.  His 
clothes  were  running  with  water,  his 
hat  was  crushed  in,  as  soft  as  a  piece 
of  rag  and  dripping  like  a  thatched  roof. 
He  walked  on,  straight  in  front  of  him. 
At  last,  he  came  to  the  place  where  they 
had  lunched  so  long,  long  ago,  the  recol- 
lection of  which  had  tortured  his  heart. 
He  sat  down  under  the  leafless  trees,  and 
wept. 


The  Deaf-Mute 


My  dear  friend,  you  ask  me  why  I  do 
i\  >t  return  to  Paris;  you  will  be  aston- 
ished, and  almost  angry,  I  suppose, 
when  I  give  you  the  reason,  which  will 
without  doubt  be  revolting  to  you: 
"Why  should  a  hunter  return  to  Paris 
at  the  height  of  the  woodcock  season?'* 

Certainly  I  understand  and  like  life  in 
the  city  very  well,  that  life  which  leads 
from  the  chamber  to  the  sidewalk ;  but  I 
prefer  a  freer  life,  the  rude  life  of  the 
hunter  in  autumn. 

In  Paiis,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  am 
never  cat  of  doors;  for,  in  fact,  the 
streets  are  only  great,  rommon  apart- 
ments without  a  ceiling.  Is  one  in  the 
air  between  two  walls,  his  feet  upon 
stone  or  wooden  pavement,  his  view  shut 
in  everywiieie  by  buildings,  without  any 


horizon  of  verdure,  fields,  or  woods? 
Thousands  of  neighbors  jostle  you,  push 
you,  salute  you,  and  talk  with  you;  but 
the  fact  of  receiving  water  upon  an  um- 
brella when  it  rains  is  not  sufficient  to 
give  me  the  impression  or  tht  sensation 
of  space. 

Here,  I  perceive  clearly  and  delici- 
ously  the  difference  between  in  doors 
and  out.  But  it  was  not  ot  that  that  I 
wish  to  speak  to  you. 

Well,  then,  the  woodcock  are  flying. 

And  it  is  necessary  to  tell  you  that  I 
live  in  a  great  Norman  house,  in  a 
valley,  near  a  little  river,  and  that  I 
hunt  nearly  every  day. 

Other  days,  I  read ;  I  even  read  things 
that  men  in  Paris  have  not  the  time  to 
become  acquainted  with;   very  serious 


Tr::  deaf-mute 


jii 


Jiings,  very  profound,  very  curious, 
written  by  a  brave,  scaolariy  genius,  a 
foreigner  who  has  spent  his  life  study- 
ing the  subject  and  observing  the  facts 
relative  to  the  influence  of  the  functions 
of  our  organs  upon  our  intelligence. 

But  I  was  speaking  to  you  of  wood- 
cock. 

My  two  friends,  the  D'Orgemol 
brothers,  and  myself  remain  here  during 
the  hunting  season  awaiting  the  first 
frost.  Then,  when  it  freezes,  we  set  out 
for  their  farm  in  Cannetot,  near  Fe- 
camp, because  there  is  a  delicious  little 
wood  there,  a  divine  wood,  where  every 
woodcock  that  flies  comes  to  lodge. 

You  know  the  D'Orgemols,  those  two 
giants,  those  Normans  of  ancient  times, 
those  two  males  of  the  old,  powerful 
conquering  race  which  invaded  France, 
took  England  and  kept  it,  established 
itself  on  every  coast  of  the  world,  made 
towns  everywhere,  passed  like  a  flood 
over  Sicily,  creating  there  an  admirable 
art,  struck  down  kings,  pillaged  the 
proudest  cities,  matched  popes  in  their 
priestly  tricks  and  ridicul'^d  them,  more 
sly  than  the  Italian  pontiffs  themselves, 
and  above  all,  left  children  in  all  the 
beds  of  the  world.  These  D'Orgemols 
are  two  Normans  of  the  best  stamp,  and 
are  all  Norman  —  voice,  accent,  mind, 
blond  hair,  and  eyes  which  are  the  color 
of  the  sea. 

When  we  are  together  we  talk  the 
patois,  we  live,  think,  and  act  in  Nor- 
man, we  become  Norman  landowners, 
more  peasants  than  farmers. 

For  two  weeks  now.  we  have  been 
waiting  for  woodcock.  Every  morning, 
Simon,  the  elder,  will  say:  "Hey! 
Here's  the  wind  coming  round  to  the 


east,  and  it's  going  to  freeze.  In  two 
days  tlicy  will  be  here." 

The  younger,  Gaspard,  more  exact, 
waits  for  the  frost  to  come  before  he  an- 
nounces it. 

But,  last  Thursday  he  entered  my 
room  at  dawn,  crying  out: 

"It  has  come !  The  earth  is  all  white. 
Two  days  more  and  we  shall  go  to 
Cannetot.*' 

Two  days  later,  in  fact,  we  do  set  out 
for  Cannetot.  Certainly  you  would 
have  layghed  to  see  us.  We  take  our 
places  in  a  sLrange  sort  of  hunting  wagon 
that  my  father  had  constructed  long 
ago.  Constructed  is  the  only  word  that 
I  can  use  in  speaking  of  this  monstrous 
carriage,  or  rather  this  earthquake  on 
wheels.  There  was  room  for  every- 
thing inside:  a  place  for  provisions,  a 
place  for  the  guns,  place  for  the  trunks, 
and  places  of  clear  space  for  the  dogs. 
Everything  is  sheltered  except  the  men, 
perched  on  seats  as  high  as  a  third 
story,  and  all  this  supported  by  four 
gigantic  wheels.  One  mounted  as  best 
he  could,  making  his  feet,  hands,  and 
even  his  teeth  serve  him  for  the  occa- 
sion, for  there  was  no  step  to  give  ac- 
cess to  the  edifice. 

Now,  the  two  D'Orgemols  and  myselt 
scaled  this  mountain,  clothed  like  Lap- 
landers. We  have  on  sheepskins,  wea^ 
enormous,  woolen  stockings  outside  our 
pantaloons,  and  gaiters  outside  our 
woolen  stockings;  we  also  have  some 
black  fur  caps  and  white  far  gloves. 
When  we  are  installed,  John,  my  ser- 
vant, throws  us  our  three  terriers,  Pif, 
Paf,  and  Moustache.  Pif  belongs  to 
Simon,  Paf  to  Gaspard,  and  Moustache 
to  me.  They  look  like  three  crocodile? 
covered  with  hair.    They  are  long,  low* 


*12 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  crooked,  with  bent  legs,  and  so  hairy 
that  they  have  the  look  of  a  yellow 
thicket.  Their  eyes  can  scarcely  be  seen 
under  their  eyebrows,  or  their  teeth 
through  their  beards.  One  could  never 
shut  them  into  the  rolling  kennels  of 
the  carriage.  Each  one  puts  his  own 
dog  under  his  feet  to  keep  him  warm. 

And  now  we  are  off,  shivering  abomi- 
nably. It  is  cold,  and  freezing  hard. 
We  are  contented.  Toward  five  o'clock 
we  arrive.  The  farmer,  master  Picot,  is 
expecting  us,  waiting  before  the  door. 
He  is  also  a  jolly  fellow,  not  tall,  but 
round,  squat,  vigorous  as  a  bulldog,  sly 
is  a  fox,  always  laughing,  always  con- 
tented, knowing  how  to  make  money  out 
of  all  of  us. 

It  is  a  great  festival  for  him  when 
the  woodcock  arrives.  The  farm  is 
large,  and  on  it  an  old  building  set  in 
an  apple  orchard,  surrounded  by  four 
rows  of  beech-trees,  which  battle  against 
the  winds  from  the  sea  all  the  year. 

We  enter  the  kitchen  where  a  bright 
fire  is  burning  in  our  honor.  Our  table 
i£  set  against  the  high  chimney,  where  a 
large  chicken  is  turning  and  roasting  be- 
fore the  clear  flame,  and  whose  gravy  is 
running  into  an  earthen  dish  beneath. 

The  farmer's  wife  salutes  us,  a  tall, 
quiet  woman,  wholly  occupied  with  the 
cares  of  her  house,  her  head  full  of  ac- 
counts, the  price  of  grain,  of  poultry,  of 
mutton,  and  beef.  She  is  an  orderly 
woman,  set  and  severe,  known  for  her 
worth  in  the  neighborhood. 

At  the  end  of  the  kitchen  is  set  the 
long  table  where  all  the  farm  hands, 
drivers,  laborers,  stableboys,  shepherds, 
And  woman  servants  sit  down.  They  eat 
in  silence  under  the  active  eye  of  the 
♦nistress.  watching  us  dine  with  master 


Picot,  who  says  witty  things  to  make  us 
laugh.  Then,  when  all  her  servants  are 
fed,  Madame  Picot  takes  her  repast 
alone  at  one  corner  of  the  table,  a  rapid 
and  frugal  repast,  watching  the  serving 
maid  meanwhile.  On  ordinary  days 
she  dines  with  all  the  rest. 

We  all  three  sleep,  the  D'Orgemols 
and  myself,  in  a  b:ire,  white  room,  white- 
washed with  lime,  containing  only  our 
three  beds,  three  chairs,  and  three 
basins. 

Gaspard  always  wakes  first  and 
sounds  the  echoing  watchword.  In  half 
an  hour  everybody  is  ready,  and  we  set 
out  with  master  Picot  who  hunts  with 
us. 

Mr.  Picot  prefers  me  to  his  masters. 
Why?  Without  doubt  because  I  am  not 
his  master.  So  we  two  reach  the  woods 
by  the  right,  while  the  two  brothers 
come  to  the  attack  by  the  left.  Simon 
has  the  care  of  the  dogs,  all  three  at- 
tached to  the  end  of  a  rope. 

For  we  are  not  hunting  woodcock  but 
the  wolf.  We  are  convinced  that  it  is 
better  to  find  the  woodcock  than  to  seek 
it.  If  one  falls  upon  one  and  kills  it, 
there  you  are!  But  v/hen  one  specially 
wishes  to  meet  one,  he  can  never  quite 
bring  him  down.  It  is  truly  a  beautiful 
and  curious  thing,  hearing  the  loud  re- 
port of  a  gun,  in  the  fresh  morning  air, 
and  then,  the  formidable  voice  of  Gas- 
pard filling  the  space  as  he  howls: 

'Woodcock—    There  it  is." 

As  for  me,  I  am  sly.  When  I  have 
killed  a  woodcock,  I  cry  out:  ''Wolf!" 
And  then  I  triumph  in  my  success  when 
we  go  to  a  clear  place  for  the  midday 
lunch. 

Here  we  are  then,  master  Picot  and  I, 
in  the  little  woods,  where  the  leaves  fall 


THE  DEAF-MUTE 


513 


rith  a  sweet  and  continued  murmur, 
yith  a  dry  murmur,  a  little  sad,  for  they 
jre  dead.  It  is  cold,  a  light  cold  which 
stings  the  eyes,  the  nose,  and  the  ears, 
and  powders  with  a  fine,  white  moss  the 
limbs  of  the  trees  and  the  brown,  plowed 
earth.  But  there  is  warmth  through  all 
our  limbs  under  the  great  sheepskin. 
The  sun  is  gay  in  the  blue  air  which  it 
warms  scarcely  at  all,  but  it  is  gay.  It 
is  good  to  hunt  in  the  woods  on  fresh 
mornings  in  winter. 

Down  below,  a  dog  is  loudly  baying. 
It  is  Pif.  I  know  his  thin  voice,  but  it 
ceases.  Then  there  is  another  cry,  and 
then  another;  and  Paf  in  his  turn  begins 
to  bark.  And  what  has  become  of  Mous- 
tache? Ah!  there  is  a  little  cry  like 
that  of  a  chicken  being  strangled! 
They  have  stirred  up  a  wolf.  Atten- 
tion, master  Picot! 

They  separate,  then  approach  each 
other,  scatter  again,  and  then  return; 
we  follow  their  unforeseen  windings, 
coming  out  into  little  roads,  the  mind  on 
the  alert,  finger  on  the  trigger  of  the 
gun. 

They  turn  toward  the  fields  again,  and 

we  turn  also.    Suddenly,  there  is  a  gray 

.    spot,  a  shadow,  crossing  the  bypath.    I 

I    aim  and  fire.    The  light  smoke  rises  in 

I    the  blue  air  and  I  perceive  under  a  bush 

a  bit  of  white  hair  which  moves.    Then 

I  shout,  with  all  my  force,  "Wolf,  wolf! 

There  he  is!"    And  I  show  him  to  the 

three  dogs,  the  three  hairy  crocodiles, 

who  thank  me  by  wagging  their  tails. 

Then  they  go  off  in  search  of  another. 

Master  Picot  joins  me.  Moustache 
begins  to  yap.  The  farmer  says :  "There 
musr  be  a  hare  there  at  the  edge  of  the 
field;^ 

The  moment  that  I  came  out  of  the 


woods,  I  perceived,  not  ten  steps  froit 
me,  enveloped  in  his  immense  yellawish 
mantle  and  wearing  his  knitted,  woolen 
cap  such  as  shepherds  wear  at  home, 
master  Picot's  herdsman  Gargan,  the 
deaf-mute.  I  said  "Good  morning,"  to 
him,  according  to  our  custom,  and  he 
raised  his  hand  to  salute  me.  He  had 
not  heard  my  voice,  but  had  seen  the 
motion  of  my  lips. 

For  fifteen  years  I  had  known  this 
shepherd.  For  fifteen  years  I  had  seen 
him  each  autumn,  on  the  border,  or  in 
the  middle  of  the  field,  his  body  mo- 
tionless, and  always  knitting  in  his 
hands.  His  flock  followed  him  like  a 
pack  of  hounds,  seeming  to  obey  his 
eye. 

Master  Picot  now  took  me  by  the 
arm,  saying: 

"Did  you  know  that  the  shepherd 
killed  his  wife?" 

I  was  stupefied.  "What  Gargan — the 
deaf-mute?" 

"Yes,  this  winter,  and  his  case  was 
tried  at  Rouen.  I  will  tell  you  about 
it." 

And  he  led  me  into  the  underbrush* 
for  the  shepherd  knew  how  to  catch 
words  from  his  master's  lips,  as  if  hr 
heard  them  spoken.  He  could  under 
stand  only  him;  but,  watching  his  fact 
closely,  he  was  no  longer  deaf;  and  the 
master,  on  the  other  hand,  seemed  tc 
divine,  like  a  sorcerer,  the  meaning  of 
all  the  mute's  pantomime,  the  gestures 
of  his  fingers,  the  expression  of  his  face 
and  the  motion  of  his  eyes. 

Here  is  his  simple  story,  the  various, 
somber  facts  as  they  came  to  pass: 

Gargan  was  the  son  of  a  marl  digger, 
one  of  those  men  who  go  down  into  the 
marlpit  to  extract  that  kind  of  soft,  dis- 


514 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAuriU^.^.,  I 


solving  stone,  sown  under  the  soil.  A 
deaf-mute  by  birth,  he  had  been  brought 
up  to  watch  the  cows  along  the  ditches 
^y  the  side  of  the  roads. 

Then,  picked  up  by  Picot's  father,  he 
had  become  the  shepherd  on  his  farm. 
He  was  an  excellent  shepherd,  devout, 
upright,  knowing  how  to  find  the  lost 
members  of  his  flock,  although  nobody 
had  taught  him  anything. 

When  Picot  took  the  farm,  in  his  turn, 
Gargan  was  thirty  years  old  and  looked 
forty.  lie  was  tall,  thin,  and  bearded — 
bearded  like  a  patriarch. 

About  this  time  a  good  woman  of  the 
country,  Mrs.  Martel,  died  very  poor, 
leaving  a  girl  fifteen  years  old  who  was 
called  "Drops,"  because  of  her  immod- 
erate love  for  brandy. 

Picot  took  in  this  ragged  waif,  em- 
ployed her  in  light  duties,  giving  her  a 
home  without  pay  in  return  for  her  work. 
She  slept  under  the  barn,  in  the  stable, 
or  the  cow-house,  upon  straw,  or  on  the 
manure-heap,  anyv/here,  it  mattered  not 
where,  for  they  could  not  give  a  bed 
to  this  barefoot.  She  slept,  then,  no 
matter  where,  with  no  matter  whom, 
perhaps  with  the  plowman  or  the  stable 
boy.  But  it  happened  soon  that  she  gave 
her  attention  to  the  deaf-mute  and 
coupled  herself  with  him  in  a  continued 
fashion.  What  united  these  two  miser- 
able beings?  How  have  they  under- 
stood each  other?  Had  he  ever  known 
a  woman  before  this  barn  rover,  he  who 
had  never  talked  with  anyone?  Was  it 
she  who  found  him  in  his  wheeled  hut 
and  seduced  him,  like  an  Eve  of  the  rut, 
at  the  edge  of  the  road?  No  one  knows. 
They  only  know  that  one  day  they  were 
living  together  as  husband  and  wife. 

No   one  was   astonished   by  it,  and 


Picot  found  it  a  very  natural  coupling 
But  the  curate  heard  ot  this  union  with- 
out a  mass  and  was  angry.  He  rc« 
proached  Mrs.  Picot,  disturbed  her  con- 
science, and  threatened  her  with  mys- 
terious punishments.  What  was  to  be 
done?  It  was  very  simple.  They  must 
go  and  be  marriec  at  the  church  and 
at  the  mayor's.  They  had  nothing, 
cither  one  of  them :  he,  not  a  whole  pair 
of  pantaloons,  she,  not  a  petticoat  of  a 
single  kind  of  cloth.  So  there  was  noth- 
ing to  oppose  what  the  law  and  religion 
required.  They  were  united,  in  an  hour, 
before  the  mayor  and  the  curate,  and 
believed  that  all  was  regulated  for  the 
best. 

Now,  it  soon  became  a  joke  in  the 
country  (pardon  the  villainous  word)  to 
make  a  deceived  husband  of  this  poor 
Gargan.  Before  she  was  married,  no 
one  thought  of  sleeping  with  "Drops,** 
but  now  each  one  wished  his  turn,  for 
the  sake  of  a  laughable  story.  Every- 
body went  there  for  a  little  class  behind 
the  husband's  back.  The  affair  made  so 
much  noise  that  even  some  of  the 
Goderville  gentlemen  came  to  see  her. 

For  a  half  pint  "Drops"  would  finish 
the  spectacle  with  no  matter  whom,  in 
a  ditch,  behind  a  wall,  anywhere,  while 
the  silhouette  of  the  motionless  Gargan 
could  be  seen  knitting  a  stocking  not  a 
hundred  feet  from  there,  surrounded  by 
his  bleating  flock.  And  they  laughed 
about  it  enough  to  make  themselves  ill 
in  all  the  cajes  of  the  country.  It  was 
the  only  thing  talked  of  in  the  evening 
before  the  fire;  and  upon  the  road,  the 
first  thing  one  would  ask: — "Have  you 
paid  your  drop  to  'Drops'?"  Everyone 
knew  what  that  meant. 

The   shepherd   never  seemed   to  see 


THE  DEAF-MUTE 


515 


anything.  But  one  day  the  Poirot  boy, 
of  Sasseville,  called  to  Gargan's  wife 
from  behind  the  mill,  showing  her  a  full 
bottle.  She  understood  and  ran  to  him 
laughing.  Now,  scarcely  were  they  en- 
gaged in  their  criminal  deed  when  the 
herdsmen  fell  upon  them  as  if  he  had 
come  out  of  a  cloud.  Poirot  fled  at  full 
speed,  his  breeches  about  his  heels, 
while  the  deaf-mute,  with  the  cry  of  a 
beast,  sprang  at  his  wife's  throat. 

The  people  working  in  the  fields  ran 
toward  them.  It  was  too  late;  her 
tongue  was  black,  her  eyes  were  coming 
out  of  her  head,  the  blood  was  flowing 
from  her  nose.     She  was  dead. 

The  shepherd  was  tried  by  the  Judge 
at  Rouen.  As  he  was  a  mute,  Picot 
served  as  interpreter.  The  details  of 
the  affair  amused  the  audience  very 
much.  But  the  farmer  had  but  one 
idea:  his  herdsman  muat  be  acquitted. 
And  he  went  about  it  :n  earnest. 

At  first,  he  related  the  deaf-mute's 
whole  story,  including  that  of  his  mar- 
riage ;  then,  when  he  came  to  the  crime, 
he  himseir  questioned  the  assassin. 

The  assemblage  was  very  quiet. 

Picot  pronounced  the  words  slowly: 
"Did  you  know  that  she  had  deceived 
you?"  and  at  the  same  time  he  asked  the 
question  witli  his  eyes  in  pantomime. 

The  other  answered  "No"  with  his 
head. 

"Were  you  asleep  in  the  mill  when 
you  surprised  her?"  And  he  made  a  ges- 
ture of  a  man  seeing  some  disgusting 
thing. 

The  other  answered  "Yes"  with  his 
head. 

Then  the  farmer,  imitating  the  signs 
of  the  mayor  who  married  them,  and  of 
the  priest  who  united  them  in  the  name 


of  God,  asked  his  servant  if  he  had 
killed  his  wife  because  she  was  bound 
to  him  before  men  and  before  heaven. 

The  shepherd  answered  "Yes"  with 
his  head. 

Picot  then  said  to  him:  "Come,  tell 
us  how  it  happened." 

Then  the  deaf-mute  reproduced  tho 
whole  scene  in  pantomime.  He  showed 
how  he  was  asleep  in  the  mill;  that  he 
was  awakened  by  feeling  the  straw 
move;  that  he  had  watched  quietly  and 
had  seen  the  whole  thing. 

He  rose,  between  the  two  policemen, 
and  brusquely  imitated  the  obscene 
movement  of  the  criminal  couple  en- 
tangled before  him. 

A  tumultuous  laugh  went  through  the 
hall,  then  stopped  short;  for  the  herds- 
man, with  haggard  eyes,  moving  his  jaw 
and  his  great  beard  as  if  he  had  bitten 
something,  with  arms  extended,  and 
head  thrown  forward,  repeated  the  ter- 
rible action  of  a  murderer  who  strangles 
a  being. 

And  he  howled  frightfully,  so  excited 
with  anger  that  one  would  think  he  be- 
lieved be  s^ill  held  her  in  his  grasp;  and 
the  poliremen  were  obliged  to  seize  hiro 
and  seat  him  by  force  in  order  to  calm 
him. 

A  great  shiver  of  agony  ran  through 
the  assembly.  Then  master  Picot,  plac' 
ing  his  hand  upon  his  servant's  shoulder, 
said  simply:  "He  knows  what  hono^ 
is,  this  man  does." 

And  the  shepherd  was  acquitted. 

As  for  me,  my  dear  friend,  I  listened 
to  this  adventure  to  its  close,  much 
moved,  and  have  related  it  to  you  in 
gross  terms  in  nrd<?r  not  to  change  the 
farmer's  story.  Bv<:  now  there  is  a  re- 
port of  a  gun  iro^^  ihe  woods,  and  the 


516  WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 

formidable  voice  of   Gaspard  is  heard  And  this  is  how  I  employ  my  timt 

growling  in  the  wind,  like  the  sound  of  watching  for  the  woodcock  to  pass,  whiU 

a  cannon :  you  ^^^  ^^^o  going  to  the  Bois  to  see  th-^ 

'Woodcock!    There  is  one."  first  winter  costumes. 


Magnetism 


It  was  at  the  close  of  a  dinner-party 
of  men,  at  the  hour  of  endless  cigars  and 
incessant  sips  of  brandy,  amid  the 
smoke  and  the  torpid  warmth  of  diges- 
tion, and  the  slight  confusion  of  heads 
generated  by  such  a  quantity  of  eatables 
and  by  the  absorption  of  so  many  dif- 
ferent liquors. 

Those  present  were  talking  about 
magnetism,  about  Donato's  tricks, 
and  about  Doctor  Charcot's  ex- 
periences. All  of  a  sudden,  those  men, 
so  sceptical,  so  happy-go-lucky,  so  in- 
different to  rehgion  of  every  sort,  be- 
gan telling  stories  about  strange  occur- 
rences, incredible  things  which  neverthe- 
less had  really  happened,  they  con- 
tended, falling  back  into  superstitions, 
beliefs,  chnging  to  these  last  remnants 
of  the  marvelous,  becoming  devotees 
to  this  mystery  of  magnetism,  defending 
it  in  the  name  of  science.  There  was 
only  one  person  who  smiled,  a  vigorous 
young  fell^iw,  a  great  pursuer  of  girls  of 
light  behavior,  and  a  hunter  also  of 
frisky  matrons,  in  whose  mind  there  was 
so  much  incredulity  about  everything 
that  he  would  not  even  enter  upon  a  dis- 
cussion of  such  matters. 

He  repeated  with  a  sneer: 

"Humbug!  humbug!  humbug!  We 
need  not  discuss  Donato,  who  is  merely 
a  very  smart  juggler.    As  for  M.  Char- 


cot, who  is  said  to  be  a  remarkable  niah 
of  science,  he  produces  on  me  the  eftect 
of  those  story-tellers  of  the  school  ot 
Edgar  Allan  Poe,  who  go  mad  through 
constantly  reflecting  on  queer  cases  of 
insanity.  He  has  set  forth  some  nervous 
phenomena,  which  are  unexplained  and 
inexplicable-,  ne  makes  his  way  into  that 
unknown  region  which  men  explore 
every  day,  and  not  being  able  to  com- 
prehend what  he  sees,  he  remembers  per- 
haps too  well  the  explanations  of  certain 
mysteries  given  by  priests.  Besides,  I 
would  like  to  hear  him  speaking  on 
these  subjects;  that  would  be  quite  a  dif- 
ferent thing  from  your  repetition  of 
what  he  says." 

The  words  of  the  unbeliever  were  lis- 
tened to  with  a  kind  of  pity,  as  if  he 
had  blasphemed  in  the  midst  of  an 
assembly  of   monks. 

One   of   these   gentlemen    exclaimed: 

"And  yet  miracles  were  performed  in 
former  days." 

But  the  other  replied:  "I  deny  it. 
Why  cannot  they  be  performed  any 
longer?" 

Thereupon,  each  man  referred  to  some 
fact,  or  some  fantastic  presentiment,  or 
some  instance  of  souls  communicating 
with  each  other  across  space,  or  some 
use  of  secret  influences  produced  by  one 
being  or  another.  And  they  asserted,  they 


MAGNETISM 


517 


maintained,  that  these  things  had  actu- 
iily  occurred,  while  the  sceptic  went  on 
repeating  energetically :  "Humbug!  hum- 
bug! humbug!" 

At  last  he  rose  up,  threw  away  his 
cigar,  and  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets 
said:  "Well,  I,  too,  am  going  to  relate 
to  you  two  stories,  and  then  I  will  ex- 
plain them  to  you.    Here  they  are: 

"In  the  little  village  of  Etretat,  the 
men,  who  are  all  seafaring  folk,  go  every 
year  to  Newfoundland  to  fish  for  cod. 
Now,  ono  night  the  little  son  of  one  of 
these  fishermen  woke  up  with  a  start, 
crying  out  that  his  father  was  dead.  The 
child  was  quieted,  and  again  he  woke  up 
exclaiming  that  his  father  was  drowned. 
A  month  later  the  news  came  that  his 
father  had,  in  fact,  been  swept  off  the 
deck  of  his  smack  by  a  billow.  The 
widow  then  remembered  how  her  son 
had  awaked  and  spoken  of  his  father's 
death.  Everyone  said  it  was  a  miracle, 
and  the  affair  caused  a  great  sensation. 
The  dates  were  compared,  and  it  was 
found  that  the  accident  and  the  dream 
had  very  nearly  coincided,  whence  they 
drew  the  conclusion  that  they  had  hap- 
pened on  the  same  night  and  at  the  same 
hour.  And  there  is  the  mystery  of 
magnetism." 

The  story-teller  stopped  suddenly. 

Thereupon,  one  of  those  who  had 
heard  him  much  affected  by  the  narra- 
tive, asked: 

"And  can  you  explain  this?" 

"Perfectly,  Monsieur.  I  have  dis- 
covered the  secret.  The  circumstance 
surprised  me  and  even  embarrassed  me 
very  much;  but  I,  you  see,  do  not  be- 
lieve on  principle.  Just  as  others  begin 
by  believing,  I  begin  by  doubting;  and 
when  I  don't  at  all  understand,  I  con- 


tinue to  deny  that  there  can  be  any  tele- 
graphic communication  between  souls, 
certain  that  my  own  sagacity  will  be 
enough  to  explain  it.  Well,  I  have  gone 
on  inquiring  into  the  matter,  and  I  have 
ended,  by  dint  of  questioning  all  the 
wives  of  the  absent  seamen,  in  convinc- 
ing myself  that  not  a  week  passes  with- 
out one  of  themselves  or  their  children 
dreaming  and  declaring  when  they  wake 
that  the  father  was  drown -^d.  The  hor- 
rible and  continual  fear  of  this  accident 
makes  them  always  talk  about  it.  Now, 
if  one  of  these  frequent  predictions  coin- 
cides, by  a  very  simple  chance,  with  the 
death  of  the  person  referred  to,  people 
at  once  declare  it  to  be  a  miracle;  for 
they  suddenly  lose  sight  of  all  the  other 
predictions  of  misfortune  that  have  re- 
mained unconfirmed.  I  have  myself 
known  fifty  cases  where  the  persons  who 
made  the  prediction  forgot  all  about  it 
in  a  week  afterward.  But  if,  in  fact,  the 
man  was  dead,  then  the  recollection  of 
the  thing  immediately  revived,  and  peo- 
ple will  be  ready  to  believe  in  the  in- 
tervention of  God,  according  to  some, 
and  in  magnetism,  according  to  others." 
One  of  the  smokers  remarked: 
"What  you  say  is  right  enough;  but 
what  about  your  second  story?" 

"Oh!  my  second  story  is  a  very  deli- 
cate matter  to  relate.  It  is  to  myself 
it  happened,  and  so  I  don't  place  any 
great  value  on  my  own  view  of  the  mat- 
ter. One  is  never  a  good  judge  in  a  case 
where  he  is  one  of  the  parties  concerned. 
At  any  rate,  here  it  is: 

"Among  my  acquaintances  in  society 
there  was  a  young  woman  on  whom  I 
had  never  bestowed  a  thought,  whom  I 
had  never  even  looked  at  attentively. 


HS 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


never  taken  any  notice  of,  as  the  say- 
ing is. 

'I  classed  her  among  the  women  of 
QO  importance,  though  she  was  not  quite 
bad-looking;  in  fact,  she  appeared  to 
me  to  possess  eyes,  a  nose,  a  mouth, 
some  sort  of  hair — just  a  colorless  type 
of  countenance.  She  was  one  of  those 
beings  on  whom  one  only  thinks  by  ac- 
cident, without  taking  any  particular  in- 
terest in  the  individual,  and  who  never 
excites  desire. 

"Well,  one  night,  as  I  was  writing 
some  letters  by  my  own  fireside  before 
going  to  bed,  I  was  conscious,  in  the 
midst  of  that  train  of  sensual  images 
that  sometimes  float  before  one's  brain 
in  moments  of  idle  reverie,  while  I  held 
the  pen  in  my  hand,  of  a  kind  of  light 
breath  passing  into  my  soul,  a  little 
shudder  of  the  heart  and  immediately, 
without  reason,  without  any  logical  con- 
nection of  thought,  I  saw  distinctly,  saw 
as  if  I  had  touched  her,  saw  from  head 
to  foot,  uncovered,  this  young  woman 
for  whom  I  had  never  cared  save  in  the 
most  superficial  manner  when  her  name 
happened  to  recur  to  my  mind.  And  all 
of  a  sudden  I  discovered  in  her  a  heap 
of  qualities  which  I  had  never  before 
observed,  a  sweet  charm,  a  fascination 
that  made  me  languish ;  she  awakened  ir. 
me  that  sort  of  amorous  uneasiness 
which  sends  you  in  pursuit  of  a  woman. 
But  I  did  not  remain  thinking  of  her 
long.  I  went  to  bed  and  was  soon 
asleep.    And  I  dreamed. 

"You    have    all    had    these    strange 

dreams  which  render  you  mas'.F.rs  of  the 

'  impossible,  which  open  to  you  doors  that 

cannot  be  passed   through,   unexpected 

^oys,  impenetrable  arms! 

'Which  of  us  in  these  agitated,  excit- 


ing palpitating  slumbers,  has  not  held, 
clasped,  embraced,  possessed  with  an  ex- 
traordinary aculeness  of  sensation,  the 
woman  with  whom  our  minds  were  oc- 
cupied? And  have  you  ever  noticed 
what  superhuman  delight  these  good  for- 
tunes of  dreams  bestow  upon  us?  Into 
what  mad  intoxication  they  cast  you! 
With  what  passionate  spasms  they  shake 
you!  With  wha*-  infinite,  caressing, 
penetrating  tenderness  they  fill  your 
heart  for  her  whom  you  hold  fainting 
and  hot  in  that  adorable  and  sensual  illu- 
sion which  seems  so  like  reality! 

"All  this  I  felt  with  unforgetable  vio- 
lence. This  woman  was  mine,  so  much 
mine  that  the  pleasant  warmth  of  her 
skin  remained  between  my  fingers,  the 
odor  of  her  skin  remained  in  my  brain, 
the  taste  of  her  kisses  remained  on  my 
lips,  the  sound  of  her  voice  lingered  in 
my  ears,  the  touch  of  her  clasp  still 
clung  to  my  iide,  and  the  burning  charm 
of  her  tenderness  still  gratified  my  senses 
long  after  my  exquisite  but  disappoint- 
ing awakening. 

*'And  three  times  the  same  night  1 
had  a  renewal  of  my  dream. 

"When  the  day  dawned,  she  beset  me, 
possessed  me,  haunted  my  brain  and  my 
flesh  to  such  an  extent  that  I  no  longer 
remained  one  second  without  thinking 
of  her. 

"At  last,  not  knowing  what  to  do,  1 
dressed  myself  and  v;ent  to  see  her.  As 
I  went  up  the  stairs  to  her  apartment,  I 
was  so  much  overcome  by  emotion  that 
I  trembled  and  my  heart  panted;  I  was 
seized  with  vehement  desire  from  head 
to  foot. 

"I  entered  the  apartment.  She  rose 
up  the  moment  she  heard  my  name  pro 


IN  VARIOUS  ROLES 


519 


nounced;  and  suddenly  our  eyes  met  in 
a  fixed  look  of  astonishment. 

"I  sa^  down. 

"I  uttered  in  a  faltering  tone  some 
common-places  which  she  seemed  not  to 
hear.  I  did  not  know  what  to  say  or  to 
do.  Then,  abruptly,  I  flung  myself  upon 
her,  seizing  her  with  both  arms ;  and  my 
entire  dream  was  accomplished  so 
quickly,  so  easily,  so  madly,  that  I  sud- 
denly began  to  doubt  whether  I  was 
really  awake.  She  was,  after  this,  my 
mistress  for  two  years." 

"What  conclusion  do  you  draw  from 
it?"  said  a  voice. 

The  story-teller  seemed  to  hesitate. 


"The  conclusion  I  draw  from  it — ^well, 
by  Jove,  the  conclusion  is  that  it  was 
just  a  coincidence!  And,  in  the  next 
place,  who  can  tell?  Perhaps  it  was 
some  glance  of  hers  which  I  had  not 
noticed  and  which  came  back  that 
night  to  me — one  of  those  mysterious 
and  unconscious  evocations  of  memory 
which  often  bring  before  us  things  ig- 
nored by  our  own  consciousness,  unper- 
ceived  by  our  minds!" 

"Let  that  be  just  as  you  wish  it,"  said 
one  of  his  table-companions,  when  the 
story  was  finished,  "but  if  you  don't  be- 
lieve in  magnetism  after  that,  you  are  an 
ungrateful  fellow,  my  dear  boy!" 


In  Various  Roles 


In  the  following  reminiscences  will 
frequently  be  mentioned  a  lady  who 
played  a  great  part  in  the  annals  of  the 
police  from  1848  to  1866.  Wf  will  call 
her  "Wanda  von  Chabert."  Born  in 
Galicia  of  German  parents,  and  care- 
fully brought  up  in  ever>'  way,  when 
f  only  sixteen  she  married,  from  love,  a 
I  rich  and  handsome  ofiicer  of  noble  birth. 
I  The  young  couple,  however,  lived  be- 
yond their  means,  and  when  the  hus- 
band died  suddenly,  two  years  after  they 
"were  married,  she  was  left  anything  but 
well  off. 

As  Wanda  had  grown  accustomed  to 
luxurj*  and  amusement,  a  quiet  life  in 
her  parents'  house  did  not  suit  her  any 
longer.  Even  while  she  was  still  in 
mourning  for  her  husband,  she  allowed  a 
Hungarian  magnate  to  make  love  to  her. 
She  went  off  with  him  at  a  venture, 


and  continued  the  same  ettravagant  Wh 
which  she  had  led  when  her  husband 
was  alive,  of  Ler  own  volition.  At  the 
end  of  two  years,  however,  her  lover 
left  her  in  a  town  in  North  Italy,  al- 
most without  means.  She  was  thinking 
of  going  on  the  stage,  when  chance  pro- 
vided hei  with  another  resource,  which 
enabled  her  to  reassert  her  position  in 
society.  She  became  a  seciet  police 
agent,  and  so'^n  was  one  of  their  most 
valuable  members.  In  addition  to  the 
proverbial  charm  and  wit  of  a  Polish 
woman,  she  also  possessed  high  linguis- 
tic attainments,  and  spoke  Polish,  Rus- 
sian, French,  German,  English,  and 
Italian,  with  almost  equal  fluency  and 
correctness.  Then  she  had  that  encyclo- 
pedic polish  which  impresses  people 
much  more  than  ♦ihe  most  profound 
learning  of  the  specialist.    She  was  very 


520 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


attractive  in  appearance,  and  she  knew 
how  to  set  off  her  good  looks  by  all  the 
arts  of  dress  and  coquetry. 

In  addition  to  this,  she  was  a  woman 
of  the  world  in  the  widest  sense  of  the 
term;  pleasure-loving,  faithless,  un- 
stable; and  therefore  never  in  any  dan- 
ger of  really  losing  her  heart,  and  con- 
sequently her  head.  She  used  to  change 
the  place  of  her  abode,  according  to 
what  she  had  to  do.  Sometimes  she 
lived  in  Paris  among  the  Polish  emi- 
grants, in  order  to  find  out  what  they 
were  doing,  and  maintained  intimate  re- 
lations with  the  Tuileries  and  the  Palais 
Royal  at  the  same  time;  sometimes  she 
went  to  London  for  a  short  time,  or 
hurried  off  to  Italy  to  watch  the  Hun- 
garian exiles,  only  to  reappear  suddenly 
in  Switzerland,  or  at  one  of  the  fashion- 
able  German  watering-places. 

In  revolutionary  circles,  she  was 
looked  upon  as  an  active  member  of  the 
great  League  of  Freedom,  and  diploma- 
tists regarded  her  as  an  influential  friend 
of  Napoleon  III. 

She  knew  everyone,  but  especially 
those  men  whose  names  were  to  be  met 
with  every  day  in  the  journals,  and  she 
counted  Victor  Emmanuel,  Rouher, 
Gladstone,  and  Gortschakoff  among  her 
friends  as  well  as  Mazzini,  Kossuth, 
Garibaldi,  Mieroslawsky,  and  Bakimin. 

In  the  spring  of  185 —  she  was  at 
Vevey  on  the  lovely  lake  of  Geneva,  and 
went  into  raptures  when  talking  to  an 
old  German  diplomatist  about  the  beau- 
ties of  nature,  and  about  Calame,  Stif- 
ter,  and  Turgenev,  whose  "Diary  of  a 
Hunter,"  had  just  become  fashionable. 
One  day  a  man  appeared  at  the  table 
d'hote,  who  exc'ted  unusual  attention, 
and  hers  especially^  so  that  there  was 


nothing  strange  in  her  asking  the  pro« 
prietor  of  the  hotel  what  his  name  was. 
She  was  told  that  he  was  a  wealthy  Bra- 
zilian, and  that  his  name  was  Don 
Escovedo. 

Whether  it  was  an  accident,  or 
whether  he  responded  to  the  interest 
which  the  young  woman  felt  for  him,  at 
any  rate  she  constantly  met  him  where- 
ever  she  went,  whether  taking  a  walk,  or 
on  the  lake  or  looking  at  the  newspapers 
in  the  reading-room.  At  last  she  was 
obliged  to  confess  to  herself  that  he  was 
the  handsomest  man  she  had  ever  seen. 
Tall,  slim,  and  yet  muscular,  the  young, 
beardless  Brazilian  had  a  head  which  any 
woman  might  envy,  features  not  only 
beautiful  and  noble,  but  also  extremely 
delicate,  dark  eyes  which  possessed  a 
wonderful  charm,  and  thick,  auburn, 
curly  hair,  which  completed  the  attrac- 
tiveness and  the  strangeness  of  his 
appearance. 

They  soon  became  acquainted, 
through  a  Prussian  officer  whom  th«= 
Brazilian  had  asked  for  an  introduction 
to  the  beautiful  Polish  lady — for  Frau 
von  Chabert  was  taken  for  one  in  Vevey. 
She,  cold  and  designing  as  shj  was, 
blushed  when  he  stood  before  her  for 
the  first  time;  and  when  he  gave  her 
his  arm,  he  could  feel  her  hand  tremble 
slightly  on  it.  The  same  evening  they 
went  out  riding  together,  tne  next  he 
was  lying  at  her  feet,  and  on  the  third 
she  was  his..  For  four  weeks  the  lovely 
Wanda  and  the  Brazilian  lived  together 
as  if  they  had  been  in  Paradise,  but  he 
could  not  deceive  her  searching  eyes 
any  longer. 

Her  sharp  and  practiced  eye  had  al- 
ready discovered  in  him  that  indefinable 
something  which  makes  a  man  appear  a 


IN  VARIOUS  ROLES 


521 


auspicious  character.  Any  other  woman 
would  have  been  pained  and  horrified  at 
such  a  discovery,  but  she  found  the 
strange  consolation  in  it  that  her  hand- 
some adorer  promised  also  to  become  a 
very  interesting  object  for  pursuit,  and 
so  she  began  systematically  to  watch  the 
man  who  lay  unsuspectingly  at  her  feet. 

She  soon  found  out  that  he  was  no 
conspirator;  but  she  asked  herself  in 
vain  whether  she  was  to  look  for  a  com- 
mon swindler,  an  impudent  adventurer, 
or  perhaps  even  a  criminal  in  him.  The 
day  that  she  had  foreseen  soon  came; 
the  Brazilian's  banker  "unaccountably'* 
had  omitted  to  send  him  any  money, 
and  so  he  borrowed  some  of  her.  "So 
he  is  a  male  courtesan,"  she  said  to  her- 
self. The  handsome  man  soon  required 
money  again,  and  she  lent  it  to  him 
again.  Then  at  last  he  left  suddenly 
and  nobody  knew  where  he  had  gone 
to;  only  this  much,  that  he  had  left 
Vevey  as  the  companion  of  an  old  but 
wealthy  Wallachian  lady.  So  this  time 
clever  Wanda  was  duped. 

A  year  afterward  she  met  the 
Brazilian  unexpectedly  at  Lucca,  with  an 
insipid-looking,  light-haired,  thin  Eng- 
lishwoman on  his  arm.  Wanda  stood 
still  and  looked  at  him  steadily;  but  he 
glanced  at  her  quite  indifferently;  he  did 
not  choose  to  know  her  again. 

The  next  morning,  however,  his  valet 
brought  her  a  letter  from  him,  which 
contained  the  amount  of  his  debt  in 
Italian  hundred-lire  notes,  accompanied 
by  a  very  cool  excuse.  Wanda  was 
satisfied,  but  she  wished  to  find  out  who 
the  lady  was,  in  whose  company  she 
:onstantly  saw  Don  Escovedo. 

"Don  Escovedo.*' 


An  Austrian  count,  who  bad  a  loud 
and  silly  laugh,  said; 

"Who  has  saddled  you  with  that 
yarn?  The  lady  is  Lady  Nitingsdale, 
and  his  name  is  Romanesco." 

"Romanesco?" 

"Yes,  he  is  a  rich  Boyar  from  Mol- 
davia, where  he  has  extensive  estates." 

Romanesco  ran  a  faro  bank  in  his 
apartments,  and  certainly  cheated,  for 
he  nearly  always  won;  it  was  not  long, 
therefore,  before  other  people  in  good 
society  at  Lucca  shared  Madame  von 
Chabert's  suspicions,  and,  consequently, 
Romanesco  thought  it  advisable  to  van- 
ish as  suddenly  from  Lucca  as  Escovedo 
had  done  from  Vevey,  and  without  leav- 
ing any  more  traces  behind  him. 

Some  time  afterward,  Madame  von 
Chabert  was  on  the  island  of  Heligoland, 
for  the  sea-bathing;  and  one  day  she 
saw  Escovedo-Romanesco  sitting  oppo- 
site to  her  at  the  table  d'hote,  in  very 
animated  conversation  with  a  Russian 
lady;  only  his  hair  had  turned  black 
since  she  had  seen  him  last.  Evidently 
his  light  hair  had  become  too  compro- 
mising for  him. 

"The  sea-water  seems  to  have  a  very 
remarkable  effect  upon  your  hair,'* 
Wanda  said  to  him  spitefully  in  a  whis- 
per. 

"Do  you  think  so?"  he  replied,  con- 
descendingly. 

"I  fancy  that  at  one  time  j'our  hair 
was  fair." 

"You  are  mistaking  me  for  some- 
body else,"  the  Brazilian  replied, 
quietly. 

"I  am  not." 

"For  whom  do  you  take  me,  pray?" 
he  said  with  an  insolent  smile. 
"For  Don  Escovedo.** 


522 


WORKS  Of  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"I  am  Count  Dembizki  from  Valky- 
ofa,"  the  former  Brazilian  said  with  a 
bow;   "perhaps  you  would  like  to  see 

my  passport. " 

"Well,  perhaps—" 

And  he  had  the  impudence  to  show 
her  his  false  passport. 

A  year  afterward  Wanda  met  Count 
Dembizki  in  Baden,  near  Vienna.  His 
hair  was  still  black,  but  he  had  a  mag- 
nificent, full,  black  beard;  he  had  be- 
come a  Greek  prince,  and  his  name  was 
Anastasio  Maurokordatos.  She  met  him 
once  in  one  of  the  side  walks  in  the 
park,  where  he  could  not  avoid  her.  *'If 
it  goes  on  like  this,"  she  called  out  to 
him  in  a  mocking  voice,  "the  next  time 
I  see  you,  you  will  be  king  of  some 
negro  tribe  or  other." 

That  time,  however,  the  Brazilian  did 
not  deny  his  identity;  on  the  contrary, 
he  surrendered  at  discretion,  and  im- 
plored her  not  to  betray  him.  As  she 
was  not  revengeful  she  pardoned  him, 
after  enjoying  his  terror  for  a  time,  and 
promised  him  that  she  would  hold  her 
tongue,  as  long  as  he  did  nothing  con- 
trary to  the  laws. 

"First  of  all,  I  must  beg  you  not  to 
gamble." 

"You  have  only  to  command;  and  we 
do  not  know  each  other  in  the  future." 

"I  must  certainly  insist  on  that,"  she 
said  maliciously. 

The  "Exotic  Prince"  had,  however, 
made  a  conquest  of  the  charming  daugti- 
ter  of  a  wealthy  Austrian  count,  and 
had  cut  out  ^n  excellent  young  officer, 
who  was  wooing  her.  The  latter,  in  his 
despair,  began  to  make  love  to  Frau  von 
Chabert,  and  at  last  told  her  he  loved 
her.    But  she  only  laughed  at  him. 


"You  are  very  cruel,"  he  stammered 
in  confusion. 

"I?  What  are  you  thinking  about?" 
Wanda  replied,  still  smiling;  "all  I 
mean  is  that  you  have  directed  your 
love  to  the  wrong  address,  for  Count- 
ess—" 

"Do  not  speak  of  her;  she  is  engaged 
to  another  man." 

"As  long  as  I  choose  to  permit  it," 
she  said;  "but  what  will  you  do  if  I 
bring  her  back  to  your  arms?  Will  you 
still  call  me  cruel?" 

"Can  you  do  this?"  the  young  officer 
asked,  in  great  excitement. 

"Well  supposing  I  can  do  it,  what 
shall  I  be  then?" 

"An  angel,  whom  I  shall  thank  on  my 
knees." 

A  few  days  later,  the  rivals  met  at  a 
coffee-house;  the  Greek  prince  began  to 
lie  and  boast,  and  the  Austrian  officer 
gave  him  the  lie  direct.  In  consequence, 
it  was  arranged  that  they  should  fight  a 
duel  with  pistols  next  morning  in  a 
wood  close  to  Baden.  But  as  the  officer 
was  leaving  the  house  with  his  seconds 
the  next  morning,  a  Police  Commissary 
came  up  to  him  and  begged  him  not  to 
trouble  himself  any  further  about  the 
matter,  but  another  time  to  be  more 
careful  before  accepting  a  challenge. 

"What  does  it  mean?"  the  officer 
asked,  in  some  surprise. 

"It  means  that  this  Maurokordatos 
is  a  dangerous  swindler  and  adventurer, 
whoir*  we  have  just  taken  into  custody." 

"He  is  not  a  prince?" 

"No;  a  circus  rider." 

An  hour  later,  the  officer  received  a 
letter  from  the  charming  Countess,  in 
which  she  humbly  begged  for  pardon* 


I 


THE  FALSE  GEMS 


-,:  > 


The  happy  lover  set  off  to  go  and  see 
her  immediately,  but  on  the  v;ay  a  sud- 
den   thought  struck    him,  and    so  he 


turned  back  in  order  to  thank  beautiful 
Wanda,  as  he  had  promised,  on  his 
knees. 


The  False  Gems' 


M.  Lantin  had  met  the  young  wo- 
man at  a  soiree,  at  the  home  of  the 
assistant  chief  of  his  bureau,  and  at  first 
sight  had  fallen  madly  in  love  with  her. 

She  was  the  daughter  of  a  country 
physician  who  had  died  some  months 
previously.  She  had  come  to  live  in 
Paris,  with  her  mother,  who  visited 
much  among  her  acquaintances,  in  the 
hope  of  making  a  favorable  marriage 
for  her  daughter.  They  were  poor  and 
honest,  quiet  and  unaffected. 

The  young  girl  was  a  perfect  type  of 
the  virtuous  woman  whom  every  sen- 
sible young  man  dreams  of  one  day 
winning  for  life.  Her  simple  beauty  had 
the  charm  of  angelic  modesty,  and  the 
imperceptible  smile  which  constantly 
hovered  about  her  lips  seemed  to  be 
the  reflection  of  a  pure  and  lovely  soul. 
Her  praises  resounded  on  every  side. 
People  were  never  tired  of  saying: 
"Happy  the  man  who  wins  her  love !  He 
could  not  find  a  better  wife." 

Now  M.  Lantin  enjoyed  a  snug  little 
income  of  $700,  and,  thinking  he  could 
safely  assume  the  responsibilities  of 
matrimony,  proposed  to  this  model 
young  girl  and  was  accepted. 

He  was  unspeakably  happy  with  her; 
she  governed  h's  household  so  cleverly 
and  economically  that  they  seemed  to 
live  in  luxury.  She  lavished  the  most 
delicate    attentions    on    her    husband, 


coaxed  and  fondled  him,  and  the  charm 
of  her  presence  was  so  great  that  six 
years  after  their  marriage  M.  Lantin 
discovered  that  he  loved  his  wife  even 
more  than  during  the  first  days  of  their 
honeymoon. 

He  only  felt  inclined  to  blame  her  for 
two  things:  her  love  of  the  theater,  and 
a  taste  for  false  .'ewelry.  Her  friends 
(she  was  acquainted  with  som:  officers* 
wives)  frequently  procured  for  her  a 
box  at  the  tneater,  often  for  the  first 
representations  of  the  new  plays;  and 
her  husband  was  obliged  to  accompany 
her,  whether  he  willed  or  not,  to  these 
amusements,  though  they  bored  him  ex- 
cessively after  a  day's  labor  at  the  office. 

After  a  time,  M.  Lantin  begged  his 
wife  to  get  some  lady  of  her  acquain- 
tanre  to  accompany  her.  She  was  at 
first  opposed  to  such  an  arrangement; 
but,  after  much  persuasion  on  his  part, 
she  finally  consented — to  the  infinite  de- 
light of  her  husband. 

Now,  with  her  love  for  the  theater 
came  also  the  desire  to  adorn  her  per- 
son. True,  her  costumes  remained  as 
before,  simple,  and  in  the  most  correct 
taste;  but  she  soon  began  to  ornament 
her  ears  with  huge  rhinestones  which 
glittered  and  sparkled  like  real 
diamonds.  Around  her  neck  she  wore 
strings  of  false  pearls,  and  on  her  9nn* 
bracelets  of  imitation  gold. 


S24 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Her  husband  frequently  remonstrated 
with  her,  saying: 

**My  dear,  as  you  cannnot  afford  to 
buy  real  diamonds,  you  ought  to  appear 
adorned  with  your  beauty  and  modesty 
alone,  which  are  the  rarest  ornaments 
of  your  sex." 

But  she  would  smile  sweetly,  and  say: 

"What  can  I  do?  I  am  so  fond  of 
jewelry.  It  is  my  only  weakness.  We 
cannnot  change  our  natures." 

Then  she  would  roll  the  pearl  neck- 
laces around  her  fingers,  and  hold  up 
the  bright  gems  for  her  husband's  ad- 
miration, gently  coaxing  him: 

"Look!  are  they  not  lovely?  One 
would  swear  they  were  real." 

M.  Lantin  v/ould  then  answer,,  smil- 
ingly: 

"You  have  Bohemian  tastes,  my 
dear." 

Often  of  an  evening,  when  they  were 
enjoying  a  tete-a-te.e  by  the  fireside,  she 
would  place  on  the  tea  table  the 
leather  box  containing  the  "trash,"  as 
M.  Lantin  called  it.  She  would  examine 
the  false  gems  with  a  passionate  atten- 
tion as  though  they  were  in  some  way 
connected  with  a  deep  and  secret  joy; 
and  she  often  insisted  on  passing  a  neck- 
lace around  her  husband's  neck,  and 
laughing  heartily  would  exclaim:  "How 
droll  you  look!"  Then  she  would  throw 
berself  into  his  arms  and  kiss  him  affec- 
tionately. 

One  evening  in  winter  she  attended 
the  opera,  and  on  her  return  was  chilled 
through  and  through.  The  next  morn- 
ing she  coughed,  and  eight  d3ys  later 
she  died  of  inflam.mation  of  the  lungs. 

M.  Lantin 's  despair  was  so  great  that 
his  hair  became  white  in  one  mo^th.  He 
^ept   unceasingly;   his  heart  was  torn 


with  grief,  and  his  mind  was  haunted  h} 
the  remembrance,  the  smile,  the  voice — 
by  every  charm  of  his  beautiful,  dead 
wife. 

Time,  the  healer,  did  not  assuage  his 
grief.  Often  during  office  hours,  while 
his  colleagues  were  discussing  the  topics 
of  the  day,  his  eyes  would  suddenly  fill 
with  tears,  and  he  would  give  vent  to 
his  grief  in  heartrending  sobs.  Every- 
thing in  his  wife's  room  remained  as 
before  her  decease;  and  here  he  was 
wont  to  seclude  himself  daily  and  think 
of  her  who  had  been  his  treasure — ^the 
joy  of  his  existence. 

But  life  soon  became  a  struggle.  His 
income,  which  in  the  hands  of  his  wife 
had  covered  all  household  expenses,  was 
now  no  longer  sufficient  for  his  own 
immediate  wants;  and  he  wondered  how 
she  could  have  managed  to  buy  such  ex- 
cellent wines,  and  such  rare  delicacies, 
things  which  hs  could  no  longer  pro- 
cure with  his  modest  resources. 

He  incurred  some  debts  and  was  soon 
reduced  to  absolute  poverty.  One  morn- 
ing, finding  himself  without  a  cent  in  his 
pocket,  he  resolved  to  sell  something, 
and,  immediately,  the  thought  occurred 
to  him  of  disposing  of  his  wife's  paste 
jewels.  He  cherished  in  his  heart  a  sort 
of  rancor  against  the  false  gems.  They 
had  always  irritated  him  in  the  past, 
and  the  very  sight  of  them  spoiled 
somewhat  the  memory  of  his  lost  dar- 
ling. 

To  the  last  days  of  her  life,  she  had 
continued  to  make  purchases;  bringing 
home  new  gems  almost  every  evening. 
He  decided  to  sell  the  heavy  necklao*^ 
which  she  seemed  t<^  prefer,  and  which, 
he  thought,  ought  to  b'=;  ^'orth  about  six 
or  seven  francs;   for  although  paste  it 


THE  FALbii  GEMS 


525 


was  nevertheless,  of  very  fine  workman- 
ship. 

He  put  it  in  his  pocket  and  started 
out  in  search  of  a  jeweler's  shop.  He 
entered  the  first  one  he  saw;  feeling  a 
little  ashamed  to  expose  his  misery,  and 
also  to  offer  such  a  worthless  article 
for  sale. 

'"Sir,"  said  he  to  the  merchant,  "I 
would  like  to  know  wha.t  this  is  worth." 

The  man  took  his  necklace,  examined 
it,  called  his  clerk  and  made  some  re- 
marks in  an  undertone;  then  he  put  the 
ornament  back  on  the  counter,  and 
boked  at  it  from  a  distance  to  judge  of 
the  effect. 

M.  Lantin  was  annoyed  by  all  this 
detail  and  was  on  the  point  of  saying: 
'Oh !  I  know  well  enough  it  is  not  worth 
anything,"  when  the  jeweler  said:  "Sir, 
that  necklace  is  worth  from  twelve  to 
fifteen  thousand  francs;  but  I  could  not 
buy  it  unless  you  tell  me  iiow  whence 
I  it  comes." 

The  widower  opened  his  eyes  wide 
and  remained  gaping,  not  comprehend- 
ing the  merchant's  meaning.  Finally  he 
stammered:  "You  say — are  you  sure?" 
The  other  replied  dryly:  "You  can 
search  elsewhere  and  see  if  anyone  will 
offer  you  more.  I  consider  it  worth 
fifteen  thousand  at  the  most.  Come 
ij^  back  here  if  you  cannot  do  better." 
[I  M.  Lantin,  beside  himself  with  aston- 
ishment, took  up  the  necklace  and  left 
the  store.  He  wished  time  for  reflec- 
tion. 

Once  outside,  he  felt  inclined  to  laugh, 
and  said  to  himself:  "The  fool!  Had  I 
only  taken  him  at  his  word!  That 
jeweler  cannot  distinguish  real  diamonds 
from  paste." 

A    few    minutes    after,    he    entered 


another  store  in  the  Rue  de  la  Paix.  As 
soon  as  the  proprietor  ghnced  at  the 
necklace,  he  cried  out: 

"Ah,  parbleu!  I  know  it  well;  it 
was  bought  here." 

M.  Lantin  was  disturbed,  and  asked : 

"How  much  is  it  worth?" 

"Well-,  I  sold  it  for  twenty  thousand 
francs.  I  am  willing  to  take  it  back 
for  eighteen  thousand  when  you  inform 
me,  according  to  our  legal  formality 
how  it  comes  to  be  in  your  possession." 

This  time  M.  Lantin  was  dum- 
founded.     He  replied: 

"But— but— examine  it  well.  Until 
this  moment  I  was  under  the  impression 
that  it  was  paste." 

Said  the  jeweler: 

"What  is  your  name,  sir?" 

"Lantin — I  am  in  the  employ  of  the 
Minister  of  the  Interior.  I  live  at  No. 
16  Rue  des  Martyrs." 

The  merchant  looked  through  his 
books,  found  the  entry,  and  said:  "That 
necklace  was  sent  to  Mme.  Lantin's  ad- 
dress, 16  Rue  des  Martyrs,  July  20, 
1876." 

The  two  men  Jooked  into  each  other's 
eyes — the  widower  speechless  with 
astonishment,  the  jeweler  scenting  a 
thief.  The  latter  broke  the  silence  by 
saying : 

"Will  you  leave  this  necklace  here  for 
twenty-four  hours?  I  will  give  you  a 
receipt." 

"Certainly,"  answered  M.  Lantin, 
hastily.  Then,  putting  the  ticket  in  his 
pocket,  he  left  the  store. 

He  wandered  aimlessly  through  the 
streets,  his  mind  in  a  state  of  dreadful 
confusion.  He  tried  to  reason,  to  un- 
derstand. He  could  not  afford  to  pur- 
chase such  a  costly  ornament.    Certainli 


526 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


not.  But,  then,  it  must  have  been  a 
present! — a  present! — a  present  from 
whom?    Why  was  it  given  her? 

He  stopped  and  remained  standing  in 
the  middle  of  the  street.  A  horrible 
doubt  entered  his  mind — she?  Then  all 
the  other  gems  must  have  been  presents, 
too!  The  earth  seemed  to  tremble  be- 
neath him, — the  tree  before  him  was 
falling — throwing  up  bis  arms,  he  fell  to 
the  ground,  unconscious.  He  recovered 
his  senses  in  a  pharmacy  into  which  the 
passers-by  had  taken  him,  and  was  then 
taken  to  his  home.  When  he  arrived  he 
shut  himself  up  in  his  room  and  wept 
until  nightfall.  Finally,  overcome  with 
fatigue,  he  threw  himself  on  the  bed, 
where  he  passed  an  uneasy,  restless 
night. 

The  following  morning  he  arose  and 
prepared  to  go  to  the  office.  It  was  hard 
to  work  after  such  a  shock.  He  sent  a 
letter  to  his  employer  requesting  to  be 
excused.  Then  he  remembered  that  he 
had  to  return  to  the  jeweler's.  He  did 
not  like  the  idea;  but  he  could  not 
leave  the  necklace  with  that  man.  So 
iie  dressed  and  went  out. 

It  was  a  lovely  day;  a  clear  blue 
sky  smiled  on  the  busy  city  below,  and 
men  of  leisure  were  strolling  about  with 
iheir  hands  in  their  pockets. 

Observing  th^m,  M.  Lantin  said  to 
himself:  "The  rich,  indeed,  are  happy. 
With  money  it  is  possible  to  forget  even 
the  deepest  sorrow.  One  can  go  where 
one  pleases,  and  in  travel  find  that  dis- 
traction which  is  the  surest  cure  for 
grief.    Oh!  if  I  were  only  rich!" 

He  began  to  feel  hungry,  but  his 
pocket  Wds  empty.  He  again  remem- 
bered the  necklace.    Eighteen  thousand 


francs!       Eighteen     thousand    francs » 
What  a  sum ! 

He  soon  arrived  in  the  Rue  de  la 
Paix,  opposite  the  jeweler's.  Eighteen 
thousand  francs!  Twenty  times  he  re- 
solved to  go  in,  but  shame  kept  hiro 
back.  He  was  hungry,  however, — very 
hungry,  and  had  not  a  cent  in  his  poc- 
ket. He  decided  quickly,  ran  across  the 
street  in  order  not  to  have  time  for 
reflection,  and  entered  the  store. 

The  proprietor  immediately  came  for- 
ward, and  politely  offered  him  a  chair; 
the  clerks  glanced  at  him  knowingly. 

"I  have  made  inquiries,  M.  Lantin," 
said  the  jeweler,  "and  if  you  are  still  re- 
solved to  dispose  of  the  gems,  I  am 
ready  to  pay  you  the  price  I  offered." 

"Certainly,  sir,"  stammered  M.  Lan- 
tin. 

Whereupon  the  proprietor  took  from 
a  drawer  eighteen  large  bills,  counted 
and  handed  them  to  M.  Lantin,  who 
signed  a  receipt  and  with  a  trembling 
hand  put  the  maney  into  his  pocket. 

As  he  was  about  to  leave  the  store, 
he  turned  toward  the  merchant,  who 
still  wore  the  same  knowing  smile,  and 
lowering  his  eyes,  said: 

"I  have — I  have  other  gems  which  I 
have  received  from  the  same  source. 
Will  you  buy  them  also?" 

The  merchant  bowed:  "Certainly, 
sir." 

M.  Lantin  said  gravely:  "I  will  bring 
them  to  you."  An  hour  later  he  re- 
turned with  the  gems. 

The  large  diamond  earrings  were 
worth  twenty  thousa.id  francs;  the 
bracelets  thirty-five  thousand;  the  rings, 
sixteen  thousand;  a  set  of  emeralds  and 
sapphires,  fourteen  thousand;  a  gold 
chain     with     solitaire    pendant,     fortv 


UUUMl'Ebb  bAlAW 


'27 


thousand—making  the  sum  of  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-three  thousand  francs. 

The  ieweler  remarked,  jokingly: 

"There  was  a  person  who  invested  all 
her  earnings  in  precious  stones." 

M.  Lantin  replied,  seriously: 

"It  is  only  another  way  of  investing 
one's  money." 

That  day  he  lunched  at  Voisin's  and 
drank  wine  worth  twenty  francs  a 
bottle.  Then  he  hired  a  carriage  and 
made  a  tour  of  the  Bois,  and  as  he 
scanned  the  various  turn-outs  with  a 
contemptuous  air  he  could  hardly  re- 
frain from  crying  out  to  the  occupants: 

"I,  too,  am  rich! — I  am  worth  two 
hundred  thousand   francs."' 

Suddenly  he  thought  of  his  employer. 
He  drove  up  to  the  office,  and  entered 
gaily,  saying; 


"Sir,  I  have  come  to  resign  my  posi« 
tion.  I  have  just  inherited  three  hun- 
dred thousand   francs." 

He  shook  hands  with  his  former  col- 
leagues and  confided  to  them  some  of 
his  projects  for  the  future ;  then  he  went 
off  to  dine  at  the  Cafe  Anglais. 

He  seated  himself  beside  a  gentleman 
of  aristocratic  bearing,  and  during  the 
meal  informed  the  latter  confidentially 
that  he  had  just  inherited  a  fortune  of 
four  hundred  thousand  francs. 

For  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  was 
not  bored  at  the  theater,  and  spent  the 
remainder  of  the  night  in  a  gay  frolic. 

Six  months  afterward  he  married 
again.  His  second  wife  was  a  very 
virtuous  woman,  with  a  violent  tempei. 
She  caused  him  much  sorrow. 


Countess  Satan 


I. 

They  were  discussing  dynamite,  the 
social  revolution,  Nihilism,  and  even 
those  who  cared  least  about  politics  had 
something  to  say.  Some  were  alarmed, 
others  philosophized,  and  others  again 
tried  to  smile. 

"Bah!"  N said,  "when  we  are  all 

blown  up,  we  shall  see  what  it  is  like. 
Perhaps,  after  all,  it  may  be  an  amusing 
sensation,  provided  one  goes  high 
enough." 

"But  we  shall  not  be  blown  up  at  all," 

v3 ,  the  optimist,  said,  interrupting 

him.  "It  is  all  a  romance." 

"You  are  mistaken,  my  dear  fellow," 
Jules  de  C replied.     "It  is  like  ? 


romance,  but  with  this  confounded  Ni- 
hilism, everything  is  the  same;  it  would 
be  a  mistake  to  trust  to  it.  For  instance 
the  manner  in  which  I  made  Bakour- 
ine's  acquaintance — " 

They  knew  that  he  was  a  good  narra- 
tor, and  it  was  no  secret  that  his  life  had 
been  an  adventurous  one,  so  they  drew 
closer  to  him,  and  listened  intently. 
This  is  what  he  told  them : 

II. 

"I  met  Countess  Nisoka  W ,  that 

strange  woman  who  was  usually  callec. 
Countess  Satan,  in  Naples.  I  imme- 
diately attached  myself  to  her  out  of 
curiosity,  and  soon  fell  in  love  with  her . 


528 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Not  that  she  was  beautiful,  for  she  was 
a  Russian  with  the  bad  characteristics 
of  the  Russian  type.  She  was  thin  and 
squat  at  the  same  time,  while  her  face 
was  sallow  and  puffy,  with  high  cheek- 
bones and  a  Cossack's  nose.  But  her 
conversation  bewitched  everyone. 

"She  was  many-sided,  learned,  a  phi- 
losopher, scientifically  depraved,  satanic. 
Perhaps  the  word  is  rather  pretentious, 
but  it  exactly  expresses  what  I  want  to 
£ay,  for  in  other  words  she  loved  evil 
for  the  sake  of  evil.  She  rejoiced  in 
other  people's  vices;  she  liked  to  sow 
Jhe  seed  of  evil,  in  order  to  see  it 
flourish.  And  that,  too,  by  fraud  on  an 
enormous  scale.  It  was  not  enough  for 
her  to  corrupt  individuals,  she  only  did 
that  to  keep  her  hand  in;  what  she 
wished  to  do  was  to  corrupt  the  masses. 
By  slightly  altering  it  after  her  own 
fashion,  she  might  have  used  Caligula's 
famous  wish.  She  also  might  have 
wished  that  the  whole  human  race  had 
but  one  head;  not  in  order  that  she 
might  cut  it  off,  but  that  she  might 
make  the  philosophy  of  Nihilism  flourish 
fhere. 

"What  a  temptation  to  become  the 
Jord  and  master  of  such  a  monster!  I 
Hllowed  myself  to  be  tempted,  and  un- 
dertook the  adventure.  The  means 
came  unsought  for  by  me,  and  the  only 
thing  that  I  had  to  do  was  to  show  my- 
self more  perverted  and  satanic  than  she 
was  herself.    And  so  I  played  the  devil. 

"  'Yes,'  I  said,  'we  writers  are  the  best 
workmen  for  doing  evil,  as  our  books 
may  be  bottles  of  poison.  The  so-called 
men  of  action  only  turn  the  handle  of 
the  miltrailletise  which  we  have  loaded. 
Formulas  will  destroy  the  world,  and  it 
is  we  who  invent  them.* 


"  That  is  true,'  said  she,  *and  that  l:^ 
what  is  wanting  in  Bakounine,  I  am 
sorry  to  say.' 

"That  name  was  constantly  in  hei 
mouth.  So  I  asked  her  for  details, 
which  she  gave  me,  as  she  knew  the  man 
intimately. 

"  'After  all,'  she  said,  with  a  con- 
temptuous grimace,  'he  is  only  a  kind 
of  Garibaldi.' 

"She  told  me,  although  she  made  fun 
of  him  as  she  did  so,  about  that 
'Odyssey'  of  the  barricades  and  of  the 
hulks  which  made  up  Bakounine's  his- 
tory, and  which  is,  nevertheless,  the  ex- 
act truth;  about  his  adventures  as  chief 
of  the  insurgents  at  Prague  and  then 
at  Dresden;  of  his  first  death  sentence; 
about  his  imprisonment  at  Olmiitz,  in 
the  casemates  of  the  fortress  of  St. 
Peter  and  St.  Paul,  and  in  a  subterra- 
nean dungeon  at  Schiisselburg ;  about 
his  exile  to  Siberia  and  his  wonderful 
escape  down  the  river  harbour,  on  a 
Japanese  coasting-vessel,  and  about  his 
final  arrival,  by  way  of  Yokohama  and 
San  Francisco,  in  London,  whence  he 
was  directing  all  the  operations  of 
Nihilism. 

"  'You  see,'  she  said,  'he  is  a  thorough 
adventurer,  and  now  all  his  adventures 
are  over.  He  got  married  at  Tobolsk 
and  became  a  mere  respectable,  middle- 
class  man.  And  then  he  has  no  indi- 
vidual ideas.  Herzen,  the  pamphleteei 
of  "Kolokol,"  inspired  him  with  the 
only  fertile  phrase  that  he  ever  uttered: 
"Land  and  Liberty!"  But  that  is  not 
yet  the  definite  formula,  the  general 
formula — what  I  may  call  the  dynamite 
formula.  At  best,  Bakounine  would 
only  become  an  incendiary,  and  burn 
down  cities.     And  what  is  that,  I  ask 


COUNTESS  SATAN 


529 


you?  Bah!  A  second-hand  Rostopt- 
chin!  He  wants  a  prompter,  and  I 
offered  to  become  his,  but  he  did  not 
take  me  seriously.' 

^  ^  3x*  *I»  *|C  *|C  9|C 

"It  would  be  useless  to  enter  into  all 
the  psychological  details  which  marked 
the  course  of  my  passion  for  the 
Countess,  and  to  explain  to  you  more 
fully  the  curious  and  daily  growing 
attraction  which  she  had  for  me.  It 
was  getting  exasperating,  and  the  more 
so  as  she  resisted  me  as  stoutly  as  the 
shyest  of  innocents  could  have  done.  At 
the  end  of  a  month  of  mad  Satanism, 
I  saw  what  her  game  was.  Do  you 
know  what  she  intended?  She  meant 
to  make  me  Bakounine's  prompter,  or, 
at  any  rate,  that  is  what  she  said.  But 
no  doubt  she  reserved  the  right  to  her- 
self— at  least  that  is  how  I  understood 
ber — to  prompt  the  prompter,  and  my 
passion  for  her,  which  she  purposely  left 
unsatisfied,  assured  her  that  absolute 
power  over  me. 

"All  this  may  appear  madness  to  you, 
but  it  is,  nevertheless,  the  eract  truth. 
In  short,  one  morning  she  bluiitly  made 
the  offer: 

"  'Become  Bakounine's  soul,  and  you 
.  shall  possess  me.* 

"Of  course  I  accepted,  for  it  was  too 
fantastically  strange  to  refuse.  Don't 
you  think  so?  What  an  adventure! 
What  luck!  A  number  of  letters  be- 
tween the  Countess  and  Bakounine  pre- 
pared the  way;  I  was  introduced  to 
him  at  his  house,  and  they  discussed 
me  there.  1  became  a  sort  of  Western 
prophet,  a  mystic  charmer  who  was 
ready  to  nihilize  the  Latin  races,  the 
Saint  Paul  of  the  new  religion  of  noth- 
ingness, and  at  last  a  day  was  fixed  for 


us  to  meet  in  London.  He  lived  in  a 
small,  one-storied  house  in  PimUco,  with 
a  tiny  garden  in  front,  and  nothing 
noticeable  about  it. 

"We  were  first  of  all  shown  into  the 
commonplace  parlor  of  all  English 
homes,  and  then  upstairs.  The  room 
where  the  Countess  and  I  were  left  was 
small,  and  very  badly  furnished.  It  had 
a  square  ^able  with  writing  materials  on 
it,  in  the  center  of  the  room.  This  was 
his  sanctuary.  The  deity  soon  appeared, 
and  I  saw  him  in  flesh  and  bone — espe- 
cially in  fle.sh,  for  he  was  enormously 
stout.  His  broad  face,  with  prominent 
cheek-bones,  in  spite  of  fat;  a  nose  like 
a  double  funnel;  and  small,  sharp  eyes, 
which  had  a  magnetic  look,  proclaimed 
the  Tartar,  the  old  Turanian  blood 
which  produced  the  Attilas,  the  Gen- 
ghis-Khans, the  Tamerlanes.  The 
obesity  which  is  characteristic  of  nomad 
races,  who  are  always  on  horseback  or 
driving,  added  to  his  Asiatic  look.  The 
man  was  certainly  not  a  European,  a 
slave,  a  descendant  of  the  diestic  Aryans, 
but  a  scion  of  the  atheistic  hordes  who 
had  several  times  already  overrun 
Europe,  and  who,  instead  of  ideas  of 
progress,  have  Nihilism  buried  in  their 
hearts. 

"I  was  astonished,  for  I  had  not  ex- 
pected that  the  majesty  of  a  whole  race 
could  be  thus  revived  in  a  man,  and  my 
stupefaction  increased  after  an  hour's 
conversation.  I  could  quite  understand 
why  such  a  Colossus  had  not  wished  for 
the  Countess  as  his  Egeria ;  she  was  a  silly 
child  to  have  dreamed  of  acting  such  a 
part  to  such  a  thinker.  She  had  not 
felt  the  profoundness  of  that  horrible 
philosophy  which  was  hidden  under  his 
material  activity,  nor  had  she  seen  the 


530 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


prophet  under  this  hero  of  the  barri- 
cades. Perhaps  he  had  not  thought  it 
advisable  to  reveal  himself  to  her;  but 
he  revealed  himself  to  me,  and  inspired 
me  with  terror. 

"A  prophet?  Oh!  yes.  He  thought 
himself  an  Attila,  and  foresaw  the  con- 
sequences of  his  revolution;  it  was  not 
only  from  instinct  but  also  from  theory 
that  he  urged  a  nation  on  to  Nihilism. 
The  phrase  is  not  his,  but  Turgenieff's, 
I  believe,  but  the  idea  certainly  be- 
longed to  him.  He  got  h*s  programme 
of  agricultural  communism  from  Her- 
zen,  and  his  destructive  rad'calism  from 
Pougatcheff,  but  he  did  not  stop  there. 
I  mean  that  he  went  on  to  evil  for  the 
sake  of  evil.  Herzen  wished  for  the 
happiness  of  the  Slav  peasant;  Pougat- 
cheff wanted  to  be  ebcted  Emperor,  but 
all  that  Bakounine  wanted  was  to  over- 
throw the  actual  order  of  things,  no 
matter  by  what  means,  and  to  replace 
social  concentration  by  a  universal  up- 
heaval. 

*lt  vfz.s  the  dream  of  a  Tartar;  it  was 
true  Nihilism  pushed  to  extreme  and 
practical  conclusions.  It  was,  in  a 
word,  the  applied  philosophy  of  chance, 
the  indeterminate  end  of  anarchy. 
Monstrous  it  may  be,  but  grand  in  its 
monstrosity ! 

"And  you  must  note  that  the  typical 
man  of  action  so  despised  by  the 
Countess  was,  in  Bakounine,  the  gigan- 
tic dreamer  whom  I  have  just  shown  to 
you.  His  dream  did  not  remain  a 
dream,  but  began  to  be  realized.  It  was 
by  the  care  of  Bakounine  that  the  Nihil- 
istic party  became  an  entity ;  a  party 


in  which  there  is  a  little  of  everything, 
you  know,  but  on  the  whole,  a  for- 
midable party,  the  advanced  guard  of 
which  is  true  Nihilism,  wl.ose  object  is 
nothing  less  than  to  destroy  the  Western 
world,  to  see  it  blossom  from  under  the 
ruins  of  a  general  dispersion,  the  last 
conception  of  modern  Tartarism. 

"I  never  saw  Bakounine  again,  for 
the  Countess's  conquest  would  have 
been  too  dearly  bought  by  any  attempt 
to  act  a  comedy  v;Ilh  this  'Old-Man -of- 
the-Mountain.*  And  besides  that,  after 
this  visit,  poor  Countess  Sitan  appeared 
to  me  quite  silly.  Her  famous  Satanism 
was  nothing  but  the  flicker  of  a  spirit- 
lamp,  after  the  general  conflagration  of 
which  the  other  had  dreamed.  She  had 
certainly  shown  herself  very  silly,  when 
she  could  not  understand  that  prodigious 
monster.  And  as  she  had  seduced  me 
only  by  her  intellect  and  her  perversity, 
I  was  disgusted  as  soon  as  she  laid  aside 
that  mask.  I  left  her  without  telling 
her  of  my  intention,  and  never  saw  her 
again,  either. 

*'No  doubt  they  both  took  me  for  a 
spy  from  the  'Third  Section  of  the  Im- 
perial Chancellery.'  In  that  case,  they 
must  have  thought  me  very  clever  to 
have  escaped  discovery,  and  all  I  have 
to  do  is  to  look  out,  lest  any  afi&liated 
members  of  their  society  recognize 
me!" 

Then  he  smiled  and,  turning  to  the 
waiter  who  had  just  come  in,  said; 
"Open  another  bottle  of  champagne,  and 
make  the  cork  pop!  It  will,  at  any  rate, 
remind  us  of  the  day  when  we  ourselves 
shall  be  blown  up  with  dynamite." 


A  Useful  House 


Royaumont's  fat  sides  shool:  with 
laughter  at  the  mere  recollection  of  the 
funny  siory  that  he  had  promised  to  his 
friends,  and  throwing  himself  back  in 
the  great  armchair,  which  he  completely 
filled,  that  confirmed  gossip  and  busy- 


ly  as  possible,"  Royaumont  replied 
throwing  the  stump  ol  nis  Cigar  into  the 
fire.  "  I  will  clear  my  throat  and  be- 
gin. I  suppose  you  all  of  you  know  that 
two  better  friends  than  Bordenave  and 
Quillanet    do    not    exist;     neither    of 


body,  as  they  called  him  at  the  club,     them  could  do  without  the  other,  and 


at  last  said : 

"It  is  perfectly  true.  Bordenave  does 
not  owe  anyone  a  penny  and  can  go 
through  any  street  he  likes,  and  publish 
those  famous  memoirs  of  sheriff's  offi- 
cers, which  he  has  been  writing  for  the 
last  ten  years,  when  he  did  not  dare  to 
go  out,  and  in  which  he  carefully 
brought  out  the  characters  and  peculiar- 
ities of  all  those  generous  distributors 
of  stamped  paper  with  whom  he  had 
had  dealings — their  tricks  and  wiles, 
their  weaknesses,  their  jokes,  their  man- 
ner of  performing  their  duties,  some- 
times with  brutal  rudeness  and  at  others 
with  cunning  good  nature,  now  embar- 
rassed and  almost  ashamed  of  their 
work,  and  again  ironically  jovial;  as  well 
as  the  artifices  of  clerks  to  get  a  few 
crumbs  from  their  employer's  cake.  The 
book  will  soon  be  published,  and  Ma- 
chin,  the  'Vaudeville'  writer,  has  prom- 
ised him  a  preface,  so  that  it  will  be  a 
most  amusing  work.  You  are  surprised, 
eh?  Confess  that  you  are  absolutely 
surprised,  and  I  v/ill  lay  you  any  bet 
you  like  that  you  will  not  guess  how 
our  excellent  friend,  whose  existence  is 
an  inexplicable  problem,  has  been  able 
to  settle  with  his  creditors,  and  suddenly 
produce  the  requisite  amount." 

"Do  get  to  the  facts,  confound 
it,"  Captain  Hardeur  said,  who  was 
growing  tired  of  all  this  verbiage. 

"All  right,  I  will  get  to  *hem  as  quick- 


they  have  ended  by  dressing  alike,  by 
having  the  same  gestures,  the  same 
laugh,  the  same  walk,  and  the  same  in- 
flections of  voice,  so  that  one  would 
think  that  some  close  bond  united  them, 
and  that  they  had  been  brought  up  to- 
gether from  childhood. 

"There  is,  however,  this  difference  be- 
tween them,  that  Bordenave  is  com- 
pletely ruined  and  that  all  that  he  pos- 
sesses are  bundles  of  mortgages,  laugh- 
able parchments  which  attest  his  ancient 
race,  and  chimerical  hopes  of  inheriting 
money  some  day,  though  these  expecta* 
tions  are  already  heavily  hypothecated 
Consequently  he  is  always  on  the  look- 
out for  some  fresh  expedient  for  raising 
money,  though  he  is  superbly  indifferent 
about  everything;  while  Sebastien  Quil- 
lanet, of  the  banking  house  of  Quillanet 
Brothers,  must  have  an  income  of  eight 
hundred  thousand  francs  a  year,  but  is 
descended  from  an  obscure  laborer  who 
managed  to  secure  some  of  the  national 
property.  Then  he  becomes  an  army 
contractor,  speculated  on  defeat  as  well 
as  or  victory,  and  does  not  know  now 
what  to  do  with  his  money. 

"But  as  the  millionaire  is  timid,  dull, 
and  always  bored,  the  spendthrft  amuses 
him  by  his  impertinent  ways  and  jokes; 
hfc  prornpLs  him  when  he  is  at  a  loss  for 
an  answer,  extriL^!:^^  him  out  of  his 
difficulties,  serves  as  hir  guide  in  the 
great  forests  of  Paris  which  are  strev^ 


531 


532 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


with  so  many  pitfalls,  and  helps  him  to 
avoid  those  vulgar  adventures  which 
socially  ruin  a  man,  no  matter  how  well 
ballasted  he  may  be.  Then  he  points 
out  to  him  what  women  would  make 
suitable  mistresses  for  him,  who  make 
a  man  noted  and  give  the  effect  of  some 
rare  and  beautiful  flower  pinned  into 
his  buttonhole.  He  is  the  confidant  of 
his  intrigues,  his  guest  when  he  gives 
small,  special  entertainments,  his  daily, 
familiar  table  companion,  and  the  buf- 
foon whose  sly  humor  stimulates  one, 
and  whose  witticisms  you  tolerate." 

"Really,  really,"  the  captain  inter- 
rupted him,  "you  have  been  going  on 
for  more  than  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
without  saying  anything." 

But  Royaumont  shrugged  his  shoul- 
ders and  continued: 

"Oh!  you  can  be  very  tiresome  when 
you  please,  my  dear  fellow!  Last  year, 
when  he  was  at  daggers  drawn  with  his 
people,  who  were  deafening  him  with  re- 
criminations, were  worrying  him  and 
threatening  him  with  a  lot  of  annoyance, 
Quillanet  got  married.  It  was  a  mar- 
riage of  reason,  which  apparently 
changed  his  habits  and  his  tastes,  more 
especially  as  the  banker  was  at  that 
time  keeping  a  perfect  little  marvel  of 
a  woman,  a  Parisian  jewel  of  unspeak- 
able attraction  and  of  bewitching  deli- 
cacy, that  adorable  Suzette  Marly,  who 
is  just  like  a  pocket  Venus,  and  who  in 
some  prior  stage  of  existence  must  have 
been  Phryne  or  Lesbia.  Of  course  he 
did  not  get  rid  of  her,  but  as  he  was 
bound  to  take  some  judicious  precau- 
tions, which  are  necessary  for  a  man 
who  is  deceiving  his  wife,  he  rented  and 
furnished  a  house,  with  a  courtyard  in 
front,  and  a  garden  at  the  back,  which 


one  might  think  had  been  built  to  shel' 
ter  some  amorous  folly.  It  was  the 
ideal  that  he  had  dreamed  of,  warm, 
snug,  elegant,  the  walls  covered  with 
silk  hangings  of  subdued  tints,  large 
pier-glasses,  allegorical  pictures,  and 
filled  with  luxurious,  low  furniture  that 
seemed  to  invite  caresses  and  embraces. 

"Bordenave  occupied  the  ground 
floor,  and  the  next  floor  served  as  a 
shrine  for  the  banker  and  his  mistress. 
Well,  just  a  week  ago,  in  order  to  hide 
the  situation  better.  Bordenave  asked 
Quillanet  and  some  other  friends  to 
one  of  those  luncheons  which  he  under- 
stands so  well  how  to  order,  such  a 
delicious  luncheon,  that  before  it  was 
quite  over,  every  man  had  a  woman  on 
his  lap,  and  was  asking  himself  whether 
a  kiss  from  coaxing  and  naughty  lips 
was  not  a  thousand  times  more  intoxi- 
cating than  the  finest  old  brandy  or  the 
choicest  vintage  wines,  when  the  butler 
came  in  with  an  embarrassed  look,  and 
whispered  something  to  him. 

"  'Tell  the  gentleman  that  he  has 
made  a  mistake,  and  ask  him  to  leave 
me  in  peace.'  Bordenave  replied  to 
him  in  an  angry  voice.  The  servant 
went  out  and  returned  immediately  to 
say  that  the  intruder  was  using  threats, 
that  he  refused  to  leave  the  house,  and 
even  spoke  of  having  recourse  to  tJ*^ 
commissary  of  police.  Bordenave 
frowned,  threw  his  napkin  down,  upset 
two  glasses,  and  swaggered  out  with  a 
red  face,  swearing  and  ejaculating: 

"  This  is  rather  too  much,  and  the 
fellow  shall  find  out  what  going  cut  of 
the  window  means,  if  he  will  not  .eave 
by  the  door.'  But  in  the  anteroom  he 
found  himself  face  to  face  with  a  very, 


THE  COLONEL'S  IDEAS 


533 


cool,  polite,  impassive  gentleman,  who 
said  v^ry  quietly  to  him: 

"  'You  are  Count  Robert  de  Borde- 
aave,  I  believe,  Monsieur?* 

"  *Yes,  Monsieur.' 

"  *And  the  lease  that  you  signed  at 
the  lawyer's,  MoL^ieur  Albin  Calvert,  in 
the  Rue  du  Frabourg-Poissonniere,  is  in 
your  name,  I  believe?' 

"  'Certainly,  Monsieur.* 

"  Then  I  regret  extremely  to  have  to 
tell  you  that  if  you  are  not  in  a  posi- 
tion to  pay  the  various  accounts  which 
different  people  have  intrusted  to  me 
for  collection  here,  I  shall  be  obliged 
to  seize  all  the  furniture,  pictures,  plate, 
clothes,  etc.,  which  are  here  in  the 
presence  of  two  witnesses  who  are  wait- 
ing for  me  downstairs  in  the  street.* 


"  'I  suppose  this  is  some  joke,  Mon- 
sieur?' 

"  It  would  be  a  very  poor  joke,  Mon- 
sieur le  Comte,  and  one  which  I  should 
certainly  not  allow  myself  toward  you!* 

"The  situation  was  absolutely  critical 
and  ridiculous,  the  more  so,  that  in  the 
dining-room  the  women,  who  were 
slightly  tipsy,  were  tapping  the  wine* 
glasses  with  their  spoons,  and  calling  for 
him.  What  could  he  do  except  explain 
his  misadventure  to  Quillanet,  who  be- 
came sobered  immediately,  and  rather 
than  see  his  shrine  of  love  violated,  his 
secret  sin  disclosed,  and  his  pictures, 
ornaments,  and  furniture  sold,  gave  a 
check  in  due  form  for  the  claim  there 
and  then,  though  with  a  very  wry  face. 
And  in  spite  of  this,  some  people  will 
deny  that  men  who  are  utterly  broke 
often  have  a  stroke  of  luck!" 


The  Colonel's  Ideas 


"Upon  my  word,'*  said  Colonel  La- 
porte,  "I  am  old  and  gouty,  my  legs  are 
as  stiff  as  two  sticks,  and  yet  if  a  pretty 
woman  were  to  tell  me  to  go  through 
the  eye  of  a  needle,  I  believe  I  should 
take  a  jump  at  it,  like  a  clov/n  through 
a  hoop.  I  shall  die  like  that;  it  is  in 
the  blood.  I  am  an  old  bv::au,  one  of 
the  old  regime,  and  the  sight  of  a  wo- 
man, a  pretty  woman,  stirs  me  to  the 
tips  of  my  toes.    There! 

"And  then  we  are  all  very  much  alike 
in  France;  we  remain  cavaliers,  cava- 
liers of  love  and  fortune,  since  God  has 
been  abolished,  whose  bodyguard  we 
really  were.    But  nobody  will  ever  get 


the  woman  out  of  our  hearts;  there  she 
is,  and  there  she  will  remain;  v/e  love 
her,  and  shall  continue  to  love  her,  and 
to  commit  all  kinds  of  frolics  on  her 
account,  so  long  as  there  is  a  France 
on  the  map  of  Europe.  And  even  if 
France  were  to  be  wiped  off  the  map, 
there  would  always  be  Frenchmen  left. 
"When  I  am  in  the  presence  of  a 
woman,  of  a  pretty  woman,  I  feel  capa^ 
ble  of  anything.  By  Jove,  when  I  feel 
her  looks  penetrating  me,  those  con- 
founded looks  which  set  your  blood  on 
fire,  I  could  do  anything:  fight  a  duel, 
have  a  row,  smash  the  furniture,  any. 
thing  just  to  -Jhow  that  1  am  the  strong- 


534 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


est,  the  bravest,  the  most  daring,  and 
the  most  devoted  of  men. 

"But  I  am  not  the  only  one — cer- 
tainly not;  the  whole  French  army  is 
like  me,  that  I  will  swear  to.  From  the 
common  soldier  to  the  general,  we  all 
go  forward,  and  to  the  ver>'  end,  mark 
you,  when  there  is  a  woman  in  the  case, 
a  pretty  woman.  Remember  what  Joan 
of  Arc  made  us  do  formerly!  Come,  I'd 
make  a  bet  that  if  a  pretty  woman  had 
taken  command  of  the  army  on  the  eve 
of  Sedan,  when  Marshal  MacMahon 
was  wounded,  we  should  have  broken 
through  the  Prussian  lines,  by  Jove! 
and  have  had  a  drnik  out  of  their  guns. 

"It  was  not  Trochu,  but  Saint-Gene- 
vieve,  who  was  required  in  Paris,  and 
I  remember  a  little  anecdote  of  the  war 
which  proves  that  we  are  capable  of 
everything  in  the  presence  of  a  woman. 

"I  v/as  a  captain,  a  simple  captain, 
at  the  time,  and  was  in  command  of  a 
detachment  of  scouts  who  were  retreat- 
ing through  a  district  swarming  with 
Prussians.  We  were  surrounded,  pur- 
sued, tired  out,  and  half  dead  with 
fatigue  and  hunger,  and  by  the  next  day 
we  had  to  reach  Bar-sur-Tain ;  other- 
wise we  should  be  done  for,  cut  off 
from  the  main  body  and  killed.  I  do 
not  know  how  we  managed  to  escape 
so  far.  However,  we  had  ten  leagues  to 
go  during  the  night,  ten  leagues  through 
the  snow,  and  upon  empty  stomachs.  I 
thought  to  myself: 

"  *It  is  all  ovftr;  my  poor  fellows  will 
never  be  able  to  do  it.' 

"We  had  eaten  nothing  since  the  day 
before,  and  the  whole  day  long  we  re- 
mained hidden  in  a  bam,  huddled  close 
together,  so  as  not  to  feel  the  cold 
much;  we  did  not  venture  to  speak  or 


even  move,  and  we  slept  by  fits  and 
starts,  like  you  sleep  when  you  are 
worn  out  with  fatigue. 

"It  was  dark  by  five  o'clock,  that  wan 
darkness  caused  by  the  snow,  and  I 
shook  up  my  men.  Some  of  them  would 
not  get  up;  they  were  almost  incapa- 
ble of  moving  or  of  standing  upright, 
and  their  joints  were  stiff  from  the  cold 
and  want  of  motion. 

"In  front  of  us  there  was  a  large  ex- 
panse of  flat,  bare  country;  the  snow  was 
still  falling  like  a  curtain,  in  large,  white 
flakes,  which  concealed  everything 
under  a  heavy,  thick,  frozen  mantle,  a 
mattress  of  ice.  You  would  have 
thought  that  it  was  the  end  of  things. 

"  'Come,  my  lads,  let  us  start.' 

"They  looked  at  the  thick,  white  dust 
which  was  coming  down,  and  seemed  to 
think:  *We  have  had  enough  of  this; 
we  may  just  as  well  die  here!'  Then  I 
took  out  my  revolver,  and  said: 

"  'I  will  shoot  thci  first  man  who 
flinches.'  And  so  they  set  off,  but  very 
slowly,  like  men  whose  legs  were  of 
very  little  use  to  them.  I  sent  four  of 
them  three  hundred  yards  ahead,  to 
scout,  and  the  others  followed  pellmell, 
walking  at  random  and  without  any  or- 
der. I  put  the  strongest  in  the  rear, 
with  orders  to  quicken  the  pace  of  the 
sluggards  with  the  points  of  their 
bayonets  in  the  back. 

"The  snow  seemed  as  if  it  were  going 
to  bury  us  alive;  it  powdered  our  kipis*^ 
and  cloaks  without  melting,  and  made 
phantoms  of  us,  ghosts  of  wornout  so^ 
diers  who  were  very  tired,  and  I  said  to 
myself :  *We  shall  never  get  out  of  this, 
except  by  a  miracle.* 


*  Forage-caps. 


THE  COLONEL'S  IDEAS 


iJ5 


"Sometimes  we  had  to  stop  for  a  few 
minutes,  on  account  of  those  who  could 
not  follow  us.  hearing  nothing  but  the 
falling  snow,  that  vague,  almost  indis- 
cernible sound  which  the  flakes  make, 
as  they  come  down  together.  Some  of 
the  men  shook  themselves,  but  others 
did  not  move,  and  so  I  gave  the  order 
to  set  off  again;  they  shouldered  their 
rifles,  and  with  weary  feet  we  set  out 
again,  when  suddenly  the  scouts  fell 
back.  Something  had  alarmed  them; 
they  had  heard  voices  in  front  of  them, 
and  so  I  sent  six  men  and  a  sergeant 
on  ahead,  and  waited. 

"All  at  once  a  shrill  cry,  a  woman^s 
cry,  pierced  through  the  heavy  silence 
of  the  snow,  and  in  a  few  minutes  they 
brought  back  two  prisoners,  an  old  man 
and  a  girl,  whom  I  questioned  in  a  low 
voice.  They  were  escaping  from  the 
Prussians,  who  had  occupied  their  house 
during  the  evening,  and  who  had  got 
drunk.  The  father  had  become  alarmed 
on  his  daughter's  account,  and,  without 
even  tolling  their  servants,  they  had 
made  their  escape  into  the  darkness.  I 
saw  immediately  that  they  belonged  to 
the  upper  classes,  and,  as  I  should  have 
done  in  any  case,  I  invited  them  to 
come  with  us.  So  we  started  off  to- 
gether, and  as  the  old  man  knew  the 
road,  he  acted  as  our  guide. 

"It  had  ceased  snowing;  the  stars 
appeared,  and  the  cold  became  intense. 
The  girl,  who  was  leaning  on  her  father's 
arm,  walked  wearily  and  with  jerks,  and 
several  times  she  murmured: 

"  *I  have  no  feeling  at  all  in  my  feet.* 
I  suffered  more  than  she  did,  I  believe, 
to  see  that  poor  little  woman  dragging 
herself  I'ke  that  through  the  snow.  But 
suddenly  she  stopped,  and  said' 


"  'Father,  I  am  so  tired  that  I  cannot 
go  any  further.' 

"The  old  man  wanted  to  carry  her, 
but  he  could  not  even  lift  her  up,  and 
she  fell  on  the  ground  wuth  a  deep  sigh. 
We  all  came  round  her,  and  as  for  me, 
I  stamped  on  the  ground,  not  knowing 
what  to  do,  quite  unable  to  make  up  my 
mind  to  abandon  that  man  and  girl  like 
that.  Suddenly  one  of  the  soldiers,  a 
Parisian,  whom  they  had  nicknamed 
'Pratique,'  said: 

"  'Come,  comrades,  we  must  carry  the 
young  lady,  otherwise  we  shall  not  show 
ourselves  Frenchmen,  confound  it!' 

*'l  really  believe  that  I  swore  with 
pleasure,  and  said:  'That  is  very  good 
of  you,  my  children;  I  will  take  my 
share  of  the  burden.* 

"We  could  indistinctly  see  the  trees 
of  a  little  wood  on  the  left,  through 
the  darkness.  Several  men  went  into  it, 
and  soon  came  back  with  a  bundle  of 
branches  twisted  into  a  litter. 

"  'Who  will  lend  us  his  cloak?  It  is  for 
a  pretty  girl,  comrades,'  Pratique  said, 
and  ten  cloaks  were  thrown  to  him.  In 
a  moment,  the  girl  was  lying,  warm  and 
comfortable,  among  them,  and  was 
raised  upon  six  shoulders.  I  placed 
myself  at  their  head,  on  the  right,  and 
very  pleased  I  was  with  my  charge. 

"We  started  off  much  more  briskly,  as 
if  we  had  been  having  a  drink  of  wine, 
and  I  even  heard  a  few  jokes.  A  wo- 
man is  quite  enough  to  electrify  French- 
men, you  see.  The  soldiers,  who  were 
reanimated  and  warm,  had  almost  re- 
formed their  ranks,  and  an  old  franc* 
tireur*    who   was    following    the   litter. 


*Volunteers,  in  the  Franco-German 
war  of  1870-1871,  of  whom  the  Germans 
often  made  short  work  when  cauerht 


536 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


waiting  for  his  turn  to  replace  the  first 
of  his  comrades  who  might  give  in,  said 
to  one  of  his  neighbors,  loud  enough 
for  me  to  hear: 

"  *I  am  not  a  young  man,  now;  but 
by  Jove,  there  is  nothing  like  a  woman 
to  make  you  feel  queer  from  head  to 
foot!' 

"We  went  on,  almost  without  stop- 
ping, until  three  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
when  suddenly  our  scouts  fell  back 
again.  Soon  the  whole  detachment 
showed  nothing  but  a  vague  shadow  on 
the  ground,  as  the  men  lay  on  the  snow, 
and  I  gave  my  orders  in  a  low  voice,  and 
heard  the  harsh,  metallic  sound  of  the 
cocking  of  rifles.  There,  in  the  middle 
of  the  plain,  some  strange  object  was 
moving  about.  It  might  have  been 
taken  for  some  enormous  animal  run- 
ning about,  vv^hich  uncoiled  itself  like  a 
serpent,  or  came  together  into  a  coil, 
then  suddenly  went  quickly  to  the  right 
or  left,  stopped,  and  then  went  on  again. 
But  presently  the  wandering  shape  came 
near,  and  I  saw  a  dozen  lancers,  one  be- 
hind the  other,  who  were  trying  to  find 
their  way,  which  they  had  lost. 

"By  this  time  they  were  so  near  that 
I  could  hear  the  panting  of  the  horses, 
the  clink  of  the  swords,  and  the  creaking 
of  the  saddles,  and  so  cried:  Tire!' 

"Fifty  rifle-shots  broke  the  stillness  of 
the  night;  then  there  w^re  four  or  five 
reports,  and  at  last  one  single  shot  was 
heard.  When  the  smoke  had  cleared  away 
we  saw  that  the  twelve  men  and  nine 
horses  had  fallen.  Three  of  the  animals 
were  galloping  away  at  a  furious  pace. 
One  of  them  was  dragging  the  body  of 
its  rider  behind  it.  His  foot  had  caught 
in  the  stirrup,  and  his  body  rebounded 
from  the  ground  in  a  horrible  way. 


"One  of  the  soldiers  behind  me  gave  a 
harsh  laugh,  and  said:  There  are  a 
few  more  widows  now!' 

"Perhaps  he  was  married.  And 
another  added:     Tt  did  not  take  long!' 

"A  head  was  put  out  of  the  litter: 

"  'What  is  the  matter.?'  she  asked; 
'you  are  fighting?' 

"  'It  is  nothing.  Mademoiselle,'  I  re- 
plied; 'we  have  got  rid  of  a  dozen  Prus- 
sians!' 

"  'Poor  fellows!'  she  said.  But  as  she 
was  cold,  she  quickly  disappeared  be- 
neath the  cloaks  again,  and  we  started 
off  once  more.  We  marched  on  for  a 
long  time,  and  at  last  the  sky  began 
to  grow  pale.  The  snow  became  quite 
clear,  luminous,  and  bright,  and  a  rosy 
tint  appeared  in  the  east.  Suddenly  a 
voice  in  the  distance  cried: 

*'  'Who  goes  there?' 

"The  whole  detachment  halted,  and 
I  advanced  to  say  who  we  were.  We 
had  reached  the  French  lines,  and  as 
my  men  defiled  before  the  outpost,  a 
commandant  on  horseback,  whom  1 
had  informed  of  what  had  taken  place, 
asked  in  a  sonorous  voice,  as  he  saw 
the  litter  pass  him: 

"  'What  have  you  there?' 

"And  immediately  a  small  head,  cov- 
ered with  light  hair,  appeared,  dis- 
heveled and  smiling,  and  replied: 

"  'It  is  I,  Monsieur.' 

"At  this,  the  men  raised  a  hearty 
laugh,  and  we  felt  quite  light-hearted, 
while  Pratique,  who  was  walking  by  the 
side  of  the  litter,  waved  his  kepi,  and 
shouted : 

"  'Vive  la  France  T  And  I  felt  really 
moved.  I  do  not  know  why,  except  that 
I  thought  it  a  pretty  and  gallant  thing 
to  say. 


TWO  LIT^fLE  SOLDIERS 


537 


"It  seemed  to  me  as  if  we  had  just 
saved  the  whole  of  France,  and  had 
done  something  that  other  men  could  not 
have  done,  something  simple,  and  really 
patriotic.  I  shall  never  forget  that  little 
face,  you  may  be  sure,  and  if  I  had  to 
give  my  opinion  about  abolishing  drums, 
trumpets,  and  bugles,  I  should  propose 
to  replace  them  in  every  regiment  by  a 
pretty   girl,   and   that   would   be   even 


better  than  playing  the  'Marseillaise.* 
By  Jove!  it  would  put  some  spirit  into 
a  trooper  to  have  a  Madonna  like  that, 
a  living  Madonna,  by  the  colonel's  side." 

He  was  silent  for  a  few  moments,  and 
then  with  an  air  of  conviction,  and  jerk- 
ing his  head,  continued: 

"You  see,  we  are  very  fond  of  wo* 
men,  we  Frenchmen'" 


Two  Little  Soldiers 


Every  Sunday,  the  moment  they  were 
dismissed,  the  two  little  soldiers  made 
off.  Once  outside  the  barracks,  they, 
struck  out  to  the  right  through  Cour- 
bevoie,  walking  with  long  rapid  strides, 
as  though  they  were  on  a  march. 

When  they  were  beyond  the  last  of 
the  houses,  they  slackened  pace  along 
the  bare,  dusty  roadway  which  goes  to- 
ward Bezons. 

They  were  both  small  and  thin,  and 
looked  quite  lost  in  their  coats,  which 
were  too  big  and  too  long.  Their  sleeves 
hung  down  over  their  hands,  and  they 
found  their  enormous  red  breeches, 
which  compelled  them  to  waddle,  very 
much  in  the  way.  Under  their  stiff, 
high  helmets  their  faces  had  little  char- 
acter— two  poor,  sallow  Breton  faces, 
simple  with  an  almost  animal  simplicity, 
and  with  gentle  and  quiet  blue  eyes. 

They  never  conversed  during  these 
walks,  but  went  straight  on,  each  with 
the  same  thoughts  in  his  head.  This 
thought  atoned  for  the  lack  of  con- 
versation; it  was  this  that  just  inside 
the  httle  wood  near  Les  Champioux  thev 


had  found  a  place  which  reminded  them 
of  iheir  own  country,  where  they  could 
feel  happy  again. 

When  they  arrived  under  the  trees 
where  the  roads  from  Colombes  and 
from  Chatou  cross,  they  would  take  off 
their  heavy  helmets  and  wipe  their  fore- 
heads. They  always  halted  on  the 
Bezons  bridge  to  look  at  the  Seine,  and 
would  remain  there  two  or  three 
minutes,  bent  double,  leaning  on  the 
parapet. 

Sometimes  they  would  gaze  out  over 
the  great  basin  of  Argenteuil,  where  the 
skiffs  might  be  seen  scudding,  with  their 
white,  careening  sails,  recalling  perhaps 
the  look  of  the  Breton  waters,  the  har- 
bor of  Vanne,  near  which  they  lived, 
and  the  fishing-boats  standing  out  across 
the  Morbihan  to  the  open  sea. 

Just  beyond  the  Seine  they  bought 
their  provisions  from  a  sausage  mer- 
chant, a  baker,  and  a  wine-seller.  A 
piece  of  blood-pudding,  four  sous'  worth 
of  bread,  and  a  liter  of  ''petit  bleu"  con- 
stituted the  provisions,  which  they  car- 
ried off  in  their  handkerchiefs.     After 


S3S 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


they  had  left  Bezons  they  traveled 
slowly  and  began  to  talk. 

In  front  of  them  a  barren  plain 
studded  with  clumps  of  trees  led  to  the 
wood,  to  the  little  wood  which  had 
seemed  to  them  to  resemble  the  one  at 
Kermarivan.  Grainfields  and  hayfields 
bordered  the  narrow  path,  which  lost 
itself  in  the  young  preenness  of  the 
crops,  and  Jean  Kerderen  would  always 
say  to  Luc  le  Ganidec: 

*'It  looks  like  it  does  near  Plounivon." 

"Yes;  exactly." 

Side  by  side  they  strolled,  their  souls 
filled  with  vague  memories  of  their 
own  country,  with  awakened  images  as 
naive  as  the  pictures  on  the  colored 
broadsheets  which  you  buy  for  a  penny. 
They  kept  on  recognizing,  as  it  were, 
now  a  corner  of  a  field,  a  hedge,  a  bit 
of  moorland,  now  a  crossroad,  now  a 
granite  cross.  Then,  too,  they  would  al- 
ways stop  beside  a  certain  landmark,  a 
great  stone,  because  it  looked  something 
like  the  cromlech  at  Locneuven. 

Every  Sunday  on  arriving  at  the  first 
clump  oi  trees  Luc  le  Ganidec  would  cut 
a  switch,  a  hazel  switch,  and  begin 
gently  to  peel  off  the  bark,  thinking 
meanwhile  of  the  folk  at  home.  Jean 
Kerderen  carried  the  provisions. 

From  time  to  time  Luc  would  men- 
tion a  name,  or  recall  some  deed  of  their 
childhood  in  a  few  brief  words,  which 
caused  long  thoughts.  And  their  own 
country,  their  dear,  distant  country,  re- 
captured them  little  by  little,  seizing  on 
their  imaginations,  and  sending  to  them 
from  afar  her  shapes,  her  sounds,  her 
well-known  prospects,  her  odors — odors 
of  the  green  lands  where  the  salt  sea-air 
was  blowing. 

Ko  longer   conscious  of  the   exhala- 


tions of  the  Parisian  stables,  on  which 
the  earth  of  the  banlieue  fattens,  they 
scented  the  perfume  of  the  flowering 
broom,  which  the  salt  breeze  of  the  open 
sea  plucks  and  bears  away.  And  the 
sails  of  the  boats  from  the  river  banks 
seemed  like  the  white  wings  of  the 
coasting  vessels  seen  beyond  the  great 
plain  which  extended  from  their  homes 
to  the  very  margin  of  the  sea. 

They  walked  with  short  steps,  Luc 
le  Ganidec  and  Jean  Kerderen,  content 
and  sad,  haunted  by  a  sweet  melancholy, 
by  the  lingering,  ever-present  sorrow  of 
a  caged  animal  who  remembers  his 
liberty. 

By  the  time  that  Luc  had  stripped 
the  slender  wand  of  its  bark  they 
reached  the  corner  of  the  wood  where 
every  Sunday  they  took  breakfast 
They  found  the  two  bricks  v;h:ch  they 
kept  hidden  in  the  thicket,  and  kindled 
a  little  fire  of  twigs,  over  which  to 
roast  the  blood-pudding  at  the  end  of 
a  bayonet. 

When  they  had  breakfasted,  eaten 
their  bread  to  the  last  crumb,  and  drunk 
their  wine  to  the  last  drop,  they  re- 
mained seated  side  by  side  upon  the 
grass,  saying  nothing,  their  eyes  on  the 
distance,  their  eyelids  drooping,  their 
fingers  crossed  as  at  mass,  their  red  legs 
stretched  out  beside  the  poppies  of  the 
field.  And  the  leather  of  their  helmets 
and  the  brass  of  their  buttons  glittered 
in  the  ardent  sun,  making  the  larks, 
which  sang  and  hovered  above  their 
heads,  cease  in  mid-song. 

Toward  noon  they  began  to  turn  their 
eyes  from  time  to  time  in  the  direction 
of  the  village  of  Bezons,  because  the  girl 
with  the  cow  was  coming.  She  passed 
by  them  every  Sunday  on  her  way  to 


TWO  LITTLE  SOLDIERS 


530 


milk  and  change  the  pasture  of  her  cow 
— the  only  cow  in  this  district  which 
ever  went  out  of  the  stable  to  grass. 
It  was  pastured  in  a  narrow  field  along 
the  edge  of  the  wood  a  little  farther  on. 

They  soon  perceived  the  girl,  the  only 
human  being  within  vision,  and  were 
gladdened  by  the  brilliant  reflections 
thrown  off  by  the  tin  milk-pail  under 
the  rays  of  the  sun.  They  never  talked 
about  her.  They  were  simply  glad  to 
see  her,  without  understanding  why. 

She  was  a  big  strong  wench  with  red 
hair,  barned  by  the  heat  of  sunny  days, 
a  sturdy  product  of  the  environs  of 
Paris. 

Once,  finding  them  seated  in  the  same 
place,  she  said: 

**Good  morning.  You  two  are  always 
here,  aren't  you?" 

Luc  le  Ganidec,  the  bolder,  stam- 
mered: 

"Yes,  we  come  to  rest." 

That  was  all.  But  the  next  Sunday 
she  laughed  on  seeing  them,  laughed 
with  a  protecting  benevolence  and  a 
feminine  keenness  which  knew  well 
enough  that  they  were  bashful.  And  she 
asked : 

"What  are  you  doing  there?    Are  you 
|-  trying  to  see  the  grass  grow?'* 

Luc    was  cheered    up  by  this,    and 
I  smiled  likewise:     "Maybe  we  are." 

"That's  pretty  slow  work,"  said  she. 

He  answered,  still  laughing:  "Well, 
yes,  it  is." 

She  went  on.  But  coming  back  with 
%  milk  pail  full  of  milk,  she  stopped 
again  before  them,  and  said: 

"Would  you  like  a  little?  It  will 
taste  like  home.'* 

With  the  instinctive  feeling  that  they 
i  were  of  the  same  peasant  race  as  she, 


being  herself  perhaps  also  far  away  from 
home,  she  had  divined  and  touched  the 
spot. 

They  were  both  touched.  Then  with 
some  difficulty,  she  managed  to  make  a 
little  milk  run  into  the  neck  of  the 
glass  bottle  in  which  they  carried  their 
wine.  And  Luc  drank  first,  with  little 
swallows,  stopping  every  minute  to  see 
whether  he  had  drunk  more  than  his 
half.  Then  he  handed  the  bottle  to 
Jean. 

She  stood  upright  before  them,  her 
hands  on  her  hips,  her  pail  on  the  ground 
at  her  feet,  glad  at  the  pleasure  which 
she  had  given. 

Then  she  departed,  shouting:  "AllonSy 
adieu!     Till  next  Sunday!" 

And  as  long  as  they  could  see  her  at 
all,  they  followed  with  their  eyes  her 
tall  silhouette,  which  faded,  growing 
smaller  and  smaller,  seeming  to  sink 
into  the  verdure  of  the  fields. 

When  they  were  leaving  the  barracks 
the  week  after,  Jean  said  to  Luc : 

"Oughtn't  we  to  buy  her  something 
good?" 

They  were  in  great  embarrassment  be- 
fore the  problem  of  the  choice  of  a  deli- 
cacy for  the  girl  with  the  cow.  Luc 
was  of  the  opinion  that  a  little  tripe 
would  be  the  best,  but  Jean  preferred 
some  berlingots  because  he  was  fond  of 
sweets.  His  choice  fairly  made  him  en- 
thusiastic, and  they  bought  at  a  grocer^s 
two  sous*  worth  of  white  and  red 
candies. 

They  ate  their  breakfast  more  rapidly 
than  usual,  being  nervous  with  expec- 
tation. 

Jean  saw  her  first.  "There  she  is!** 
he  cried.  Luc  added:  "Yes,  there  she 
is." 


540 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPA^3ANT 


While  yet  some  distance  off  she 
taughed  at  seeing  them.  Then  she  cried : 

"Is  everything  going  as  you  like  it?" 

And  in  unison  they  asked: 

"Are  you  getting  on  all  right?" 

Then  she  conversed,  talked  to  them 
of  simple  things  in  which  they  felt  an 
interest- of  the  weather,  of  the  crops, 
and  of  her  master. 

They  were  afraid  to  offer  her  the 
candies,  which  were  slowly  melting  away 
in  Jean's  pocket. 

At  last  Luc  grew  bold,  and  murmured; 

"We  have  brought  you  something." 

She  demanded,  "What  is  it?  Tell 
me!" 

Then  Jean,  blushing  up  to  his  ears, 
raanaged  to  get  at  the  little  paper  cor- 
nucopia, and  held  it  out. 

She  began  to  eat  the  little  bonbons, 
rolling  them  from  one  cheek  to  the 
other  where  they  made  little  round 
lumps.  The  two  soldiers,  seated  before 
her,  gazed  at  her  with  emotion  and  de- 
light. 

Then  she  went  to  milk  her  cow,  and 
once  more  gave  them  some  milk  on  com- 
ing back. 

They  thought  of  her  all  the  week; 
several  times  they  even  spoke  of  her. 
The  next  Sunday  she  sat  down  with 
them  for  a  little  longer  talk;  and  all 
three,  seated  side  by  side,  their  eyes 
lost  in  the  distance,  clasping  their  knees 
with  their  hands,  told  the  small  doings, 
the  minute  details  of  life  in  the  villages 
where  they  had  been  born,  while  over 
there  the  cow,  seeing  that  the  milkmaid 
had  stopped  on  her  way,  stretched  out 
toward  her  its  hea'/y  head  with  its  drip- 
ping nostrils,  and  gave  a  long  low  to 
call  her. 

S*>pr  the  ^i.rl  consented  to  eat  a  bit  of 


bread  with  them  and  drink  a  roouthftd 
of  wine.  She  often  brought  them  plums 
in  her  pocket,  for  the  season  of  plums 
had  come.  Her  presence  sharpened  the 
wits  of  the  two  little  Breton  soldiers, 
and  they  chattered  like  two  birds. 

But,  one  Tuesday,  Luc  le  Ganidec 
asked  for  leave — a  thing  which  had 
never  happened  before — and  he  did  not 
return  until  ten  o'clock  at  night.  Jean 
racked  his  brains  uneasily  for  a  reasoi 
for  his  comrades  going  out  in  this  way. 

The  next  Thursday  Luc,  having  bor* 
rowed  ten  sous  from  his  bedfellow,  again 
asked  and  obtained  permission  to  leave 
the  barracks  for  several  hours.  When 
he  set  off  with  Jean  on  their  Sunday 
walk  his  manner  was  very  queer,  quite 
restless,  and  quite  changed.  Kerderen 
did  not  understand,  but  he  vaguely  sus- 
pected something  without  divining  what 
it  could  be. 

They  dd  not  say  a  word  to  one 
another  until  they  reached  their  usual 
halting-place,  where,  from  their  constant 
sitting  in  the  same  spot  the  grass  was 
quite  worn  away.  They  ate  their  break- 
fast slowly.  Neither  of  them  felt  hun- 
gry. 

Before  long  the  girl  appeared.  As  on 
every  Sunday,  they  watched  her  com- 
ing. When  she  was  quite  near,  Luc  rose 
and  made  two  steps  forward.  She  put 
her  milk-pail  on  the  ground  and  kissed 
him.  She  kissed  him  passionately, 
throwing  her  arms  about  his  neck,  with- 
out noticing  Jean,  without  remembering 
that  he  was  there,  without  even  seeing 
him. 

And  he  sat  there  desperate,  poor  Jean, 
so  desperate  that  he  did  not  under- 
stand, his  soul  quite  overwhelmed,  his 
heart  bursting,  but  not  yet  understand- 


TWO  LITTLE  SOLDIERS 


541 


ing  himself.  Then  the  girl  seated  her- 
self beside  Luc,  and  they  began  to 
chatter. 

Jean  did  not  look  at  them.  He  now 
divined  why  his  comrade  had  gone  out 
twice  during  the  week,  and  he  felt  with- 
in him  a  burning  grief,  a  kind  of  wound, 
that  sense  of  rending  which  is  caused 
by  treason. 

Luc  and  the  girl  went  off  together  to 
change  the  position  of  the  cow.  Jean  fol- 
lowed them  with  his  eyes.  He  saw  them 
departing  side  by  side.  The  red  breeches 
of  his  comrade  made  a  bright  spot  on 
the  road.  It  was  Luc  who  picked  up  the 
mallet  and  hammered  down  the  stake 
to  which  they  tied  the  beast. 

The  girl  stooped  to  milk  her,  while  he 
stroked  the  cow's  sharp  spine  with  a 
careless  hand.  Then  they  left  the  milk- 
pail  on  the  grass,  and  went  deep  into 
the  wood. 

Jean  saw  nothing  but  the  wall  of 
leaves  where  they  had  entered;  and  he 
felt  himself  so  troubled  that  if  he  had 
tried  to  rise  he  would  certainly  have 
fallen.  He  sat  motionless,  stupefied  by 
astonishment  and  suffering,  with  aa 
agony  which  was  simple  but  deep.  He 
wanted  to  cry,  to  run  away,  to  hide  him- 
self, never  to  see  anybody  any  more. 

Soon  he  saw  them  issuing  from  the 
thicket.  They  returned  slowly,  holding 
each  other's  hands  as  in  the  villages  do 
those  who  are  promised.  It  was  Luc 
who  carried  the  pail. 

They  kissed  one  another  again  before 
they  separated,  and  the  girl  went  off 
after  having  thrown  Jean  a  friendly 
"Good  evening*'  and  a  smile  which  was 
full  of  meaning.  To-day  she  no  longer 
thought  of  offering  him  any  milk. 

The   two  little  soldiers  sat  side  by 


side,  motionless  as  usual,  silent  and 
calm,  their  placid  faces  betraying  noth- 
ing of  all  which  troubled  their  hearts. 
The  sun  fell  on  them.  Sometimes  the 
cow  lowed,  looking  at  them  from  afar. 

At  their  usual  hour  they  rose  to  go 
back.  Luc  cut  a  switch.  Jean  carried  the 
empty  bottle  to  return  it  to  the  wine- 
seller  at  Bezons.  Then  they  sallied  out 
upon  the  bridge,  and,  as  they  did  every 
Sunday,  stopped  several  minutes  in  the 
middle  to  watch  the  water  flowing. 

Jean  leaned,  leaned  more  and  more, 
over  the  iron  railing,  as  though  he  saw 
in  the  current  something  which  attracted 
him.  Luc  said:  "Are  you  trying  to 
drink?'*  Just  as  he  uttered  the  last 
word  Jean's  head  overbalanced  his  body, 
his  legs  described  a  circle  in  the  air, 
and  the  little  blue  and  red  soldier  fell 
in  a  heap,  struck  the  water,  and  dis- 
appeared. 

Luc,  his  tongue  paralyzed  with 
anguish,  tried  in  vain  to  shout.  Farthei 
down  he  saw  something  stir;  then  the 
head  of  his  comrade  rose  to  the  surface 
of  the  river  and  sank  immediately. 
Farther  still  he  again  perceived  a  hand, 
a  single  hand,  which  issued  from  the 
stream  and  then  disappear.  That  was 
all. 

The  bargemen  who  dragged  the  river 
did  not  find  the  body  that  day. 

Luc  set  out  alone  for  the  barracks  go- 
ing at  a  run,  his  soul  filled  with  despair. 
He  told  of  the  accident,  with  tears  in 
his  eyes,  and  a  husky  voice,  blowing  his 
nose  again  and  again:  "He  leaned  over 
— he — he  leaned  over — so  far — so  far 
that  his  head  turned  a  somersault;  and 
— and — so  he  fell — ^he  fell — " 

Choked  with  emotion,  he  could  say  no 
more.    If  he  had  only  known! 


Ghosts 


Just  at  the  time  when  the  Concordat 
was  in  its  most  flourishing  condition,  a 
young  man  belonging  to  a  wealthy  and 
highly  respectable  middle-class  family 
went  to  the  office  of  the  head  of  the 

police  at  P ,  and  begged  for  his  help 

and  advice,  which  was  immediately 
promised  him. 

*'My  father  threatens  to  disinherit 
me,"  the  young  man  began,  "although  I 
have  never  offended  against  the  laws  of 
the  State,  of  morality,  or  against  his 
paternal  authority,  merely  because  I  do 
not  share  hs  blind  reverence  for  the 
Catholic  Church  and  her  clergy.  On 
that  account  he  looks  upon  me,  not 
merely  as  Latitudlnarian  but  as  a  per- 
fect Atheist,  and  a  faithful  old  man- 
servant of  ours,  who  is  much  attached 
to  me,  and  who  accidentally  saw  my 
father's  will,  told  me  in  confidence  that 
he  had  left  all  his  property  to  the 
Jesuits.  I  think  this  is  highly  suspi- 
cious, and  I  fear  that  the  priests  have 
been  maligning  me  to  my  father.  Un- 
til less  than  a  year  ago,  we  used  to  live 
very  quietly  and  happily  together,  but 
ever  since  he  has  had  so  much  to  do 
with  the  clergy,  our  domestic  peace  and 
happiness  are  at  an  end." 

"What  you  have  told  me,"  replied  the 
official,  "is  as  likely  as  it  is  regrettable, 
but  I  fail  to  see  how  I  can  interfere  in 
the  matter.  Your  father  is  in  full  pos- 
session of  all  his  mental  faculties,  and 
can  dispose  of  all  his  property  exactly 
as  he  pleases.  I  think  that  your  pro- 
test is  premature;  you  must  wait  until 
his  will  can  legally  take  effect,  and  then 
you  can  invoke  the  aid  of  justice.  I 
am  sorry  to  say  that  just  now  I  can  do 
nothing  for  you." 


"I  think  you  will  be  able  to,'*  the 
young  man  replied;  "for  1  believe  that 
a  very  clever  piece  of  deceit  is  being 
carried  on." 

"How?  Please  explain  yourself  more 
clearly." 

"When  I  remonstrated  with  him,  yes- 
terday evening,  he  referred  to  my  dead 
mother,  and  at  last  assured  me,  in  a 
voice  of  the  deepest  conviction,  that 
she  had  frequently  appeared  to  him,  had 
threatened  him  with  all  the  torments  of 
the  damned,  if  he  did  not  disinherit  his 
son,  who  had  fallen  away  from  God,  and 
leave  all  his  property  to  the  Church. 
Now  I  do  not  believe  in  ghosts.'* 

"Neither  do  I,"  the  police  director 
replied,  "but  I  cannot  well  do  anything 
on  such  grounds,  Laving  nothing  but 
superstitions  to  go  upon.  You  know 
how  the  Church  rules  all  our  affairs 
since  the  Concordat  with  Rome,  and  if 
I  investigate  this  matter  and  obtain  no 
results,  I  am  risking  my  post.  It 
would  be  very  different  if  you  could  ad- 
duce any  proofs  for  your  suspicions.  I 
do  not  deny  chat  I  should  like  to  see 
the  clerical  party,  which  will,  I  fear,  be 
the  ruin  of  Austria,  receive  a  staggering 
blow;  try,  therefore,  to  get  to  the  bot- 
tom of  this  business,  and  then  we  will 
talk  it  over  again." 

About  a  month  passed,  without  the 
young  Latitudinarian  being  heard  of 
Suddenly,  he  came  one  evening,  in  a 
great  state  of  excitement,  and  told  the 
Inspector  that  he  was  in  a  position  to 
expose  the  priestly  deceit  which  he  had 
mentioned,  if  the  authorities  would  assist 
him.  The  police  director  asked  for  fur- 
ther information. 

"I  have  obtained  a  number  of  impor- 


lAt 


C:iOST3 


545 


tant  clues,"*  said  the  young  man.  "In 
the  first  place,  my  father  confessed  to 
me  that  my  mother  did  not  appear  to 
him  in  our  house,  but  in  the  churchyard 
where  she  is  buried.  My  mother  was 
consumptive  for  many  years,  and  a  few 
weeks  before  her  death  she  went  to  the 

village  of  S ,  where  she  died  and  was 

bui'ied.  In  addition  to  this,  I  found  out 
from  our  footman  thit  my  father  has 
already  left   the  hou:2   twice,   late  at 

night,  in  company  of  X ,  the  Jesuit 

priest,  and  that  on  both  occasions  he 
did  not  return  till  morning.  Each  time 
he  was  remarkably  uneasy  and  low- 
spirited  after  his  return,  and  had  three 
masses  said  for  my  dead  mother.  He 
also  told  me  just  now  that  he  has  to 
leave  home  this  evening  on  business, 
but,  immediately  after  he  told  me  that, 
our  footman  saw  the  Jesuit  go  out  of 
the  house.  We  may,  therefore,  assume 
that  he  intends  this  evening  to  consult 
the  spirit  of  my  dead  mother  again, 
and  this  would  be  an  excellent  oppor- 
tunity to  sol.e  the  matter,  if  you  do 
not  object  to  opposing  the  most  power- 
ful force  in  the  Empire  for  the  sakf  of 
such  an  insignificant  individual  as  my- 
self." 

"Every  citizen  has  an  equal  right  to 
I  the  protection  of  the  State,"  the  police 
[  director  replied;  "and  I  think  that  I 
•have  shown  often  enough  that  I  am  not 
wanting  in  courage  to  perform  my  duty, 
no  matter  how  serious  the  consequences 
may  be.  But  only  very  young  men  act 
without  any  prospects  of  success,  be- 
cause they  are  carried  away  by  their 
feelings.  When  you  came  to  me  the 
first  time,  I  was  obliged  to  refuse  your 
request  for  assistance,  but  to-day  your 
request  is  just  and  reasonable.    It  is  now 


eight  o'clock;  I  shall  expect  you  in  two 
hours'  time,  here  in  my  office.  At 
present,  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  hold 
your  tongue;  everything  else  is  my 
affair." 

As  soon  as  it  was  dark,  four  men  got 
into  a  closed  carriage  in  the  yard  of  the 
police-office,    and   were    driven    in    the 

direction  of  the  village  of  S .    Their 

carriage,  however,  did  not  enter  the  vil- 
lage, but  stopped  at  the  edge  of  a  small 
wood  in  the  immediate  neighborhood. 
Here  all  four  alighted:  the  police  direc- 
tor, accompanied  by  the  young  Latitu- 
dinarian,  a  police  sergeant,  and  an  or- 
dinary policeman,  the  latter  however, 
dressed  in  plain  clothes. 

"The  first  thing  for  us  to  do  is  to 
examine  the  locahty  carefully,"  said  the 
police  director.  "It  is  eleven  o'clock 
and  the  exorcisers  of  ghosts  will  not 
arrive  before  midnight,  so  we  have  time 
to  look  round  us,  and  to  lay  our  plans." 

The  four  men  went  to  the  churchyard, 
which  lay  at  the  end  of  the  village, 
near  the  Kttle  wood.  Everything  was 
as  still  as  death,  and  not  a  soul  was 
to  be  seen.  The  sexton  was  evidently 
sitting  in  the  public  house,  for  they 
found  the  door  of  his  cottage  locked,  as 
well  as  the  door  of  the  little  chapel  that 
stood  in  the  middle  of  the  churchyard. 

"Where  is  your  mother's  grave?*'  the 
police  director  asked.  As  there  were 
only  a  few  stars  visible,  it  was  not  easy 
to  find  it,  but  at  last  they  managed  it, 
and  the  police  director  surveyed  the 
neighborhood  of  it. 

"The  position  is  not  a  very  favorable 
one  for  us,"  he  said  at  last;  "there  iy 
nothing  here,  not  even  a  shrub,  behind 
which  we  could  hide." 

But  just  then,  the  policeman  reooruPAi 


544 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


that  he  had  tried  to  get  into  the  sex- 
ton's hut  through  the  door  or  a  window, 
and  that  at  last  he  had  succeeded  in  do- 
ing so  by  breaking  open  a  square  in  a 
window  which  had  been  mended  with 
paper,  that  he  had  opened  it  and  ob- 
tained possession  of  the  key,  which  he 
brought  to  the  police  director. 

The  plans  were  very  quickly  settled. 
The  police  director  had  the  chapel 
opened  and  went  in  with  the  young  Lati- 
tudinarian;  then  he  told  the  police  ser- 
geant to  lock  the  door  behind  him  and 
to  put  the  key  back  where  he  had  found 
it,  and  to  shut  the  window  of  the  sex- 
ton's cottage  carefully.  Lastly,  he  made 
arrangements  as  to  what  they  were  to 
do,  in  case  anything  unforeseen  should 
occur,  whereupon  the  sergeant  and  the 
constable  left  the  churchyard,  and  lay 
down  in  a  ditch  at  some  distance  from 
the  gate,  but  opposite  to  it. 

Almost  as  soon  as  the  clock  struck 
half  past  eleven,  they  heard  steps  near 
the  chapel,  whereupon  the  police  direc- 
tor and  the  young  Latitudinarian  went 
to  the  window  in  order  to  watch  the  be- 
ginning of  the  exorcism,  and  as  the 
chapel  was  in  total  darkness,  they 
thought  that  they  should  be  able  to  see 
without  being  seen;  but  matters  turned 
out  differently  from  what  they  expected. 

Suddenly,  the  key  turned  in  the  lock. 
They  barely  had  time  to  conceal  them- 
selves behind  the  altar,  before  two  men 
came  in,  one  of  whom  was  carrying  a 
dark  lantern.  One  was  the  young  man's 
father,  an  elderly  man  of  the  middle 
class,  who  seemed  very  unhappy,  and 
depressed,  the  other  the  Jesuit  father 

X ,  a  tall,  lean,  big-boned  man,  with 

a  thin,  bilious  face,  in  which  two  large 
gray  eyes  shone  restlessly  under  bushy, 


black  eyebrows.  He  lit  the  tapers,  which 
were  standing  on  the  altar,  and  began 
to  say  a  "Requiem  Mass;"  while  the 
old  man  kneeled  on  the  altar  steps  and 
served  him. 

When  it  was  over,  the  Jesuit  took  the 
book  of  the  Gospels  and  the  holy-watex 
sprinkler,  and  went  slowly  out  of  the 
chapel,  the  old  man  following  him  with 
the  holy-water  basin  in  one  hand,  and 
a  taper  in  the  other.  Then  the  police 
director  left  his  hiding  place,  and  stoop- 
ing down,  so  as  not  to  be  seen,  crept 
to  the  chapel  window,  where  he 
cowered  down  carefully;  the  young  man 
followed  his  example.  They  were  now 
looking  straight  at  his  mother's  grave. 

The  Jesuit,  followed  by  the  supersti- 
tious old  man,  walked  three  times  round 
the  grave;  then  he  remained  standing 
before  it,  and  by  the  light  of  the  taper 
read  a  few  passages  from  the  Gospel. 
Then  he  dipped  the  holy-water  sprinkler 
three  times  into  the  holy-water  basin, 
and  sprinkled  the  grave  three  times. 
Then  both  returned  to  the  chapel, 
kneeled  down  outside  it  with  their  faces 
toward  the  grave,  and  began  to  pray 
aloud,  until  at  last  the  Jesuit  sprang  up, 
in  a  species  of  wild  ecstasy,  and  cried 
out  three  times  in  a  shrill  voice: 

"Exsurge!  Exsurge!  Exsurge!"* 

Scarcely  had  the  last  words  of  the 
exorcism  died  away,  when  thick,  blue 
smoke  rose  out  of  the  grave,  rapidly 
grew  into  a  cloud,  and  began  to  assume 
the  outlines  of  a  human  body,  until  at 
last  a  tall,  white  figure  stood  behind 
the  grave,  and  beckoned  with  its  hand. 

"Who  art  thou?"  the  Jesuit  asked  sol- 


*Arise. 


WAS  IT  A  DREAM? 


545 


3mnly,  while  the  old  man  began  to  cry. 

"When  1  was  alive,  I  was  called  Anna 

Maria  B ,"  replied  the  ghost  in  a 

hollow  voice. 

'"Will  you  answer  all  my  questions?" 
the  priest  continued. 

"As  far  as  I  can." 

"Have  you  then  yet  been  delivered 
from  purgatory  by  our  prayers,  and  by 
all  the  Masses  for  your  soul,  which  we 
have  said  for  you?" 

"Not  yet,  but  soon,  soon  I  shall  be." 

"When?" 

"As  soon  as  that  blasphemer,  my  son, 
has  been  punished." 

"Has  that  not  already  happened?  Has 
not  your  husband  disinherited  his  lost 
son,  and  in  his  place  made  the  Church 
his  heir?" 

"That  is  not  enough." 

"What  must  he  do  besides?" 

"He  must  deposit  his  will  with  the 
Judicial  Authorities,  as  his  last  will  and 
testament,  and  drive  the  reprobate  out 
of  his  house." 

"Consider  well  what  you  are  saying; 
must  this  really  be?" 

"It  must,  or  otherwise  I  shall  have 
to  languish  in  purgatory  much  longer," 
the  sepulchral  voice  replied  with  a  deep 
sigh;  but  the  next  moment  the  ghost 
yelled  out  in  terror:  "Oh!  Good  Lord!" 
and  began  to  run  away  as  fast  as  it 
could.  A  shrill  whistle  was  heard,  and 
then   another,   and   the  police   director 


laid  his  hand  on  the  shoulder  of  the 
exorciser  with  the  remark: 

"You  are  in  custody." 

Meanwhile,  the  police  sergeant  and 
the  policeman,  who  had  come  into  the 
churchyard,  had  caught  the  ghost,  and 
dragged  it  forward.  It  was  the  sexton, 
who  had  put  on  a  flowing,  white  dress, 
and  wore  a  wax  mask,  which  bore  a 
striking  resemblance  to  his  mother,  so 
the  son  declared. 

When  the  case  was  heard,  it  was 
proved  that  the  mask  had  been  very 
skillfully  made  from  a  portrait  of  the 
deceased  woman.  The  government  gave 
orders  that  the  matter  should  be  in- 
vestigated as  secretly  as  possible,  and 

left  the  punishment   of  Father  X 

to  the  spiritual  authorities,  which  was 
a  matter  of  necessity,  at  a  time  when 
priests  were  outside  of  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  civil  authorities.  It  is  needless 
to  say  that  Father  X was  very  com- 
fortable during  his  imprisonment  in  a 
monastery,  in  a  part  of  the  country 
which  abounded  with  game  and  trout. 

The  only  valuable  result  of  the  amus- 
ing ghost  story  was  that  it  brought 
about  a  reconciliation  between  fathei 
and  son;  the  former,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  felt  such  deep  respect  for  priests 
and  their  ghosts  in  consequence  of  the 
apparition,  that  a  short  time  after  his 
wife  had  left  purgatory  for  the  last  time 
in  order  to  talk  with  him.,  he  turned 
Protestant. 


Was  It  a  Dream? 


"I  HAD  loved  her  madly! 
"Why  does  one  love?    Why  does  one 
love?    How  queer  it  is  to  see  only  one 


being  in  the  world,  to  have  only  one 
thought  in  one's  mind,  only  one  desire  in 
the  heart,  and  only  one  name  on  the 


546 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


lips — ^a  name  which  comes  up  contin- 
ually, rising,  like  tlie  water  in  a  spring, 
from  the  depths  of  the  soul  to  the 
lips,  a  name  which  one  repeats  over  and 
over  again,  which  one  whispers  cease- 
lessly, everywhere,  like  a  prayer. 

"I  am  going  to  tell  you  our  story,  for 
love  only  has  one,  which  is  always  the 
same.  I  met  her  and  lived  on  her  ten- 
derness, on  her  caresses^  in  her  arms,  in 
her  dresses,  on  her  words,  so  completely 
wrapped  up,  bound,  and  aborbed  in 
everything  which  came  from  her,  that  I 
no  longer  cared  whether  it  was  day  or 
night,  or  whether  I  was  dead  or  alive, 
on  this  old  earth  of  ours. 

"And  then  she  died.  How?  I  do 
not  know;  I  no  longer  know  anything. 
But  one  evening  she  came  home  wet, 
for  it  was  raining  heavily,  and  the  next 
day  she  coughed,  and  she  coughed  for 
about  a  week,  and  took  to  her  bed.  V/hat 
happened  I  do  not  remember  now,  but 
doctors  came,  wrote,  and  went  away. 
Medicines  were  brought,  and  some  wo- 
men made  her  drink  them.  Her  hands 
were  hot,  her  forehead  was  burning,  and 
her  eyes  bright  and  sad.  When  I  spoke 
to  her,  she  answered  me,  but  I  do  not 
remember  what  we  said.  I  have  for- 
gotten everything,  everything,  every- 
thing! She  died,  and  I  very  well  remem- 
ber her  slight,  feeble  sigh.  The  nurse 
said:  *Ah!'  and  I  understood,  I  under- 
stood ! 

*'I  knew  nothing  more,  nothing.  I 
saw  a  priest,  who  said:  'Your  mistress?* 
and  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  he  were  in- 
sulting her.  As  she  was  dead,  nobody 
had  the  right  to  say  that  any  longer, 
and  I  turned  him  out.  Another  came 
who  was  very  kind  and  tender,  and  I 


shed  tears  when  he  spoke  to  me  about 
her. 

"They  consulted  me  about  the  fun- 
eral, but  I  do  not  remember  anything 
that  they  said,  though  I  recollected  the 
cofhn,  and  the  sound  of  the  hammer 
when  they  nailed  her  down  in  it.  Oh! 
God,  God! 

''She  was  buried!  Buried!  She!  In 
that  hole!  Some  people  came — female 
friends.  I  made  my  escape  and  ran 
away.  I  ran,  and  then  walked  through 
the  streets,  went  home,  and  the  next 
day  started  on  a  journey. 
******* 

"Yesterday  I  returned  to  Paris,  and 
when  I  saw  my  room  again — our  room, 
our  bed,  our  furniture,  everything  that 
remains  of  the  life  of  a  human  being 
after  death — I  was  seized  by  such  a 
violent  attack  of  fresh  grief,  that  I  felt 
like  opening  the  window  and  throwing 
myself  out  into  the  street.  I  could  not 
remain  any  longer  among  these  things, 
between  these  walls  which  had  inclosed 
and  sheltered  her,  which  retained  a  thou- 
sand atoms  of  her,  of  her  skin  and  of 
her  breath,  in  their  imperceptible 
crevices.  I  took  up  my  hat  to  make  my 
escape,  and  just  as  I  reached  the  door, 
I  passed  the  large  glass  in  the  hallj 
which  she  had  put  there  so  that  she 
might  look  at  herself  every  day  from 
head  to  foot  as  she  went  out,  to  see  if 
her  toilette  looked  well  and  was  correct 
and  pretty  from  her  little  boots  to  her 
bonnet. 

"I  stopped  short  in  front  of  that  look- 
ing-glass in  which  she  had  so  often 
been  reflected — so  often,  so  often,  that 
it  must  have  retained  her  reflection.  I 
was  standing  there  trembling  with  my 
eves  fixed  on  the  glass — on  that  flat. 


WAS  IT  A  DREAM? 


S4V 


profound,  empty  glass — which  had  con- 
lained  her  entirely,  and  had  possessed 
her  as  much  as  I,  as  my  passionate 
looks  had.  I  felt  as  if  I  loved  that 
glass.  I  touched  it;  it  was  cold.  Oh! 
the  recollection !  sorrowful  mirror,  burn- 
ing mirror,  horrible  mirror,  to  make  men 
suffer  such  torments !  Happy  is  the  man 
whose  heart  forgets  everything  that  it 
has  contained,  everything  that  has  passed 
before  it,  everything  that  has  looked  at 
itself  in  it,  or  has  been  reflected  in  its 
affection,  in  its  love!     How  I  suffer! 

"I  went  out  without  knowing  its,  with- 
out wishing  it,  and  toward  the  ceme- 
tery. I  found  her  simple  grave,  a  white 
marble  cross,  with  these  few  words: 

**  *She  loved,   was   loved,  and   died.* 

"She  is  there  below,  decayed!  How 
horrible!  I  sobbed  with  my  forehead 
on  the  ground,  and  I  stopped  there  for 
a  long  time,  a  long  time.  Then  I  saw 
that  it  was  getting  dark  and  a  strange, 
mad  wish,  the  wish  of  a  despairing 
lover,  seized  me.  I  wished  to  pass  the 
night,  the  last  night  in  weeping  on  her 
grave.  But  I  should  be  seen  and  driven 
out.  Hov/  was  I  to  manage?  I  was 
cunning  and  got  up  and  began  to  roam 
about  in  that  city  of  the  dead.  I  walked 
and  walked.  How  small  this  city  is,  in 
comparison  with  the  other,  the  city  in 
which  we  live.  And  yet,  how  much 
more  numerous  the  dead  are  than  the  liv- 
ing. We  want  high  houses,  wide  streets, 
and  much  room  for  the  four  genera- 
tions who  see  the  daylight  at  the  same 
time,  drink  water  from  the  spring,  and 
wine  from  the  vines,  and  eat  bread  from 
the  plains. 

"And  for  all  the  generations  of  the 


dead,  for  all  that  ladder  of  humanity 
that  has  descended  down  to  us,  there  is 
scarcely  anything,  scarcely  anything! 
The  earth  takes  them  back,  and  oblivion 
effaces  them.    Adieu! 

"At  the  end  of  the  cemetery,  I  sud- 
denly perceived  that  I  was  in  its  oldest 
part,  where  those  who  had  been  dead 
a  long  time  are  mingling  with  the  soil, 
where  the  crosses  themselves  are  de- 
cayed, where  possibly  newcomers  will 
be  put  to-morrow.  It  is  full  of  un- 
tended  roses,  of  strong  and  dark  cypress* 
trees,  a  sad  and  beautiful  garden, 
nourished  on  human  flesh. 

"I  was  alone,  perfectly  alone.  So  I 
crouched  in  a  green  tree  and  hid  myself 
there  completely  amid  the  thick  and 
somber  branches.  I  waited,  clinging  to 
the  stem,  like  a  shipwrecked  man  does 
to  a  plank. 

"When  it  was  quite  dark,  I  left  my 
refuge  and  began  to  walk  softly,  slowly, 
inaudibly  through  that  ground  full  of 
dead  people.  I  wandered  about  for  a 
long  time,  but  could  not  find  her  tomb 
again.  I  went  on  with  extended  arms, 
knocking  against  the  tombs  with  my 
hands,  my  feet,  my  knees,  my  chest, 
even  with  my  head,  without  being  able 
to  find  her.  I  groped  about  like  a  blind 
man  finding  his  way,  I  felt  the  stones, 
the  crosses,  the  iron  railings,  the  metal 
wreaths,  and  the  wreaths  of  faded  flow- 
ers! I  read  the  names  with  my  fingers, 
by  passing  them  over  the  letters.  What 
a  night!  What  a  night!  I  could  not 
find  her  again! 

"There  was  no  moon.  What  a  night! 
I  was  frightened,  horribly  frightened 
in  these  narrow  paths,  between  two  rows 
of  graves  Graves!  graves!  graves! 
nothing  but  graves!     On  my  right,  on 


S4S 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


my  left,  in  front  of  me,  around  me, 
everywhere  there  were  graves!  I  sat 
down  on  one  of  them,  for  I  could  not 
walk  any  longer,  my  knees  were  so 
weak.  I  could  hear  my  heart  beat! 
And  I  heard  something  else  as  well. 
What?  A  confused,  nameless  noise. 
Was  the  noise  in  my  head,  in  the  im- 
penetrable night,  or  beneath  the  mys- 
terious earth,  the  earth  sown  with  human 
corpses?  I  looked  all  around  me,  but  I 
cannot  say  how  long  I  remained  there; 
I  was  paralyzed  with  terror,  cold  with 
fright,  ready  to  shout  out,  ready  to  die. 
"Suddenly,  it  seemed  to  me  that  the 
slab  of  marble  on  which  I  was  sitting, 
was  moving.  Certainly  it  was  moving, 
as  if  it  were  being  raised.  With  a 
bound,  I  sprang  on  to  the  neighboring 
tomb,  and  I  saw,  yes,  I  distinctly  saw 
the  stone  which  I  had  just  quitted  rise 
upright.  Then  the  dead  person  ap- 
peared, a  naked  skeleton,  pushing  the 
stone  back  with  its  bent  back.  I  saw 
it  quite  clearly,  although  the  night  was 
so  dark.    On  the  cross  I  could  read: 

***Here  lies  Jacques  Olivant,  who  died 
at  the  age  of  fifty-one.  He  loved  his 
family,  was  kind  and  honorable,  and 
died  in  the  grace  of  the  Lord.* 

"The  dead  man  also  read  what  was 
inscribed  on  his  tombstone;  then  he 
picked  up  a  stone  off  the  path,  a  little, 
pointed  stone,  and  began  to  scrape  the 
letters  carefully.  He  slowly  effaced 
them,  and  with  the  hollows  of  his  eyes 
he  looked  at  the  places  where  they  had 
been  engraved.  Then  with  the  tip  of 
the  bone  that  had  been  his  forefinger, 
he  wrote  in  luminous  letters,  like  those 
lines  which  boys  trace  on  walls  with  the 
tip  of  a  lucifer  match: 


"  'Here  reposes  Jacques  Olivant,  who 
died  at  the  age  of  fifty-one.  He  hast- 
ened his  father's  death  by  his  unkind- 
ness,  as  he  wished  to  inherit  his  fortune, 
he  tortured  his  wife,  tormented  his  chil- 
dren, deceived  his  neighbors,  robbed 
everyone   he   could,  and  died   wretched.* 

"When  he  had  finished  writing,  the 
dead  man  stood  motionless,  looking  at 
his  work.  On  turning  round  I  saw  that 
all  the  graves  were  open,  that  all  the 
dead  bodies  had  emerged  from  them,  and 
that  all  had  effaced  the  lines  inscribed 
on  the  gravestones  by  their  relations, 
substituting  the  truth  instead.  And  I 
saw  that  all  had  been  the  tormentors 
of  their  neighbors — malicious,  dishonest, 
h3^ocrites,  liars,  rogues,  calumniators, 
envious;  that  they  had  stolen,  deceived, 
performed  every  disgraceful,  every 
abominable  action,  these  good  fathers, 
these  faithful  wives,  these  devoted  sons, 
these  chaste  daughters,  these  honest 
tradesmen,  these  men  and  women  who 
were  called  irreproachable.  They  were 
all  writing  at  the  same  time,  on  the 
threshold  of  their  eternal  abode,  the 
truth,  the  terrible  and  the  holy  truth 
of  which  everybody  was  ignorant,  oi 
pretended  to  be  ignorant,  while  the> 
were  alive. 

"I  thought  that  she  also  must  have 
written  something  on  her  tombstone, 
and  now  running  without  any  fear  amon^ 
the  half-open  coffins,  among  the  corpses 
and  skeletons,  I  went  toward  her,  sure 
that  I  should  find  her  immediately.  I 
recognized  her  at  once,  without  seeing 
her  face,  which  was  covered  by  the 
winding-sheet,  and  on  the  marble  cross, 
where  shortly  before  I  had  read: 

"'She  loved,  was  loved,  and  died.* 
I  DOW  saw: 


THE  NEW  SENSATION 


549 


"**  'Having  gone  out  in  the  rain  one 
day,  in  order  to  deceive  her  lover,  she 
caught  cold  and  died.' 

*  4(  4e  ♦  4:  4( 


"It  appears  that  they  found  me  at 
daybreak,   lying   on   the   grave    uncon- 


scious. 


The  New  Sensation 


Little  Madame  d "Ormonde  certainly 
had  the  devil  in  her.  She  rejoiced  in 
a  fantastic,  baflSing  brain,  through  which 
the  most  unheard-of  caprices  passed,  in 
which  ideas  danced  and  jostled  each 
other,  Hke  those  pieces  of  differently 
colored  glass  in  a  kaleidoscope,  which 
form  such  strange  figures  when  they 
h.ive  been  shaken.  In  her  Parisine  was 
fermenting  to  such  an  extent — you 
know  the  analysis  of  Parisine,  which 
Roqueplan  lately  gave — that  the  most 
learned  member  of  The  Institute  would 
have  wasted  his  science  and  his  wisdom 
if  he  had  tried  to  follow  her  slips  and 
her  subterfuges. 

That  was,  very  likely,  the  reason  why 
she  attracted,  retained,  and  infatuated 
even  those  who  had  paid  their  aebt  to 
implacable  love — men  who  thought  they 
were  strong,  free  from  those  passions 
under  the  influence  of  which  men  lose 
their  heads,  and  beyond  the  reach  of 
woman's  perfidious  snares.  Perhaps,  it 
was  her  small,  soft,  delicate,  white 
hands,  which  always  smelled  of  some 
subtle,  delicious  perfume,  and  those 
small  fingers  which  men  kissed  almost 
with  devotion,  and  with  absolute  plea- 
sure. Or,  perhaps,  it  was  her  silky, 
golden  hair,  or  her  large,  blue  eyes,  full 
of  enigma,  of  curiosity,  of  desire,  or 
her  changeable  mouth,  small  and  infan- 
tine at  one  moment,  when  she  was  pout- 


ing, and  smiling  and  as  open  as  a  rose 
that  is  unfolding  in  the  sun  when  she 
opened  it  in  a  laugh  and  showed  her 
pcaily  teeth,  so  that  it  became  a  target 
for  kisses.  Who  will  ever  be  able  to 
explain  the  magic  and  sorcery  which 
some  Chosen  Women  exercise  over  all 
men,  the  despotic  authority  against 
which  nobody  would  think  of  rebelling? 
Among  the  numerous  men  who  had 
wooed  her,  who  were  anxiously  waiting 
for  that  wonderful  moment  when  her 
heart  would  beat,  when  this  mocking 
companion  would  grow  tired  and  aban- 
don herself  to  the  pleasure  of  loving 
and  of  being  loved,  would  become  in- 
toxicated with  the  honey  of  caresses, 
and  would  not  longer  refuse  her  lips  to 
kisses,  like  some  restive  animal  that 
fears  to  joke,  none  had  so  made  up 
his  mind  to  win  the  game,  and  pursue 
this  deceptive  siege,  as  Xavier  de  Fon- 
trailles.  He  labored  for  his  object  with 
a  patient  energy  and  a  strength  of  will 
which  no  snubs  could  weaken — ^with 
the  ardent  fervor  of  a  believer  who  has 
started  on  a  long  pilgrimage,  and  who 
supports  all  the  suffering  of  the  long 
journey  with  the  fixed  and  consoling  idea 
that  one  day  he  will  be  able  to  throw 
himself  on  his  knees  at  the  shrine  where 
he  would  worship,  and  to  listen  to  the 
divine  words  which  will  mean  Paradise 
to  him. 


550 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


He  gave  way  to  Madame  d'Ormonde's 
slightest  whims,  did  all  he  could  to 
amuse  her,  never  hurt  her  feelings, 
strove  to  become  a  friend  whom  she 
could  not  do  without,  the  friend  of 
whom,  in  the  end,  a  woman  grows  more 
jealous  than  she  does  of  her  husband, 
and  to  whom  she  confesses  everything, 
her  daily  worries  and  her  dreams  of  the 
future. 

She  would  very  likely  have  suffered 
and  wept,  have  felt  a  void  in  her  exis- 
tence, if  they  had  separated  forever,  if 
he  had  disappeared.  She  would  not 
have  hesitated  to  defend  him,  even  at  the 
risk  of  compromising  herself  and  of 
passing  as  his  mistress,  if  any  one  had 
attacked  him  in  her  presence,  and  some- 
times she  would  say,  with  a  sudden, 
laughing  sadness  in  her  voice: 

"If  I  were  really  capable  of  loving 
for  five  minutes  consecutively,  I  should 
love  you." 

When  they  were  walking  in  the  Boise 
de  Boulogne,  while  the  victoria  was  wait- 
ing near  Armenonville,  during  afternoon 
talks  when,  as  he  used  to  say,  they 
were  hanging  over  the  abyss  until  they 
both  grew  giddy,  and  spoke  of  love 
madly  and  ceaselessly, — returning  to 
the  subject  constantly,  and  steeping 
themselves  with  it, — Madame  d'Ormonde 
would  occasionally  propound  one  of  her 
favorite  theories.  Yes,  she  certainly 
understood  what  possession  of  a  beloved 
object  was,  that  touch  of  madness  which 
seizes  you  from  head  to  foot,  which 
fires  your  blood,  making  you  forget 
everything  else  in  a  man's  embraces,  in 
that  supreme  pleasure  which  overwhelms 
you,  and  which  rivets  two  beings  to- 
gether forever,  in  heart  and  in  brain. 
But  she  cared  for  it  only  at  some  un- 


expected moment,  in  a  strange  place, 
with  a  touch  of  something  novel  about 
it,  which  one  would  remember  all  one's 
life,  of  something  amusing  and  almost 
maddening,  which  one  had  been  in  search 
of  for  a  long  time,  and  which  imparted 
a  breath  of  romance,  as  it  were,  into 
the  commonplace  details  of  ordinary 
love. 

And  Xavier  de  Fontrailles  did  all  he 
could  to  discover  such  a  place,  but 
failed.  .  He  tried  a  bachelor's  lodgings 
with  silk  tapestry,  like  a  boudoir  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  a  villa  hidden  Hke 
a  nest  among  trees  and  losebushes,  a 
Japanese  house  furnished  in  extraor- 
dinary fashion  and  very  expensively, 
with  latticed  windows  from  which  one 
could  see  the  sea,  an  old  melancholy 
palace,  from  which  one  could  see  tfie 
Grand  Canal,  looms,  hotels,  queer  quar- 
ters, private  rooms  in  restaurants,  and 
small  country  houses  In  the  recesses  of 
woods. 

Madame  d'Ormonde  went  on  her  way 
without  turning  her  head,  but  Xavier, 
alas!  became  more  and  more  smitten,  as 
amorous  as  an  overgrown  schoolboy 
who  has  never  hitherto  had  any  con- 
verse with  a  woman,  and  who  is  foolish 
enough  to  pick  up  the  flowers  that  fall 
from  her  bodice,  and  to  be  lost  and 
unhappy  when  he  does  not  see  her,  or 
hear  her  soft,  cooing  voice,  or  see  hei 
smile. 

One  evening,  however,  he  had  gone 
with  her  to  the  fair  at  Saint-Cloud. 
They  went  into  three  shows,  deafened 
by  the  noise  of  the  organs,  the  whistling 
of  the  machinery  of  the  roundabouts, 
and  the  hubbub  of  the  crowd  that  flowed 
among  the  booths  illuminated  by  paraffin 
lamps.    As  they  were  passing  in  froo^ 


VIRTUE! 


551 


of  a  fortune-teller's  van,  Monsieur  de 
Fontrailles  stopped  and  said  to  Madame 
d'Ormonde: 

"Would  you  like  to  have  your  fortune 
told?" 

The  van  was  a  very  fine  specimen  of 
its  kind,  and  had,  no  doubt,  traveled 
far  and  wide.  Placards  and  portraits, 
bordered  by  advertisements,  hung  above 
the  shaky  steps,  and  the  small  windows 
with  their  closed  shutters  were  almost 
hidden  by  boxes  of  sweet  basil  and 
mignonette,  while  an  old,  bald  parrot, 
with  her  feathers  all  ruffled,  was  asleep 
just  outside. 

The  fortune-teller  was  sitting  on  a 
chair,  quietly  knitting  a  stocking.  On 
their  approach  she  got  up,  went  up  to 
Madame  d'Ormonde  and  said  in  an  unc- 
tuous voice: 

"I  reveal  the  present,  the  past,  and 
the  future,  and  even  the  name  of  the 
future  husband  or  wife,  and  of  deceased 
relations,  as  well  as  my  client's  present 
and  future  circumstances.  I  have  per- 
formed before  crowned  heads.  The 
Emperor  of  Brazil  came  to  me,  with  the 
illustrious  poet,  Victor  Hugo.  My 
charge  is  five  francs  for  telling  your  for- 
tune from  the  cards  or  by  your  hand, 
and  twenty  francs  for  the  whole  lot. 
Would  you  like  the  lot,  Madame?'* 

Madame  d'Ormonde  gave  vent  to  a 
burst  of  sonorous  laughter,  like  a  street 
girl  who  is  amusing  herself.    But  they 


went  in  and  Monsieur  de  Fontrailles 
opened  the  glass  door,  which  was  cov- 
ered by  a  heavy  red  curtain.  When  they 
entered,  the  young  woman  uttered  an 
exclamation  of  surprise.  The  interior 
of  the  van  was  full  of  roses,  arranged 
in  the  most  charming  manner,  as  if  for 
a  lovers'  meeting.  On  a  table  covered 
with  a  damask  cloth,  surrounded  by 
piles  of  cushions,  a  supper  was  waiting 
for  chance  comers,  and  at  the  other  end, 
concealed  by  heavy  hangings,  one  could 
see  a  large,  wide  bed,  one  of  those  beds 
which  give  rise  to  suggestion! 

Xavier  had  shut  the  door  again,  and 
Madame  d'Ormonde  looked  at  him  in  a 
strange  manner,  with  rather  flushed 
cheeks,  with  palpitating  nostrils,  and 
with  a  look  in  her  eyes  such  as  he  had 
never  seen  in  them  before.  In  a  very 
low  voice,  while  his  heart  beat  violently, 
he  whispered  into  her  ear: 

"Well,  does  the  decoration  please  you 
this  time?" 

She  replied  by  holding  up  her  lips  to 
him,  and  then  filled  two  glasses  with 
extra  dry  champagne,  which  was  as  pale 
as  the  skin  of  a  fair  woman.  Then  she 
said,  almost  as  if  already  rather  drunk: 

"I  am  decidedly  worth  a  big  stake!" 

It  was  in  this  fashion  that  Madame 
d'Ormonde,  for  the  first  and  last  time, 
deceived  her  husband;  and  it  was  at 
the  fair  at  Saint-Cloud,  in  a  fortune- 
teller's van. 


Virtue! 


Every  Friday,  regularly,  about  eleven  his  feet,  struck  a  few  chords  on  \iU 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  he  came  into  guitar  and  began  a  ballad  in  a  full,  rich 
the  courtyard,  put  down  his  soft  hat  at     voice.     And  soon  at  every  window  in 


•552 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


the  four  sides  of  that  dull,  barracklike 
building  appeared  some  girls,  one  in  an 
elegant  dressing-gown,  another  in  a  lit- 
tle jacket,  most  of  them  with  their 
bosoms  and  arms  bare,  all  of  them  just 
out  of  bed,  with  their  hair  hastily  twisted 
up,  their  eyes  bhnking  in  the  sudden 
blaze  of  sunlight,  their  complexions  dull, 
and  their  eyes  still  heavy  with  sleep. 

They  swayed  in  time  to  his  slow  mel- 
ody, and  gave  themselves  up  to  the  en- 
joyment of  it.  Pennies,  and  even  silver 
poured  into  the  handsome  singer's  hat, 
and  more  than  one  of  them  would  have 
liked  to  follow  the  penny  which  she 
threw  to  him,  and  go  with  this  singer 
who  had  the  voice  of  a  siren.  For  he 
seemed  to  say  to  all  these  amorous 
girls:  "Come,  come  to  my  retreat,  for 
there  you  will  find  a  palace  of  crystal 
and  gold,  wreaths  which  are  always 
fresh,  and  happiness  and  love  which 
never  die." 

That  was  what  they  seemed  to  hear, 
these  unhappy  girls,  when  they  heard 
him  sing  the  old  legends  which  in  child- 
hood they  had  believed.  That  was 
what  they  understood  by  the  simple 
words  of  the  ballad — that  and  nothing 
else.  How  could  anyone  doubt  it,  see- 
ing the  fresh  roses  on  their  cheeks,  and 
the  tender  lights  which  flickered  like 
mystic  fires  in  their  eyes,  now  for  the 
moment,  once  more  the  eyes  of  innocent 
young  girls?  But,  alas!  of  young  girls 
who  had  grown  up  too  quickly,  who 
were  too  precocious,  and  who  had  too 
soon  become  what  they  were,  poor  ven- 
dors of  love,  always  in  search  of  that 
love  for  which  they  were  paid. 

That  was  why,  when  he  had  finished 
his  second  ballad,  and  sometimes  sooner, 
concupiscent    looks    appeared    in   their 


eyes.  The  boatman  of  their  dreams,  the 
water-sprite  of  the  fairy  tales,  vanished 
in  the  mist  of  childish  recollections,  and 
the  singer  reassumed  his  real  shape, 
that  of  a  wandering  minstrel  and  stroll- 
ing player,  whom  they  wished  to  requite 
with  love.  And  the  coppers  and  small 
silver  were  showered  on  him  again,  with 
engaging  smiles,  with  the  leers  of  amor- 
ous women,  even  with  a  "P^st,  P*st" 
which  soon  transformed  the  barracklike 
courtyard  into  an  enormous  cage  full 
of  twittering  birds.  Several  of  them 
could  not  restrain  themselves,  but  ejac- 
ulated, their  eyes  filled  with  desire: 
"How  handsome — good  heavens,  how 
handsome  he  is!" 

He  was  really  handsome  —  nobody 
could  deny  it,  even  too  handsome,  with 
that  regular  beauty  which  almost  palls 
on  you.  He  had  large,  gentle,  almond- 
shaped  eyes,  a  Grecian  nose,  a  bow- 
shaped  mouth  hidden  by  a  heavy  mus- 
tache, and  long,  black,  curly  hair;  in 
short,  a  head  fit  to  be  put  into  a  hair- 
dresser's window,  or,  better  still,  per- 
haps, on  to  the  front  page  of  the  ballads 
he  was  singing.  What  made  him  still 
handsomer  was  that  his  self-conceit 
wore  a  cloak  of  sovereign  indifference, 
for  not  only  was  he  blind  to  the  ogling 
and  deaf  to  the  "P'st,  P'st,"  but  when 
he  had  finished  he  shrugged  his  should- 
ers, winked  mischievously,  and  curled 
his  lips  contemptuously,  as  if  to  say: 
"The  stove  is  not  being  heated  for  you, 
my  little  kittens!' 

You  would  have  thought  that  he 
wished  to  show  his  contempt,  make  him- 
self commonplace  in  the  eyes  of  these 
amorous  girls,  and  to  dampen  their 
ardor,  for  he  cleared  his  throat  osten- 
tatiously and  offensively,  far  more  than 


VIRTUE! 


J>»o 


was  necessary,  after  singing,  as  if  lie 
would  have  liked  to  spit  at  them.  But 
even  this  did  not  make  him  unpoetical 
in  their  eyes,  and  most  of  them,  abso- 
lutely mad  over  him,  went  so  far  as  to 
say  that  he  did  it  "like  a  swell!" 

The  girl  who  in  her  enthusiasm  had 
been  the  first  to  utter  an  exclamation  of 
intense  passion,  after  tossing  him  small 
silver,  had  thrown  him  a  twenty-franc 
gold-piece,  and  made  up  her  mind  to 
have  an  answer.  This  morning  instead 
of  a  "Fsty  Fst'*  she  spoke  out  boldly 
despite  the  presence  and  silence  of  the 
others. 

At  first  they  were  dumfounded  at  her 
audacity,  and  then  all  their  cheeks 
flushed  with  jealousy,  and  the  flame  of 
desire  shot  from  their  eyes.  Then  from 
every  window  there  came  a  perfect  tor- 
rent of: 

"Yes,  :ome  up,  come  up.*'  "Don't 
go  there!     Come  here." 

Meanwhile,   there  was   a   shower  of 

half-pence,  of  francs,  of  gold  coins,  of 

cigars   and   oranges,  while  lace  pocket 

handkerchiefs,  silk  neckties,  and  scarfs 

fluttered  in  the  air  and  fell  round  the 

singer,  like  a  flight    of    many-colored 

butterflies. 

L      The  minstrel  picked    up    the    spoil 

|,  calmly,    almost    carelessly,   stuffed    the 

'  monev  into  his  Docket,  made  a  bundle 

of  the  furbelows,  which  he  tied  up  as 

if  they  had  been  soiled  linen,  and  then 

rising  up,  he  put  his  felt  hat  on  his 

head  and  said: 

"Thank  you,  ladies,  but  indeed  I  can- 
not." 

They  thought  that  he  was  embar- 
rassed by   so   many   simultaneous   de- 


mands, and  one  of  them  said:  "Let 
him  choose." 

"Yes,  yes,  that  is  it!"  they  exclaimed 
in  unison. 

But  he  repeated:  "I  tell  you  I  can- 
not." 

They  put  his  refusal  down  to  his  gal- 
lantry, and  several  of  them  exclaimed, 
almost  with  tears  of  emotion:  "He  is 
all  heart!"  And  the  same  voice  that 
had  spoken  before  (it  was  the  one  who 
wished  to  settle  the  matter  amicably) 
said:    "We  must  draw  lots." 

"Yes,  yes,  we  will,"  they  all  cried. 
And  again  there  was  a  deeper  silence 
than  before,  for  it  was  caused  by  anx- 
iety, their  hearts  beating  almost  aud- 
ibly. 

The  singer  profited  by  it  to  say 
slowly:  "I  cannot  allow  that  either;  I 
neither  desire  all  of  you  at  once,  nor 
one  after  the  other — at  any  time !  I  tell 
you  once  for  all." 

"Why?  Why?"  Now  they  were  al- 
most  screaming,  angry,  and  sorry  at  the 
same  time.  Their  cheeks  had  turned 
from  scarlet  to  livid,  their  eyes  flashed 
fire,  and  some  shook  their  fists  menac- 
ingly. 

"Silence!"  cried  the  girl,  who  had 
spoken  first.  "Be  quiet,  you  pack  of 
hussies!  Let  him  explain  himself,  and 
tell  us  why!" 

"Yes,  yes,  be  quiet!  Make  him  ex- 
plain himself,  in  God's  name!  ' 

Then,  in  ths  expectant  silence  that 
ensued,  the  singer  said,  opening  his  arms 
wide,  with  a  gesture  of  despairing  in« 
abilty  to  do  what  they  wanted : 

"Why  do  you  want  me?  It  is  very 
flattering,  but  I  cannot  gratify  you,  for 
I  have  two  girls  of  my  own  at  home.'* 


The  Thief 


"Certainly,"  exclaimed  Dr.  Sorbier, 
who,  while  appearing  to  be  thinking  of 
something  else,  had  been  listening 
quietly  to  those  surprising  accounts  of 
burglaries  and  of  daring  acts  which  might 
have  been  borrowed  from  the  trial  of 
Cartouche.  ''Certainly,  I  do  not  know 
any  viler  fault,  nor  any  meaner  action 
than  to  attack  a  girl's  innocence,  to 
corrupt  her,  to  profit  by  a  moment  of 
unconscious  weakness  and  of  madness, 
when  her  heart  is  beating  like  that  of 
a  frightened  fawn,  when  her  body,  which 
has  been  unpolluted  up  till  then,  is  pal- 
pitating with  desire  and  her  pure  lips 
seek  those  of  her  seducer — when  her 
whole  being  is  feverish  and  vanquished, 
and  she  abandons  herself  without  think- 
ing of  the  irremediable  stain,  nor  of 
her  fall,  nor  of  the  painful  awakening 
on  the  morrow. 

"The  man  who  has  brought  this  about 
slowly,  viciously,  and  none  can  tell  with 
what  science  of  evil,  and  who,  in  such 
a  case,  has  not  steadiness  and  self- 
restraint  enough  to  quench  that  flame 
by  some  icy  words,  who  has  not  sense 
enough  for  two,  who  cannot  recover  his 
self-possession  and  master  the  runaway 
brute  within  him,  who  loses  his  head 
on  the  edge  of  the  precipice  over  which 
the  girl  is  going  to  fall,  is  as  contempti- 
ble as  any  man  who  breaks  open  a  lock. 
or  as  any  rascal  on  the  lookout  for  a  house 
left  defenseless  and  without  protection, 
or  as  any  adventurer  looking  for  some 
easy  and  profitable  stroke  of  business, 
or  as  that  thief  whose  various  exploits 
you  have  just  related  to  us. 

"I,  for  my  part,  utterly  refuse  to 
absolve  him  even  when  extenuating  cir- 
cumstances plead  in    his  favor,    even 


when  he  is  carrying  oii  a  dangerous  flir- 
tation, in  which  a  man  tries  in  vain  to 
keep  his  balance  and  not  to  exceed  the 
limits  of  the  game  any  more  than  at 
lawn  tennis,  even  when  the  parts  are  re- 
versed and  a  man's  adversary  is  some 
precocious,  curious,  seductive  girl,  who 
shows  you  immediately  that  she  has 
nothing  to  learn  and  nothing  to  experi- 
ence, except  the  last  chapter  of  love- 
one  of  those  girls  from  whom  may  fate 
always  preserve  our  sons,  and  whom  a 
psychological  novel  writer  has  christened 
*Demi-Virgins.' 

"It  is  of  course  difficult  and  painful 
for  that  coarse  and  unfathomable  vanity 
which  is  characteristic  of  every  man, 
and  which  might  be  called  malism,  not 
to  stir  such  a  charming  fire,  to  act  the 
Joseph  and  the  fool,  to  turn  away  his 
eyes,  and,  as  it  were,  to  put  wax  into 
his  ears,  as  did  the  companions  of 
Ulysses  when  attracted  by  the  divine, 
seductive  songs  of  the  Sirens.  It  is  hard 
not  to  touch  that  pretty  table,  covered 
with  a  perfectly  new  cloth,  at  which 
you  are  invited  to  take  a  seat  before 
anyone  else,  in  such  a  suggestive  voice, 
and  are  requested  to  quench  your  thirst 
and  to  taste  that  new  wine  whose  fresh 
and  strange  flavor  you  will  never  forget. 
But  who  would  hesitate  to  exercise  such 
self-restraint  if,  when  he  rapidly  ex- 
amines his  conscience  in  one  of  those 
instinctive  moments  of  reason  in  which 
a  man  thinks  clearly  and  recovers  his 
head — if  he  were  to  measure  the  gravity 
of  the  fault,  think  of  the  error,  think  of 
its  consequences,  of  the  reprisals,  of  the 
uneasiness  which  he  would  always  feel 
in  the  future,  and  which  would  destroy 
the  repose  and  the  happiness  of  his  life? 


554 


THE  THIEF 


555 


^'You  may  g\iess  that  behind  all  these 
moral  reflections,  such  as  a  gray-beard 
like  myself  may  indulge  in,  there  is  a 
story  hidden,  and  sad  as  it  is,  I  am  sure 
it  will  interest  you  on  account  of  the 
strange  heroism  that  it  shows." 

He  was  silent  for  a  few  moments  as 
if  to  classify  his  recollections,  and  with 
elbows  resting  on  the  arms  of  his  easy- 
chair,  and  eyes  lo'^king  into  space,  he 
continued  in  the  slow  voice  of  a  hospital 
professor,  who  is  explaining  a  case  to 
his  class  of  students,  at  a  bedside: 

''He  was  one  of  those  men  who  as 
our  grandfathers  used  to  say,  never  met 
with  a  cruel  woman,  the  type  of  an 
adventurous  knight  who  was  always 
foraging,  who  had  something  of  the 
scamp  about  him,  but  who  despised  dan- 
ger and  was  bold  even  to  rashness.  He 
was  ardent  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure, 
had  an  irresistible  charm  about  him, 
and  was  one  of  those  men  in  whom  we 
excuse  the  greatest  excesses  as  the  most 
natural  things  in  the  world.  He  had 
run  through  all  his  money  through  gam- 
bling and  with  pretty  girls,  and  so  be- 
came, as  it  were,  a  soldier  of  fortune, 
7/ho  amused  himself  whenever  and  how- 
ever he  could,  and  was  at  that  time 
quartered  at  Versailles. 

"I  knew  him  to  the  very  depths  of 
his  childish  heart,  which  was  only  too 
easily  penetrated  and  sounded.  I  loved 
him  like  some  old  bachelor  uncle  loves 
a  nephew  who  plays  him  tricks,  but  who 
knows  how  to  make  him  indulgent,  and 
how  to  wheedle  him.  He  had  made  me 
his  confidant  far  more  than  his  adviser, 
kept  me  informed  of  his  slightest  tricks, 
though  he  always  pretended  to  be  speak- 
ing about  one  of  his  friends,  and  not 
about  himself,  and  I  must  confess  that 


his  youthful  impetuosity,  his  careless 
gaiety,  and  his  amorous  ardor  sometimes 
distracted  my  thoughts  and  made  me 
envy  the  handsome,  vigorous  young  fel- 
low who  was  so  happy  in  being  alive. 
I  had  not  the  courage  to  check  him,  to 
show  him  his  right  road,  and  to  call  out 
to  him  'Take  care!'  as  children  do  at 
blindman's  bluff. 

*'ARd  one  day,  after  one  of  those  in- 
terminable cotillons,  where  the  couples 
do  not  leave  each  other  for  hours,  but 
have  a  loose  rein  and  can  disappear  to- 
gether without  anybody  noticing  it,  the 
poor  fellow  at  last  discovered  what  love 
was,  that  real  love  which  takes  up  its 
abode  in  the  very  center  cf  the  heart 
and  in  the  brain,  and  is  proad  of  being 
there,  which  rules  like  a  sovereign  and 
a  tyrannous  master.  He  grew  desper- 
ately enamored  of  a  pretty,  but  badly 
brought  up  girl,  who  was  as  disquiet- 
ing and  as  wayward  as  she  was  pretty. 

"She  loved  him,  however,  or  rather 
she  idolized  him  despotically,  madly, 
with  all  her  enraptured  soul,  and  all  her 
excited  person.  Left  to  do  as  she 
pleased  by  imprudent  and  frivolous  par- 
ents, suffering  from  neurosis,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  unwholesome  friend- 
ships contracted  at  the  convent-school, 
instructed  by  what  she  saw  and  heard 
and  knew  was  going  on  around  her,  in 
spite  of  her  deceitful  and  artificial  con- 
duct, knowing  that  neither  her  father 
nor  her  mother,  who  were  very  proud  of 
their  race  as  well  as  avaricious,  would 
ever  agree  to  let  her  marry  the  man 
whom  she  had  taken  a  liking  to, — that 
handsome  fellow  who  had  li'tle  besides 
visionary  ideas  and  debts,  and  who  be- 
longed to  the  middle  classes, — she  laid 
aside  all  scruples,  thought   of  nothing 


556 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


but  of  belonging  to  him  altogether,  of 
taking  him  for  her  lover,  and  of  tri- 
umphing over  his  desperate  resistance 
as  an  honorable  man. 

"By  degrees,  the  unfortunate  man's 
strength  gave  way,  his  heart  grew  soft- 
ened, his  nerves  became  excited,  and  he 
allowed  himself  to  be  carried  away  by 
the  current  which  buffeted  him,  sur- 
rounded him,  and  left  him  on  the  shore 
like  a  waif  and  a  stray. 

"They  wrote  letter?  full  of  temptation 
and  of  madness  to  each  other,  and  not 
a  day  passed  without  their  meeting, 
either  accidentally,  as  it  seemed,  or  at 
parties  and  balls.  She  had  given  him 
her  lips  in  long,  ardent  caresses,  and  she 
had  sealed  their  compact  of  mutual  pas- 
sion with  kisses  of  desire  and  of  hope. 
And  at  last  she  brought  him  to  her  room, 
almost  in  spite  of  himself." 

The  doctor  stopped,  and  his  eyes  sud- 
denly filled  with  tears,  as  these  former 
troubles  came  back  to  his  mind.  Then 
in  a  hoarse  voice,  he  went  on,  full  of  the 
horror  of  what  he  was  going  to  relate: 

"Each  night,  for  months,  he  scaled  the 
garden  wall,  and  holding  his  breath  and 
listening  for  the  slightest  noise,  like  a 
burglar  who  is  going  to  break  into  a 
house,  he  entered  by  the  servants*  door, 
which  she  had  left  open,  went  barefoot 
down  a  long  passage  and  up  the  broad 
staircase,  which  creaked  occasionally,  to 
the  second  story,  where  his  mistress's 
room  was,  and  stopped  there  nearly  the 
whole  night. 

"One  night,  when  it  was  darker  than 
usual,  and  he  was  hurrying  lest  he  should 
be  later  than  the  time  agreed  on,  the 
ofi5cer  knocked  up  against  a  piece  of 
furniture  in  the  anteroom  and  upset  it. 
It  so  happened  that  the  girl's  mother 


had  not  gone  to  sleep  yet,  either  because 
she  had  a  sick  headache,  or  else  be- 
cause she  had  sat  up  late  over  some 
novel.  Frightened  at  the  unusual  noise 
which  disturbed  the  silence  of  the  house, 
she  jumped  out  of  bed,  opened  the  door, 
saw  some  one  indistinctly  running  away 
and  keeping  close  to  the  wall,  and,  im- 
mediately thinking  that  there  were 
burglars  in  the  house,  she  aroused  her 
husband  and  the  servants  by  her  frantic 
screams.  The  unfortunate  man  knew 
what  he  was  about,  and  seeing  his  di- 
lemma he  determined  to  be  taken  for 
a  common  thief  rather  than  dishonor 
his  adored  mistress  and  betray  the  secret 
of  their  guilty  love.  So  he  ran  into  the 
drawing-room,  felt  on  the  tables  and 
whatnots,  filled  his  pockets  at  random 
with  valuable  knickknacks,  and  then 
cowered  down  behind  the  grand  piano, 
which  barred  up  a  corner  of  a  large 
room. 

"The  servants,  who  had  run  in  with 
lighted  candles,  found  him,  and  over- 
whelming him  with  abuse,  seized  him 
by  the  collar  and  dragged  him,  panting 
and  half  dead  with  shame  and  terror, 
to  the  nearest  police  station.  He  de- 
fended himself  with  intentional  awk- 
wardness when  he  was  brought  up  for 
trial,  kept  up  his  part  with  the  most 
perfect  self-possession,  and  without  any 
signs  of  the  despair  and  anguish  that 
he  felt  in  his  heart.  Condemned  and 
degraded  and  made  to  suffer  martyrdom 
in  his  honor  as  a  man  and  as  a  soldier, 
he  did  not  protest,  but  went  to  prison 
as  one  of  those  criminals  whom  society 
destroys  like  noxious  vermin. 

"He  died  there  of  misery  and  of  bit- 
terness of  spirit,  with  the  name  of  the 
fair-haired  idol  for  whom  he  had  sacri- 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MADMAN 


557 


ficed  himself  on  his  lips,  as  if  it  had 
been  an  ecstatic  prayer.  He  intrusted 
his  will  to  the  priest  who  administered 
extreme  unction  to  him,  and  requested 
him  to  give  it  to  me.  In  it,  without 
mentioning  anybody,  and  without  in  the 
least  lifting  the  veil,  he  at  last  explained 
the  enigma,  and  cleared  himself  of  those 


accusations,  the  terrible  burden  of  which 
he  had  borne  until  his  last  breath. 

"I  have  always  thought  myself, 
though  I  do  not  know  why,  that  the  girl 
married  and  had  several  charming  chil- 
dren, whom  she  brought  up  with  austere 
strictness,  and  in  the  serious  piety  oi 
former  days!" 


The  Diary  of  a  Madman 


He  was  dead — the  head  of  a  high 
tribunal,  the  upright  magistrate,  whose 
irreproachable  life  was  a  proverb  in  all 
the  courts  of  France.  Advocates,  young 
counselors,  judges  had  saluted,  bowing 
low  in  token  of  profound  respect,  re- 
membering that  grand  face,  pale  and 
thin,  illumined  by  two  bright,  deep-set 
eyes. 

He  had  passed  his  life  in  pursuing 
crime  and  in  protecting  the  weak. 
Swindlers  and  murderers  had  no  more 
redoubtable  enemy,  for  he  seemed  to 
read  in  the  recesses  of  their  souls  their 
most  secret  thoughts. 

He  was  dead,  now,  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
two,  honored  by  the   homage  and  fol- 
lowed by  the  regrets  of  a  whole  people. 
Soldiers  in   red   breeches   had   escorted 
^  him   to  the  tomb,   and   men   in  white 
I  cravats  had  shed  on  his  grave  tears  that 
•   seemed  to  be  real. 

But  listen  to  the  strange  paper  found 
by  the  dismayed  notary  in  the  desk 
where  the  judge  had  kept  filed  the  rec- 
ords of  great  criminals !    It  was  entitled : 

WHY? 

June  20,  18.'>1.  1  have  just  left  court. 
I  have  condemned  Blonde  to  death! 
Now.  whv  did  this  man  kill  his  five  chil- 


dren? Frequently  one  meets  with  peo- 
pie  to  whom  killing  is  a  pleasure.  Yes, 
yes,  it  should  be  a  pleasure — the  great- 
est of  all,  perhaps,  for  is  not  killing 
most  like  eating?  To  make  and  to  de- 
stroy! These  two  words  contain  the 
history  of  the  universe,  the  history  of 
all  worlds,  all  that  is,  all!  Why  is  it 
not  intoxicating  to  kill? 

June  25.  To  think  that  there  is  a 
being  who  lives,  who  walks,  who  runs. 
A  being?  What  is  a  being?  An 
animated  thing  which  bears  in  it  the 
principle  of  motion,  and  a  will  ruling 
that  principle.  It  clings  to  nothing, 
this  thing.  Its  feet  are  independent  of 
the  ground.  It  is  a  grain  of  life  that 
moves  on  the  earth,  and  this  grain  of 
life,  coming  I  know  not  whence,  one 
can  destroy  at  one's  will.  Then  nothing 
— nothing  more.  It  perishes;  it  is 
finished. 

June  26.  Why,  then,  is  it  a  crime  to 
kill?  Yes,  why?  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
the  law  of  nature.  Every  being  has  the 
mission  to  kill;  he  kills  to  live,  and  he 
lives  to  kill.  The  beast  kills  without 
ceasmg,  all  day,  every  instant  of  its 
existence.  Man  kills  without  ceasing, 
to  nourish  himself ;  but  since  in  addition 
he  needs  to  kill  for  pleasure,  he  has 


55: 


V/ORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


invented  the  chase!  The  child  kills  the 
insects  he  finds,  the  little  birds,  all  the 
little  animals  that  come  in  his  way. 
But  this  does  not  suffice  for  the  ir- 
resistible need  of  massacre  that  is  in  us. 
It  is  not  enough  to  kill  beasts;  we  must 
kill  man  too.  Long  ago  this  need  was 
satisfied  by  human  sacrifice.  Now,  the 
necessity  of  living  in  society. has  made 
murder  a  crime.  We  condemn  and  pun- 
ish the  assassin!  But  as  we  cannot  live 
without  yielding  to  this  natural  and  im- 
perious instinct  of  death,  we  relieve  our- 
selves, from  time  to  time,  by  wars. 
Then  a  whole  nation  slaughters  another 
nation.  It  is  i  feast  of  blood,  a  feast 
that  maddens  armies  and  intoxicates  the 
civilians,  women  and  children,  who  read, 
by  lamplight  at  night,  the  feverish  story 
of  massacre. 

And  do  we  despise  those  picked  out 
to  accomplish  these  butcheries  of  men? 
No,  <-hey  are  loaded  with  honors.  They 
are  clad  in  gold  and  in  resplendent 
stuffs;  they  wear  plumes  on  their  heads 
and  ornaments  on  their  breasts;  and 
they  are  given  crosses,  rewards,  titles 
of  every  kind.  They  are  proud,  re- 
spected, loved  by  women,  cheered  by 
the  crowd,  solely  because  their  mission 
is  to  shed  human  blood!  They  drag 
through  the  streets  their  instruments  of 
death,  and  the  passer-by,  clad  in  black, 
looks  on  with  envy.  For  to  kill  is  the 
great  law  put  by  nature  in  the  heart 
of  existence!  There  is  nothing  more 
beautiful  and  honorable  than  killing! 

June  30.  To  kill  is  the  law,  because 
Nature  loves  eternal  youth.  She  seems 
to  cry  in  all  her  unconscious  acts: 
"Quick!  quick!  quick!"  The  more  she 
destroys,  the  more  she  renews  herself. 

July  3.    It  must  be  a  pleasure,  unique 


and  full  of  zest,  to  kill:  to  place  before 
you  a  living,  thinking  being;  to  make 
therein  a  Kttle  hole,  nothing  but  a  little 
hole,  and  to  see  that  red  liquid  flow 
which  is  the  blood,  which  is  the  life; 
and  then  to  have  before  you  only  a  heap 
of  limp  flesh,  cold,  void  of  thought! 

Aumst  5.  I,  who  have  passed  my  life 
in  judgment,  condemning,  killing  by 
words  pronounced,  killing  by  the  guillo- 
tine those  who  had  killed  by  the  knife, 
if  I  should  do  as  all  the  assassins  whom 
I  have  smitten  have  done,  I,  I — who 
would  know  it? 

August  10.  Who  would  ever  know? 
Who  would  ever  suspect  me,  especially 
if  I  should  choose  a  being  I  had  no  in- 
terest in  doing  away  with?  ? 

August  22.  I  could  resist  no  longer. 
I  have  killed  a  little  creature  as  an  ex- 
periment, as  a  beginning.  Jean,  my 
servant,  had  a  goldfinch  in  a  cage  hung 
in  the  office  window.  I  sent  him  on  an 
errand,  and  I  took  the  little  bird  in 
my  hand,  in  my  hand  where  I  felt  its 
heart  beat.  It  was  warm.  I  went  up 
to  my  room.  From  time  to  time  I 
squeezed  it  tighter;  its  hcurt  beat  faster; 
it  was  atrocious  and  delicious.  I  was 
nearly  choking  it.  But  I  could  not  see 
the  blood. 

Then  I  took  scissors,  short  nail  scis- 
sors, and  I  cut  its  throat  in  three  strokes, 
quite  gently.  It  opened  it  bill,  it  strug- 
gled to  escape  me,  but  I  held  it,  oh! 
I  held  it — I  could  have  held  a  mad  dog 
— and  I  saw  the  blood  trickle. 

And  then  I  did  as  assassins  do — real 
ones.  I  washed  the  scissor  and  washed 
my  hands.  I  sprinkled  water,  and  took 
the  body,  the  corpse,  to  the  garden  to 
hide  it.  I  buried  it  under  a  strawberry- 
plant.     It  will  never  be  found.     Every 


THE  DIARY  OF  \  MADMAN 


559 


day  I  can  eat  a  strawberry  from  that 
plant.  How  one  can  enjoy  life,  when 
one  knows  how! 

My  servant  cried ;  he  thought  his  bird 
flown.    How  could  he  suspect  me?    Ah! 

August  25.  I  must  kill  a  man!  I 
must! 

August  30.  It  is  done.  But  what  a 
little  thing!  I  had  gone  for  a  walk  in 
the  forest  of  Vernes.  I  was  thinking 
of  nothing,  literally  nothing.  See!  a 
child  on  the  road,  a  I'ttle  child  eating  a 
slice  of  bread  and  butter.  He  stops  to 
see  me  pass  and  says,  ''Good  day,  Mr. 
President." 

And  the  thought  enters  my  head: 
*'Shall  I  kill  him?-' 

I  answer:    "You  are  alone,  my  boy?'* 

"Yes,  sir." 

"All  alone  in  the  wood?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

The  wish  to  kill  him  intoxicated  me 
like  wine.  I  approached  him  quite 
softly,  persuaded  that  he  was  going  to 
run  away.  And  suddenly  I  seized  him 
by  the  throat.  He  held  my  wrists  in 
his  little  hands,  and  his  body  writhed 
like  a  feather  on  the  fire.  Then  he 
moved  no  more.  I  threw  the  body  in 
the  ditch,  then  some  weeds  on  top  of  it. 
I  returned  home  and  dined  well.  What 
a  little  thing  it  was!  In  the  evening 
I  was  very  gay,  light,  rejuvenated,  and 
passed  the  evening  at  the  Prefect's. 
They  found  me  witty.  But  I  have  not 
seen  blood!    I  am  not  tranquil. 

August  31.  The  body  has  been  dis- 
covered. They  are  hunting  for  the  as- 
sassin.   Ah ! 

September  1.  Two  tramps  have  been 
arrested.     Proofs  are  lacking. 

September  2.  The  parents  have  been 
to  see  me.    They  wept!    Ah! 


October  6.  Nothing  has  been  dis- 
covered. Some  strolling  vagabond  must 
have  done  the  deed.  Ah!  If  I  had 
seen  the  blood  flow  it  seems  to  me  I 
should  be  tranquil  now! 

October  10.  Yet  another.  I  was 
walking  by  the  river,  after  breakfast. 
And  I  saw,  under  a  willow,  a  fisherman 
asleep.  It  was  noon.  A  spade,  as  i) 
expressly  put  there  for  me,  was  stand 
ing  in  a  potato-field  near  by. 

I  took  it.  I  returned ;  I  raised  it  lik€ 
a  club,  and  with  one  blow  of  the  edge 
I  cleft  the  fisherman's  head.  Oh!  he 
bled,  this  cne! — rose-colored  blood.  It 
flowed  into  the  water  quite  gently.  And 
I  went  away  with  a  grave  step.  If  I 
had  been  seen!  Ah!  I  should  have 
made  an  excellent  assassin. 

October  25.  The  affair  of  the  fisher- 
man makes  a  great  nci&c.  His  nephew, 
who  fished  with  him,  is  charged  with  the 
murder. 

October  26.  The  examining  magis- 
trate affirms  that  the  nephew  is  guilty. 
Everybody  in  town  believes  it.  Ah! 
ah! 

October  27.  The  nephew  defends 
himself  badly.  He  had  gone  to  the  vil- 
lage to  buy  bread  and  cheese,  he  de- 
clares. He  swears  that  his  uncle  had 
been  killed  in  his  absence!  Who  would 
believe  him? 

October  28.  The  nephew  has  all  but 
confessed,  so  much  have  they  made  him 
lose  his  head !    Ah !    Justice ! 

November  IS.  There  are  overwhelm- 
ing proofs  against  the  nephew,  who  was 
his  uncle's  heir.  I  shall  preside  at  the 
sessions. 

January  25,  1852.  To  death!  to 
death!  to  death!     I  have  had  him  con 


560 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


demned  to  death!  The  advocate-gen- 
eral spoke  like  an  angel!  Ah!  Yet 
another!  I  shall  go  to  see  him  exe- 
cuted ! 

March  10.  It  is  done.  They  guillo- 
lined  him  this  morning.  He  died  very 
weir  very  well!  That  gave  me  plea- 
sure \  How  fine  it  is  to  see  a  man's  head 
cut  off! 

Now.  I  shall  wait,  I  can  wait.     It 


would  take  such  a  little  thmg  to  let  my 
self  be  caught. 
****** 

The  manuscript  contained  more  pages, 
but  told  of  no  new  crime. 

Alienist  physicians  to  whom  the  aw- 
ful story  has  been  submitted  declare 
that  thare  are  in  the  world  many  un- 
known madmen,  as  adroit  and  as  terrible 
as  this  monstrous  lunatic. 


On  Perfumes 


Three  ladies  belonging  to  that  class 
of  society  wnich  has  nothing  useful  to 
do,  and  therefore  cannot  employ  its  time 
sensibly,  were  sitting  on  a  bench  in  the 
shade  of  some  pine-trees  at  Ischl,  and 
talking  incidentally  on  the  subject  of 
perfumes. 

One  of  the  ladies,  Princess  F ,  a 

slim,  handsome  brunette,  declared  there 
was  nothing  like  the  smell  of  Russia 
leather;  she  wore  dull  brown  Russia 
leather  boots,  a  Russia  leather  dress  sus- 
pender, to  keep  her  petticoats  out  of 
the  dirt  and  dust,  a  Russia  leather  belt 
which  spanned  her  wasplike  waist,  and 
carried  a  Russia  leather  purse.  She 
even  wore  a  brooch  and  bracelet  of  gilt 
Russia  leather;  people  declared  that  her 
bedroom  was  papered  with  Russia 
leather,  and  that  her  cicisheo  was 
obliged  to  wear  high  Russia  leather 
boots  and  tight  breeches,  but  that,  on  the 
other  hand,  her  husband  was  excused 
from  wearing  anything  at  all  in  Russia 
leather. 

Countess  H ,  a  very  stout  lady, 

who  had  formerly  been  very  beautiful 


and  of  a  very  loving  nature,  buf  loving, 
after  the  fashion  of  her  time,  a  la 
Parthenia  and  Griselda,  could  not  get 
over  the  vulgar  taste  of  the  young 
Princess.  All  she  cared  for  was  the 
smell  of  hay,  and  she  it  was  who  brought 
the  perfume  New  Mown  Hay  into  fash- 
ion. Her  ideal  was  a  freshly  mown 
field  in  the  moonlight,  and  when  she 
rolled  slowly  along,  she  looked  like  a 
moving  haystack,  and  exhaled  an  odor 
of  hay  around  her. 

The  third  lady's  taste  was  even  more 

peculiar   than     Countess   H 's,   and 

more  vulgar  than  the  Princess's,  for  the 
small,    delicate,     light-haired     Countess      j 

W lived    only    for — the    smell    of      j 

stables.  Her  friends  could  not  under- 
stand this  at  all;  the  Princess  raised  her 
beautiful,  full  arm  with  its  broad  brace- 
let to  her  Grecian  nose  and  inhaled  the 
sweet  smell  of  the  Russia  leather,  while 
the  sentimental  hayrick  exclaimed  over 
and  over  again: 

"How  dreadful!    What  dost  thou  say 
to  it,  chaste  moon?" 

The   delicate  little  Countess  seemed 


ON  PERFUMES 


56) 


very  much  embarrassed  at  the  effect 
made  by  her  confession,  and  tried  to 
justify  her  taste. 

"Prince  T told  me  that  that  smell 

had  quite  bewitched  him  once,"  she 
said.  "It  was  in  a  Jewish  town  in 
Galicia,  where  he  was  quartered  once 
with  his  hussar  regiment,  and  a  number 
of  poor,  ragged  circus  riders,  with  half- 
starved  horses,  came  from  Russia  and 
put  up  a  circus  with  a  few  poles  and 
some  rags  of  canvas.  The  Prince  went 
to  see  them,  and  found  a  woman  among 
them,  who  was  neither  young  nor  beau- 
tiful, but  bold  and  impudent.  She  wore 
a  faded,  bright  red  jacket  trimmed  with 
old,  shabby  imitation  ermine,  which 
reeked  of  the  stable,  as  the  Prince  ex- 
pressed it.  But  she  bewitched  him  with 
the  odor,  so  that  every  time  that  the 
shameless  wretch  visited  him,  smelling 
abominably  of  the  stable,  he  felt  as  if 
he  were  mesmerized." 

"How  disgusting!"  both  the  other 
'^dies  said,  and  involuntarily  held  their 
noses. 

"What  dost  thou  say  to   it,   chaste 

moon?"  the  haystack  said  with  a  sigh, 

and     the    little     light-haired    Countess 

f     was  abashed,  and  held  her  tongue. 

I        At  the  beginning  of  the  winter  sea- 

i:    son   the   three   friends     were    together 

I'    again  in  the  gay,  imperial  city  on  the 

blue  Danube.    One  morning  the  Princess 

accidentally  met  the  enthusiast  for  hay 

at  the  house  of  the  little,  light-haired 

Countess,  and  was-  obliged  to  follow  the 

latter     to     her     private     riding-school, 

where  she  was  taking  her  daily  lesson. 

As  soon  as  she  saw  them,  she  came  up, 

and  beckoned  her  riding-master  to  her 

to  help  her  out  of  the  saddle.    He  was 

a  young  man   of  extremely  good  and 


athletic  build,  which  was  set  off  by 
tight  breeches  and  a  short,  velvet  coat. 
He  ran  up  and  took  his  lovely  burden 
into  his  arms  with  visible  pleasure,  to 
help  her  off  the  quiet,  perfectly  broken 
horse. 

When  the  ladies  saw  the  handsome, 
vigorous  man,  it  was  quite  enough  to 
explain  their  little  friend's  predilection 
for  the  smell  of  a  stable.  When  the 
latter  saw  their  looks,  she  blushed  up  to 
the  roots  of  her  hair,  and  thought  her 
only  way  out  of  the  difficulty  was  to 
order  the  riding-master,  in  a  very  au- 
thoritative manner,  to  take  the  horse 
back  to  the  stable.  He  merely  bowed, 
with  an  indescribable  smile,  and  obeyed 
her. 

A  few  months  afterward,  Viennese  so- 
ciety  was   alarmed    at    the    news    that 

Countess  W had  been  divorced  from 

her  husband.  The  event  was  unex- 
pected, as  they  had  apparently  always 
lived  very  happily  together,  and  gossip 
was  unable  to  mention  any  man  on 
whom  she  had  bestowed  even  the  most 
passing  attention,  beyond  the  require- 
ments of  politeness. 

Long  afterward,  however,  a  strange 
report  became  current.  A  chattering 
lady's  maid  declared  that  the  handsome 
riding-master  had  once  so  far  forgotten 
himself  as  to  strike  the  Countess  with 
his  riding-whip.  A  groom  had  told  the 
Count  of  the  occurrence,  and  when  the 
latter  called  the  insolent  fellow  to  ac- 
count for  it,  the  Countess  covered  him 
with  her  own  body,  and  thus  gave  oc- 
casion for  the  divorce. 

Years  had  passed  since  then  and  the 

Countess  H had  grown  stouter  and 

more  sentimental.  Ischl  and  hayricks 
were   not   enough   for  her  any  longer; 


562 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


she  speiit  the  winter  on  lovely  Lago 
Maggiore,  where  she  walked  among 
laurel  bushes  and  cypress-trees,  and  was 
rowed  about  on  the  warm,  moonlight 
nights. 

One  evening  she  was  returning  home 
from  Isola  Bella,  in  the  company  of  an 
English  lady  who  was  also  a  great  lover 
of  nature,  when  they  met  a  beautiful 
private  boat  in  which  a  very  unusual 
couple  were  sitting — a  small,  delicate, 
light-haired  woman,  v/rapped  in  a  white 
burnoose,  and  a  handsome,  athletic  man, 
in  tight,  white  breeches,  a  short,  black 
velvet  coat  trimmed  with  sable,  a  red 
fez  on  his  head,  and  a  riding-whip  in 
his  hand. 

Countess  H involuntarily  uttered 

a  loud  exclamation. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you?"  the 
English  lady  asked.  "Do  you  know  those 
people?" 


"Certainly!     She  is  a  Viennese  lady," 

Countess  H whispered;    "Countess 

W ." 

"Oh!  Indeed  you  are  quite  mistaken; 
it  is  a  Count  Savelli  and  his  wife.  They 
are  a  handsome  couple,  don't  you  think 

so?" 

When  the  boat  came  nearer,  Countess 

H saw  that  it  was  lltth  Countess 

W ,   and   that   the   handsome   man 

was  her  former  riding-master,  whom 
she  had  married,  and  for  whom  she  had 
bought  a  title  from  the  Pope*;  and  as 
the  two  boats  passed  each  other,  the 
short  sable  cloak,  which  was  thrown 
carelessly  over  his  shoulders,  exhaled, 
like  the  old  cat's  skin  jacket  of  the  fe- 
male circus  rider,  a  strong  stable  per- 
fume. 


*Frequently    done    formerly,    ?nd    not 
unknown  even  now. 


The  Will 


I  KNEW  that  tall  young  fellow,  Rene 
de  Bourneval.  He  wd3  an  agreeable 
man,  though  of  a  rather  melancholy  turn 
of  mind,  and  prejudiced  against  every- 
thing, very  skeptical,  and  tond  of  tear- 
ing worldly  hypocrisies  to  pieces.  He 
often  used  to  say: 

"There  are  no  honorable  men,  or,  at 
any  rate,  they  only  appear  so  when  com- 
pared to  low  people." 

He  had  two  brothers,  whom  he 
shfunned,  the  Messieurs  de  Courcils.  I 
thought  they  were  by  another  father,  on 
account  of  the  difference  in  the  name. 
I  had  frequently  heard  that  something 


strange  had  happened  in  the  family,  but 
I  did  not  know  the  details. 

As  I  took  a  great  liking  to  him,  we 
soon  became  intimate,  and  one  evenings 
when  I  had  been  dining  with  him  alone, 
I  asked  him  by  chance:  "Are  you  by 
your  mother's  first  or  second  marriage?" 
He  grew  rather  pale;  then  he  flushed, 
and  did  not  speak  for  a  few  moments, 
he  was  visibly  embarrassed.  Then  he 
smiled  in  that  melancholy  and  gentle 
manner  peculiar  to  him,  and  said: 

"My  dear  friend,  if  it  will  not  weary 
you,  T  can  give  you  some  very  strange 
particulars  about  my  life.    I  know  you 


THE  WILL 


56S 


to  be  a  sensible  man,  so  I  do  not  fear 
that  our  friendship  will  suffer  by  my 
revelations,  and  should  it  suffer,  I  should 
not  care  about  having  you  for  my  friend, 
any  longer. 

"My  mother,  Madame  de  Courcils, 
was  a  poor,  little,  timid  woman,  whom 
her  husband  had  married  for  the  sake 
of  her  fortune.  Her  whole  life  was  a 
continual  martyrdom.  Of  a  loving, 
delicate  mind,  she  was  constantly  ill- 
treated  by  the  man  who  ought  to  have 
been  my  father,  one  of  those  boors 
called  country  gentlemen.  A  month 
after  their  marriage  he  was  living  with 
a  servant,  and  besides  that,  the  wives 
and  daughters  of  his  tenants  were  his 
mistresses,  which  did  not  prevent  him 
from  having  three  children  by  his  wife, 
that  is,  if  you  count  me  in.  My  mother 
said  nothing,  and  lived  in  that  noisy 
house  like  a  little  mouse.  Set  aside, 
disparaged,  nervous,  she  looked  at  peo- 
ple with  bright,  uneasy,  restless  eyes, 
the  eyes  of  some  terrified  creature  which 
can  never  shake  off  its  fear.  And  yet 
she  was  pretty,  very  pretty  and  fair,  a 
gray  blonde,  as  if  her  hair  had  lost  its 
color  through  her  constant  fears. 

"Among  Monsieur  de  Courcils's 
friends  who  constantly  came  to  the 
chateau  there  was  an  ex-cavalry  officer, 
a  widower,  a  man  to  be  feared,  a  man 
at  the  same  time  tender  and  violent,  and 
capable  of  the  most  energetic  resolution. 
Monsieur  de  Bourneval,  whose  name  I 
bear.  He  was  a  tall,  thin  man,  with  a 
heavy  black  mustache,  and  I  am  v^ry 
like  him.  He  was  a  man  who  had  read 
a  great  deal,  and  whose  ideas  were  not 
like  those  cf  most  of  his  class.  His 
greatgrandmother  had  been  a  friend  of 
J.  J.  Rousseau,  and  you  might  have 


said  that  he  had  inherited  something  of 
this  ancestral  connection.  He  knew  the 
"Contrat  Social''  and  the  "Nouvelle 
Heloise"  by  heart,  and,  indeed,  all  those 
philosophical  books  which  led  the  way 
to  the  overthrow  of  our  old  usages, 
prejudices,  superannuated  laws,  and  im- 
becile morality. 

"It  seems  that  he  loved  my  mother, 
and  she  loved  him,  but  their  intrigue 
was  carried  on  so  secretly  that  no  one 
guessed  it.  The  poor,  neglected,  un- 
happy woman  must  have  clung  to  him 
in  a  despairing  manner,  and  in  her 
intimacy  with  him  must  have  imbibed 
all  his  ways  of  thinking,  theories  of  free 
thought,  audacious  ideas  of  independent 
love.  But  as  she  was  so  timid  that  she 
never  ventured  to  speak  aloud,  it  was 
all  driven  back,  condensed,  and  ex- 
pressed in  her  heart,  which  never  opened 
itself. 

"My  two  brothers  were  very  cruel  to 
her,  like  their  father,  and  never  gave 
her  a  caress.  Used  to  seeing  her  count 
for  nothing  in  the  house,  they  treated 
her  rather  like  a  servant,  and  so  I  was 
the  only  one  of  her  sons  who  really  loved 
her,  and  whom  she  loved. 

"When  she  died  I  was  seventeen,  and 
I  must  add,  in  order  that  you  may  un- 
derstand what  follows,  that  there  had 
been  a  lawsuit  between  my  father  and 
my  mother.  Their  property  had  been 
separated,  to  my  mother's  advantage, 
as,  thanks  to  the  workings  of  the  law 
and  the  intelligent  devotion  of  a  lawyer 
to  her  interests,  she  had  preserved  the 
right  to  make  her  will  in  favor  of  any- 
one she  pleased. 

"We  were  told  that  there  was  a  will 
lying  at  the  lawyer'?,  and  were  invited 
to  be  present  at  the  reading  of  it.    I  can 


564 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


remember  it,  as  if  it  were  yesterday. 
It  was  a  grand,  dramatic,  yet  burlesque 
and  surprising  scene,  brought  about  by 
the  posthumous  revolt  of  a  dead  woman, 
by  a  cry  for  liberty  from  the  depths  of 
her  tomb,  on  the  part  of  a  martyred 
woman  who  had  been  crushed  by  a 
man's  habits  during  her  life,  and,  who, 
from  her  grave,  uttered  a  despairing  ap- 
peal for  independence. 

"The  man  who  thought  that  he  was 
my  father,  a  stout,  ruddy-faced  man, 
who  gave  you  the  idea  of  a  butcher,  and 
my  brothers,  two  great  fellows  of 
twenty  and  twenty-two,  were  waiting 
quietly  in  their  chairs.  Monsieur  de 
Bourneval,  who  had  been  invited  to  be 
present,  came  in  and  stood  behind  me. 
He  was  very  pale,  and  bit  his  mustache, 
which  was  turning  gray.  No  doubt  he 
was  prepared  for  what  was  going  to 
happen.  The  lawyer,  after  opening  the 
envelope  in  our  presence,  double-locked 
the  door  and  began  to  read  the  will, 
which  was  sealed  with  red  wax,  and  the 
contents  cf  which  he  knew  not." 

My  friend  stopped  suddenly  and  got 
up,  and  from  his  writing-table  took  an 
old  paper,  unfolded  it,  kissed  it  and 
then  continued: 

"This  is  the  will  of  my  beloved 
mother : 

"I,  the  undersigned,  Anne-Catherine- 
Genevieve-Mathilde  de  Croixluce,  the 
legitimate  wife  of  Leopold- Joseph  Gon- 
tran  de  Courcils,  sound  in  body  and 
mind,  here  express  my  last  wishes : 

"I  first  of  all  ask  God,  and  then  my 
dear  son  Rene,  to  pardon  me  for  the 
act  T  am  about  to  commit.  I  believe 
that  my  child's  heart  is  great  enough 
to  understand  me,  and  to  forgive  me.  I 
have  suffered  my  whole  life  long.  I 
^as  married  out  of  calculation,  then  de- 


spised,    misunderstood,    oppressed,    and 
constantly  deceived  by  my  husband. 

"I  forgive  him,  but  I  owe  him  nothing. 

"My  eldest  sons  never  loved  me,  never 
caressed  me,  scarcely  treated  me  as  a 
mother,  but  during  my  whole  life  I  was 
everything  that  1  ought  to  have  been, 
and  I  owe  them  nothing  more  after  my 
death.  The  ties  of  blood  cannot  exist 
without  daily  and  constant  affection. 
An  ungrateful  son  is  less  than  a 
stranger;  he  is  a  culprit,  for  he  has  no 
right  to  be  indifferent  toward  his  mother. 

"I  have  always  trembled  before  men, 
before  their  unjust  laws,  their  inhuman 
customs,  their  shameful  prejudices.  Be- 
fore God,  I  have  no  longer  any  fear. 
Dead,  I  fling  aside  disgraceful  hypoc- 
risy; I  dare  to  speak  my  thoughts,  and 
to  avow  and  to  sign  the  secret  of  my 
heart. 

"I  therefore  leave  that  part  of  my 
fortune  of  which  the  law  allows  me  to 
dispose,  as  a  deposit  with  r.iy  dear  Ic  ler 
Pierre-Gennes-Simon  de  Bourneval,  to 
revert  afterward  to  our  dear  son  Rene. 

"(This  wish  is,  moreover,  formulated 
more  precisely  in  a  notarial  deed.) 

"And  I  declare  before  the  Supreme 
Judge  who  hears  me,  that  I  should  have 
cursed  Heaven  and  my  own  existence,  if 
I  had  not  met  my  lover's  deep,  devoted, 
tender,  unshaken  affection,  if  I  had  not 
felt  in  his  arms  that  the  Creator  made 
His  creatures  to  love,  sustain,  and  con- 
sole each  other,  and  to  weep  to.'^ether  in 
the  hours  of  sadness. 

"Monsieur  de  Courcils  is  the  father  of 
my  two  eldest  sons :  Rene  alone  owes 
his  life  to  Monsieur  de  Bourneval.  I 
pray  to  the  Master  of  men  and  of  their 
destinies  to  place  father  rnd  son  above 
social  prejudices,  to  make  them  love  each 
other  until  they  die,  and  to  love  me  also 
in  my  coffin. 

"These  are  my  last  thoughts,  and  my 
last  wish. 

"Mathilde  de  Croixluce. 

"Monsieur  de  Courcils  had  risen,  an/' 
he  cried: 


IN  HIS  SWEETHEART'S  LIVERY 


565 


"  *It  is  the  will  of  a  mad  woman.* 
"Then  Monsieur  de  Bourneval  stepped 
forward  and  said  in  a  loud  and  pene- 
trating voice:  *I,  Simon  de  Bourneval, 
solemnly  declare  that  this  writing  con- 
tains nothing  but  the  strict  truth,  and 
I  am  ready  to  prove  it  by  letters  which 
I  possess.' 

"On  hearing  that,  Monsieur  de  Cour- 
cils  went  up  to  him,  and  I  thought  that 
they  were  going  to  collar  each  other. 
There  they  stood,  both  of  them,  tall, 
one  stout  and  the  other  thin,  both  trem- 
bling. My  mother's  husband  stammered 
out: 

"  *You  are  a  worthless  wretch!* 
"And  the  other  replied  in  a  loud,  dry 
voice: 

"  'We  will  meet  somewhere  else,  Mon- 
sieur. I  should  have  already  slapped 
your  ugly  face,  and  challenged  you  a 
long  time  ago,  if  I  had  not,  before  all 
else,  thought  of  the  peace  of  mind  of 
that  poor  woman  whom  you  made  to 
suffer  so  much  during  her  lifetime.' 
"Then,  turning  to  me,  he  said: 
**  *You  are  my  son ;  will  you  come  with 


me?  I  have  no  right  to  take  you  away, 
but  I  shall  assume  it,  if  you  will  allow 
me.'  I  shook  his  hand  without  replying, 
and  we  went  out  together;  I  was  cer- 
tainly three  parts  mad. 

"Two  days  later  Monsieur  de  Bourne- 
val killed  Monsieur  de  Courcils  in  a 
duel.  My  brothers,  fearing  some  ter- 
rible scandal,  held  their  tongues.  I 
offered  them,  and  they  accepted,  half 
the  fortune  which  my  mother  had  left 
me.  I  took  my  real  father's  name,  re- 
nouncing that  which  the  law  gave  me, 
but  which  was  not  really  mine.  Mon- 
sieur de  Bourneval  died  three  year* 
afterward,  and  I  have  not  consoled  my- 
self yet." 

He  rose  from  his  chair,  walked  up 
and  down  the  room,  and,  standing  in 
front  of  me,  said: 

"I  maintain  that  my  mother's  will 
was  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  loyal, 
as  well  as  one  of  the  grandest,  acts  that 
a  woman  could  perform.  Do  you  not 
think  so?" 

I  gave  him  both  my  hands : 

"Most  certainly  I  do,  my  friend." 


In  His  Sweethearfs  Livery 


At  present  she  is  a  great  lady,  an 
elegant,  intellectual  woman,  and  a  cele- 
brated actress.  But  in  the  year  1847, 
when  our  story  begins,  she  was  a  beauti- 
ful, but  not  ve-y  moral  girl,  and  then  it 
was  that  the  young,  talented  Hungarian 
poet  who  was  the  first  to  discover  her 
gifts  for  the  stage  made  her  acquain- 
tance. 

The  slim,  ardent  girl,  with  her  bright 


brown  hair  and  her  large  blue  eyes,  at- 
tracted the  careless  poet.  He  loved  her, 
and  all  that  was  good  and  noble  in  her 
nature  put  forth  fresh  buds  and  blos- 
soms in  the  sunshine  of  his  poetic  love. 
They  lived  in  an  attic  in  the  old  im- 
perial city  on  the  Danube;  she  shared 
his  poverty,  his  triumphs,  and  his  plea- 
sures, and  would  have  become  his  true 
and  faithful  wife,  if  the  HungariaD  rev(K 


56o 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


lution  had  not  torn  him  from  her  arms. 

The  poet  became  the  soldier  of  free- 
dom. He  followed  the  Magyar  tricolor, 
and  the  Honved  drums,  while  she  was 
carried  away  by  the  current  of  the 
movement  in  the  capital,  and  might  have 
been  seen  discharging  her  musket,  like 
a  brave  Amazon,  at  the  Croats  who  were 
defending  the  town  against  Gorgey's  as- 
saulting battalions. 

But  at  last  Hungary  was  subdued,  and 
was  governed  as  if  it  had  been  a  con- 
quered country. 

It  was  said  that  the  young  poet  had 
fallen  at  Temesvar.  His  mistress  wept 
for  him,  and  married  another  man, 
which  was  nothing  either  new  or  ex- 
traordinary. Her  name  was  now  Frau 
von  Kubinyi,  but  her  married  life  was 
not  happy.  One  day  she  remembered 
that  her  lover  had  told  her  that  she  had 
talent  for  the  stage,  and  as  whatever  he 
said  had  always  proved  correct,  she 
separated  from  her  husband,  studied  a 
few  parts,  appeared  on  the  stage,  and 
lo!  the  public,  the  critics,  actors,  and 
writers  were  lying  at  her  feet. 

She  obtained  a  very  profitable  engage- 
ment, and  her  reputation  increased  with 
every  part  she  played.  Before  the  end 
of  a  year  after  her  first  appearance,  she 
was  the  lioness  of  society.  Everybody 
paid  homage  to  her,  and  the  wealthiest 
men  tried  to  obtain  her  favors.  But 
she  remained  cold  and  reserved,  until 
the  General  commanding  the  district, 
who  was  a  handsome  man,  of  noble 
bearing,  and  a  gentleman  in  the  highest 
sense  of  the  word,  approached  her. 

Whether  she  was  flattered  at  seeing 
that  powerful  man — before  whom  mil- 
lions trembled,  who  had  power  over  the 
Hie  and  death,  the  honor  and  happiness 


of  so  many  thousands — fettered  by  her 
soft  curls,  or  whether  her  enigmatical 
heart  for  once  really  felt  what  true  love 
was,  suffice  it  to  say  that  in  a  short 
time  she  was  his  acknowledged  mistress, 
and  her  princely  lover  surrounded  her 
with  the  luxury  of  an  Eastern  queen. 

But  just  then  a  miracle  occurred-^ 
the  resurrection  of  a  dead  man.  Fran 
von  Kubinyi  was  driving  through  the 
Corso  in  the  General's  carriage ;  she  was 
lying  back  negligently  in  the  soft 
cushions,  and  looking  carelessly  at  the 
crowd  on  the  pavement.  Then — she 
caught  sight  of  a  common  Austrian  sol* 
dier  and  screamed  aloud. 

Nobody  heard  that  cry,  which  came 
from  the  depths  of  a  woman's  heart, 
nobody  saw  how  pale  and  how  excited 
that  woman  was,  who  usually  seemed 
made  of  marble,  not  even  the  soldier 
who  was  the  cause  of  it.  He  was  a 
Hungarian  poet,  who,  like  so  many  other 
Honveds,*  now  wore  the  uniform  of  an 
Austrian  soldier. 

Two  days  later,  to  the  poet's  no  smaU 
surprise,  he  was  told  to  go  to  the  Gen- 
eral in  command  as  orderly.  When  he 
reported  himself  to  the  adjutant,  he  told 
him*  to  go  to  Frau  von  Kubinyi's,  and  to 
await  her  orders. 

Our  poet  only  knew"  her  by  report,  but 
he  hated  and  despised  intensely  the 
beautiful  woman  who  had  sold  herself 
to  the  enemy  of  his  country;  he  had  no 
choice,  hov/ever,  but  to  obey. 

When  he  arrived  at  her  house,  he 
seemed  to  be  expected,  for  the  porter 
knew  his  name,  took  him  into  his  lodge, 


*A  Hungarian  word  meaning  De- 
fender of  the  Fatherland.  The  term 
Honved  is  applied  to  the  Hungarian 
Landwehr,  or  milifia. 


TN  HIS  SWEETHEART'S  LIVERS 


sm 


and  tiathout  any  further  explanation, 
told  him  immediately  to  put  on  the 
livery  of  his  mistress,  which  was  lying 
there  ready  for  him.  He  ground  his 
teeth,  but  resigned  himself  without  a 
word  to  his  wretched  though  laughable 
fate;  it  was  quite  clear  that  the  actress 
had  some  purpose  in  making  the  poet 
wear  her  livery.  He  tried  to  remember 
whether  hs  could  formerly  have  offended 
her  by  his  notices  as  a  theatrical  critic, 
but  before  he  could  arrive  at  any  conclu- 
sion, he  was  told  to  present  himself  to 
Frau  von  Kubinyi.  She  evidently 
wished  to  enjoy  his  humiliation. 

He  was  shown  into  a  small  drawing- 
room,  which  was  furnished  with  an 
amount  of  taste  and  magnificence  such 
as  he  had  never  seen  before,  and  was 
told,  to  wait.  But  he  had  not  been 
alone  many  minutes,  before  the  door- 
curtains  were  parted  and  Frau  von 
Kubinyi  came  in,  calm  but  deadly  pale, 
in  a  splendid  dressing-gown  of  some 
Turkish  material,  and  he  recognized  his 
former  mistress. 

"Irma!"  he  exclaimed. 

The  cry  came  from  his  heart,  and 
affected  th-?  heart  of  this  pleasure-sur- 
feited woman  so  greatly  that  the  next 
moment  she  was  lying  on  the  breast  of 
the  man  whom  she  had  believed  to  be 
dead,  but  only  for  a  moment,  for  he 
freed  himself  from  her. 

"We  are  fated  to  meet  again  thus!" 
she  began. 

"Not  through  any  fault  of  mine,"  he 
replied  bitterly. 

"And  not  through  mine  either,"  she 
said  quickly;  "everybody  thought  that 
you  were  dead,  and  I  wept  for  you; 
thai  is  my  justification." 

"You  are  really  too  kind,"  he  replied 


sarcastically.  "How  can  you  condescendl 
to  make  any  excuses  to  me?  I  wear 
your  livery;  you  have  to  order,  and  1 
have  to  obey;  our  relative  positions  are 
clear  enough." 

Frau  von  Kubinyi  turned  away  to 
hide  her  tears. 

"I  did  not  intend  to  hurt  your  feel- 
ings," he  continued;  'but  I  must  con- 
fess that  it  would  have  been  better  for 
both  of  us,  if  we  had  not  met  again.  But 
what  do  you  mean  by  making  me  wear 
your  livery?  Is  it  not  ciiough  that  I 
have  been  robbed  of  my  happiness? 
Does  it  afford  you  any  pleasure  to  hu- 
miliate me  as  well?" 

"How  can  you  think  that?"  the  actress 
exclaimed.  "Ever  since  I  discovered 
your  unhappy  lot,  I  have  thought  of 
nothing  but  the  means  of  delivering  you 
from  it,  and  until  I  succeed  in  doing  this, 
however,  I  can  at  least  make  it  more 
bearable  for  you." 

"I  understand,"  the  unhappy  poet  said 
with  a  sneer.  "And  in  order  to  do  this, 
you  have  begged  your  present  worshiper 
to  turn  your  former  lover  into  a  foot- 
man." 

"What  a  thing  to  say  to  me!" 

"Can  you  find  any  other  pleasure  for 
it?  You  wish  to  punish  me  for  having 
ioved  you,  idolized  you,  I  suppose?"  the 
poet  continued.  "So  exactly  like  a  wo- 
man! But  I  can  perfectly  well  under- 
stand that  the  situation  promises  to  have 
a  fresh  charm  for  you." 

Before  he  could  finish  what  he  was 
saying,  the  actress  quickly  left  the  room; 
he  could  hear  her  sobbing,  but  he  did 
not  regret  his  words,  and  his  contempt 
and  hatred  for  her  only  increased  when 
he  saw  the  extravags^nce  and  the 
princely  luxury  with  which  she  was  sur> 


506 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


rounded.  But  what  was  the  use  of  his 
indignation?  He  was  wearing  her  livery, 
he  was  obliged  to  wait  upon  her  and  to 
obey  her,  for  she  had  the  corporal's  cane 
at  her  command.  It  really  seemed  as  if 
he  incurred  the  vengeance  of  the  of- 
fended woman;  as  if  the  General's  in- 
solent mistress  wished  to  make  him  feel 
her  whole  power;  as  if  he  were  not  to 
be  spared  the  deepest  humiliation. 

The  General  and  two  of  Frau  von 
Kubinyi's  friends,  who  were  also  ser- 
vants of  the  Muses,  for  one  was  a  ballet 
dancer  and  the  other  an  actress,  had 
come  to  tea,  and  he  was  to  wait  on 
Ihem. 

While  it  was  being  made,  he  heard 
rhem  laughing  in  the  next  room.  The 
blood  flew  to  his  head  when  the  butler 
opened  the  door  and  Frau  von  Kubinyi 
appeared  on  the  General's  arm.  She  did 
not,  however,  look  at  her  new  footman, 
her  former  lover,  triumphantly  or  con- 
temptuously, but  gave  him  a  glance  of 
the  deepest  commiseration. 

Could  he,  after  all,  have  wronged  her? 

Hatred  and  love,  contempt  and  jeal- 
ousy were  struggling  in  his  breast,  and 
when  he  had  to  fill  the  glasses,  the 
bottle  shook  in  his  hand. 

"Is  this  ^he  m.an?'  the  General  said, 
looking  at  him  closely. 

Frau  von  Kubinyi  nodded. 

"He  was  evidently  not  born  for  a 
footman,"  the  General  added. 

"And  still  less  for  a  soldier,"  the 
actress  observed. 

These  words  fell  heavily  on  the  un- 
fortunate poet's  heart,  but  she  was  evi- 
dently taking  his  part,  and  trying  to 
rescue  him  from  his  terrible  position. 

Suspicion,  howevei,  once  more  gained 
the  day. 


"She  is  tired  of  all  pleasures,  and 
satiated  with  enjoyment,"  he  said  to 
himself;  "she  requires  excitement  and  it 
amuses  her  to  see  the  man  whom  she 
formerly  loved,  and  who,  as  she  knows, 
still  loves  her,  tremble  before  her.  And 
when  she  pleases,  she  can  see  me 
tremble;  not  for  my  life,  but  for  fear  of 
the  disgrace  which  she  can  inflict  upon 
me,  at  any  moment,  if  it  should  give  her 
any  pleasure." 

But  suddenly  the  actress  gave  him  a 
look,  which  was  so  sad  and  so  implor- 
ing, that  he  looked  down  in  confusion. 

From  that  time  he  remained  in  her 
house  without  performing  any  duties, 
and  without  receiving  any  orders  from 
her;  in  fact  he  never  saw  her,  and  did 
not  venture  to  ask  after  her.  Two 
months  had  passed  in  this  way,  when  the 
General  unexpectedly  sent  for  him.  He 
waited,  with  many  others,  in  the  ante- 
room. The  General  came  back  from 
parade,  saw  him,  and  beckoned  him  to 
follow  him,  and  as  soon  as  they  were 
alone,  said: 

"You  are  free,  as  you  have  been  al 
lowed  to  purchase  your  discharge." 

"Good  heavens!"  the  poet  stam- 
mered, "how  am  I  to — " 

"That  is  already  done,"  the  General 
replied.     "You  are  free." 

"How  is  it  possible?  How  can  I  thank 
your  Excellency!" 

"You  owe  me  no  thanks,"  he  replied; 
"Frau  von  Kubinyi  bought  you  out." 

The  poor  poet's  heart  seemed  to  stop ; 
he  could  not  speak,  nor  even  stammer 
a  word;  but  with  a  low  bow,  he  rushed 
out  and  tore  wildly  through  the  streets, 
until  he  reached  the  mansion  of  the 
woman  whom  he  had  so  misunderstood. 


AN  UNFORTUNATE  LIKENESS 


quite  out  of  breath;  he  must  see  her 
again,   and  throw  himself  at  her   feet. 

"Where  are  you  going  to?"  the  porter 
asked  him. 

"To  Frau  von  Kubinyi's.*' 


569 


"She  is  not  here. 

"Not  here?" 

"She  has  gone  away.'* 

"Gone  away?     Where  to?" 

"She  started  for  Paris  two  hours  ago. 


An  Unfortunate  Likeness 


It  was  during  one  ot  those  sudden 
changes  of  the  electric  light,  which  at 
one  time  throws  rays  of  exquisite  pale 
pink,  of  a  hquid  gold  filtered  through 
the  light  hair  of  a  woman,  and  at  an- 
other, rays  of  bluish  hue  with  strange 
tints,  such  as  the  sky  assumes  at  twi- 
light, in  which  the  women  with  their 
bare  shoulders  looked  like  living  flow- 
ers— it  was.  I  say,  on  the  night  of  the 
first  of  January  at  Montonirail's,  the 
dainty  painter  of  tall,  undulating  figures, 
of  bright  dresses  of  Parisian  prettiness 
— that  tall  Pescarelle,  whom  some  called 
"Pussy,"  though  I  do  not  know  why, 
suddenly  said  in  a  low  voice: 

"Well,  people  were  not  altogether 
mistaken,  in  fact,  were  only  half  wrong 
when  they  coupled  my  name  with  that 
of  pretty  Lucy  Ponelle.  She  had 
caught  me,  just  as  a  birdcatcher  on  a 
frosty  morning  catches  an  imprudent 
wren  on  a  limed  twig — in  fact,  she  might 
have  done  whatever  she  liked  with  me. 

"I  was  under  the  charm  of  her  enig- 
matical and  mocking  smile,  that  smile  in 
which  her  teeth  gleamed  cruelly  be- 
tween her  red  lips,  and  glistened  as  if 
they  were  ready  to  bite  and  to  heighten 
the  pleasure  of  the  most  delightful,  the 
most  voluptuous,  kiss  by  pain 


"I  loved  everything  in  her— her 
feline  suppleness,  her  languid  looks 
which  emerged  from  her  half-closed  lids, 
full  of  promises  and  temptation,  her 
somewhat  extreme  elegance,  and  her 
hands,  those  long,  delicate  white  hands, 
with  blue  veins,  like  the  bloodless  hands 
of  a  female  saint  in  a  stained  glass  win- 
dow, and  her  slender  fingers,  on  which 
only  the  large  blooddrop  of  a  ruby 
glittered. 

"I  would  have  given  her  all  my  re- 
maining youth  and  vigor  to  have  laid 
my  burning  hands  upon  the  back  of  her 
cool,  round  neck,  and  to  feel  that  bright^ 
silk,  golden  mane  enveloping  me  and 
caressing  my  skin.  I  was  never  tired  of 
hearing  her  disdainful,  petulant  voice, 
those  vibrations  which  sounded  as  if 
they  proceeded  from  clear  glass,  whose 
music,  at  times,  became  hoarse,  harsh, 
and  fierce,  like  the  loud,  sonorous  calls 
of  the  Valkyries. 

"Good  heavens!  to  be  her  lover,  to 
be  her  chattel,  to  belong  to  her,  to  de« 
vote  one's  whole  existence  to  her,  to 
spend  one's  last  half-penny  and  to  sink 
in  misery,  only  to  have  the  glorv  and 
the  happines  of  possessing  her  splendid 
beauty,  the  sweetness  of  her  kisses,  the 
pink  and   the  white  of  her  demonlike 


570 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  maupassa:;t 


soul  all  to  myself,  if  only  for  a  few 
months ! 

"It  makes  you  laugh,  I  know,  to 
think  that  I  should  have  been  caught 
like  that — I  who  give  such  good,  pru- 
dent advice  to  my  friends — I  who  fear 
love  as  I  do  those  quicksands  and  shoals 
which  appear  at  low  tide  and  in  which 
one  may  be  swallowed  up  and  disappear ! 

"But  who  can  answer  for  himself, 
who  can  defend  himself  against  such  a 
danger,  as  the  magnetic  attraction  that 
inheres  in  such  a  woman?  Nevertheless, 
I  got  cured  and  perfectly  cured,  and 
that  quite  accidentally.  This  is  how  the 
enchantment,  wWch  was  apparently  so 
infrangible,  was  broken. 

"On  the  first  night  of  a  play,  I  was 
sitting  in  the  stalls  close  to  Lucy,  whose 
mother  had  accompanied  her,  as  usual. 
They  occupied  the  front  of  a  box,  side 
by  side.  From  some  unsurmountable 
attraction,  I  never  ceased  looking  at  the 
woman  whom  I  loved  with  all  the  force 
of  my  being.  I  feasted  my  eyes  on  her 
beauty,  I  saw  nobody  except  her  in  the 
theater,  and  did  not  listen  to  the  piece 
that  was  being  performed  on  the  stage. 

"Suddenly,  however,  I  felt  as  if  I  had 
received  a  blow  from  a  dagger  in  my 
heart,  and  I  had  an  insane  hallucina- 
tion. Lucy  had  moved,  and  her  pretty 
head  was  in  profile,  in  the  same  attitude 
and  with  the  same  lines  as  her  mother. 
I  do  not  know  what  shadow  or  what 
play  of  light  had  hardened  and  altered 
the  color  of  her  delicate  features, 
effacing  their  ideal  prettiness,  but  the 
more  I  looked  at  them  both,  at  the  one 
who  was  young  and  the  one  who  was 
old,  the  greater  the  distressing  resem- 
blance became. 


"I  saw  Lucy  growing  older  and  older, 
striving  against  those  accumulating  years 
which  bring  wrinkles  in  the  face,  pro- 
duce a  double  chin  and  crow's-feet,  and 
spoil  the  mouth.  They  almost  looked 
like  twins. 

"I  suffered  so,  that  I  thought  I  should 
go  mad.  Yet  in  spite  of  myself,  in- 
stead of  shaking  off  this  feeling  and 
making  my  escape  out  of  the  theater, 
far  away  into  the  noise  and  life  of  the 
boulevards,  I  persisted  in  looking  at  the 
other,  at  the  old  one.  in  examining  her, 
in  judging  her,  in  dissecting  her  with 
my  eyes.  I  got  excited  over  her  flabby 
cheeks,  over  those  ridicubus  dimples, 
that  were  half  filled  up,  over  that  treble 
chin,  that  dyed  hair,  those  lusterless 
eyes,  and  that  nose,  which  was  a  carica- 
ture of  Lucy's  beautiful,  attractive  little 
nose. 

'T  had  a  prescience  of  the  future.  I 
loved  her,  and  I  should  love  her  more 
and  more  every  day,  that  little  sorceress 
who  had  so  despotically  and  so  quickly 
conquered  me.  I  should  not  allaw  any 
participation  or  any  intrigue  from  the 
day  she  gave  herself  to  me,  and  once  in- 
timately connected,  who  could  tell 
whether,  just  as  I  was  defending  myself 
against  it  most,  the  legitimate  termina- 
tion— marriage — might  not  come? 

"Why  not  give  one's  name  to  a  wo- 
man whom  one  loves,  and  whom  one 
trusts?  The  reason  was  that  I  should 
be  tied  to  a  disfigured,  vgly  creature, 
with  whom  I  should  not  venture  to  be 
seen  in  public.  My  friends  would  leer 
at  her  with  laughter  in  their  eyes,  and 
with  pity  in  their  hearts  for  the  man 
who  was  accompanying  those  remains. 

"And  so,  as  soon  as  the  curtain  had 


A    NIGHT    IN   WHITECHAPEL 


:J7l 


lallen,  without  saying  good  day  or  good 
evening,  I  had  myself  driven  to  the 
Moulin  Rouge. 


•'Well,"  Florise  d'Anglet  exclaimed, 
"I  shall  never  take  mamma  to  the 
theater  with  me  again,  for  the  men  are 
really  going  crazy!" 


A  Night  in  Whitechapel 


My  friend  Ledantec  and  I  were  each 
twenty-five,  and  we  were  visiting  Lon- 
don for  the  first  time  in  our  lives.  It 
was  a  Saturday  evening  in  December, 
cold  and  foggy,  and  I  think  that  this 
combination  is  more  than  enough  to  ex- 
plain why  my  friend  Ledantec  and  I 
managed  to  get  abominably  drunk, 
though,  to  tell  the  truth,  we  were  not 
experiencing  any  discomfort  from  it. 
On  the  contrary,  we  were  floating  in  an 
atmosphere  of  perfect  bliss.  We  did  not 
speak,  certainly,  for  we  were  incapable 
of  doing  so,  but  then  we  had  no  incli- 
nation for  conversation.  What  would 
be  the  good  of  it?  We  could  easily  read 
ail  our  thoughts  in  each  other's  eyes,  the 
more  so  because  we  knew  that  we  were 
thinking  about  nothing  whatever. 

It  was  not,  however,  in  order  to  ar- 
rive at  that  state  of  delicious,  intellec- 
tual nullity,  that  we  had  gone  to  mys- 
terious Whitei  hapel.  We  had  gone  into 
the  first  public-house  we  saw,  with  the 
firm  intention  of  studying  manners  and 
customs  there, — not  to  mention  morals, 
— as  spectators,  artists,  and  philoso- 
phers, but  in  the  second  public-house 
we  entered,  we  ourselves  began  to  re- 
semble the  objects  of  our  investigations, 
that  is  to  say,  sponges  soaked  in  alcohol. 
Between  one  public-house  and  the  other, 
the  outer  air  seemed  to  squeeze  those 


sponges  dry,  and  thus  v;e  rolled  from 
public-house  to  public-house,  till  at  last 
the  sponges  could  hold  no  more. 

Consequently,  we  had  for  some  time 
bidden  farewell  to  our  studies  in  morals; 
they  were  now  limited  to  two  impres- 
sions: zigzags  through  the  darkness  out- 
side, and  a  gleam  of  light  outside  the 
public  houses.  As  to  the  imbibition  of 
brandy,  whisky,  and  gin,  ihat  was  done 
mechanically,  and  our  stomachs  scarcely 
noticed  it. 

But  what  strange  beings  W3  had  el- 
bowed with  during  our  lon^j  stoppages! 
What  a  number  of  faces  to  be  remem- 
bered; what  clothes,  what  attitudes, 
what  talk,  and  what  squalor! 

At  first  we  tried  to  note  these  things 
exactly  in  our  memory,  but  there  were 
so  many  of  them,  and  our  brains  got 
muddled  so  quickly,  that  just  then  we 
had  no  very  clear  recollection  of  any- 
thing or  anybody.  Even  objects  im- 
mediately before  us  passed  by  in  vague, 
dusky  phantasmagoria,  confounded  with 
things  farther  away  in  an  inextricable 
manner.  The  world  became  a  sort  of 
kaleidoscope  to  us,  seen  in  a  dream 
through  the  penumbra  of  an  aquarium. 

Suddenly  we  were  roused  from  this 
state  of  somnolence,  awakened  as  if  by 
a  blow  on  the  chest,  forced  to  fix  our 
atteJition  od  what  wie  saw,  for,  amid  thi^ 


572 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


whirl  of  strange  sights,  one  stranger 
than  all  attracted  our  eyes,  and  seemed 
to  say:     "Look  at  me." 

It  was  at  the  open  door  of  a  public 
house.  A  ray  of  light  streamed  into 
the  street  through  the  half-open  door, 
and  the  revealing  ray  fell  right  on  to 
the  specter  that  had  just  risen  up  there, 
dumb  and  motionless. 

It  was  indeed  a  pitiful  and  terrible 
specter,  and,  above  all,  most  real,  as  it 
stood  out  boldly  against  the  dark  back- 
ground of  the  street,  which  it  made 
darker  still! 

Young?  yes,  the  woman  was  certainly 
young.  There  could  be  no  doubt  about 
that,  when  one  looked  at  her  smooth 
skin,  her  smiling  mouth  showing  white 
teeth,  and  the  firm  bust  which  could  be 
plainly  noted  under  her  thin  dress. 

But  then,  how  explain  her  perfectly 
white  hair,  not  gray  or  growing  gray, 
but  absolutely  white,  as  white  as  any 
octogenarian's? 

And  then  her  eyes,  those  eyes  be- 
neath a  smooth  brow,  were  surely  the 
eyes  of  an  old  woman?  Certainly  they 
were,  and  of  how  old  a  woman  you 
could  not  tell,  for  it  must  have  taken 
years  of  trouble  and  sorrow,  of  tears 
and  of  sleepless  nights,  and  a  long  ex- 
istence, thus  to  dull,  wear  out  and 
roughen  those  vitreous  pupils. 

Vitreous?  Not  exactly  that.  For 
roughened  glass  still  retains  a  dull  and 
ttiilky  brightness,  a  recollection,  as  it 
vere,  of  its  former  transparency.  But 
>  hese  eyes  seemed  rather  to  be  of  metal 
nhich  had  turned  rusty,  and  really,  if 
pewter  could  rust,  I  should  have  com- 
peared them  to  pewter  covered  with  rust. 
They  had  the  dead  color  o^  neater,  and 


at  the  same  time  emitted  a  glance  which 
was  the  color  of  reddish  water. 

But  it  was  not  until  some  time  later 
that  I  tried  to  define  them  approxi. 
mately  by  retrospective  analysis.  At 
that  moment,  being  altogether  incapable 
of  such  effort,  I  could  only  realize  in 
my  own  mind  the  idea  of  extreme  de- 
crepitude and  horrible  old  age  which 
they  produced  in  my  imagination. 

Have  I  had  said  that  they  were  set  in 
very  puffy  eyelids,  which  had  no  lashes 
whatever,  and  that  on  her  unwrinkled 
forehead  there  was  not  a  vestige  of  eye- 
brow?  When  I  tell  you  this,  and  em- 
phasize the  dullness  of  their  look  be- 
neath the  hair  of  an  octogenarian,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  Ledantec  and  I  said 
in  a  low  voice  at  the  sight  of  this  wo- 
man, who  from  her  physique  must  haviJ 
been  young: 

"Oh!  poor,  poor  old  woman!'* 

Her  age  was  further  accentuated  by 
the  terrible  poverty  revealed  by  hel 
dress.  If  she  had  been  better  dressed, 
her  youthful  looks  would,  perhaps,  have 
struck  us  more;  but  her  thin  shawl, 
which  was  all  that  she  had  over  het 
chemise,  her  single  petticoat  which  was 
full  of  holes  and  almost  in  rags,  not 
nearly  reaching  to  her  bare  feet,  her 
straw  hat  with  ragged  feathers  and  with 
ribbons  of  no  particular  color  through 
age,  seemed  altogether  so  ancient,  so 
prodigiously  antique  that  we  were  de- 
ceived. 

From  what  remote,  superannuated, 
and  obsolete  period  did  they  all  spring? 
You  could  not  guess,  and  by  a  perfectly 
natural  association  of  ideas,  you  would 
infer  that  the  unfortunate  creature  was 
as  old  as  her  clothes  were.  Now,  by 
"you'*  I  mean  by  Ledantec  and  mvseli 


A  NIGHT  IN  WHITECHAPL. 


57j 


that  is  to  say,  by  two  men  who  were 
abominably  drunk  and  who  were  arguing 
with  the  peculiar  logic  of  intoxication. 

Under  the  softening  influence  of  al- 
cohol we  looked  at  the  vague  smile  on 
those  lips  hiding  the  teeth  of  a  child, 
without  considering  the  youthful  beauty 
of  the  latter.  We  saw  nothing  but  her 
fixed  and  almost  idiotic  smile,  which  no 
longer  contrasted  with  the  dull  expres- 
sion of  her  face,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
strengthened  it.  For  in  spite  of  her 
teeth,  to  us  it  was  the  smile  of  an  old 
woman,  and  as  for  myself,  I  was  really 
pleased  at  my  acuteness  when  I  inferred 
that  this  grandmother  with  such  pale 
lips  had  the  teeth  of  a  young  girl.  Still, 
thanks  to  the  softening  influence  of  al- 
cohol, I  was  not  ang'-y  with  her  for  this 
artifice.  I  even  thought  it  particularly 
praiseworthy,  since,  after  all,  the  poor 
creature  thus  conscientiously  pursued 
her  calling,  which  was  to  seduce  men. 
For  there  was  no  possible  doubt  that 
this  grandmother  was  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  a  prostitute. 

And  then,  d*"unk!  Horribly  drunk, 
much  more  drunk  than  Ledantec  and  I 
were,  for  we  really  could  manage  to  say: 
"Oh!  Pity  the  poor,  poor  old  woman!" 
while  she  was  incapable  of  articulating 
a  single  syllable,  of  making  a  gesture, 
or  even  of  imparting  a  gleam  of  prom- 
ise, a  furtive  flash  of  allurement  to  her 
eyes.  With  her  hands  crossed  on  her 
otomach,  and  leaning  against  the  front 
of  the  public  house,  her  v;hole  body  as 
stiff  as  if  in  a  fit  of  catalepsy,  she  had 
nothing  alluring  about  her,  save  her  sad 
smile.  This  inspired  us  with  all  the 
more  pity  because  she  was  even  more 
tipsy  than  we  were,  and  so,  by  an  iden- 
tical, spontaneous  movement,  we  each 


seized  her  by  an  arm  to  take  her  into  the 
public-house  with  us. 

To  our  great  astonishment  she  re- 
sisted, and  sprang  back  into  the  shadow 
again,  out  of  the  ray  of  light  which 
came  through  the  door.  At  the  same 
time,  she  started  off  through  the  dark- 
ness dragging  us  with  her,  for  she  was 
chnging  to  our  arms.  We  went  along 
with  her  without  speaking,  not  knowing 
where  we  were  going,  but  without  the 
least  uneasiness  on  that  score.  Only, 
when  she  suddenly  burst  into  violent 
sobs  as  she  walked,  Ledantec  and  I  be- 
gan to  sob  in  unison. 

The  cold  and  the  fog  had  suddenly 
congested  our  brains  again,  and  we  had 
again  lost  all  precise  consciousness  of 
our  acts,  our  thoughts,  and  our  sensa- 
tions. Our  sobs  had  nothing  of  grief  in 
them ;  we  were  floating  in  an  atmosphere 
of  perfect  bliss,  and  I  can  remember 
that  at  that  moment  it  was  no  longer 
the  exterior  world  at  which  I  seemed  to 
be  looking  as  through  the  penumbra  of 
an  aquarium;  it  was  myself,  a  self  com- 
posed of  three,  which  was  changing  into 
something  that  was  floating  adrift  in 
something,  though  what  It  was  I  did 
not  know,  composed  as  it  was  of  im- 
palpable fog  and  intangible  water.  But 
it  was  exquisitely  delightful. 

From  that  moment  I  remember  noth- 
ing more  until  something  happened 
which  had  the  effect  of  a  clap  of  thun- 
der on  me,  and  made  me  sober  in  an 
instant. 

Ledantec  was  standing  in  front  of  me, 
bis  face  convulsed  with  horror,  his  hail 
standing  on  end,  and  his  eyes  staring  out 
of  his  head.    He  shouted  to  me: 

"Let  us  escape!  Let  us  escape!" 
Whereupon  I  opened  my  eyes  wide,  and 


574 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


found  myself  lying  on  the  floor,  in  a 
room  into  which  daylight  was  shining. 
T  saw  some  rags  hanging  against  the 
wall,  two  chairs,  a  broken  jug  lying  on 
tiie  floor  by  my  side,  and  in  a  cornei  a 
wretched  bed  on  which  a  woman  was 
lying,  who  was  no  doubt  dead,  for  her 
head  was  hanging  over  the  side,  and  her 
long  white  hair  reached  almost  to  my 
feet. 

With  a  bound  I  was  up,  like  Ledantec. 

*'What!"  I  said  to  him,  while  my 
teeth  chattered:     "Did  you  kill  her?'* 

**No,  no,"  be  replied.  "But  that 
makes  no  difference;  let  us  be  off." 

I  felt  completely  sober  by  that  time, 
but  I  did  think  that  he  waj  rtill  suffer- 
ing somewhat  from  the  effects  of  last 
Dight's  drinking;  otherwise,  why  should 
he  wish  to  escape?  Pity  for  the  un- 
fortunate woman  forced  me  to  say: 

"What  is  the  matter  with  hei?  If 
she  is  ill,  we  must  look  after  her." 

I  went  over  to  the  wretched  bed,  in 
order  to  put  her  head  back  on  the  pil- 
low, and  discovered  that  she  was  neither 
dead  nor  ill,  but  only  sound  asleep.  I 
also  noticed  that  she  was  quite  young. 
She  still  wore  that  idiotic  smile,  but  her 
teeth  were  her  own  and  those  of  a  girl. 
Her  smooth  skin  and  firm  bust  showed 
that  she  was  not  more  than  sixteen; 
perhaps  not  so  much. 

"There!  You  see  it,  you  can  see  it!" 
said  Ledantec.    "Let  us  be  off." 

He  tried  to  dras:  me  out.  He  was  still 
drunk;  I  could  see  it  by  his  feverish 
movements,  his  trembling  hands,  and 
his  nervous  looks.    Then  he  said . 

"I  slept  beside  the  old  woman;  but 
she  is  not  old.  Look  at  her;  look  at 
her;  yes,  she  is  old  after  all!" 

And  he  lifted  up  her  long  hair  by 


handfuls;  it  was  like  handfuls  of  white 
silk,  and  then  he  added,  evidently  in  a 
sort  of  frenzy,  which  made  me  fear  an 
attack  of  delirium  tremens:  "To  think 
''hat  I  have  begotten  children,  three, 
four  children — who  knows  how  many 
children,  all  in  one  night!  And  they 
were  born  immediately,  and  have  grown 
up  already!     Let  us  be  off." 

Decidedly  it  was  an  attack  of  mad- 
ness. Poor  Ledantec!  What  could  1 
do  for  him?  I  took  his  arm  and  tried 
to  calm  him,  but  he  thought  that  I  was 
going  to  try  and  make  him  go  over  to 
her  again,  and  he  pushed  me  away  and 
exclaimed  with  tears  in  his  voice:  "If 
you  do  not  believe  Jie,  look  under  the 
bed ;  the  children  are  there ;  they  are  are 
there,  I  tell  you.  Look  here,  just  look 
here." 

He  threw  himself  down  flat  on  his 
stomach,  and  actually  pulled  out  one, 
two,  three,  four  children,  who  had  hid- 
den under  the  bed.  I  do  not  exactly 
know  whether  they  were  boys  or  girls, 
but  all,  like  ihe  sleeping  woman,  had 
white  hair,  the  hair  of  octogenarians. 

Was  I  still  drunk,  like  Ledantec,  or 
was  I  mad?  What  was  the  meaning  of 
this  strange  hallucination?  I  hesitated 
for  a  moment,  and  shook  myself  to  be 
sure  that  I  was  awake. 

No,  no,  I  had  all  my  wits  about  me., 
and  in  reality  saw  that  horrible  lot  of 
little  brats.  They  all  had  their  faces  in 
their  hands,  and  were  cryir:g  and  squall- 
ing; then  one  of  them  suddenly  jumped 
on  to  the  bed;  all  the  others  followed 
his  example,  and  the  wom:in  woke  up. 

And  there  we  stood,  while  those  five 
pairs  of  eyes,  without  eyeb/iws  or  eye- 


LOST! 


$*7S 


!ashes,  eyes  of  the  color  of  dull  pewter, 
with  pupils  the  color  of  red  water,  were 
steadily  fixed  on  us. 

"Let  us  be  off!  let  us  be  off!"  Ledan- 
tec  rep)eated,  loosing  his  hold  of  me. 
This  time  I  paid  attention  to  what  he 


said,  and  after  throwing  some  smaU 
change  on  to  the  floor,  I  followed  him^ 
to  make  him  understand,  when  he  be^ 
came  quite  sober,  that  he  saw  before 
him  a  poor  Albino  unfortunate,  who 
had  several  brothers  and  sisters. 


lx)st! 


•  Love  is  stronger  than  death,  and  con- 
Isequently,  also,  than  the  greatest  dis- 
aster. 

A  young  and  by  no  means  bad-look- 
ing son  of  Palestine,  one  of  the  barons 
of  the  Almanac  of  the  Ghetto,*  who 
had  left  the  field  covered  with  wounds  in 
the  last  general  engagement  on  the  Stock 
Exchange,  used  very  frequently  to  visit 
the  Universal  Exhibition  in  Vienna  in 
1873,  in  order  to  divert  his  thoughts,  and 
to  console  himself  amid  the  varied 
scenes  and  the  numerous  objects  of  at- 
traction there.  One  day,  in  the  Russian 
section,  he  met  a  newly-married  couple, 
who  had  a  very  old  coat  of  arms,  but  on 
the  other  hand,  a  very  modest  income. 

This  latter  circumstance  frequently 
emboldened  the  stockbroker  to  make 
secret  overtures  to  the  delightful  little 
lady;  overtures  which  might  have  fas- 
cinated certain  Viennese  actresses,  but 
,were  an  insult  to  a  respectable  woman. 
The  Baroness,  whose  name  appeared  in 
the  "Almanach  de  Gotha,"t  felt  some- 
thing very  like  hatred  for  the  man  from 
the  Ghetto,  and  for  a  long  time  her 
pretty  little  head  had  been  full  of 
various  plans  of  revenge. 

The  stockbroker,  who  was  really  and 
even  Dassionatelv  in  love  with  her,  got 


close  to  her  one  day  in  the  Exhibition 
buildings.  He  did  this  the  more  easily 
through  the  flight  of  the  little  woman's 
husband  who  had  scented  extravagance 
as  soon  as  she  went  up  to  the  show-case 
of  a  Russian  fur-dealer,  before  which 
she  remained  standing  in  rapture. 

''Do  look  at  that  lovely  fur,"  the 
Baroness  said,  while  her  dark  eyes  ex- 
pressed her  pleasure;  "I  must  have  it." 

But  she  looked  at  the  white  ticket  on 
which  the  price  was  marked. 

"Four  thousand  rubles,"  she  said  in 
despair;  "that  is  about  six  thousand 
florins.''^ 

"Certainly,'*  he  replied,  "but  what  of 
that?  It  is  a  sum  not  worth  mentioning 
in  the  presence  of  such  a  charming 
lady." 

"But  my  husband  is  not  in  a  posi- 
tion—" 

"Be  less  cruel  than  usual  for  once,** 
the  man  from  the  Ghetto  said  to  the 
young  woman  in  a  low  voice,  "and  all(<w 
me  to  lay  this  sable  skin  at  your  feet.' 


*The  Jews'  quarter  in  some  towns. 

fAn     Almanac     published     early     in 
Gotha,    which    contains    a    full    account 
and    genealogies    of    reining    families, 
mediatized    princes,    princely,   non-reign 
ing  families,  etc.,  etc. 

t.$3,000. 


576 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"I  presume  that  you  are  joking/* 

"Not  I!" 

"I  think  you  must  be  joking,  as  I 
cannot  think  that  you  intend  to  insult 
me/' 

"But,  Baroness,  I  love  you." 

"That  is  one  reason  more  why  you 
should  not  make  me  angry/* 

"But—" 

"This  is  outrageous,"  cried  the  ener- 
getic little  woman;  "I  could  flog  you 
like  'Venus  in  the  Fur'*  did  her  slave." 

"Let  me  be  your  slave,"  the  Stock 
Exchange  baron  replied  ardently,  "and  I 
will  gladly  put  up  with  everything  from 
you.  Really,  in  this  sable  cloak,  and 
with  a  whip  in  your  hand,  you  would 
make  a  most  lovely  picture  of  the  hero- 
ine of  that  story." 

The  Baroness  looked  at  the  man  for  a 
moment  with  a  peculiar  smile. 
'     "Then  if  I  were  to  listen  to  you  favor- 
ably, you  would  let  me  flog  you?"  said 
she  after  a  pause. 

^'With  pleasure." 

"Very  well,"  sue  replied  quickly. 
•*You  will  let  me  give  you  twenty-five 
cuts  with  a  whip,  and  I  will  be  yours 
after  the  twenty-fifth  blow." 

"Are  you  in  earnest?" 

"Fully." 

The  man  from  the  Ghetto  took  her 
-liand,  and  pressed  it  ardently  to  his  lips. 

"When  may  I  come?" 
""To-morrow  evening  at  eight  o'clock." 
"And  I  may  bring  the  sable  cloak  and 
the  whip  with  me?" 

"No,  I  will  see  about  that  myself." 
Next    evening   the    enamored    stock- 
broker came  to  the  abode  of  the  charm- 
ing little  Baroness,  and  found  her  alone, 
\ymg  on  a  couch,  wrapped  in  dark  fur 


and  holding  a  dog  whip  in  her  small 
hand,  which  the  man  from  the  Ghetto 
kissed. 

"You  know  our  agreement,"  she  be- 
gan.- 

"Of  course  I  do,"  the  Stock  Exchange 
baron  replied.  "I  am  to  allow  you  to 
give  me  twenty-five  cuts  with  the  whip, 
and  after  the  twenty-fifth  you  will  listen 
to  me." 

"Yes,  but  I  am  going  to  tie  youi 
hands  first  of  all." 

The  amorous  baron  quietly  allowed 
this  new  Delila  to  tie  his  hands  behind 
him,  and  then  at  her  bidding,  he  knelt 
down  before  her,  and  she  raised  her 
whip  and  hit  him  hard. 

"Oh !  That  hurts  most  confoundedly," 
he  exclaimed. 

"I  mean  it  to  hurt  you,"  she  said  with 
a  mocking  laugh,  and  went  or,  hrash- 
ing  him  without  mercy.  At  last  the 
poor  fool  groaned  with  pain,  but  he  con- 
soled himself  with  the  thought  that  each 
blow  brought  him  nearer  to  his  happi- 
ness. 

At  the  twenty-fourth  cut,  she  threw 
the  whip  down. 

"That  only  makes  twenty-four,"  the 
beaten  and  would-be  Don  Juan  re- 
marked. 

"I  will  make  you  a  present  of  the 
twenty-fifth,"  she  said  with  a  laugh. 

"And  now  you  are  mine,  altogether 
mine,"  he  exclaimed  ardently. 

"What  are  you  thinking  of?" 

"Have  I  not  let  you  beat  me?" 

"Certainly;    but   I   promised  you  to 

grant  ycur  wish  after  the  twenty-fifth 

blow,    and    you    have    only    received 

twenty-four,"  the  cruel  little  atom  of 


♦One  of  Sacher-Masoch's  novels. 


A  COUNTRY  EXCURSION 


577 


virtue  cried,  "and  I  have  witnesses  to 
prove  it." 

With  these  words  she  drew  back  the 
curtains  over  the  door,  and  her  husband, 
followed  by  two  other  gentlemen  came 
out  of  ths  next  room,  smiling.     For  a 


moment  che  stockbroker  remained 
speechless  on  his  knees  before  his 
Delila;  then  he  gave  a  deep  sigh,  ami 
sadly  uttered  that  one,  most  significant 
word: 
"Lostr 


A  Country  Excursion 


For  five  months  they  had  been  talk- 
ing of  going  to  lunch  at  some  country 
restaurant  in  the  neighborhood  of  Paris, 
on  Madame  Dufour's  birthday,  and  as 
they  were  looking  forward  very  impati- 
ently to  the  outing,  they  had  risen  very 
early  that  morning.  Monsieur  Dufour 
had  borrowed  the  milkman's  tilted  cart, 
and  drove  himself.  It  was  a  very  neat, 
two-wheeled  conveyance,  with  a  hood, 
and  in  it  Madame  Dufour,  resplendent 
in  a  wonderful,  sherry-colored  silk  dress, 
sat  by  the  side  of  her  husband. 

The  old  grandmother  and  the  daughter 
were  accommodated  with  two  chairs, 
and  a  yellow-haired  youth,  of  whom, 
however,  nothing  was  to  be  seen  except 
his  head,  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  trap-. 

When  they  got  to  the  bridge  of 
Neuilly,  Monsieur  Dufour  said:  "Here 
we  are  in  the  country  at  last!"  At 
that  warning,  his  wife  grew  sentimental 
about  the  beauties  of  nature.  When 
they  got  to  the  crossroads  at  Courbe- 
voie,  they  were  seized  with  admiration 
for  the  tremendous  view  down  there: 
on  the  right  was  the  spire  of  Argenteuil 
church,  above  it  rose  the  hills  of  Sannois 
and  the  mill  of  Orgemont,  while  on  the 
left,  the  aqueduct  of  Marly  stood  out 
against  the  clear  morninsr  sky.     In  the 


distance  they  could  see  the  terrace  ol 
Saint-Germain,  and  opposite  to  them,  at 
the  end  of  a  low  chain  of  hills,  the  ntvt 
fort  of  Cormeiiles.  Afar — a  very  long 
way  off,  beyond  the  plains  and  villages 
— one  could  see  the  somber  green  of  the 
forests. 

The  sun  was  beginning  to  shine  in 
their  faces,  the  dust  got  into  their  eyes, 
and  on  either  side  of  the  road  there 
stretched  an  interminable  tract  of  bare, 
ugly  country,  which  smelled  unpleas- 
antly. You  would  have  thought  that  it 
had  been  ravaged  by  a  pestilence  which 
had  even  attacked  the  buildings,  for 
skeletons  of  dilapidated  and  deserted 
houses,  or  small  cottages  left  in  an  un- 
finished state,  as  if  the  contractors  had 
not  been  paid,  reared  their  four  roofless 
walls  on  each  side. 

Here  and  there  tall  factory-chimneys 
rose  up  from  the  barren  soil,  the  only 
vegetation  on  that  putrid  land,  where 
the  spring  breezes  wafted  an  odor  of 
petroleum  and  soot,  mingled  with  an- 
other smell  that  was  even  still  less  agree- 
able. At  last,  however,  they  crossed  the 
Seine  a  second  time.  It  was  delightful 
on  the  bridge;  the  river  sparkled  in  the 
sun,  and  they  had  a  feeling  of  quiet 
satisfaction  and  enjoyment  in  drinking 


573 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


in  purer  air,  not  impregnated  by  the 
blacli  smoke  cf  factories,  nor  by  the 
miasma  from  the  deposits  of  night-soil. 
A  man  whom  they  met  told  them  that 
the  name  of  the  place  was  Bezons;  so 
Monsieur  Dufour  pulled  up,  and  read 
the  attractive  announcement  outside  an 
eating-house : 

"Restaurant  Foulin,  stews  and  fried 
fish,  private  rooms,  arbors,  and  swings." 

"Weil!  Madame  Dufour,  will  this 
suit  you?  Will  you  make  up  your  mind 
at  last?" 

She  read  the  announcement  in  her 
turn,  and  then  looked  at  the  house  for 
a  time. 

It  was  a  white  country  inn,  built  by 
the  roadside,  and  through  the  open  door 
she  could  see  the  bright  zinc  of  the  coun- 
ter, at  which  two  workmen  out  for  the 
day  were  sitting.  At  hst  she  made  up 
her  mind,  and  said: 

"Yes,  this  will  dc;  and,  besides,  there 
is  a  view." 

So  they  drove  into  a  large  yard 
studded  with  trees,  behind  the  inn,  which 
was  only  separated  from  the  river  by 
the  towing-path,  and  got  out.  The 
husband  sprang  out  firct,  and  held  out 
his  arms  for  his  wife.  As  the  step  was 
very  high,  Madame  Dufour,  in  order  to 
reach  him,  had  to  shew  the  lower  part 
of  her  limbs,  whose  former  slenderness 
had  disappeared  in  fat.  Monsieur  Du- 
four, who  was  already  getting  excited 
by  the  country  air,  pinched  her  calf,  and 
then,  taking  her  in  his  arms,  set  her  on 
to  the  ground,  as  if  she  had  been  some 
enormous  bundle.  She  shook  the  dust 
out  of  the  silk  dress,  and  then  looked 
round,  to  see  in  what  sort  of  a  place 
she  was. 

She  was   a   stout  v/oman,   of  about 


thirty-six  fuU-blov/n  and  delightful  to 
look  at.  She  could  hardly  breathe,  as 
she  was  laced  too  tightly,  which  forced 
the  heaving  mass  of  her  superabundant 
bosom  up  to  her  double  chin.  Next,  the 
girl  put  her  hand  on  to  her  father's 
shoulder,  and  jumped  li^hLly  down.  The 
youth  with  the  yellow  hair  had  got 
down  by  stepping  on  the  wheel,  and  he 
helped  Monsieur  Dufour  to  get  the 
grandmother  out.  Then  they  un- 
harnessed the  horse,  which  they  tied  up 
to  a  tree,  and  the  carriage  fc'l  back, 
with  both  shafts  in  the  air.  The  man 
and  bo3  took  off  their  coats,  washed  their 
hands  in  a  pail  of  v/ater,  and  then  joined 
the  ladies,  who  had  already  caken  pos- 
session of  the  swings. 

Mademoiselle  Dufour  was  trying  to 
swing  herself  standing  up,  but  she  could 
not  succeed  in  gcttir.g  a  start.  She  was 
a  pretty  girl  of  about  eighteen;  one 
of  those  women  who  suddenly  excite 
;  our  desire  when  you  meet  them  in  the 
street,  and  who  leave  you  with  a  vague 
feeling  of  uneasiness  and  of  excited 
senses.  She  was  tall,  had  a  small  waist 
and  large  hi;:s,  with  a  dark  skin,  very 
large  eyes,  and  very  black  hair.  Her 
dress  clearly  marh^d  the  outlines  of 
her  firm,  full  figure,  which  was  accen- 
tuated by  the  motion  of  her  hips  as  she 
tried  to  swing  herself  higher.  Her  arms 
were  stretched  over  her  head  to  hold 
the  rope,  so  that  her  bosom  rose  at 
every  movement  she  made.  Her  hat, 
which  a  gust  of  wind  had  blown  off, 
v/as  hanging  behind  her,  and  as  the 
swing  gradually  rose  higher  and  higher, 
she  showed  her  delicate  limbs  up  to  the 
knees  each  time,  and  the  wind  from  the 
perfumed  petticoats,  more  heady  than 
the  fumes  of  wine,  blew  into  the  facej 


A  COUNTRY  EXCURSION 


579\ 


of  her  father  and  triend,  who  were  look- 
ing at  her  in  admiration. 

Sitting  in  the  other  swinf:,  Madame 
Dufour  kept  saying  in  a  monotonous 
voice : 

"Cyprian,  come  and  swing  me;  do 
come  and  swing  me,  Cyprian!'* 

At  last  he  complied,  and  turning  up 
his  shirt-sleeves,  as  if  he  intended  to 
work  very  hard,  with  much  difficulty 
he  set  his  wife  in  motion.  She  clutched 
the  two  ropes,  and  held  her  legs  out 
straight;  so  as  not  to  touch  the  ground. 
She  enj:?yed  feeling  giddy  from  the  mo- 
tion of  the  swing,  and  her  whole  figure 
shook  like  a  jelly  on  a  dish,  but  as  she 
went  higher  and  hii^hcr,  she  [;^rew  too 
giddy  and  got  frightened.  Every  time 
she  v-as  coming  back,  she  uttered  a 
shriek,  which  made  all  the  l"ttle  urchins 
comii  round,  and,  down  below,  beneath 
tho  garden  hedge,  she  vaguely  saw  a  row 
of  mischievous  heads,  making  various 
grimaces  as  they  laughed. 

When  a  servant  [;*rl  came  out,  they 
ordered  lunch. 

"Som.e  fried  fish,  a  stewed  rabbit, 
-'salad,  and  dessert,"  Madame  Dufour 
said,  with  an  important  air. 

"Bring  two  quarts  cf  beer  and  a 
bottle  of  claret,"  her  husband  said. 

"We  will  have  lunch  on  the  grass," 
the  girl  added. 

The  grandmother,  who  had  an  affec- 
tion for  cats,  had  been  petting  one  that 
belonged  to  the  house,  and  had  been  be- 
stowing the  most  affectionate  words  on 
it,  for  the  last  ten  minutes.  The  animal, 
no  doubt  secretly  pleased  by  her  atten- 
tions, kept  close  to  the  good  woman, 
but  just  out  of  reach  of  her  hand,  and 
Quietly  walked  round  the  trees,  against 


which  she  rubbed  herself,  with  her  tail 
up,  purring  with  pleasure. 

"Hallo!"  exclaimed  the  youth  with 
the  yellow  hair,  who  was  ferreting  about, 
"here  are  two  swell  boats!"  They  all 
went  to  lock  at  them,  and  saw  two 
beautiful  skiffs  in  a  wooden  boathouse, 
v/hich  were  as  beautifully  finished  as  if 
they  had  been  objects  of  luxury.  They 
were  moored  side  by  side,  like  two  tall, 
slender  girls,  in  their  narrow  shining 
hngth,  and  aroused  in  one  a  wish  to  float 
in  them  on  warm  summer  mornings  and 
evenings,  along  flower-covered  banks  of 
the  river,  where  the  trees  dip  their 
branches  into  the  water,  where  the  rushes 
are  continually  rustling  in  the  breeze, 
nnd  where  the  swift  kingfishers  dart 
cbout  like  flashes  of  blue  lightning. 

The  whole  family  looked  at  them  with 
great  respect. 

"They  are  indeed  two  swell  joats,'* 
Monsieur  Dufour  repeated  gravely,  and 
he  examined  them  closely,  commenting 
on  them  like  a  connoisseur.  He  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  rowing  in  his 
younger  days,  he  said,  and  when  he  had 
that  in  his  hands — and  he  went  through 
the  action  of  pulling  the  oars — he  did 
not  care  a  fig  for  anybody.  He  had 
beaten  more  than  one  Englishman  for- 
merly at  the  Joinville  regattas.  He 
grew  quite  excited  at  last,  and  offered 
to  make  a  bet  that  in  a  boat  like  that 
he  could  row  six  miles  an  hour,  without 
exerting  himself. 

"Lunch  is  ready,"  said  the  waitress,  ap- 
pearing at  the  entrance  to  the  boathouse. 
They  all  hu"ricd  off,  but  two  young  men 
were  already  lunching  at  the  best  place, 
which  Madame  Dufour  had  chosen  in 
her  mind  as  her  seat.  No  doubt  they 
were  the  owners  of  the  skiffs,  for  they 


58C 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


were  dressed  in  boating  costume.  They 
were  stretched  out,  ahnost  lying  on 
chairs,  and  were  sunburned,  and  had  on 
flannel  trousers  and  thin  cotton  jerseys, 
■with  short  sleeves,  which  showed  their 
bars  arms,  which  were  as  strong  as  black- 
smiths'. They  were  two  strong  young 
fellows,  who  thought  a  great  deal  of 
their  vigor,  and  who  showed  in  all  their 
movements  that  elasticity  and  grace  of 
limb  which  can  only  be  acquired  by 
exercise,  and  which  is  so  different  to  the 
awkwardness  with  which  the  same  con- 
tinual work  stamps  the  mechanic. 

They  exchanged  a  rapid  smile  when 
they  saw  the  mother,  and  then  a  look  on 
seeing  the  daughter. 

"Let  us  give  up  our  place,"  one  of 
them  said;  **it  will  make  us  acquainted 
with  them." 

The  other  got  up  immediately,  and 
holding  his  black  and  red  boating-cap 
in  his  hand,  he  politely  offered  the  ladies 
the  only  shady  place  in  the  garden. 
With  many  excuses  they  accepted,  and 
so  that  it  might  be  more  rural,  they  sat 
on  the  grass,  without  either  tables  or 
chairs. 

The  two  young  men  took  their  plates, 
knives,  forks,  etc.,  to  a  table  a  little 
way  off,  and  began  to  eat  again.  Their 
bare  arms,  which  they  showed  contin- 
ually, rather  embarrassed  the  young  girl, 
who  even  pretended  to  turn  her  head 
aside,  and  not  to  see  them.  But  Ma- 
dame Dufcur,  who  was  rather  bolder, 
tempted  by  feminine  curiosity,  looked  at 
ihem  every  moment,  and  no  doubt  com- 
pared them  with  the  secret  unsightliness 
of  her  husband.  She  had  squatted  her- 
self on  the  ground  with  her  legs  tucked 
under  her,  after  the  manner  of  tailors, 
and  kept  wriggling  about   continually, 


under  the  pretext  that  ants  were  crawl- 
ing about  her  somewhere.  Monsieur 
Dufour,  whom  the  poUteness  of  the 
strangers  had  put  into  rather  a  bad 
temper,  was  trying  to  find  a  comfortable 
position,  which  he  did  not,  however,  suc- 
ceed in  doing,  while  the  youth  with  the 
yellow  hair  was  eating  as  silently  as 
an  ogre. 

*Tt  is  lovely  weather,  Monsieur,"  the 
stout  lady  said  to  one  of  the  boating- 
men.  She  wished  to  be  friendly,  because 
they  had  given  up  their  place. 

"It  is,  indeed,  Madame,*'  he  replied; 
"do  you  often  go  into  the  country?" 

*'0h!  Only  once  or  twice  a  year,  to 
get  a  little  fresh  air;  and  you.  Mon- 
sieur?" 

"I  come  and  sleep  here  every  night." 

"Oh!     That  must  be  very  nice?" 

"Certainly  it  is,  Madame."  And  he 
gave  them  such  a  practical  account  of 
his  daily  life,  that  in  the  hearts  of  these 
shopkeepers,  who  were  deprived  of  the 
meadows,  and  who  longed  for  country 
walks,  it  roused  that  innate  love  of  na- 
ture, which  they  all  felt  so  strongly  the 
whole  year  round,  behind  the  counter  in 
their  shop. 

The  girl  raised  her  eyes  and  looked 
at  the  oarsman  with  emotion,  and  Mon- 
sieur Dufour  spoke  for  the  firnt  time. 

"It  is  indeed  a  happy  life,''  he  said. 
And  then  he  added:  "A  little  more  rab- 
bit, my  dear?" 

"No,  thank  you,"  she  replied,  and 
turning  to  the  young  men  again,  and 
pointing  to  their  arms,  asked:  "Do  you 
never  feel  cold  like  that?" 

They  both  laughed,  and  amazed  the 
family  by  telling  of  the  enormous  fa- 
tigue they  could  endure,  cf  bathing 
while  in  a  state  of  tremendous  perspira- 


A  COUNTRY  EXCURSION 


581 


tion,  of  rowing  in  the  fog  at  night,  and 
they  struck  their  chests  violently,  to 
show  how  they  sounded. 

"Ah!  You  look  very  strong,"  the 
husband  said,  and  he  did  not  talk  any 
more  of  the  time  when  he  used  to  beat 
the  English.  The  girl  was  looking  at 
them  askance  now,  and  the  young  fellow 
with  the  yellow  hair,  as  he  had  swal- 
lowed some  wine  the  wrong  way,  and 
was  coughing  violently,  bespattered  Ma- 
dame Dufours  sherry-colored  silk  dress. 
Madame  got  angry,  and  sent  for  some 
water  to  wash  the  spots. 

Meanwhile  it  had  grown  unbearably 
hot,  the  sparkling  river  looked  like  a 
blaze  of  fire  and  the  fumes  cf  the  wine 
were  getting  into  their  heads.  Monsieur 
Dufour,  who  had  a  violent  hiccough, 
had  unbuttoned  his  waistcoat  and  the 
top  of  his  trousers,  while  his  wife,  who 
felt  choking,  was  gradually  unfastening 
her  dress.  The  youth  was  shaking  his 
yellow  wig  in  a  happy  frame  of  mind', 
and  kept  helping  himself  to  wine,  and 
as  the  old  grandmother  felt  drunk,  she 
endeavored  to  be  very  stiff  and  dignified". 
As  for  the  girl,  she  showed  nothing  ex- 
cept a  peculiar  brightness  in  her  eyes, 
while  the  brown  skin  on  the  cheeks 
became  more  rosy. 

The  coffee  finished  them  off;  they 
si>oke  of  singing,  and  each  of  them  sang, 
or  repeated  a  couplet,  which  the  others 
rep>eated  enthusiastically.  Then  they 
got  up  with  some  difficulty,  and  while 
the  two  women,  who  were  rather  dizzy, 
were  getting  some  fresh  air,  the  two 
males,  who  were  altogether  drunk,  were 
performing  gymnastic  tricks.  Heavy, 
limp,  and  with  scarlet  faces,  they  hung 
awkwardly  on  to  the  iron  ringL,  without 
being  able  to   raise  themselves^  while 


their  shirts  were  continually  threatening 
to  part  company  with  their  trousers, 
and  to  flap  in  the  wind  like  flags. 

Meanwhile,  the  two  boating-men  had 
got  their  skiffs  into  the  water.  They 
came  back,  and  politely  asked  the  ladies 
whether  they  would  like  a  row. 

"Would  you  like  one.  Monsieur  Du- 
four?'* his  wife  exclaimed.  "Please 
come!'* 

He  merely  gave  her  a  drunken  look, 
v/ithout  understanding  what  she  said. 
Then  one  of  the  rowers  came  up,  with 
two  fishing-rods  in  his  hand;  and  the 
hope  of  catching  a  gudgeon,  that  great 
aim  of  the  Parisian  shopkeeper,  made 
Dufour's  dull  eyes  gleam.  He  politely 
allowed  them  to  do  whatever  they  liked, 
while  he  sat  in  the  shade,  under  che 
bridge,  with  his  feet  dangling  over  the 
river,  by  the  side  of  the  young  man  with 
the  yellow  hair,  who  was  sleeping  sound- 
ly close  to  liim. 

One  of  the  boating-men  made  a  mar- 
tyr of  himself,  and  took  the  mother. 

"Let  us  go  to  the  little  wood  on  the 
He  aux  Anglais!"  he  called  out,  as  he 
rowed  off.  The  other  skiff  went  slower, 
for  the  rower  was  looking  at  his  com- 
panion so  intently,  that  he  thought  of 
nothing  else.  His  emotion  paralyzed 
his  strength,  while  the  girl,  who  was 
sitting  on  the  steerer's  seat,  gave  her- 
self up  to  the  enjoyment  of  being  on 
the  water.  She  felt  disinclined  co  think, 
felt  a  lassitude  in  her  limbs,  a  complete 
self-relaxation,  as  if  she  were  intoxi- 
cated. She  had  become  very  flushed, 
and  breathed  pantingly.  The  effect  of 
the  wine,  increased  by  the  extreme  heat| 
made  all  the  trees  on  the  bank  seem  to 
bow,  as  she  passed.  A  va^ue  wish  for 
enjoyment,  a  fermentation  of  her  bloo(^ 


'82 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


seemed  to  pervade  her  whole  body,  and 
she  was  also  a  little  agitated  by  this 
tete-a-tete  on  the  water,  in  a  place  which 
seemed  depopulated  by  the  heat,  with 
this  young  man,  who  thought  her  so 
pretty,  whose  looks  seemed  to  caress 
her  skin,  and  whose  eyes  were  as  pene- 
trating and  exciting  as  the  sun's  rays. 

Their  inabihty  to  speak  increased 
their  emotion,  and  they  looked  about 
them.  At  last  he  made  an  effort  and 
asked  her  name. 

"Henriette,"  she  said. 

*'Why!  My  name  is  Henri,"  he  re- 
plied. The  sound  of  their  voices  calmed 
them,  and  they  looked  at  the  banks. 
The  other  sk'ff  had  gone  ahead  of  them, 
and  seemed  to  be  waiting  for  them. 
The  rower  called  out: 

"We  will  meet  you  in  the  wood;  we 
are  going  as  far  as  Robinson's,*  be- 
cause Madame  Dufour  is  thirsty." 
Then  he  bent  over  his  oars  again  and 
rowed  off  so  quickly  that  he  was  soon 
out  of  sight. 

Meanwhile,  a  continual  roar,  which 
they  had  heard  for  some  time,  came 
nearer,  and  the  river  itself  seemed  to 
shiver,  as  if  the  dull  noise  were  rising 
from  its  depths. 

''What  is  that  noise?"  she  asked.  It 
was  the  noise  cf  the  weir,  which  cut 
the  river  in  two,  at  the  island.  He  was 
explaining  it  to  her,  when  above  the 
noise  of  the  waterfall  they  heard  the 
song  of  a  bird,  which  seemed  a  long  way 
off. 

"Listen!"  he  said;  "the  nijhtingales 
are  singing  during  the  day,  so  the  fe- 
males must  h2  sitting." 

A  nightingale!  She  had  never  heard 
one  before,  and  the  idea  of  listening  to 
one  roused  visions  of  poetic  tenderness 


in  her  heart.  A  nightingale!  That  is 
to  say,  the  invisible  witness  of  the  lov- 
er's interview  which  Juliette  invoked  on 
her  balcony t ;  that  celestial  music  \vhicb 
is  attuned  to  human  kisses;  that  eternal 
inspirer  of  all  those  languorous  romances 
which  open  idealized  visions  to  the  poor, 
tender,  little  hearts  of  sensitive  girls ! 

She  wanted  to  hear  a  nightingale. 

"We  must  not  make  a  noiiie,"  her 
companion  said,  "and  then  we  can  go 
into  the  wood,  and  sit  down  close  to 
it." 

The  skiff  seemed  to  glide.  They  sa^ 
the  trees  on  the  island,  the  banks  of 
which  were  so  low  that  they  could  look 
into  the  depths  of  the  thickets.  They 
stopped,  he  made  the  boat  fast,  Henri- 
ctte  took  hold  of  Henri's  arm,  and  they 
went  beneath  the  trees. 

"Stoop,'*  he  said,  so  she  bent  down, 
and  they  v/snt  into  an  ine:ctricable 
thicket  of  creepers,  leaves,  and  reed- 
grass,  which  formed  an  impenetrable  re- 
treat, and  which  the  young  man  laugh- 
ingly called  "his  private  room." 

Just  above  their  heads,  perched  in 
one  of  the  trees  which  hid  them,  the 
bird  was  still  singing.  He  uttered  shakes 
and  raiilades,  and  then  lor.g,  vibrating 
sounds  that  filled  the  air  and  seemed  to 
lose  themselves  in  the  distance,  across 
the  level  country,  throujjh  that  burning 
silence  which  hung  low  upon  the  whole 
country  round.  They  d!d  not  speak  for 
fear  cf  frightening  the  bird  away.  They 
were  sitting  close  together,  and  s'owly 
Henri's  arm  stole  round  the  girl's  waist 


*A  Well-known  restaurant  on  the  banks 
of  the  Seine,  much  frequented  by  the 
bourgeoisie. 

t"Romeo  and  Juliet,"  Act  III.,  Seen© 
V 


A  COUNTx-lY  EXCURSION 


583 


and  squeezed  it  gently.  She  took  that 
daring  hand,  but  without  anger,  and  kept 
removing  it  whenever  he  put  it  round 
her;  not,  however,  feeling  at  all  em- 
barrassed by  this  caress,  just  as  if  it 
had  been  something  quite  natural  which 
she  was  resisting  just  as  naturally. 

She  was  listening  to  the  bird  in 
ecstasy.  She  felt  an  infinite  longing 
for  happiness,  for  some  sudden  demon- 
stration of  tenderness,  for  a  revelation 
of  divine  poesy.  She  felt  such  a  soften- 
ing at  her  heart,  and  such  a  relaxation 
of  her  nerves,  that  she  began  to  cry, 
without  knowing  why.  The  young  man 
was  now  straining  her  close  to  him,  and 
she  did  not  remove  his  arm ;  she  did  not 
think  of  it.  Suddenly  the  nightingale 
stopped,  and  a  voice  called  out  in  the 
distance : 

"Henriette!" 

"Do  not  reply,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice, 
"you  will  drive  the  bird  away." 

But  she  had  no  idea  of  doing  so,  and 
they  remained  in  the  same  position  for 
some  time.  Madame  Dufour  had  sat 
down  somewhere  or  other,  for  from  time 
to  time  they  heard  the  stout  lady  break 
out  into  little  bursts  of  laughter. 

The  girl  was  still  crying;  she  v/as 
filled  with  strange  sensations.  Henri's 
head  was  on  her  shoulder,  and  suddenly 
he  kissed  her  on  the  lips.  She  was  sur- 
prised and  angry,  and,  to  avoid  him, 
she  stood  up. 

They  were  both  very  pale  when  they 
quitted  their  grassy  retreat.  The  blue 
sky  looked  dull  to  them,  the  ardent  sun 
was  clouded  over  to  their  eyes,  they 
perceived  not  the  solitude  and  the  si- 
lence. They  walked  quickly  side  by  side, 
without  speaking  or  touching  each  other, 
appearing  to  be  irreconcilable  enemies, 


as  if  disgust  had  sprung  up  between 
them,  and  hatred  between  their  souls. 
From  time  to  time  Henrictte  called  out; 
"Mamma!" 

By  and  by  they  heard  a  noise  in  a 
thicket,  and  Madame  Dufour  appeared, 
looking  rather  confused,  and  her  com- 
panion's face  was  wrinkled  with  smiles 
that  he  could  not  check. 

Madame  Dufour  took  his  arm,  and 
they  returned  to  the  boats.  Henri  went 
on  first,  still  without  speaking,  by  the 
girl's  side,  and  at  last  they  got  back  to 
Bezons.  Monsieur  Dufour,  who  had 
sobered  up,  was  waiting  for  them  very 
impatiently,  while  the  youth  with  the 
yellow  hair  was  having  a  mouthful  of 
something  to  eat  before  leaving  the  inn. 
The  carriage  was  in  the  yard,  with  the 
horse  in,  and  the  grandmother,  who 
had  already  got  in,  was  frightened  at  the 
thought  of  being  overtaken  by  night, 
before  they  got  back  to  Paris,  the  out- 
skirts not  being  safe. 

The  young  men  shook  hands  with 
them,  and  the  Dufour  family  drove  off. 

"Good-bye,  until  we  meet  again!"  the 
oarsmen  cried,  and  the  answers  they  got 
were  a  sigh  and  a  tear. 
****** 

Two  months  later,  as  Henri  was  going 
along  the  Rue  des  Martyrs,  he  saw 
"Dufour,  Ironmonger,"  over  a  door.  So 
he  went  in,  and  saw  the  stout  lady  sitting 
at  the  counter.  They  recognized  each 
other  immediately,  and  after  an  inter- 
change of  polite  greetings,  he  inquired 
after  them  all. 

"And  how  is  Mademoiselle  Henri- 
ette?"  he  inquired,  specially. 

"Very  well,  thank  you;  she  is  mar 
ried." 


584 

"Ah!" 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Mastering  his  feelings,  he 
added:    "To  whom  was  she  married?" 

'To  that  young  man  who  went  with 
us,  you  knew;  he  has  joined  us  in  busi- 
ness/' 

*'I  remember  him,  perfectly/* 


He  was  going  out,  feeling  unhappy, 
though  scarcely  knowing  why,  when 
Madame  called  him  back. 

"And  how  is  your  friend?"  she  asked, 
rather  shyly. 

"He  is  very  well,  thank  you/* 


The  Relics 


They  had  given  him  a  grand  public 
funeral,  like  they  do  to  victorious  sol- 
diers who  have  added  some  dazzling 
pages  to  the  glorious  annals  of  their 
country,  who  have  restored  courage  to 
desponding  hearts  and  cast  over  other 
nations  the  proud  shadow  of  their  coun- 
try's flag,  like  a  yoke  under  which  those 
go  who  are  no  longer  to  have  a  country, 
or  liberty. 

During  a  whole  bright,  calm  night, 
when  falling  stars  made  people  think  of 
unknown  metamorphoses  and  the  trans- 
migration of  souls,  tall  cavalry  soldiers 
in  their  cuirasses,  sitting  as  motionless 
as  statues  on  their  horses,  had  watched 
by  the  dead  man's  coffin,  which  was 
resting,  covered  with  wreaths,  under  the 
porch  of  the  heroes,  every  stone  of 
wliich  is  engraved  with  the  name  of  a 
brave  man  and  of  a  battle. 

The  who!'*  town  was  in  mourning,  as 
if  it  had  lost  the  only  object  that  had 
possession  of  its  heart  and  love.  The 
crowd  went  silently  and  thoughtfully 
down  the  avenue  of  the  Champs- 
Elysees,  and  almost  fought  for  the  com- 
memorative medals  and  the  common 
portraits  which  hawkers  were  selling,  or 
climbed  upon  the  stands  which  street 
bovs  had  erected  here  and  there,  from 


which  they  could  see  over  the  heads  of 
the  crowd. 

The  Place  de  la  Concorde  had  some- 
thing solemn  about  it,  with  its  circle  of 
statues  hung  from  head  to  foot  with 
long  crape  coverings,  which  looked  in 
the  distance  like  widows,  weeping  and 
praying. 

According  to  his  last  wish,  Jean 
Ramel  had  been  conveyed  to  the  Pan- 
theon in  the  wretched  paupers'  hearse, 
v;hich  takes  them  to  the  common  grave, 
behind  the  shambling  trot  of  some  thin 
and  broken-winded  horse. 

That  dreadful,  black  conveyance  with* 
out  any  drapery,  without  plumes  and 
without  flowers,  followed  by  Ministers 
and  deputies,  by  several  regiments  with 
their  bands,  with  their  flaj^s  flying  above 
the  helmets  and  the  sabers,  by  children 
from  the  national  schools,  by  delegates 
from  the  provinces  and  by  an  innumer- 
able crowd  of  men  in  blouses,  of  women, 
of  shopkeepers  from  every  quarter,  had 
a  most  theatrical  effect.  Standing  on  thfc 
steps  of  the  Pantheon,  at  the  foot  o! 
the  massive  columns  of  the  portico,  the 
orators  successively  descanted  on 
Ramel's  apotheosis,  tried  to  make  their 
voices  dominate  over  the  noise,  empha- 
sized their  pompous  periods,  and  finished 


THE  RELICS 


585 


the  performance  by  a  poor  third  act, 
making  people  yawn  and  gradually  dis- 
persing the  audience.  People  remem- 
bered who  that  man  had  been  on  whom 
such  posthumous  honors  were  being  be- 
stowed, and  who  was  having  such  a  fun- 
eral: it  was  Jean  Ramel. 

Those  three  sonorous  syllables  called 
up  a  leonine  head,  with  white  hair 
thrown  back  in  disorder  like  a  mane, 
with  features  that  looked  as  if  they 
had  been  cut  out  with  a  bill-hook,  but 
which  were  so  powerful,  and  in  which 
there  flamed  such  life,  as  to  make  one 
forget  their  vulgarity  and  ugliness, — 
with  black  eyes  under  bushy  eyebrows, 
eyes  which  dilated  and  flashed  like 
lightninjj,  now  veiled  as  if  in  tears  and 
then  filled  with  serene  mildness, — a  voice 
which  now  growled  so  as  almost  to 
terrify  its  hearers,  and  would  have  filled 
the  hall  of  some  working-man's  club, 
full  of  the  thick  smoke  f^-om  strong 
pipes,  without  being  affected  by  it,  and 
then  would  be  soft,  coaxing,  persuasive, 
and  unctuous  as  that  of  a  priest  who 
is  holding  out  promises  of  Paradise,  or 
giving  absolution  for  our  sins. 

He  had  had  the  good  luck  to  be  perse- 
cuted, to  be  in  the  eyes  of  the  people 
the  incarnation  of  that  lying  formula 
which  appears  on  every  public  edifice, 
those  three  words  of  the  Golden  Age, 
which  maLi  those  who  think,  those  who 
sutter,  and  tnose  who  govern,  smile 
somewhat  sadly — "Liberty,  Fraternity, 
Equality."  Luck  had  been  kind  to  him, 
had  sustained,  had  pushed  him  on  by 
the  shoulders,  and  had  set  him  up  on  his 
pedestal  again  when  he  had  fallen  as 
all  idols  do. 

He  spoke  and  he  wrote,  and  always 
in  order  to  announce  the  good  news  to 


all  the  multitudes  who  suffered, — ^no 
matter  to  what  grade  of  society  they 
might  belong, — to  hold  out  his  hand  to 
them  and  to  defend  them,  to  attack  the 
abuses  of  the  "Code," — that  book  of  in- 
justice and  severity, — to  speak  the  truth 
boldly,  even  when  it  lashed  his  enemies 
as  if  it  had  been  a  whip. 

His  books  were  like  Gospels  which 
are  read,  chapter  by  chapter,  and  warmed 
the  most  despairing  and  the  most  sor- 
rowing hearts,  bringing  comfort,  hope, 
and  dreams  to  each. 

He  had  lived  very  modestly  until  the 
end,  and  appeared  to  spend  nothing,  and 
had  only  kept  one  old  servant,  who  spoke 
to  him  in  the  Basque  dialect. 

That  chaste  philosopher,  who  had  all 
his  life  long  feared  women's  snares  and 
wiles,  who  had  looked  upon  love  as  a 
luxury  made  only  for  the  rich  and  idle, 
v/hich  unsettles  the  brain  and  interferes 
with  acuteness  of  thought,  had  allowed 
himself  to  be  caught  like  an  ordinary 
man — late  in  life — when  his  hair  was 
white  and  his  forehead  deeply  wrinkled. 

It  was  not,  however,  as  happens  in  the 
visions  of  solitary  ascetics,  some  strange 
queen  or  female  magician,  with  stars 
in  her  eyes  and  witchery  in  her  voice,  or 
some  loose  woman  who  holds  up  the 
symbolical  lamp  immodestly,  to  light 
up  her  radiant  nudity  and  the  pink  and 
white  bouauet  of  her  sweet  smelling 
skin,  or  some  woman  in  search  or  vol- 
uptuous pleasures,  whose  lascivious  ap- 
peals it  is  impossible  for  any  man  to  lis- 
ten to  without  being  excited  to  the  very 
depths  of  his  being.  Neither  a  Princess 
cut  of  some  fairy  tale,  nor  a  frail  beauty 
who  was  expert  in  rev^'ving  the  ardor 
of  old  men,  and  of  leading  them  astray, 
nor  a  woman  disgusted  with  her  ideals,. 


580 


WORKS  OF  GUY  D£  MAUPASSAIs  i 


finding  them  all  alike,  who  dreams  of 
awakening  the  heart  of  one  of  those  men 
who  suffer,  who  afford  so  much  allevia- 
tion to  human  misery,  who  seem  to  be 
surrounded  by  a  halo,  and  who  never 
know  anything  but  the  true,  the  beauti- 
ful, and  the  good. 

It  was  only  a  little  girl  of  twenty, 
who  v;as  as  pretty  as  a  wild  flower,  had 
A  ringing  laugh,  white  teeth,  and  a  mind 
that  was  as  spotless  as  a  new  mirror,  in 
which  no  figure  has  been  reflected  as 
yet. 

He  was  an  exile  at  the  time  for  hav- 
ing given  public  expression  to  what  he 
thought,  and  was  living  in  an  Italian 
village  which  was  buried  in  chestnut- 
trees  and  situated  on  the  shores  of  a 
lake  so  narrow  and  so  transparent  that 
it  might  have  been  taken  for  some 
nobleman's  fish-pond,  an  emerald  in  a 
large  park.  It  consisted  of  about  twenty 
red-tiled  houses ;  steep  paths  paved  with 
flint  led  up  the  side  of  the  hills  among 
the  vines,  where  the  Madonna,  full  of 
grace  and  goodness,  extended  her  in- 
dulgences from  shrines  which  contained 
dusty,  tinsel  nosegays. 

For  the  first  time  in  his  life  Ramel 
remarked  that  there  were  some  lip-?  that 
were  more  desirable,  more  smJling  than 
others,  that  there  was  hair  in  which  it 
must  be  delicious  to  bury  the  fingers 
as  in  fine  silk,  and  which  it  must  be  de- 
lightful to  kiss,  and  that  there  were 
eyes  which  contained  an  infinitude  of 
caresses.  He  wandered  right  through 
the  eclogue,  which  at  length  revealed 
true  happiness  to  him,  and  he  had  a 
child,  a  son.  by  her. 

This  was  the  only  secret  that  Ramel 
jealouslv  concealed,  and  of  which  no 
more  than  tvT<j  or  three  of  his  oldest 


friends  knew  aught.  While  he  hesitated 
about  spending  twopence  on  himself, 
and  went  to  the  Institute  and  to  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies  outside  an  omni- 
bus, Pepa  led- the  happy  life  of  a  mil- 
lionaire who  is  not  frightened  of  the 
to-morrow,  and  brought  up  her  son  like  a 
little  prince,  with  a  tutor  and  three 
servants,  who  had  nothing  to  do  but  to 
look  after  him. 

All  that  Ramel  made  went  into  his 
mistress's  hands,  and  when  he  felt  that 
his  last  hour  was  approaching,  and  that 
there  was  no  hope  of  his  recovery — in 
full  possession  of  his  faculties  and  with 
joy  in  his  dull  eyes,  he  gave  his  name 
to  Pepa,  and  made  her  his  lawful  widow, 
in  the  presence  of  all  hi'i  friends.  She 
inherited  everything  that  her  former 
lover  left  behind,  a  considerable  income 
from  the  royalties  on  his  books,  and  also 
his  pension,  which  the  State  continued 
to  pay  to  her. 

Little  Ramel  throve  wonderfully  ami4 
all  this  luxury,  and  gave  free  scope  to 
his  instincts  and  his  caprices,  without 
his  mother  ever  having  the  courage  to 
reprove  him  in  the  least,  and  he  did 
not  bear  the  slightest  resemblance  to 
Jean  Ramel. 

Full  of  pranks,  effeminate,  a  superfine 
dandy,  and  precociously  vicious,  he  sug- 
gested the  idea  of  those  pages  at  the 
Court  of  Florence,  whom  we  meet  v/ith 
in  the  "Decameron,"  and  who  were  the 
playthings  for  the  idle  hands  of  patrician 
ladies. 

He  was  very  ignorant,  lived  at  a  great 
rate,  bet  on  races,  and  played  cards  for 
heavy  stakes  with  seasoned  gamblers, 
old  enough  to  be  his  father.  It  was  dis- 
tressing to  bear  this  lad  joke  about  the 


A  RUPTURE 


587 


memory  of  him  whom  he  called  the  old 
man,  and  persecute  his  mother  because 
of  the  worship  and  adoration  which  she 
felt  for  Jean  Ramel,  whom  she  spoke 
of  as  if  he  had  become  a  demigod,  when 
he  died,  as  in  the  Roman  theogony. 

He  would  have  liked  altogether  to 
have  altered  the  arrangement  of  that 
sanctuary ,  the  drawing-room,  where 
Pepa  kept  some  of  her  husband's  manu- 
scripts, the  furniture  that  he  had  most 
frequently  used,  the  bed  on  which  he 
had  died,  his  pens,  his  clothes,  and  his 
weapons.  And  one  evening,  not  know- 
ing how  to  dress  himself  up  more 
originally  than  the  rest  for  a  masked  ball 
that  stout  Toinette  Danicheff  was  going 
to  give  as  a  housewarming,  without  say- 
ing a  word  to  his  mother,  he  took  down 
the  Academician's  dress,  the  sword  and 
cocked  hat  that  had  belonged  to  Jean 


Ramel,  and  put  it  on  as  if  it  had  been 
a  disguise  on  Shrove  Tuesday. 

Slightly  built  and  with  thin  arms  and 
legs,  the  wide  clothes  hung  on  him. 
He  was  a  comical  sight  with  the  em- 
broidered skirt  of  his  coat  sweeping  the 
carpet,  and  his  sword  knocking  against 
his  heels.  The  elbows  and  the  collar 
were  shiny  and  greasy  from  wear,  for 
the  Master  had  worn  it  until  it  was 
threadbare,  to  avoid  having  to  buy  an^ 
ether,  and  had  never  thought  of  replac- 
ing it. 

He  made  a  tremendous  hit,  and  fair 
Liline  Ablette  laughed  so  at  his  grimaces 
and  his  disguise,  that  that  night  she 
threw  over  Prince  Noureddin  for  him, 
although  he  had  paid  for  her  house,  her 
horses,  and  everything  else,  and  allowed 
her  six  thousand  francs  a  month  fcr 
extras  and  pocket  money, 


A  Rupture 


"It  is  just  as  I  tell  you,  my  dear  fel- 
low.    Those  two  poor  things  whom  v;o 
all   of   us    envied,   who   looked   like    a 
i  couple  of  doves  when  they  arc  billing 
and  cooing,  and  were  always  spoojihtg, 
,  until  they  made  themselves  ridiculous, 
r  now  hate  each  other  just  as  much  as 
they  used  to  adore  each  other.    It  is  a 
complete  break,  and  one  of  those  which 
cannot  be  mended    like   an   old   plate! 
And  all  for  a  bit  of  nonsense,  for  some- 
thing so   funny  that  it   ought  to  have 
brought  them  closer  together  and  have 
amused  them  immensely. 

"But  how  can  a  man  explain  himself 
when  he  is  dying  of  jealousy  and  keeps 


repeating  to  liis  terrified  mistress :  'You 
are  lying!  you  are  lying!'  WhcTi  he 
shakes  her,  interrupts  her  while  she  is 
speaking,  and  says  such  hard  things  to 
her  that  at  last  she  flics  into  a  rage, 
and  thinks  of  nothing  but  of  giving  him 
tU  for  tat  and  of  paying  him  out  in  his 
own  coin,  does  not  care  a  straw  about 
destroying  his  happiness,  consigns  every- 
thing to  the  devil,  and  talks  a  lot  of 
bosh  which  she  certainly  does  not  be- 
lieve— can  you  blame  her?  And  then, 
because  there  is  nothing  so  stupid  and 
so  obstinate  in  the  v/hole  world  as  a 
lover,  neither  he  nor  she  will  take  the 
first  step,  and  own  to  having  been  i^ 


56b 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


the  wrong,  &nd  apologize  for  having  gone 
too  far.  Both  ^.ait  and  watch  and  do 
not  even  write  a  few  lines  about  nothing, 
a  subterfuge  which  v;ould  restore  peace. 
No,  they  let  day  succeed  day,  and  there 
are  feverish  and  sleepless  nights  when 
the  bed  seems  so  hard,  so  cheerless,  and 
so  large,  and  habits  get  weakened  and 
the  fire  of  love  that  was  still  smolder- 
ing at  the  bottom  of  each  heart  dies  in 
smoke.  By  degrees  both  find  some  rea- 
son for  what  they  wish  to  do,  think 
themselves  idiots  to  lose  the  time  which 
will  never  return,  in  that  fashion,  and 
so  good-bye,  and  there  you  are!  That 
is  how  Josine  Cadenette  and  that  great 
idiot  Servance  separated." 

Lalie  Spring  had  lighted  a  cigarette, 
and  the  blue  smoke  played  about  her 
j&ne,  fair  hair,  making  one  think  of  those 
last  rays  of  the  setting  sun  which  pierce 
through  the  clouds  at  sunset.  Resting 
her  elbows  on  his  knees,  and  with  her 
chin  in  her  hand  in  a  dreamy  attitude, 
she  murmured: 
"Sad,  isn't  it?'' 

"Bah!"  I  replied,  "at  their  age  people 
easily  console  themselves,  and  every- 
thing begins  over  again,  even  love!" 

"Well,  Josine  has  already  found  some- 
body else — " 

"And  did  she  tell  you  her  story?" 
"Of  course  she  did,  and  it  is  such  a 
joke!  You  know  that  Servance  is  one 
of  those  fellows  you  would  wish  to  have 
when  you  have  time  to  amuse  yourself, 
so  self-possessed  that  he  would  be  capa- 
ble of  ruining  all  the  older  ones  in  a 
girls*  school,  and  given  to  trifling  as 
much  as  most  men,  so  that  Josine  calls 
him  'perpetual  motion.*  He  would  have 
liked  to  prolong  his  fun  until  the  D?v 
of  Judgment,  and  seemed  to  f?    ''  ti*.*!. 


beds  were  not  made  to  sleep  in  at  alL 
But  she  could  not  get  used  to  being  de- 
prived of  nearly  all  her  rest,  and  it  really 
made  her  ill.  But  as  she  wished  to  be 
as  conciliatory  as  possible,  to  love  and 
to  be  loved  as  ardently  as  in  the  past, 
and  also  to  sleep  off  the  effects  of  her 
happiness  peacefully,  she  rented  a  small 
room  in  a  distant  quarter,  in  a  quiet 
shady  street,  giving  out  that  she  had 
just  come  from  the  country,  and  put 
hardly  any  furniture  into  it  except  a 
good  bed  and  a  dressing-table. 

"Then  she  invented  an  old  aunt,  who 
was  ill  and  always  grumbling,  who  suf- 
fered from  heart  disease  and  lived  in 
one  of  the  suburbs,  and  so,  several  times 
a  week,  Josine  took  refuge  in  her  sleep- 
ing place,  and  used  to  sleep  iate  there 
as  if  it  had  been  some  delicious  abode, 
where  one  forgets  the  whole  world. 
Once  they  forgot  to  call  her  at  the  proper 
time;  she  got  back  late,  tired,  with  red 
and  swollen  eyelids,  involved  herself  in 
lies,  contradicted  herself,  and  looked  so 
much  as  if  she  had  just  come  from  the 
confessional,  feeling  horribly  ashamed  of 
herself,  or,  as  if  she  had  hurried  home 
from  some  assignation,  that  Servance 
worried  himself  about  it,  thought  that 
he  was  being  made  a  fool  of,  as  so  many 
of  his  comrades  were,  got  into  a  rage 
and  made  up  his  mind  to  set  the  matter 
straight,  and  to  discover  who  this  aunt 
was  who  had  so  suddenly  fallen  from 
the  skies. 

"He  applied  to  an  obliging  agency, 
where  they  excited  his  jealousy,  exas* 
perated  him  day  after  day  by  making 
him  believe  that  Josine  Cadenette  was 
making  an  absolute  fool  of  him,  had  no 
more  a  sick  aunt  than  she  had  any  vir* 
tue,  but  that  during  the  day  she  con- 


MARGOT'S  TAPERS 


589 


tinued  the  littla  debaucheries  which  she 
committed  with  him  at  night,  and  that 
she  shamelessly  frequented  some  dis- 
creet bachelor's  lodgings,  where  probably 
more  than  one  of  his  best  friends  was 
amusing  himself  at  his  expense,  and  hav- 
ing his  share  of  the  cake. 

"He  was  fool  enough  to  believe  these 
fellows,  in  stead  of  going  and  watching 
Josine  himself,  putting  his  nose  into 
the  business,  and  finding  and  knocking 
at  the  door  of  her  room.  He  wanted 
to  hear  no  more,  and  would  not  listen 
to  her.  For  a  trifle,  in  spite  of  her 
tears,  he  would  have  turned  the  poor 
thing  into  the  streets,  as  if  she  had  been 
a  bundle  of  dirty  linen.  You  may  guess 
how  she  flew  out  at  him  and  told  him 
all  sorts  of  things  to  annoy  him;  she 
let  him  believe  he  was  not  mistaken, 
that  she  had  had  enough  of  his  affec- 
tion, and  that  she  was  madly  in  love 


with  another  man.  He  grew  very  pale 
when  she  said  that,  looked  at  her  fur- 
iously, clenched  his  teeth,  and  said  in  a 
hoarse  voice: 

"  'Tell  me  his  name,  tell  me  his 
name!' 

"  'Oh!*  she  said,  chafifingly,  'you  know 
him  very  well!'  and  if  I  had  not  hap- 
pened  to  have  gone  in  I  think  there 
would  have  been  a  tragedy.  How  stupid 
they  are :  they  were  so  happy  and  loved 
each  other  so.  And  now  Josine  is  living 
with  fat  Schweinssohn,  a  low  scoundrel 
who  will  live  upon  her,  and  Servance 
has  taken  up  with  Sophie  Labisque,  who 
might  easily  be  his  mother.  You  know 
her,  that  bundle  of  red  and  yellow,  who 
has  been  at  that  kind  of  thing  for  eight- 
een years,  and  whom  Laglandee  has 
christened  *Saecula  saeculorum!*  " 

"By  Jove!     I  should  rather  think   } 
did!" 


Margofs  Tapers 


I. 


On  the  evening  of  Midsummer  day, 
Margot  Fresquyl  had  allowed  herself 
to  taste  for  the  first  time  the  delicious 
intoxication  of  the  mortal  sin  of  loving. 

While  most  of  the  young  people  were 
holding  one  another's  hands  and  danc* 
ing  in  a  circle  round  the  burning  logs, 
the  girl  had  shyly  taken  the  deserted 
road  which  lead  to  the  wood,  leaning  on 
the  arm  of  her  partner,  a  tall,  vigorous 
farm-servant,  whose  Christian  name  was 
Tiennou,  which,  by  the  way,  was  the 
only  name  he  had  borne  from  his  birth. 


For  he  was  entered  on  the  register  of 
births  with  this  curt  note,  "Father  and 
mother  unknown,"  having  been  found  on 
St.  Stephen's  Day  under  a  shed  on  a 
farm,  where  some  poor,  despairing 
wretch  had  abandoned  him,  perhaps  even 
without  turning  her  head  to  look  at  him. 
For  months  Tiennou  had  madly  wor- 
shiped the  pretty  blond  girl,  who  was 
now  trembling  as  he  clasped  in  his  arms, 
under  the  sweet  coolness  of  the  leaves. 
He  well  remembered  how  she  had  daz- 
zled him — like  some  ecstatic  and  inef- 
faceable vision, — the  first  time  that  he 
saw  her  in  her  father's  mill,  where  he 


590 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


had  gone  to  ask  for  work.  She  stood 
out  all  rosy  from  the  warmth  of  the 
day,  amid  the  impalpable  clouds  of  flour, 
which  diffused  a  misty  whiteness  through 
the  air.  With  her  hair  hanging  about 
her  in  untidy  curls,  as  if  she  had  just 
awakened  from  a  profound  sleep,  she 
stretched  herself  lazily,  her  bare  arms 
clasped  behind  her  head,  yawning  so  as 
to  show  her  white  teeth,  which  gl'stened 
like  those  of  a  young  wolf,  and  from 
beneath  her  unbuttoned  bodice  her 
maiden  bosom  appeared  with  innocent 
immodesty.  He  told  her  that  he  thought 
her  adorable,  so  stupidly  that  she  made 
fun  of  him  and  scourged  him  with  her 
cruel  laughter.  From  that  day,  he  spent 
his  life  in  Margot's  shadow.  He  might 
have  been  taken  for  one  of  those  wild 
beasts  ardent  with  desire,  which  cease- 
lessly utter  maddened  cries  to  the  stars 
on  nights  when  the  constellations  bathe 
the  dark  coverts  in  warm  light.  Mar- 
got  met  him  wherever  she  went,  and 
seized  with  pity,  and  by  degrees  attracted 
by  his  ardor,  by  his  dumb  entreaties,  by 
the  burning  looks  which  flashed  from  his 
large  eyes,  she  had  returned  his  love. 
She  had  dreamed  restlessly  that  during 
a  whole  night  she  had  been  in  his  vigor- 
ous arms,  which  pressed  her  like  corn 
that  is  being  crushed  in  the  mill;  that 
she  was  obeying  a  man  who  had  subdued 
her,  and  was  learning  strange  things 
which  other  girls  talked  about  in  a  low 
voice  when  drawing  water  at  the  well. 

She  had,  however,  been  obliged  to 
wait  until  Midsummer  day,  for  the  miller 
watched  over  his  heiress  very  carefully. 

The  two  lovers  told  each  other  all  this 
as  they  were  going  along  the  dark  road, 
innocently  giving  utterance  to  words  of 
happiness  which  rose  to  their  lips  like 


the  refrain  of  a  forgotten  song.  At 
times  they  were  silent,  not  knowing 
what  more  to  say  and  not  daring  to 
embrace  each  other  any  mere.  The 
night  was  soft  and  warm,  the  warmth 
of  a  half-closed  alcove  in  a  bedroom, 
and  had  the  effect  of  a  tumbler  of  new 
wine. 

The  leaves  were  sleeping  motionless 
and  in  supreme  peace,  and  in  the  dis- 
tance they  could  hear  the  monotonous 
trill  of  the  brooks  as  they  flowed  ovef 
the  stones.  Amid  the  faint  noise  oi 
the  insects,  the  nightingales  were  an- 
swering each  other  from  tree  to  tree. 
Everything  seemed  alive  with  hidden  life, 
the  sky  was  bright,  and  the  falling 
stars  might  have  been  taken  for  white 
forms  wandering  among  the  dark  trunks 
of  the  trees. 

"Why  have  we  come?"  Margot  asked, 
in  a  panting  voice.  "Do  you  not  want 
me  any  more,  Tiennou?" 

"Alas!  I  dare  not,"  he  replied.  "Lis- 
ten: you  know  that  I  was  picked  up  on 
the  highroad,  that  I  have  nothing  in  the 
world  except  my  two  arms,  and  that 
miller  Fresquyl  will  never  let  his  daugh- 
ter marry  a  poor  devil  like  me." 

She  interrupted  him  with  a  painful 
gesture,  and  putting  her  lips  to  his,  she 
said: 

"What  does  that  matter?  I  love  you, 
and  I  want  you.    Take  me." 

And  thus  it  was,  on  St.  John's  eve, 
that  Margot  Fresquyl  for  the  first  time 
yielded  to  the  mortal  sin  of  love. 

II. 

Did  the  miller  guess  his  daughter's 
secret  when  he  heard  her  singing  merrily 
from  dawn  till  dusk  and  saw  her  sitting 
dreaming  at  her  window  instead  of  sew- 


MARGOT  S  TAPERS 


5^1 


ing  as  she  was  ir.  the  habit  of  doing? 

Did  he  see  it  when  she  threw  ardent 
kisses  from  the  tips  of  her  fingers  to  her 
lover  at  a  distance? 

Whether  he  did  cr  not,  he  shut  up 
poor  Margct  in  the  mill  as  if  it  had  been 
a  prison.  No  more  love  or  pleasure,  no 
more  meetings  at  night  en  the  verge  of 
the  wood.  When  she  chatted  with  the 
passers-by,  or  tried  furtively  to  open  the 
gate  of  the  inclosure  to  make  her  escape, 
her  father  beat  her  as  if  she  had  been 
some  disobedient  animal,  beat  her  until 
she  would  fall  on  her  knees,  on  the 
floor  with  clasped  hands,  scarcely  able 
to  move,  her  whole  body  covered  with 
purple  bruises. 

She  pretended  to  obey  him,  but  she 
revolted  in  her  whole  being,  and  the 
string  of  bitter  insults  which  he  heaped 


upon 


her   rang   in    her    head.      With 


clenched  hands,  and  a  gesture  of  terrible 
hatred,  she  cursed  him  for  standing  in 
the  way  of  her  love.  At  night,  she 
rolled  about  on  her  bed,  bit  the  sheets, 
moaned,  stretched  herself  out  for 
imaginary  embraces,  maddened  by  the 
longing  with  which  her  body  was  still 
palpitating.  She  called  out  Tiennou's 
name  aloud,  she  broke  the  peaceful  still- 
ness of  the  sleeping  house  with  her 
heartrending  sobs,  and  her  weeping 
drowned  the  monotonous  sound  of  the 
water  dripping  under  the  arch  of  the 
mill,  between  the  immovable  paddles  of 
the  wheel. 

III. 

Then  came  that  terrible  week  in  Oc- 
tober when  the  unfortunate  young  fel- 
lows who  had  drawn  bad  numbers  had 
to  join  their  regiments.*  Tienncu  was 
one  of  them.    Margot  was  desperate  at 


the  thought  of  not  seeing  him  for  five 
interminable  years,  and  grieving  that 
they  could  not  even,  at  that  hour  of 
sad  farewell,  be  alone  and  exchange 
those  consoling  words  which  afterward 
soften  the  pang  of  absence. 

Tiennou  prowled  about  the  house,  like 
a   starving    beggar,   and   one   morning 
while  the  miller  was  mending  the  wheel, 
he  managed  to  see  Margct. 

"I  will  wait  for  you  In  the  old  place 
to-night,"  he  whispered,  in  terrible  grief. 
"I  know  it  is  the  last  time.  I  shall 
throw  myself  into  some  deep  hole  in  the 
river  if  you  do  not  come!'' 

"I  will  be  there,  Tiennou,**  she  re- 
plied, in  a  bewildered  manner.  "I  swear 
I  will  be  there,  even  if  I  have  to  do 
something  terrible  to  enable  me  to 
come!" 
******* 

The  village  was  on  fire,  iilumining  the 
dark  night,  and  the  flames,  fanned  by 
the  wind,  rose  up  like  evil  torches.  The 
thatched  roofs,  the  ricks  of  corn,  the 
haystacks,  and  the  barns  fell  in  and 
crackled  like  rockets,  while  the  sk> 
looked  as  if  it  was  illuminated  by  an 
aurora  borealis.  Fresquyl's  mill  was 
smoking,  and  its  calcined  ruins  were  re- 
flected on  the  deep  water.  The  sheep 
and  cows  were  running  about  the  fields 
in  terror,  the  dogs  were  howling,  and 
the  women  were  sitting  on  the  broken 
furniture,  crying  and  wringing  their 
hands.  At  this  time  Margot  was  aban- 
doning  herself   to   her    lover's     ardent 


*Written  before  universal  service  wa.^ 
obligatory,  and  when  soldiers  were  se- 
lected by  conscription,  a  certain  propor- 
tion of  those  who  drew  high  numbers 
being  exempt  from  service. 


592 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


caresses,  and  with  her  arms  round  his 
neck  she  said  to  him,  tenderly: 

"You  see  that  I  have  kept  my  prom- 
ise. I  set  fire  to  the  mill  so  that  I  might 
be  able  to  get  out.  So  much  the  worse 
if  all  have  suffered.  But  I  do  not  care 
as  long  as  you  love  me,  are  happy  with 
me!" 

And  pointing  to  the  fire,  which  was 


still  bu'.-ning  fiercely  in  the  distance,  she 
added  with  a  burst  of  savage  laughter: 

'Tiennou,  we  shall  not  have  such 
beautiful  tapers  at  our  wedding  Mass 
when  you  come  back  from  your  regi- 
ment!" 

And  thus  it  was  that  for  the  second 
time  Margot  Fresquyl  yielded  to  the 
mortal  sin  of  love. 


The  Accent 


It  was  a  large  sheltered  house,  with 
long  white  terraces  shaded  by  vines, 
from  which  one  could  see  the  sea.  Large 
pines  stretched  a  dark  arch  over  the 
ruined  fagade,  and  there  was  a  look  of 
neglect,  of  want,  and  wretchedness  about 
the  place,  such  as  irreparable  losses,  de- 
parture to  other  countries,  and  death 
leave  behind  them. 

The  interior  wore  a  strange  look,  with 
half  unpacked  trunks  serving  for  ward- 
robes, with  piles  of  bandboxes,  and  for 
seats  an  array  of  worm-eaten  armchairs, 
into  which  bits  of  velvet  and  silk,  cut 
from  old  dresses,  had  been  patched  at 
random.  Along  the  walls  there  were 
rows  of  rusty  nails  which  made  one 
think  of  old  portraits  and  of  pictures 
full  of  family  history,  which  had  one 
by  one  been  sold  for  a  song  to  some 
second-hand  furniture  broker. 

The  rooms  were  in  disorder  and  fur- 
nished at  random,  while  velvets  hanging 
from  the  ceilings  and  in  the  corners 
seemed  to  show  that  as  the  servants 
were  no  longer  paid  except  by  prom- 
ises, they  no  longer  did  more  than  oc- 
casionally give  them  an  accidental,  care- 


less touch  with  the  duster.  The  draw- 
ing-room, which  was  extremely  largp» 
was  full  of  useless  knickknacks,  the  sort 
of  rubbish  which  is  put  up  for  sale  at 
stalls  at  watering-places,  daubs — they 
could  not  be  called  paintings — of  por- 
traits and  of  flowers,  and  an  old  piano 
with  yellow  keys. 

Such  is  the  home  where  she  who  had 
been  called  the  handsome  Madame  de 
Maurillac  was  spending  her  monotonous 
existence,  like  some  unfortunate  doll 
which  inconstant,  childish  hands  have 
thrown  into  a  corner  in  a  ^oft — she  who 
had  almost  passed  for  a  professional 
seductress,  and  whose  coquetries,  at  least 
so  the  faithful  ones  of  the  Party  said, 
had  been  able  to  excite  a  passing  and 
last  spark  of  desire  in  the  dull  eyes 
of  the  Emperor. 

Like  many  others,  she  and  her  hus- 
band had  waited  for  his  return  from 
Elba,  had  discounted  a  fresh,  imme- 
diate chance,  had  kept  up  boldly  and^ 
spent  the  remains  of  fortune  in  the  game 
of  luxury. 

On  the  day  when  the  illusion  vanished^ 
and  he  was  forced  to  awake  from  hi.s 


^THE  ACCENT 


593* 


dream,  Monsieur  de  Maurillac,  without 
considering  that  he  was  leaving  his  wife 
and  daughter  behind  him  ahnost  penni- 
less, and  not  strong  enough  morally  to 
make  up  his  mind  to  come  down  in  the 
world,  to  vegetate,  to  fight  creditors,  to 
accept  some  sinecure,  poisoned  himself, 
like  a  shopgirl  forsaken  by  her  lover. 

Madame  d2  Maurillac  did  not  mourn 
for  him.  As  this  lamentable  event  had 
made  her  interesting,  and  as  she  was 
assisted  and  supported  by  unexpected 
acts  of  kindness,  and  had  a  good  adviser 
m  one  of  those  old  Parisian  lawyers  who 
can  extricate  you  out  of  the  worst  difiS- 
culties,  she  managed  to  save  something 
from  the  wreck,  and  to  keep  a  small  in- 
come. Then  reassured  and  emboldened, 
and  resting  her  ultimate  illusions  and 
her  frail  hopes  on  her  daughter's  radiant 
beauty,  she  prepared  for  that  last  game 
in  which  they  would  risk  everything, 
and  hoping  also  that  she  might  herself 
marry  again,  the  ancient  flirt  arranged 
a  double  existence. 

For  months  and  months  she  would 
disappear  from  the  world,  and,  as  a  pre- 
text for  her  isolation  and  for  hiding 
herself  in  the  country,  alleged  her  daugh- 
ter's delicate  health,  and  the  important 
interests  she  had  to  look  after  in  the 
South  of  France. 

Her  frivolous  friends  looked  upon  this 
as  a  great  act  of  heroism,  as  something 
almost  superhuman,  and  so  courageous, 
that  they  tried  to  distract  her  by  their 
incessant  letters,  and  religiously  in- 
formed her  of  all  the  scandals  and  love 
adventures  that  came  to  light  in  the 
suburbs  as  well  as  in  the  apotheosis  of 
the  capital. 

The  difficult  struggle  which  Madame 
de  Maurillac  had  to  keep  up  in  order 


to  maintain  her  rank  was  really  as  fine 
as  any  campaign  in  the  twihght  of  de- 
feat, a  slow  retreat  where  men  only  give 
way  inch  by  inch,  fighting  until  the  last 
cartridge  is  expended  or  fresh  troops 
arrive,  to  bar  the  way  to  the  enemy, 
and  save  the  threatened  flag. 

Broken  in  by  the  same  discipline,  and 
haunted  by  the  same  dream,  mother  and 
daughter  lived  on  almost  nothing  in  the 
dull,  dilapidated  house  wh"ch  the  peas- 
ants called  the  chateau,  and  economized 
like  poor  people  who  only  have  a  few 
hundred  francs  a  year  to  live  on.  But 
Fabienne  de  Maurillac  developed  well 
in  spite  of  everything,  and  grew  up  into 
a  woman — like  some  rare  flower  pre- 
served from  all  contact  with  tha  outer 
air  and  reared  in  a  hothouse. 

In  order  that  she  might  not  lose  her 
Parisian  accent  by  speaking  too  much 
with  the  servants,  who  had  remained 
peasants  though  in  livery,  Madame  de 
Maurillac,  who  had  not  been  able  to 
bring  a  lady's  maid  with  her,  on  account 
of  the  extra  cost  which  traveling  ex- 
penses and  wages  would  have  entailed, 
and  who,  moreover,  was  afraid  thai 
some  indiscretion  might  betray  hei 
maneuver  and  cover  her  with  ridicule, 
made  up  her  mind  to  wait  on  her  daugh- 
ter herself.  And  Fabienne  talked  with 
nobody  but  her,  saw  nobody  but  her, 
and  was  like  a  little  novice  in  a  convent. 
Nobody  was  allowed  to  speak  to  her^ 
or  to  interfere  with  her  walks  in  the 
large  garden,  or  on  the  white  terraces 
that  were  reflected  in  the  blue  water. 

As  soon,  however,  as  the  season  for 
the  country  and  the  seaside  came,  they 
packed  up  their  trunks,  and  locked  the 
doors  of  their  house  of  exile.  As  they 
were  not  known,  and  took  those  terrible 


594 


'  WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


trains  which  stop  at  every  station,  by 
which  you  arrive  at  your  destination  in 
the  middle  of  the  night,  with  the  cer- 
tainty that  nobody  will  be  waiting  for 
you  and  see  you  get  out  of  the  carriage, 
they  traveled  third  class,  so  that  they 
might  have  a  few  bank  notes  the  more 
with  which  to  make  a  sho\\. 

A  fortnight  in  Paris  in  the  family 
house  at  Auteuil,  a  fortnight  in  which 
to  try  on  dresses  and  bonnets  and  to 
show  themselves,  and  then  Trouville, 
Aix,  or  Biarritz,  the  whole  show  com- 
plete, with  parties  succeeding  parties, 
money  spent  as  if  they  did  not  know 
its  value,  balls  at  the  Casinos,  constant 
flirtations,  compromising  intimacies  with 
that  kind  of  admirers  who  immediately 
surround  two  pretty  women,  one  in  the 
radiant  beauty  of  her  eighteen  years, 
and  the  other  in  the  brightness  of  that 
maturity  which  the  beautiful  September 
days  bring  with  them. 

Unfortunately,  however,  they  had  to 
do  the  same  thing  over  again  every  year, 
and  as  if  bad  luck  were  continuing  to 
follow  them  implacably,  Madame  de 
Maurillac  and  her  daughter  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  their  endeavors,  did  not  manage 
during  the  usual  absence  from  home  to 
make  some  eligible  bachelor  fall  in  love 
immediately,  and  ask  for  Fabienne's 
hand.  Consequently,  they  were  very 
unhappy.  Their  energies  flagged,  and 
their  courage  left  them,  like  water  that 
escapes,  drop  by  drop,  through  a  crack 
in  a  jug.  They  grew  low-spirited,  and 
no  longer  dared  to  be  open  toward  each 
other  and  to  exchange  confidences  and 
projects. 

Fabienne,  with  her  pale  cheeks,  her 
large  eyes  with  blue  circles  round  them. 


and  her  closed  lips,  looked  like  a  captive 
princess  tormented  by  constant  ennui, 
who  is  troubled  by  evil  suggestions,  and 
dreams  of  flight  and  of  escape  from  the 
prison  where  Fate  holds  her  captive. 

One  night,  when  the  sky  was  covered 
with  heavy  thunderclouds  and  the  heat 
was  most  oppressive,  Madame  de 
Maurillac  called  to  her  daughter,  whose 
room  was  next  to  hers.  After  calling 
her  loudly  for  some  time  in  vain,  she 
sprang  out  of  bed  in  fright  and  almost 
broke  open  the  door  with  her  trembling 
hands.  The  room  was  empty,  and  the 
pillows  untouched. 

Then,  half  mad  and  foreseeing  some 
irreparable  misfortune,  the  poor  woman 
ran  all  over  the  large  house,  and  rushed 
out  into  the  garden,  where  the  air  was 
heavy  with  the  scent  of  flowers.  She 
acted  like  some  wild  animal  that  is  pur- 
sued by  a  pack  of  hounds,  trying  to 
penetrate  the  darkness  with  her  anxious 
looks,  and  gasping  as  if  some  one  were 
holding  her  by  the  throat.  Suddenly  she 
staggered,  uttered  a  painful  cry,  and 
fell  down  in  a  fit. 

There,  before  her  in  the  shadow  of 
the  myrtle-trees,  Fabienne  was  sitting 
on  the  knees  of  a  man — of  the  gardener 
— with  both  her  arms  round  his  neck, 
kissing  him  ardently.  As  if  to  defy  her, 
and  to  show  her  how  vain  all  her  precau- 
tions and  her  vigilance  had  been,  the 
girl  was  telling  her  lover,  in  the  country 
dialect,  and  in  a  cooing  and  delightful 
voice,  how  she  adored  him  and  belonged 
to  him. 

Madame  de  Maurillac  is  in  a  lunatic 
asylum,  and  Fabienne  has  married  the 
gardener. 

Could  she  have  done  better? 


Profitable  Business 

He  certainly  did  not  think  himself     probably  have  said  to  the  psychologist: 

__?_!. j:J     1 J.     C a1_ 1 <<1171 —   "IJ _T "i         '\T^.. 


SL  saint,  nor  did  he  put  forth  any  hypo- 
critical pretensions  to  virtue.  Never- 
theless, he  thought  as  highly  of  himself 
as  he  did  of  anybody  else,  perhaps,  even 
a  trifle  more  highly.  And  that,  quite 
impartially,  without  any  more  self-love 
than  was  necessary,  and  without  having 
to  accuse  himself  of  being  self-conceited. 
He  did  himself  justice,  that  was  all.  Ha 
had  good  moral  principles,  and  applied 
them,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  not 
only  to  judging  the  conduct  of  others, 
but  also  to  the  regulation  of  his  owxi 
conduct,  as  he  would  have  been  very 
vexed  if  he  had  not  been  able  to  think 
of  himself: 

*'0n  the  whole,  I  am  what  people  call 
a  perfectly  honorable  man." 

Luckily,  he  had  never  (oh!  never) 
been  obliged  to  doubt  the  excellent  opin- 
ion he  had  of  himself,  an  opinion  which 
he  liked  to  express  thus,  in  moments 
of  rhetorical  expansion: 

"My  whole  life  gives  me  the  right  to 
shake  hands  with  myself.*' 

A  subtle  psychologist  would  perhaps 
have  found  some  flaws  in  his  mailed 
self-righteousness,  sanctimoniously  satis- 
fied with  itself.  For  example,  it  was 
quite  certain  that  our  friend  had  no 
scruples  in  making  profit  out  of  the 
vices  or  misfortunes  of  his  neighbors, 
provided  that  he  was  not,  in  his  own 
opinion,  the  person  who  was  solely  or 
chiefly  responsible  for  them.  But  on 
the  whole  this  was  only  one  way  of 
looking  at  it,  and  there  was  plenty  of 
material  for  casuistic  argument  on  the 
point.  This  sort  of  discussion  is  par- 
ticularly unpleasant  to  such  simple  na- 
tures as  this  worthy  fellow's.    He  would 


"Why  go  on  a  wild-goose  chase?  You 
can  see  that  I  am  perfectly  sincere." 

Do  not  believe,  however,  that  this 
perfect  sincerity  prevented  him  from 
having  elevated  views.  He  prided  him- 
self on  having  a  weakness  for  imagina- 
tion and  the  unforeseen,  and  though  he 
would  have  been  offended  at  being  called 
a  dishonorable  man,  he  would,  perhaps, 
have  been  still  more  hurt  of  anybody 
had  accused  him  of  middle-class  tastes. 

As  to  affairs  of  the  heart  he  expressed 
a  most  virtuous  horror  of  adultery,  for 
if  guilty  of  that  he  would  not  have  been 
able  to  bear  that  testimony  to  himself, 
which  v/as  so  sweet  to  his  conscience: 

"Ah!  I  rejoice  to  say  that  I  never 
wronged  anybody!" 

On  the  other  hand,  he  was  not  satis- 
fied with  pleasures  which  are  paid  for 
by  the  hour,  and  which  debase  the 
noblest  desires  of  the  heart  to  the  vulgar 
satisfaction  of  a  phy3ical  requirement. 
What  he  required,  he  used  to  say,  while 
lifting  his  eyes  up  to  heaven,  was: 

"I  crave  for  something  more  ideal 
than  that!" 

The  search  after  the  ideal  did  not, 
indeed,  cost  him  any  great  effort.  It 
was  limited  to  shunning  licensed  houses 
of  ill-fame,  and  to  avoiding  street- 
walkers. 

It  consisted  chiefly  in  trying  to  be  gal- 
lant with  women,  in  trying  to  persuade 
himself  that  they  liked  him  for  his  own 
sake,  and  in  preferring  those  whose  man- 
ner, dress,  and  looks  allowed  room  for 
suppositions  and  romantic  illusions,  such 
as: 

"She  might  be  taken  for  a  little  work- 
girl,   who    is    still    virtuous."     "No,    I 


503 


596 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


rather  tliink  she  is  a  widow,  who  has 
met  with  misfortune."  "What  if  she  be 
a  fashionable  lady  in  disguise!"  And 
other  silly  sayings,  which  he  knew  were 
nonsense,  when  he  uttered  them,  but  the 
imaginary  ^avcr  of  which  was  very 
pleasant  to  him  all  the  same. 

With  such  tastes,  it  was  only  natural 
that  this  epicure  should  follow  and  jostle 
women  in  the  large  shops,  and  wherever 
there  was  a  crowd,  and  that  he  should 
especially  look  out  for  ladies  of  easy 
virtue,  for  nothing  is  more  exciting  than 
half-closed  shutters,  behind  which  a  face 
is  indistinctly  seen,  and  from  which  one 
hears  a  furtive  call. 

He  would  say  to  himself:  "Who  is 
she?  Is  she  young  and  pretty?  Is  she 
some  old  woman,  who  is  skillful  at  her 
business,  but  who  does  not  venture  to 
show  herself  any  longer?  Or  is  she 
some  beginner,  who  has  not  yet  acquired 
the  boldness  of  an  old  hand?  In  any 
case,  it  is  the  unknown;  perhaps,  my 
ideal — at  least  during  the  time  it  takes 
me  to  find  my  way  upstairs."  And  as 
he  went  up,  his  heart  always  beat  as  it 
does  at  a  first  meeting  v/ith  a  woman 
beloved. 

But  he  had  never  felt  such  a  delicious 
shiver  as  he  did  on  the  day  on  which 
he  penetrated  into  that  old  house  in 
the  blind  alley  in  Menilmontant.  He 
did  not  know  why,  for  he  had  often 
gone  after  so-called  love  in  much  stranger 
places:  but  now,  without  any  reason, 
he  had  the  presentiment  that  he  was 
about  to  meet  with  an  adventure,  and 
that  gave  him  a  delightful  sensation. 

The  woman  who  had  beckoned  to  him 
lived  on  the  third  floor.  All  the  way  up- 
stairs his  excitement  increased,  and  his 
heart    was   beating   violently   when   he 


reached  the  landing.  As  he  was  going 
up,  he  smelled  a  peculiar  odor,  which 
grew  stronger  and  stronger,  and  though 
he  tried  to  analyze  it,  all  he  could  de- 
cide was  that  it  smelled  like  a  chemist's 
shop. 

The  door  on  the  right,  at  the  end  of 
the  passage,  was  opened  as  soon  as  he 
put  his  foot  on  the  landing,  and  the 
woman  said,  in  a  low  voice: 

"Come  in,  my  dear." 

A  very  strong  smell  met  his  nostrils 
through  the  open  door,  and  he  ex- 
claimed: 

"How  stupid  I  was!  I  know  what  it 
is  now;  carbolic  acid,  is  it  not?" 

"Yes,"  the  woman  replied.  "Don't 
you  like  it,  my  dear?  It  is  very  whole- 
some, you  know.'* 

The  woman  was  not  ugly,  although 
not  young;  she  had  very  good  eyes,  al- 
though these  were  sad  and  sunken  in  her 
head.  Evidently  she  had  been  crying 
very  much  quite  recently,  and  that  im- 
parted a  special  spice  to  the  vague  smile 
she  put  on,  so  as  to  appear  more 
amiable. 

Seized  by  his  romantic  ideas,  and  un- 
der the  influence  of  the  presentiment 
which  he  had  had  just  before,  he  thought 
— and  the  idea  filled  him  with  pleasure — 

"She  is  some  widow,  whom  poverty 
has  forced  to  sell  herself." 

The  room  was  small,  but  very  clean 
and  tidy,  which  confirmed  him  in  his 
conjecture,  and  as  he  was  curious  te 
verify  It,  he  went  into  the  three  rooms, 
which  opened  into  one  another.  The 
bedroom  came  first ;  next  came  a  sort  of 
drawing-room,  and  then  a  dining-room 
which  evidently  served  as  a  kitchen, 
for  a  Dutch  tiled  stove  stood  in  the 
middle  of  it,  on  which  a  stew  was  sim-^ 


PROFITABLE  BUSINESS 


597 


mering.  The  smell  of  carbolic  acid  was 
even  stronger  in  that  room.  He  re- 
marked it,  and  added  with  a  laugh: 

"Do  you  put  it  in  your  soup?" 

And  as  he  said  this,  he  grasped  the 
handle  of  the  door  which  led  into  the 
next  room,  for  he  wanted  to  see  every- 
thing, even  that  nook,  which  was  ap- 
parently a  store  cupboard.  But  the 
woman  seized  him  by  the  arm,  and 
pulled  him  violently  back. 

"No,  no,"  she  said,  almost  in  a 
whisper,  and  in  a  hoarse  and  suppliant 
voice;  "no,  dear,  not  there,  not  there, 
you  must  not  go  in  there." 

"Why?"  said  he,  for  his  wish  to  go 
in  was  now  stronger. 

"Because  if  you  go  in  there,  you  will 
have  no  inclination  to  remain  with  me, 
and  I  want  you  to  stay.  If  you  only 
knew!" 

"Well,  what?"  And  with  a  violent 
movement  he  opened  the  glazed  door. 
The  smell  of  carbolic  acid  seemed  al- 
most to  strike  him  in  the  face,  and  what 
he  saw  made  him  recoil  still  more,  for 
on  a  small  iron  bedstead  lay  the  dead 
body  of  a  woman  fantastically  illumined 
by  a  single  wax  candle.  In  horror  he 
turned  to  escape. 

"Stop,  my  dear,''  the  woman  sobbed; 
and  clinging  to  him  she  told  him  amid 
a  flood  of  tears  that  her  friend  had 
died  two  days  previously,  and  that  there 
was  no  money  to  bury  her.  Said  she, 
"You  can  understand  that  I  want  it  to 
be  a  respectable  funeral,  we  were  so 
very  fond  of  each  other!     Stop  here, 


my  dear,  do  stop.  I  only  want  ten 
francs  more.    Don't  go  away." 

They  had  gone  back  into  the  bed- 
room, and  she  was  trying  to  detain  him : 

"No,"  he  said,  "let  me  go.  I  will  give 
you  the  ten  francs,  but  I  will  not  stay 
here;  I  cannot.'' 

He  took  his  purse  out  of  his  pocket, 
extracted  a  ten-franc  piece,  put  it  on 
the  table,  and  then  went  to  the  door. 
When  he  had  reached  it,  a  thought  sud- 
denly struck  him,  as  if  somebody  were 
reasoning  with  him,  without  his  knowl- 
edge. 

"Why  lose  these  ten  francs?  Why 
not  profit  by  this  woman's  good  inten- 
tions. She  certainly  behaved  pluckily, 
and  if  I  had  not  known  about  the  mat- 
ter, I  should  certainly  not  have  gone 
away  for  some  time.    Well  then?" 

Then  other  and  obscurer  suggestions 
whispered  to  him: 

"She  was  her  friend!  They  were  so 
fond  of  each  other!  Was  it  friendship 
or  love?  Oh!  love  apparently.  Well,  it 
would  really  be  avenging  morality,  if 
this  woman  were  forced  to  be  faithless 
to  that  monstrous  love."  Then  he 
turned  round  to  her  and  said  in  a  low 
and  trembling  voice:  "Look  here!  If 
I  give  you  twenty  francs  instead  of  ten, 
I  suppose  you  could  buy  some  flowers 
for  her,  as  well?'' 

The  unhappy  woman's  face  bright- 
ened with  pleasure  and  gratitude. 

"Will  you  really  give  me  twenty?" 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  "and  more  perhaps. 
It  quite  depends  upon  yourself," 


Bertha 


My  old  friend — one  has  friends  oc- 
casionally who  are  much  older  than  one- 
self— my  old  friend  Doctor  Bonnet  had 
often  invited  me  to  spend  some  time 
with  him  at  Riom,  and  as  I  did  not 
know  Auvergne,  I  made  up  my  mind  to 
go  there  in  the  summer  of  1876. 

I  got  there  by  the  morning  train,  and 
the  first  person  I  saw  on  the  platform 
was  the  doctor.  He  was  dressed  in  a 
gray  suit,  and  wore  a  soft,  black,  wdde- 
brimmed,  high-crowned  felt  hat,  which 
was  narrow  at  the  top  like  a  chimney 
pot,  a  hat  which  hardly  anyone  except 
an  Auvergnant  would  wear,  and  which 
smacked  of  the  charcoal-burner. 
Dressed  like  that,  the  doctor  had  the 
appearance  of  an  old  young  man,  with 
a  spare  body  under  a  thin  coat,  and  a 
large  head  covered  with  white  hair. 

He  embraced  me  with  the  evident 
pleasure  which  country  people  feel  when 
they  meet  long  expected  friends,  and 
stretching  out  his  arm  said  proudly: 
"This  is  Auvergne!" 

I  saw  nothing  before  me,  except  a 
range  of  mountains,  whose  summits, 
which  resembled  truncated  cones,  must 
have  been   extinct   volcanoes. 

Then,  pointing  to  the  name  of  the  sta- 
tion, he  said: 

**Riom,  the  fatherland  of  magistrates, 
the  pride  of  the  magistracy,  ought 
rather  to  be  the  fatherland  of  doctors." 

"Why?"  I  asked. 

"Why?"  he  replied  with  a  laugh.  "If 
you  transpose  the  letters,  you  have  the 
Latin  word  mori,  to  die.  That  is  the 
reason  why  I  settled  here,  my  young 
friend." 

And  dehghted  ?t  his  own  joke,  he 
carried  me  off,  rubbing  his  hands. 


As  soon  as  I  had  swallowed  a  cup  o! 
coffee,  he  made  me  go  and  see  the  town. 
I  admired  the  chemist's  house,  and  the 
other  celebrated  houses,  which  were  all 
black,  but  as  pretty  as  knickknacks,  with 
their  fagades  of  sculptured  stone.  I  ad- 
mired the  statue  of  the  Virgin,  the 
patroness  of  butchers,  and  he  told  me  an 
amusing  story  about  this,  which  I  will 
relate  some  other  time.  Then  Doctor 
Bonnet  said  to  me: 

"I  must  beg  you  to  excuse  me  for  a 
few  minutes  while  I  go  and  see  a  pa- 
tient, and  then  I  will  take  you  to  Chatel- 
Guyon,  so  as  to  show  you  the  general 
aspect  of  the  town,  and  ail  the  mountain 
chain  of  the  Puy-de-D6me,  before  lunch. 
You  can  wait  for  me  outside ;  I  shall 
only  go  upstairs  and  come  down  imme- 
diately." 

He  left  me  outside  one  of  those  old, 
gloomy,  silent,  melancholy  houses  which 
one  sees  in  the  provinces.  This  one  ap- 
peared to  look  particularly  sinister,  and 
I  soon  discovered  the  reason.  All  the 
large  windows  on  the  first  floor  were 
half  boarded  up  with  wooden  shutters. 
The  upper  part  of  them  alone  could  be 
opened,  as  if  one  had  wished  to  prevent 
the  people  who  were  locked  up  in  that 
huge  stone  trunk  from  looking  into  the 
street. 

When  the  doctor  came  down  again,  1 
told  him  how  it  had  struck  me,  and  he 
replied : 

"You  are  quite  right;  the  poor  crea- 
ture who  is  living  there  must  never  see 
what  is  going  on  outside.  She  is  a  mad- 
woman, or  rather  an  idiot,  what  you 
Normans  would  call  a  Niente*     It  is 


*A    Nothing,   u    e.,   an    idiot 


SQ8 


BERTHA 


599 


a  miserable  stor)*,  but  a  very  singular 
pathological  case  at  the  same  time.  Shall 
I  tell  you  of  it?" 

I  begged  him  to  do  so,  and  he  con- 
tinued : 

"Twenty  years  ago,  the  owners  of 
this  house,  who  were  my  patients,  had 
a  daughter  who  was  seemingly  like  all 
other  girls.  But  I  soon  discovered  that 
while  her  body  became  admirably  de- 
veloped, her  intellect  remained  station- 
ary. 

"She  began  to  walk  very  early,  but 
could  not  talk.  At  first  I  thought  she 
was  deaf,  but  discovered  that  although 
she  heard  perfectly,  she  did  not  under- 
stand anything  that  was  said  to  her. 
Violent  noises  made  her  start  and  fright- 
ened her,  without  her  understanding  how 
they  were  caused. 

"She  grew  up  into  a  superb  woman, 
but  she  was  dumb,  from  an  absolute 
want  of  intellect.  I  tried  all  means  to 
introduce  a  gleam  of  sense  into  her 
head,  but  nothing  succeeded.  I  thought 
that  I  noticed  that  she  knew  her  nurse, 
though  as  soon  as  she  was  weaned,  she 
failed  to  recognize  her  mother.  She 
could  never  pronounce  that  word,  which 
is  the  first  that  children  utter,  and  the 
last  which  men  murmur  when  dying  on 
the  field  of  battle.  She  sometimes  tried 
to  talk,  but  produced  nothing  but  in- 
coherent sounds. 

"When  the  weather  was  fine,  she 
laughed  continually,  emitting  low  fries 
which  might  be  compared  to  the  twitter- 
ing of  birds.  When  it  rained  >he  cried 
and  moaned  in  a  mournful,  terrifying 
manner,  like  the  howling  of  a  dog  when 
death   occurs  in  a  house. 

"She  was  fond  of  rolling  on  the  grass, 
like  young  animals  do,  and  of  running 


about  madly.  She  used  to  clap  her 
hands  every  morning  when  the  sun  shone 
into  her  room,  and  would  jump  out  of 
bed  and  insist,  by  signs,  on  being  dressed 
as  quickly  as  possible,  so  that  she  might 
get  out. 

"She  did  not  appear  to  distinguish  be- 
tween people,  between  her  mother  and 
her  nurse,  or  between  her  father  and 
me,  or  between  the  coachman  and  the 
cook.  I  liked  her  parents,  who  were 
very  unhappy  on  her  account,  very 
much,  and  went  to  see  them  nearly  every 
day.  I  dined  with  them  tolerably  fre- 
quently, which  enabled  me  to  remark 
that  Bertha  (they  had  called  her  Bertha) 
seemed  to  recognize  the  various  dishes, 
and  to  prefer  some  to  others.  At  that 
time  she  was  twelve  years  old,  but  as 
fully  formed  in  figure  as  a  girl  of  eight- 
een, and  taller  than  I  was.  Then,  the 
idea  struck  me  of  developing  her  greedi- 
ness, and  by  such  means  to  try  and 
produce  some  slight  power  of  discern- 
ment into  her  mind — to  force  her,  by 
the  diversity  of  flavors,  if  not  by  reason, 
to  arrive  at  instinctive  distinctions, 
which  would  of  themselves  constitute  a 
species  of  analysis  akin  to  thought. 
Later  on,  by  appealing  to  her  senses,  and 
by  carefully  making  use  of  those  which 
could  serve  us,  we  might  hope  to  ob- 
tain a  kind  of  reaction  on  her  intellect, 
and  by  degrees  increase  the  involuntary 
action  of  her  brain. 

"One  day  I  put  two  plates  before  her, 
one  of  soup,  and  the  o  her  of  very  sweet 
vaniUa  cream.  I  made  her  taste  each 
ot  thetn  successively,  then  I  let  her 
choos€  for  herself,  and  she  ate  the  plate 
of  cream.  In  a  short  time  I  made  her 
very  greedy,  so  greedy  that  it  appeared 
as  if  the  only  idea  she  had  in  her  head 


600 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


was  the  desire  for  eating.  She  recog- 
nized the  various  dishes  perfectly, 
stretched  out  her  hands  toward  those 
that  she  Hked,  and  took  hold  of  them 
eagerly,  crying  when  they  were  taken 
from  her.  Then  I  thought  I  would  try 
and  teach  her  to  come  to  the  dining- 
room,  when  the  dinner  bell  rang.  It 
took  a  long  time,  but  I  succeeded  in  the 
end.  In  her  vacant  intellect,  there  was 
a  fixed  correlation  between  the  sound 
and  her  taste,  a  correspondence  between 
two  senses,  an  appeal  from  one  to  the 
other>  and  consequently  a  sort  of  con- 
nection of  ideas, — if  one  can  term  an 
instinctive  hyphen  between  two  or- 
ganic functions  an  idea,  —  and  so  I 
carried  my  experiments  further,  and 
taught  her,  with  much  difficulty,  to 
recognize  meal-times  on  the  face  of  the 
clock. 

"It  was  impossible  for  me  for  a  long 
time  to  attract  her  attention  to  the 
hands,  but  I  succeeded  in  making  her 
remark  the  clockwork  and  the  striking 
apparatus.  The  means  I  employed 
were  very  simple.  I  asked  them  not 
to  have  the  bell  rung  for  lunch,  but 
that  everybody  should  get  up  and  go 
into  the  dining-room  when  the  little 
brass  hammer  struck  twelve  o'clock; 
but  I  found  great  difficulty  in  making 
her  learn  to  count  the  strokes.  She 
ran  to  the  door  each  time  she  heard  the 
clock  strike,  but  by  degrees  she  learned 
that  all  the  strokes  had  not  the  same 
value  as  regarded  meals,  and  she  fre- 
quently fixed  her  eyes,  guided  by  her 
ears,  on  the  dial  of  the  clock. 

"When  I  noticed  that,  I  took  care, 
every  day  at  twelve  and  at  six  o'clock, 
to  place  my  fingers  on  the  figures  twelve 
and  six.  as  soon  as  the  moment  she  was 


waiting  for,  had  arrived.  I  soon  noticed 
that  she  attentively  followed  the  mo- 
tion of  the  small  brass  hands,  which  I 
had  often  turned  in  her  presence. 

"She  had  understood!  Perhaps  I 
should  rather  say  that  she  had  seized 
the  idea.  I  had  succeeded  in  getting 
the  knowledge,  or  rather  the  sensation 
of  the  time  into  her,  just  as  is  the  case 
with  carp,  who  certainly  have  no  clocks, 
but  know  that  they  are  fed  every  day 
at  a  certain  time. 

"When  once  I  had  obtained  that  re- 
sult, all  the  clocks  and  watches  in  the 
house  occupied  her  attention  almost  ex- 
clusively. She  spent  her  time  in  look- 
ing at  them,  in  listening  to  them,  and 
in  waiting  for  meal-times,  and  once 
somethins:  very  funny  happened.  The 
striking  apparatus  of  a  pretty  little  Louis 
XVI.  clock  that  hung  at  the  head  of 
her  bed  had  got  out  of  order,  and  she 
noticed  it.  She  sat  for  twenty  minutes, 
with  her  eyes  on  the  hands,  waiting  foi 
it  to  strike  ten,  but  when  the  hand 
passed  the  figure,  she  was  astonished  at 
not  hearing  anything.  So  stupefied  was 
she,  indeed,  that  she  sat  down,  no  doubt 
overwhelmed  by  a  feeling  of  violent 
emotion,  such  as  attacks  us  in  the  face 
of  some  terrible  catastrophe.  She  had 
the  wonderful  patience  to  wait  until 
eleven  o'clock,  in  order  to  see  what 
would  happen,  but,  as  she  naturally 
heard  nothing,  she  was  suddenly  either 
seized  with  a  wild  fit  of  rage  at  having 
been  deceived  and  imposed  upon  by  ap- 
pearances, or  else  was  overcome  by  the 
fear  which  a  frightened  creature  feels  at 
some  terrible  mystery,  or  by  the  furious 
impatience  of  a  passionate  individual 
who  meets  with  some  obstacle.  She 
took  up  the  tongs  from  the  fireplace, 


liERTHA 


601 


and  struck  the  clock  so  violently  that 
she  broke  it  to  pieces  in  a  moment. 

"It  was  evident,  therefore,  that  her 
brain  did  act  and  calculate,  obscurely  it 
is  true,  and  within  very  restricted  limits, 
for  I  could  never  succeed  in  making 
her  distinguish  persons  as  she  distin- 
guished the  time.  To  stir  her  intellect, 
it  was  necessary  to  appeal  to  her  pas- 
sions, in  the  material  sense  of  the  word, 
and  we  soon  had  another,  and  alas!  a 

very  terrible  proof  of  this! 
****** 

"She  had  grown  up  into  a  splendid 
girl;  a  perfect  type  of  a  race,  a  sort  of 
lovely  and  stupid  Venus.  She  was  six- 
teen, and  I  have  rarely  seen  such  per- 
fection of  form,  such  suppleness,  and 
such  regular  features.  I  said  she  was  a 
Venus;  yes,  a  fair,  stout,  vigorous 
Venus,  with  large,  bright,  vacant  eyes, 
blue  as  the  flowers  of  the  flax  plant. 
She  had  a  large  mouth  with  full  lips, 
the  mouth  of  a  glutton,  of  a  sensualist, 
a  mouth  made  for  kisses.  Well,  one 
morning  her  father  came  into  my  con- 
sulting-room, with  a  strange  look  on  his 
face,  and  sitting  down,  without  even  re- 
plying to  my  greeting,  he  said : 

"  1  want  to   speak  to  you  about  a 
very  serious  matter.     Would  it  be  pos- 
sible— would  it  be  possible  for  Bertha 
[•     to  marry?' 

"  'Bertha  to  m.arry!  Why,  it  is  quite 
impossible ! ' 

"  'Yes,  I  know,  I  know,'  he  replied. 
*But  reflect,  doctor — don't  you  think — 
perhaps — we  hoped — if  she  had  children 
—it  would  be  a  great  shock  to  her,  but 
a  great  happiness,  and  who  knows 
whether  maternity  might  not  rouse  her 
intellect?' 

"I  was  in  a  state  of  great  perplexity. 


He  was  right,  and  it  was  possible  that 
such  a  new  situation,  and  that  wonder- 
ful instinct  of  maternity  which  beats  ia 
the  hearts  of  the  lower  animals  as  it 
does  in  the  heart  of  a  woman,  which 
makes  a  hen  fly  at  a  dog's  jaws  to  de- 
fend her  chickens,  might  bring  about  a 
revolution,  an  utter  change  in  her  vacant 
mind,  and  set  the  motionless  mechan- 
ism of  her  thoughts  into  movement. 
And  then,  moreover,  I  immediately  re- 
membered a  personal  instance.  Some 
years  previously  I  had  possessed  a 
spaniel  bitch  v/hich  was  so  stupid  that  1 
could  do  nothing  with  her,  but  when 
she  had  had  pups  she  became,  if  not 
exactly  clever,  yet  as  intellgent  as  many 
other  dogs  who  have  not  been  thor- 
oughly broken. 

"As  soon  as  I  foresaw  the  possibility 
of  this,  the  wish  to  get  Bertha  married 
grew  on  me,  not  so  much  out  of  friend- 
ship for  her  and  her  poor  parents,  as 
from  scientific  curiosity.  What  would 
happen?  It  was  a  singular  problem,  and 
I  said  to  her  father: 

"  'Perhaps  you  are  right.  You  might 
make  the  attempt — but — ^but  you  will 
never  find  a  man  to  consent  to  marry 
her.' 

"  'I  have  found  somebody,*  he  said  in 
a  low  voice. 

"I  was  dumfounded,  and  said: 
'Somebody  really  suitable?  Some  one 
of  your  own  rank  and  position  io 
society?" 

"  'Decidedly,'  he  replied. 

''  'Oh!     And  may  I  ask  his  name?* 

"  'I  came  on  purpose  to  tell  you  and 
to  consult  you.  It  is  Monsieur  Gaston 
du  Boys  de  Lucelles.' 

"I  felt  inclined  to  exclaim:  'What  a 
v/retch,'  but  I  held  my  tongue,  and  afle^ 


602 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


a     few     moments'     silence,     I     said: 
"  'Oh!      Very   good.      I    see    nothing 

against  it.' 

"The  poor  man  shook  me  heartily  by 

the  hand,  and  said: 

"  'She  is  to  be  married  next  month.' 

******* 

"Monsieur  Gaston  du  Boys  de  Lu- 
celles  was  a  scapegrace  of  good  family, 
who,  after  having  spent  all  that  he  had 
inherited  from  his  father,  and  having 
incurred  debts  by  all  kinds  of  doubtful 
means,  had  been  trying  to  discover  some 
other  way  of  obtaining  money.  Hence 
this  method.  He  was  a  good-looking 
young  fellow,  and  in  capital  health,  but 
fast — one  of  that  odious  tribe  of  pro- 
vincial fast  men — and  appeared  to  me  to 
be  the  sort  of  a  husband  who  could  be 
got  rid  of  later,  by  making  him  an 
allowance.  He  came  to  the  house  to 
pay  his  addresses,  and  to  strut  about 
before  the  idiot  girl,  who,  however, 
seemed  to  please  him.  He  brought  her 
flowers,  kissed  her  hands,  sat  at  her  feet, 
and  looked  at  her  with  affectionate  eyes; 
but  she  took  no  notice  of  any  of  his 
attentions,  and  made  no  distinction  be- 
tween him  and  the  other  persons  about 
•aer. 

"However,  the  marriage  took  place, 
and  you  may  guess  how  excited  my 
curiosity  was.  I  went  to  see  Bertha  the 
next  day,  to  try  and  discover  from  her 
looks  whether  any  feeling  had  been 
roused  in  her,  but  I  found  her  just  the 
same  as  she  was  every  day,  wholly  taken 
up  with  the  clock  and  dinner,  while  he, 
on  the  contrary,  appeared  really  in  love, 
and  tried  to  rouse  his  wife's  spirits  and 
affection  by  little  endearments  and  such 
cares:- es  as  one  bestows  on  a  kitten.  He 
coiili:'  t.hink  of  nothing  better 


"I  called  upon  the  married  couple 
pretty  frequently,  and  I  soon  perceived 
that  the  young  woman  knew  her  hus- 
band, and  gave  him  those  eager  looks 
which  she  had  hitherto  only  bestowed 
on  sweet  dishes. 

"She  followed  his  movements,  knew 
his  step  on  the  stairs  or  in  the  neighbor- 
ing rooms  and  claoped  her  hands  when 
he  came  in.  Her  face  was  changed  and 
brightened  by  the  flames  of  profound 
happiness  and  of  desire.  She  loved  him 
with  her  whole  body  and  with  all  her  be- 
ing, to  the  very  depths  cf  her  poor,  weak 
soul,  and  with  all  her  heart,  the  poor 
heart  of  some  grateful  animal.  It  was 
really  a  delightful  and  innocent  picture 
of  simple  passion,  of  carnal  yet  modest 
passion,  such  as  nature  planted  in  man- 
kind, before  man  complicated  and  dis- 
figured it  by  all  the  various  shades  of 
sentiment.  But  he  soon  grew  tired  of 
this  ardent,  beautiful,  dumb  creature, 
and  did  not  spend  more  than  an  hour  a 
day  with  her,  thinking  it  sutBcient  to  de- 
vote his  nights  to  her,  and  she  began  to 
suffer  in  consequence.  She  used  to  wait 
for  him  from  morning  till  night,  with 
her  eyes  on  the  clock.  She  did  not  even 
look  after  the  meals  now,  for  he  took 
all  his  away  from  home,  Clermont 
Chatel-Guyon,  Ro3^at,  no  matter  where, 
as  long  as  he  was  not  obliged  to  come 
home. 

"She  began  to  grow  thin;  every  other 
thought  every  other  wish,  every  other 
expectation,  and  every  other  confused 
hope  disappeared  from  her  mind,  and 
the  hours  during  which  she  did  not  see 
him  became  hours  of  terrible  suffering 
to  her.  Soon  he  used  frequently  not  to 
come  home  at  nieht :  he  spent  them  with 
women  at  the  Casino  at  Rovat,  and  did 


BERTHA 


003 


not  come  home  until  daybreak.  But 
she  never  went  to  bed  before  he  re- 
turned. She  would  remain  sitting  mo- 
tionless in  an  easy-chair,  with  her  eyes 
fixed  on  the  clock,  which  turned  so 
slowly  and  regularly  round  the  china 
face  on  which  the  hours  were  painted. 

"When  she  heard  the  trot  of  his  horse 
in  the  distance,  she  would  sit  up  with  a 
start.  When  he  came  into  the  room,  she 
would  get  up  with  the  movements  of  a 
phantom,  and  point  to  the  clock,  as  if 
to  say  to  him:     Took  how  late  it  is!' 

"He  began  to  be  afraid  of  this  amo- 
rous and  jealous,  half-witted  woman,  and 
flew  into  a  rage,  like  brutes  do ;  and  one 
night  he  even  went  so  far  as  to  strike 
her,  so  they  sent  for  me.  When  I  ar- 
rived she  was  writhing  and  screaming  in 
a  terrible  crisis  of  pain,  anger,  passion, 
how  do  I  know  what?  Can  anyone  tell 
what  goes  on  in  such  undeveloped 
brains? 

"I  calmed  her  by  subcutaneous  in- 
jections of  morphine,  and  forbade  her 
to  see  that  man  again,  for  I  saw  clearly 
that  marriage  would  infallibly  kill  her, 
by  degrees. 

4c  ^  4:  4^  4^  ^  'H 

"Then  she  went  mad!  Yes,  my  dear 
friend,  that  idiot  has  gone  mad.  She  is 
always  thinking  of  him  and  wailing  fcr 
:  him ;  she  waits  for  him  all  day  and  night, 
awake  or  asleep,  at  this  very  moment, 
ceaselessly.  When  I  saw  her  getting 
thinner  and  thinner,  never  taking  her 
eyes  cff  the  clocks,  I  had  them  removed 
from  the  house.  I  thus  make  it  im- 
possible for  her  to  count  the  hours,  or 
to  remember,  from  her  indistinct  rem- 
iniscences, at  what  time  he  used  to 
come  home.  I  hope  to  destroy  the  rec- 
ollection of  it  in  time,  and  to  extinguish 


that  ray  of  thought  which  I  had  kindled 
with  so  much  difficulty. 

"The  other  day  I  tried  an  experiment. 
I  offered  her  my  watch.  She  took  it 
and  looked  at  it  for  some  time;  then 
she  began  to  scream  terribly,  as  if  the 
sight  of  that  little  object  had  suddenly 
aroused  her  recollection,  which  was  be- 
ginning to  grow  indistinct.  She  is  piti- 
ably thin  now,  with  hollow  and  brilliant 
eyes,  and  she  walks  up  and  down  cease- 
lessly, like  a  wild  beast  docs  in  its  cage. 
I  have  had  bars  put  to  the  windows, 
and  have  had  the  seats  fixed  to  the 
floor,  so  as  to  prevent  her  from  looking  * 
to  see  whether  he  is  coming. 

"Oh!  her  poor  parents!  What  a  life 
they  must  lead!" 

We  had  got  to  the  top  of  the  hill,  and 
the  doctor  turned  round  and  said  to 
me: 

"Look  at  Riom  from  here." 

The  gloomy  town  looked  like  some 
ancient  city.  Behind  it,  a  green,  wooded 
plain  studded  with  towns  and  villages, 
and  bathed  in  a  soft  blue  haze,  extended 
until  it  was  lost  in  the  distance.  >ar 
away  on  my  right,  there  was  a  range 
of  lofty  mountains  with  round  sum- 
mits, or  truncated  cones,  and  the  doctor 
began  to  enumerate  the  villages,  towns, 
nnd  hills  and  to  give  me  the  history  of 
all  of  them.  But  I  did  not  listen  to 
him;  I  was  thinking  of  nothing  but 
the  mad  woman,  and  only  saw  her. 
She  seemed  to  be  hovering  over  that 
vast  extent  of  country  like  a  mournfa 
ghost,  and  I  asked  him  abruptly: 

"What  has  become  of  the  husband?" 

My  friend  seemed  rather  surprisea, 
but  after  a  few  moments'  hesitatioiii 
he  replied: 


604 


WORKS  OF  GUV  DE  MAUPASSANl 


"He  is  living  at  Royat,  on  an  allow-     passed  us  rapidly.    The  doctor  took  m? 
ance  that  they  make  him,  and  is  quite     by  the  arm: 


happy;  he  leads  a  very  fast  life." 

As  we  were  going  slowly  back,  both 
of  us  silent  and  rather  low-spirited,  an 
English  dogcart,  drawn  by  a  thorough- 
bred  horse,    came   up   behmd    us   and 


"There  he  is,"  he  said. 

I  saw  nothing  except  a  gray  felt  hat, 
cocked  over  one  ear,  above  a  pair  cf 
broad  shoulders,  driving  off  in  a  cloud 
of  dust. 


The  Last  Step 


Monsieur  de  Saint- Juery  would 
not  have  deceived  his  old  mistress  for 
anything  in  the  world.  Perhaps  it  was 
from  an  instinctive  fear,  for  he  had 
heard  of  adventures  that  turn  out  badly, 
make  a  scandal,  and  bring  about  hate- 
ful family  quarrels,  crises  from  which 
one  emerges  enervated  and  exasper- 
ated with  destiny,  and,  as  it  were,  with 
the  weight  cf  a  cannon-ball  on  one's 
feet.  Perhaps  also  from  his  need  for  a 
calm,  sheep-in:3  existence,  undisturbed 
by  any  shock;  perhaps  from  the  rem- 
nants of  the  Icve  which  had  made  him, 
during  the  first  years  of  their  connec- 
tion, the  slave  cf  the  proud  dominating 
beauty,  and  of  her  enthralling  charms. 

He  kept  out  of  the  way  of  tempta- 
tion almost  timidly,  was  faithful  to 
her,  and  was  as  submissive  as  a  spaniel. 
He  paid  her  every  attention,  did  not 
appear  to  notice  that  the  outlines  of  her 
figure,  which  had  formerly  been  so 
harmonious  and  supple,  were  getting  too 
full  and  puffy,  that  her  face,  which 
used  to  remind  him  of  a  blush  rose,  was 
getting  wrinkled,  and  that  her  eyes  were 
getting  du^l.  He  admired  her  in  spite 
of  everything,  almost  blindly,  and 
clothed    her    with    imaginary    charms. 


with  an  autumnal  beauty,  with  the  ma- 
jestic and  serene  soltness  cf  an  Octo- 
ber twilight,  and  with  the  last  blos- 
soms which  fall  to  the  walks  strewn 
with  dead  leaves. 

But  although  their  connection  had 
lasted  for  many  years,  though  they 
were  as  closely  bound  to  each  other  as 
if  they  had  been  married,  and  although 
Charlotte  Guindal  pestered  him  with 
entreaties,  and  upset  him  with  con- 
tinual quarrels  on  the  subject,  despite 
also  the  fact  that  he  believed  her  to  be 
absolutely  faithful  to  him  and  worthy 
cf  his  most  prefect  confidence  and  love, 
Monsieur  de  Saint-Juery  had  never 
been  able  to  make  up  his  mind  to  give 
her  his  name,  and  to  put  their  connec- 
tion on  a  legal  footing. 

He  really  suffered  from  this,  but  re- 
mained firm  and  defended  his  position, 
quibbled,  sought  for  subterfuges,  and 
replied  by  the  eternal  and  vague: 
"What  would  be  the  good  of  it?"  This 
made  Charlotte  furious  and  caused  her 
to  say  angry  and  ill-tempered  things. 
But  he  remained  passive  and  listless, 
with  his  back  bent  like  a  restive  horse 
under  the  whip. 

He  aated  her  whether  it  was  really 


THE  LAST  STEP 


60y 


necessary  to  their  happiness,  as  they 
had  no  children.  Did  not  everybody 
think  that  they  were  married?  Was 
not  she  everywhere  called  Madame  de 
Saint-Juery  and  had  their  servants  any 
doubt  that  they  were  in  the  service  of 
respectable,  married  people?  Was  not 
the  name  which  had  been  transmitted 
to  a  man  from  father  to  son,  unstained, 
iionored,  and  often  with  a  halo  of  glory 
round  it,  a  sacred  trust,  which  no  one 
had  a  right  to  touch?  What  would  she 
gain  if  she  bore  it  legitimately?  Did 
she  for  a  moment  suppose  that  she 
would  rise  higher  in  people's  estimation 
and  be  admitted  into  society,  or  that 
people  would  forget  that  she  had  been 
his  regular  mistress  before  becoming 
his  wife?  Did  not  everybody  know 
that  formerly,  before  he  rescued  her 
from  that  Bohemian  life  in  which  she 
had  been  vainly  waiting  for  a  chance, 
and  was  losing  her  good  looks,  Char- 
lotte Guindal  frequented  all  the  public 
balls,  and  showed  her  legs  liberally  at 
the  Moulin-Rouge?* 

Charlotte  knew  his  crabbed  though 
kindly  character — a  character  at  the 
same  time  logical  and  obstinate  —  too 
well  to  hope  that  she  would  ever  be  able 
to  overcome  his  opposition  and  scruples, 
except  by  some  clever,  feminine  trick, 
some  piece  of  comedy.  So  she  ap- 
peared to  be  satisfied  with  his  reasons 
and  to  renounce  her  desire.  Outward- 
ly she  showed  an  equable  and  con- 
ciliatory temper,  and  no  longer  wor- 
ried Monsieur  de  Saint-Juery  with  her 
recriminations.  Thus  time  went  by  in 
calm  monotony,  without  fruitless  bat- 
tles or  fierce  disputes. 

Charlotte  Guindal's  medical  man  was 
Doctor   RabateL    one    of    those    clever 


men  who  appear  to  know  everything, 
but  whom  a  country  surgeon  would 
shame  by  a  few  questions.  He  was  one 
of  those  men  who  wish  to  impress 
everybody  with  their  apparent  value, 
and  who  make  use  of  their  medical 
knowledge  as  if  it  were  some  produc- 
tive commercial  house,  which  carried 
on  a  suspicious  business;  who  can  scent 
out  persons  whom  they  can  manage  as 
they  please,  as  if  they  were  a  piece  of 
wax,  keeping  them  in  a  state  of  con- 
tinual terror  by  holding  the  idea  of 
death  constantly  before  their  eyes. 

Having  obtained  this  mastery  they 
scrutinize  their  patients'  consciences  as 
well  as  the  cleverest  priest  could  do, 
make  sure  of  being  well  paid  for  their 
complicity  as  soon  as  they  have  ob- 
tained a  footing  anywhere,  and  find  out 
the  family  secrets  in  order  to  use  them 
as  a  weapon  for  extorting  money  on 
occasions. 

Dr.  Rabatel  felt  sure  immediately 
that  this  middle-aged  lady  wanted 
something  of  him.  By  some  extraor- 
dinary perversion  of  taste,  he  was  rather 
fond  of  the  remains  of  a  good-looking 
woman,  if  they  were  well  got  up,  and 
offered  to  him.  He  liked  that  high 
flavor  which  arises  from  soft  lips  made 
tender  through  years  of  love,  from  gray 
hair  powered  with  gold,  from  a  body 
engaged  in  its  last  struggle,  whicS 
dreams  of  one  more  victory  before 
abdicating  power  altogether.  So  he  did 
not  hesitate  to  become  his  new  patient's 
lover. 

When  winter  came,  however,  a  thor- 
ough change  took  place  in  Charlotte's 
health,  which  had  hitherto  been  so  gooA 


*A  caie  chantant  and  casina 


606 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


She  had  no  strength  left,  she  felt  ill 
after  the  slightest  exertion,  complained 
of  internal  pains,  and  spent  v/hols  days 
lying  on  the  couch,  with  sot  eyes  and 
without  uttering  a  word,  so  that  every- 
body  thought  that  she  was  dying  of  one 
of  those  mysterious  maladies  which 
cannot  be  coped  with,  but  by  degrees 
undermine  the  whole  human  system.  It 
was  sad  to  see  her  sinking,  lying  mo- 
tionless on  her  pillows.  A  mist  seemed 
to  have  come  over  her  eyes,  her  hands 
lay  helplessly  on  the  bed,  and  her 
moijth  seemed  sealed  by  some  invisible 
finger.  Monsieur  de  Saint-Juery  was 
in  despair;  he  cried  like  a  child,  and 
be  winced  as  if  somebody  had  plunged 
a  knife  into  him  when  the  doctor  said 
to  him  in  his  unctuous  voice: 

**I  know  that  you  are  a  brave  man, 
my  dear  sir,  and  I  may  venture  to  tell 
you  the  whole  truth.  Madame  de 
Saint-Juery  is  doomed,  irrevocably 
doomed.  Nothing  but  a  miracle  can 
save  her,  and  alas!  there  are  no  mira- 
cles in  these  days.  The  end  is  only  a 
question  of  a  few  hours,  and  may  come 
quite  suddenly." 

Monsieur  de  Saint-Juery  had  thrown 
-"iiimself  into  a  chair,  and  was  sobbing 
bitterly,  covering  his  face  with  his 
hands. 

"My  poor  dear,  my  poor  darling," 
he  said,  through  his  tears. 

"Pray  compose  yourself,  and  be 
brave,"  the  doctor  continued,  sitting 
down  by  his  side,  "for  I  have  some- 
thing serious  to  say  to  you,  and  to  con- 
vey to  you  our  poor  patient's  last 
wishes.  A  few  minutes  ago,  she  told 
me  the  secret  of  your  double  life,  and 
of  your  connection  with  her.    In  view 


of  death,  which  she  feels  approaching 
rapidly,  for  she  is  under  no  delusion, 
the  unhappy  woman  wishes  to  die  at 
peace  with  Heaven,  with  the  consola- 
tion of  having  corrected  her  equivocal 
position  and  of  having  become  your 
wife." 

Monsieur  de  Saint-Juery  sat  upright, 
with  a  bewildered  look,  while  he  moved 
his  hands  nervously;  in  his  grief  he  was 
incapable  of  manifesting  any  will  of  his 
own,  or  of  opposing  this  unexpected 
attack. 

"Oh!  anything  that  Charlotte  wishos, 
doctor;  anything,  and  I  will  myself  go 
and  tell  her  so,  on  my  knees!" 

I|C  «|C  ^  ^  ^  «|C  ^ 

The  wedding  took  place  discreetly, 
with  something  funereal  about  it,  in  the 
darkened  room,  where  the  words  which 
were  spoken  had  a  strange  sound,  al- 
most of  anguish.  Charlotte,  who  was 
lying  in  bed,  her  eyes  dilated  through 
happiness,  had  put  both  trembling 
hands  into  those  of  Monsieur  de  Saint- 
Juery,  and  she  seemed  to  expire  with 
the  word  "Yes"  on  her  lips.  The  doc- 
tor looked  at  the  moving  scene,  grave 
and  impassive,  his  chin  buried  in  his 
white  cravet,  and  his  two  arms  resting 
on  the  mantelpiece,  while  his  eyes 
twinkled  behind  his  glasses. 

The  next  week,  Madame  de  Saint- 
Juery  began  to  get  better,  and  that 
wonderful  recovery,  about  which  Mon- 
sieur Saint-Juery  with  effusive  gratitude 
tells  everybody  who  will  listen  to  him, 
has  so  increased  Doctor  Rabatel's  rep- 
utation that  at  the  next  election  he  will 
be  made  a  member  of  the  Academy  of 
MeHicine, 


VOLUME  VI 


A  Mesalliance 


It  is  a  generally  acknowledged  truth 
that  the  prerogatives  of  the  nobility 
are  only  maintained  at  the  present  time 
through  the  weakness  of  the  middle 
classes.  Many  of  these,  who  have  es- 
tablished themselves  and  their  families 
by  their  intellect,  industry,  and  strug- 
gles, fall  into  a  state  of  bliss,  which  re- 
minds those  who  see  it  of  intoxication, 
as  soon  as  they  are  permitted  to  enter 
aristocratic  circles,  or  can  be  seen  in 
public  with  barons  and  counts,  and 
above  all,  when  these  treat  them  in  a 
friendly  manner,  no  matter  from  what 
motive,  or  when  they  see  a  prospect  of 
a  daughter  of  theirs  driving  in  a  car- 
riage with  armorial  bearings  on  the 
panels. 

Many  women  and  girls  of  the  citizen 
class  would  not  hesitate  for  a  moment 
to  refuse  an  honorable,  good-looking 
man  of  their  own  class,  in  order  to  go 
to  the  altar  with  the  oldest,  ugliest,  and 
stupidest  dotard  among  the  aristocracy. 

I  shall  never  forget  saying  in  joke, 
shortly  before  her  marriage,  to  a  young, 
well-educated  girl  of  a  wealthy,  middle- 
class  family,  who  had  the  figure  and  the 
bearing  of  a  queen,  not  to  forget  an 
ermine  cloak  in  her  trousseau. 

"I  know  it  would  suit  me  capitally," 
she  replied  in  all  seriousness,  "and  I 
should   certainly   have   worn   one   if   I 

had  married  Baron  R ,  which  I  was 

nearly  doing,  as  you  know,  but  it  is 
not  suitable  for  the  wife  of  a  govern- 
ment official." 

When  a  girl  of  the  middle  classes 
wanders  from  the  paths  of  virtue,  her 
fall  may,  as  a  rule,  be  rightly  ascribed 
to  her  hankering  after  the  nobility. 

In  a  small  German  town  there  lived. 


some  years  ago,  a  tailor  whom  we  will 
call  Lowenfuss,  a  man  who,  like  all 
knights  of  the  shears,  was  equally  full 
of  aspirations  after  culture  and  Lberiy. 
After  w^orking  for  one  master  for  som:.! 
time  as  a  poor  journeyman,  he  rnarrieo 
his  daughter,  and  after  his  father-in- 
law's  death  succeeded  to  the  business. 
As  he  was  industrious,  lucky,  and  man- 
aged it  well,  he  soon  grew  very  well 
off,  and  was  in  a  position  to  give  his 
daughters  an  education  which  many  a 
nobleman's  children  might  have  envied. 
They  learned  not  only  French  and 
music,  but  also  acquired  many  more 
solid  branches  of  knowledge,  and  as 
they  were  both  pretty  and  charming 
girls,  they  soon  became  much  thought 
of  and  sought  after. 

Fanny,  the  elder,  was  especially  hei 
father's  pride  and  a  favorite  in  society. 
She  was  of  middle  height,  slim,  with  a 
thoroughly  maidenly  figure,  and  with 
an  almost  Italian  face,  in  which  two 
large,  dark  eyes  seemed  to  ask  for  love 
and  submission  at  the  same  time.  Yet 
this  girl  with  her  plentiful,  black  hair 
was  not  in  the  least  intended  to  com- 
mand, for  she  was  one  of  those  ro- 
mantic women  who  will  give  them- 
selves, or  even  throw  themselves,  away, 
but  who  can  never  be  subjugated.  A 
young  physician  fell  in  love  with  her, 
and  wished  to  marry  her;  Fanny  re* 
turned  his  love,  and  her  parents  gladly 
accepted  him  as  a  son-in-law.  But  she 
made  it  a  condition  that  he  should  visit 
her  freely  and  frequently  for  two  years, 
before  she  would  consent  to  become  his 
wife,  and  she  declared  that  she  would 
not  go  to  the  altar  with  him  until  she 
was  convinced  that  not  only  their  hearts 


60? 


60S 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


but  also  that  their  characters  harmon- 
ized. He  agreed  to  her  wish,  and  be- 
came a  reg^ilar  visitor  at  the  house  of 
the  educated  tailor;  they  were  happy 
hours  for  the  lovers;  they  played,  sang, 
and  read  together,  and  he  told  the  girl 
some  of  his  medical  experiences  which 
excited  and  moved  htr. 

Just  then,  an  officer  went  one  day  to 
the  tailor's  shop  to  order  some  civilian's 
clothes.  This  was  not  an  unusual  event 
in  itself,  but  it  was  soon  to  be  the 
cause  of  one;  for  accidentally  the 
daughter  of  the  articf  in  clothes  came 
mto  the  shop,  just  as  the  officer  was 
leaving  it.  On  seeing  her,  he  paused 
and  asked  the  tailor  who  the  yomig 
lady  was. 

"My  daughter,"  the  tailor  said, 
proudly. 

"May  I  beg  you  to  introduce  me  to 
the  young  lady,  Herr  Lowenfuss?" 
said  the  hussar. 

"I  feel  flattered  at  the  honor  you  are 
doing  me,"  the  tailor  replied,  with 
evident  pleasure. 

"Fanny,  the  captain  wishes  to  make 
your  acquaintance;  this  is  my  daughter 
Fanny,  Captain — " 

"Captain    Count    Kasimir    W ," 

the  hussar  interrupted  him,  as  he  went 
up  to  the  pretty  girl,  and  paid  her  a 
compliment  or  two.  They  v/ere  very 
commonplace,  stale,  everyday  phrases, 
but  in  spite  of  this  they  pleased  the 
girl,  intelligent  as  she  was,  because  it 
was  a  cavalry  officer  and  a  Count  to 
boot  who  addressed  them  to  her.  And 
when  at  last  the  captain  in  the  most 
friendly  manner,  asked  the  tailor's  per- 
mission to  be  allowed  to  visit  at  his 
house,  both  father  and  daughter  granted 
it  to  him  most  readily. 


The   very   next    day    Count   W 

paid  his  visit,  in  full-dress  uniform, 
and  when  Frau  Lowenfuss  made  some 
observations  about  it,  how  handsome  it 
was,  and  how  well  it  became  him,  he 
told  them  that  he  should  not  wear  it 
much  longer,  as  he  intended  to  quit 
the  service  soon,  and  to  look  for  a  wife 
in  whom  birth  and  wealth  were  mat- 
ters of  secondary  consideration,  while  a 
good  education  and  a  knowledge  of  do- 
mestic matters  were  of  paramount  im- 
portance; adding  that  as  soon  as  he 
had  found  one,  he  meant  to  retire  to 
his  estates. 

From  that  moment,  papa  and 
mamma  Lowenfuss  looked  upon  the 
Count  as  their  daughter's  suitor.  It  is 
certain  that  he  was  madly  in  love  with 
Fanny;  he  used  to  go  to  their  house 
every  evening,  and  made  himself  so 
looked  for  by  all  of  them  that  the  young 
doctor  soon  felt  himself  to  be  super- 
fluous, and  so  his  visits  became  rarer 
and  rarer.  The  Count  confessed  his 
love  to  Fanny  on  a  moonlight  night, 
v/hile  they  were  sitting  in  an  arbor  cov- 
ered with  honeysuckle,  which  formed 
nearly  the  whole  of  Herr  Lowenfuss's 
garden.  He  swore  that  he  loved,  that 
he  adored  her,  and  when  at  last  she  lay 
trembling  in  his  arms  he  tried  to  take 
her  by  storm.  But  that  bold  cavalry 
exploit  did  not  succeed,  and  the  good- 
looking  hussar  found  out  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life  that  a  woman  can  at 
the  same  time  be  romantic,  passion- 
ately in  love,  and  virtuous. 

The  next  morning  the  tailor  called  on 
the  Count,  and  begged  him  very  hum- 
bly to  state  what  his  intentions  with 
regani  to  Fanny  were.  The  enam- 
ored hussai   declared  that  he  was  de- 


A  MESALLIANCE 


609 


termined    to    make    the 
daughter  Countess  W 


tailor's  little 
.  Herr  Low- 
enfuss  was  so  much  overcome  by  his 
feelings,  that  he  showed  great  inclina- 
tion to  embrace  his  future  son-in-law. 
The  Count,  however,  laid  down  certain 
conditions.  The  whole  matter  must  be 
kept  a  profound  secret,  for  he  had 
every  prospect  of  inheriting  half-a- 
miliion  of  florins,*  on  the  death  of  an 
aunt  who  was  already  eighty  years  old, 
which  he  should  risk  by  a  mesalliance. 

When  they  heard  this,  the  girl's  par- 
ents certainly  hesitated  for  a  time  to 
give  their  consent  to  the  marriage,  but 
the  handsome  hussar,  whose  ardent  pas- 
sion carried  Fanny  away,  at  last  gained 
the  victory.  The  doctor  received  a 
pretty  little  note  from  the  tailor's 
daughter,  in  which  she  told  him  that 
she  gave  him  back  his  promise,  as  she 
had  not  found  her  ideal  in  him.  Fanny 
then  signed  a  deed,  by  which  she  for- 
mally renounced  all  claims  to  her 
father's  property,  in  favor  of  her  sis- 
ter, and  left  her  home  and  her  father's 
house  with  the  Count  under  cover  of 
the  night,  in  order  to  accompany  him  to 
Poland,  where  the  marriage  was  to  take 
place  in  his  castle. 

Of  course  malicious  tongues  declared 
that  the  hussar  had  abducted  Fanny. 
But  her  parents  smiled  at  such  reports, 
for  they  knew  better,  and  the  mo- 
ment when  their  daughter  would  re- 
turn as  Countess  W would  amply 

recompense  them  for  everything. 

Meanwhile  the  Polish  Count  and  the 
romantic  German  girl  were  being  car- 
ried by  the  train  through  the  dreary 
plains  of  Masovia.f  They  stopped  in 
a  large  town  to  make  some  purchases, 
and  the  Count,  who  was  very  wealthy 


and  liberal,  provided  his  future  wife 
with  everything  that  befitted  a  Countess 
and  a  girl  could  fancy,  and  then  they 
continued  their  journey.  The  country 
grew  more  picturesque  but  more  melan- 
choly as  they  went  further  east;  the 
somber  Carpathians  rose  from  the  snow- 
covered  plains,  and  villages,  surrounded 
by  white  glistening  walls,  and  stunted 
willows  stood  by  the  side  of  the  roads, 
ravens  sailed  through  tl:e  white  sky,  and 
here  and  there  a  small  peasants'  sledge 
shot  by,  drawn  by  two  thin  horses. 

At  last  they  reached  the  station. 
There  the  Count's  steward  was  waiting 
for  them  with  a  carriage  and  four,  which 
brought  them  to  their  destination  almost 
as  swiftly  as  the  iron  steed. 

The  numerous  servants  were  drawn  up 
in  the  yard  of  the  ancient  castle  to  re- 
ceive their  master  and  mistress,  and 
gave  loud  cheers  for  her,  for  which  she 
thanked  them  smilingly.  When  she  went 
into  the  dim,  arched  passages,  and  the 
large  rooms,  for  a  moment  she  felt  a 
strange  feeling  of  fear,  but  she  quickly 
checked  it,  for  was  not  her  most  ardent 
wish  to  be  fulfilled  in  a  couple  of  hours? 

She  put  on  her  bridal  attire,  in  which 
a  half-comical,  half-sinister  looking  old 
woman  with  a  toothless  mouth  and  a 
nose  like  an  owl's  assisted  her.  Just  as 
she  was  fixing  the  myrtle  wreath  on  to 
her  dark  curls,  the  bell  began  to  ring, 
which  summoned  her  to  her  wedding. 
The  Count  himself,  in  full  uniform,  led 
her  to  the  chapel  of  the  castle,  where 
the  priest,  with  the  steward  and  the 
castellan  as  witnesses,  and  the  footmen 


*About  $250,000. 

fA     division    of     Poland,     of     which 
Warsaw  is   the  capital. 


610 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUrASSANT 


in  grand  liveries,  were  awaiting  the 
handsome  young  couple. 

After  the  wedding,  the  marriage  cer- 
tificate was  signed  in  the  vestry,  and  a 
groom  was  sent  to  the  station,  where  he 
dispatched  a  telegram  to  her  parents,  to 
the  effect  that  the  hussar  had  kept  his 
word,  and  that  Fanny  Lowenfuss  had 
become  Countess  Faniska  W . 

Then  the  newly-married  couple  sat 
down  to  a  beautiful  little  dinner  in  com- 
pany with  the  chaplain,  the  steward,  and 
the  castellan.  The  champagne  made 
them  all  very  cheerful,  and  at  last  the 
Count  knelt  down  before  his  young 
and  beautiful  wife,  boldly  took  her  white 
satin  slipper  off  her  foot,  filled  it  with 
wine,  and  emptied  it  to  her  health. 

At  length  night  came,  a  thorough, 
Polish  wedding-night,  and  Faniska,  who 
had  just  assumed  a  demi-toilette,  was 
looking  at  herself  with  proud  satisfac- 
tion in  the  great  mirror  that  was  fas- 
tened into  the  wall,  from  top  to  bottom. 
A  white  satin  train  flowed  down  behind 
her  like  rays  from  the  moon,  a  half- 
open  jacket  of  bright  green  velvet, 
trimmed  with  valuable  ermine,  covered 
her  voluptuous,  virgin  bust  and  her 
classic  arms,  only  to  show  them  all  the 
more  seductively  at  the  slic;htest  motion, 
while  the  wealth  of  her  dark  hair,  in 
which  diamonds  hung  here  and  there 
like  glittering  dewdrops,  fell  down  her 
neck  and  mingled  with  the  white  fur. 
The  Count  entered  in  a  red  velvet  dress- 
ing-gown trimmed  with  sable;  at  a  sign 
from  him,  the  old  woman  who  was 
waiting  on  his  divinity  left  the  room, 
and  the  next  moment  he  was  lying  like 
a  slave  at  the  feet  of  his  lovely  young 
wife,  who  raised  him  up  and  was  Dress- 


ing him  to  her  heaving  bosom,  when  a 
noise  which  she  had  never  heard  before, 
a  wild  howling,  startled  the  loving  wo- 
man in  the  midst  of  her  bliss. 

"What  was  that?"  she  asked,  trem- 
bling. 

The  Count  went  to  the  window  with- 
out speaking,  and  she  with  him,  her  arms 
round  him.  She  looked  half  timidly, 
half  curiously  out  into  the  darkness, 
where  large  bright  spots  were  moving 
about  in  pairs,  in  the  park  at  her  feet. 

"Are  they  will-o'-the-wisps?"  she 
whispered. 

"No,  my  child,  they  are  wolves,"  the 
Count  replied,  fetching  his  double- 
barreled  gun,  which  he  loaded.  Then  he 
went  out  on  the  snow-covered  balcony, 
while  she  drew  the  fur  more  closely  ovei 
her  bosom,  and  followed  him. 

"Will  you  shoot?"  the  Count  asked 
her  in  a  whisper,  and  when  she  nodded, 
he  said:  "Aim  straight  at  the  first  pai; 
of  bright  spots  that  you  see;  they  ar.* 
the  eyes  of  those  amiable  brutes." 

Then  he  handed  her  the  gun  and 
pointed  it  for  her. 

"That  is  the  way — are  you  pointing 
straight?" 

"Yes." 

"Then  fire." 

A  fl^sh,  a  report,  wliich  the  echo  from 
the  hills  repeated  four  times,  and  two 
of  the  unpleasant  looking  lights  had 
vanished. 

Then  the  Count  fired,  and  by  that  time 
their  people  were  all  awake;  they  drove 
away  the  wolves  with  torches  and 
laid  the  two  large  animals,  the  spoils 
of  a  Polish  wedding-night,  at  the  feet 
of  their  young  mistress. 

The  days  that  followed  resembled  that 


A  MESALLIANCE 


611 


n7ght.  The  Count  showed  himself  a 
most  attentive  husband,  his  wife  s  knight 
and  slave,  and  she  felt  quite  at  home 
in  that  dull  castle.  She  rode,  drove, 
smoked,  read  French  novels,  and  beat 
her  servants  as  well  as  any  Polish 
Countess  could  have  done.  In  the 
course  of  a  few  years,  she  presented  the 
Count  with  two  children,  and  although 
he  appeared  very  happy  at  that,  yet,  like 
most  husbands,  he  grew  continually 
:ooler,  more  indolent,  and  nc;;lectful  of 
her.  From  time  to  time  he  left  the 
castle  to  see  after  his  affairs  in  the  cap- 
ital, and  the  intervals  between  these 
journeys  became  continually  shorter. 
Faniska  felt  that  her  husband  was  tired 
of  her,  and  much  as  it  grieved  her,  she 
did  not  let  him  notice  it;  she  was  al- 
ways the  same. 

But  at  last  the  Count  remained  away 
iltogther.  At  first  he  used  to  write,  but 
at  last  the  poor,  weeping  woman  did 
not  even  receive  letters  to  comfort  her 
in  her  unhappy  solitude,  and  his  lawyer 
sent  the  money  that  she  and  the  children 
required. 

She  conjectured,  hoped,  doubted,  suf- 
fered, and  wept  for  more  than  a  year; 
then  she  suddenly  went  to  the  capital 
and  appeared  unexpectedly  in  his  apart- 
ments. Painful  explanations  followed, 
until  at  last  the  Count  told  her  that  he 
no  longer  loved  her,  and  would  not  live 
with  her  for  the  future.  When  she 
wished  to  make  him  do  so  by  legal  means, 
and  intrusted  her  case  to  a  celebrated 
lawyer,  the  Count  denied  that  she  was 
his  wife.  She  produced  her  marriage 
certificate,  and  lo!  the  most  infamous 
fraud  came  to  light.    A  confidential  ser- 


vant of  the  Count  had  acted  the  part 
of  the  priest,  so  that  the  tailor's  beau- 
tiful daughter  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
merely  been  the  Count's  mistress,  and 
her  children  therefore  were  bastards. 

The  virtuous  woman  then  saw,  when 
it  was  too  late,  that  it  was  she  who  had 
formed  a  mesalliance.  Her  parents 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  her,  and 
at  last  it  came  out  that  the  Count  was 
married  long  before  he  knew  her,  but 
that  he  did  not  live  with  his  wife. 

Then  Fanny  applied  to  the  police 
magistrates;  she  wanted  to  appeal  to 
justice;  but  was  dissuaded  from  taking 
criminal  proceedings;  for  although  they 
would  certainly  lead  to  the  punishment 
of  her  daring  seducer,  they  would  also 
bring  about  her  own  ruin. 

At  last,  however,  her  lawyer  effected 
a  settlement  between  them,  which  was 
favorable  to  Fanny,  and  which  she  ac- 
cepted for  the  sake  of  her  children.  The 
Count  paid  her  a  considerable  sum 
down,  and  gave  her  the  gloomy  castle  to 
live  in.  Thither  she  returned  with  a 
broken  heart,  and  from  that  time  lived 
alone,  a  sullen  misanthrope,  a  fierce 
despot. 

From  time  to  time,  you  may  meet 
wandering  through  the  Carpathians  a 
pale  woman  of  almost  unearthly  beauty, 
wearing  a  magnificent  sable-skin  jacket 
and  carrying  a  gun  over  her  shoulder,  in 
the  forest,  or  in  the  winter  in  a  sledge, 
driving  her  foaming  horses  until  they 
nearly  drop  from  fatigue,  while  the  har- 
ness bells  utter  a  melancholy  sound,  and 
at  last  die  away  in  the  distance,  like  the 
weeping  of  a  solitary,  deserted  human 
heart. 


An  Honest  Deal 


Among  my  numerous  friends  in 
Vienna  there  is  an  author  who  has  al- 
jvays  amused  me  by  his  childish  idealism. 

Not  by  his  idealism  from  an  abstract 
point  of  view,  for  in  spite  of  my 
pessimism  I  am  an  absurd  idealist,  and 
because  I  am  perfectly  well  aware  of 
this,  I  never,  as  a  rule,  laugh  at  other 
people's  idealism.  But  his  brand  was 
really  lOO  funny. 

Ke  was  a  serious  man  of  great  ca- 
pabilities who  only  just  fell  short  of 
being  learned.  He  had  a  clear,  critical 
intellect;  was  a  man  without  any  illu- 
sions about  society,  the  state,  literature, 
or  anything  else,  and  especially  about 
women ;  but  he  was  the  craziest  optimist 
as  soon  as  he  got  upon  the  subject  of 
ac'-resses,  theatrical  princesses,  and 
heroines.  He  was  one  of  those  men 
who,  like  Hacklander  cannot  discover 
che  Ideal  of  Virtue  anywhere  but  in  a 
ballet  girl. 

My  friend  was  always  in  love  with 
some  actress  or  other — of  course  only 
platonically — and  by  preference  with 
some  girl  of  rising  talent,  whose  literary 
knight  he  constituted  himself,  until  the 
time  came  when  her  admirers  laid  some- 
thing much  more  substantial  than  laurel 
wreaths  at  her  feet.  Then  he  withdrew 
and  sought  for  fresh  talent  which  would 
allow  itself  to  be  patronized  by  him. 

He  was  never  without  a  photograph 
of  his  ideal  in  his  breast  pocket,  and 
when  he  was  in  a  good  temper,  he  used 
to  show  me  one  or  other  of  them — 
whom  I  had  of  course  never  seen — with 
a  knowing  smile.  Once,  when  we  were 
sitting  in  a  cafe  in  the  Prater,  he  took 
out  a  portrait  without  saying  a  word, 
and  laid  it  on  the  table  before  me. 


♦>! 


It  was  the  portrait  of  a  beautiful 
woman,  but  what  struck  me  in  it  first  of 
all,  was  not  the  almost  classic  cut  of 
her  features,  but  her  white  eyes. 

"If  she  had  not  the  black  hair  of  a 
living  woman,  I  should  take  her  for  a 
statue,"  I  said. 

^'Certainly,"  my  friend  replied;  "for 
a  statue  of  Venus,  perhaps  for  the  Ve- 
nus of  Milo  herself." 

"Who  is  she?" 

"A  young  actress." 

"That  is  a  matter  of  course  in  your 
case;  what  I  meant  was,  what  is  her 
name?" 

My  friend  told  me.  It  was  a  name 
which  is  alt  present  one  of  the  best 
known  on  the  German  stage,  a  name 
with  which  a  number  of  earthly  adven- 
tures are  connected,  as  every  Viennese 
knows.  Compared  with  hers  those  of 
Venus  herself  were  but  innocent  toying, 
but  I  then  heard  of  her  for  the  first 
time. 

My  idealist  described  her  as  a  woman 
of  the  highest  talent — which  I  believed, 
and  as  an  angel  of  purity — which  I  did 
not  believe;  on  that  particular  occasion, 
however,  I  at  any  rate  did  not  believe 
the  contrary. 

A  few  days  later,  I  was  accidentally 
turning  over  the  leaves  of  the  portrait 
album  of  another  intimate  friend  of 
mine,  who  was  a  thoroughly  careless, 
somewhat  dissolute  Viennese,  and  I  came 
across  that  strange,  female  face  with  tba 
dead  eyes  again. 

"How  did  you  come  by  the  picture  of 
this  Venus?"  I  asked  him. 

"Well,  she  certainly  is  a  Venus,"  he 
replied,  "but  one  of  that  cheap  kind  wh^ 
2 


AN  HONEST  DEAL 


613 


are  to  be  met  with  in  the  Graben  * 
which  is  their  ideal  grove." 

"Impossible!" 

"I  give  you  my  word  of  honor  it  is 
so." 

I  could  say  nothing  more  after  that. 
So  my  intellectual  friend's  new  ideal, 
that  woman  of  the  highest  dramatic 
talent,  that  wonderful  woman  with  the 
white  eye?,  was  a  street  Venus! 

But  my  friend  was  right  in  one  re- 
spect. He  had  not  deceived  himself 
with  regard  to  her  wonderful  dramatic 
gifts,  and  she  very  soon  made  a  career 
for  herself.  From  being  a  mute  char- 
acter on  some  suburban  stage,  she  rose 
in  two  years  to  be  the  leading  actress  at 
one  of  the  principal  theaters. 

My  friend  interested  himself  in  her 
behalf  with  the  manager  of  it,  who  was 
not  bhnded  by  any  prejudices.  She 
acted  in  a  rehearsal,  and  pleased  him; 
whereupon  he  sent  her  to  star  in  the 
provinces.  My  friend  accompanied  her, 
and  took  care  she  was  well  puffed. 

She  went  on  the  boards  az  Schiller's 
"Marie  Stuart,"  and  achieved  the  most 
brilliant  success.  Before  she  had  fin- 
ished her  starring  tour,  she  obtained  an 
engagement  at  a  large  theater  in  a 
I-  northern  town,  where  her  appearance 
was  the  signal  for  a  triumphant  success. 

Her  reputation,  that  is  her  reputation 
as  a  most  gifted  actress,  grew  very  high 
in  less  than  a  year,  and  the  manager  of 
the  Court  theater  invited  her  to  star 
there. 

She  was  received  with  some  doubt  at 
first,  but  she  soon  overcame  all  prej- 
udices and  uncertainty;  the  applause 
grew  more  and  more  vehement  at  every 
performance,  and  at  the  close  of  the 
season  her  future  was  decided.    She  ob- 


tained a  splendid  engagement,  and  soon 
afterward  became  a  leader  at  the  Court 
theater. 

A  well-known  author  wrote  a  racy 
novel,  of  which  she  was  the  heroine;  one 
of  the  leading  bankers  and  financiers 
was  at  her  feet;  she  was  a  most  popular 
personage,  and  the  Honess  of  the  capital; 
she  had  splendid  apartments,  and  all  her 
surroundings  were  of  the  most  luxurious 
character.  She  had  reached  that  stage 
in  her  career  at  which  my  idealistic 
friend,  who  had  constituted  himself  her 
literary  knight,  quietly  took  his  leave  of 
her,  and  went  in  search  of  fresh  talent. 

But  the  beautiful  woman  with  the 
dead  eyes  and  the  dead  heart  seemed 
destined  to  be  the  scourge  of  the  ideal- 
ists, quite  against  her  will.  Scarcely  had 
one  spread  his  wings  and  fiown  away 
from  her,  than  another  fell  out  of  the 
nest  into  her  net. 

A  very  young  student,  who  was 
neither  handsome  nor  of  good  family, 
and  certainly  not  rich  or  even  well  off, 
but  who  was  enthusiastic,  intellectual, 
and  impressionable,  saw  her  as  "Maria 
Stuart,"  as  "The  Maid  of  Orleans/* 
"The  Lady  with  the  Camelias,"  and  in 
most  of  the  plays  of  the  best  French 
dramatists,  for  the  manager  was  making 
experiments  with  her,  and  she  was  doing 
the  same  with  her  talents. 

The  poor  student  was  enraptured  with 
the  celebrated  actress,  and  at  the  same 
time  conceived  a  passion  for  the  woman 
which  bordered  on  madness. 

He  saved  up  penny  by  penny,  he 
nearly  starved  himself,  in  order  that  he 
might  be  able  to  pay  for  a  seat  in  the 


*The  street  where  most  of  the  best 
shops  are  to  be  found,  and  much  fre- 
quented by  venal  beaijfies. 


614 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


gallery  whenever  she  acted,  and  be  able 
to  devour  her  with  his  eyes.  He  al- 
ways got  a  seat  in  the  front  row,  for 
he  was  always  outside  three  hours  be- 
fore the  doors  opened,  so  as  to  be  one  of 
the  first  to  gain  his  Olympus,  the  seat 
of  the  theatrical  enthusiasts.  He  grew 
pale,  and  his  heart  beat  violently  when 
she  appeared;  he  laughed  when  she 
wept,  applauded  her,  as  if  he  had  been 
paid  to  do  it  by  the  highest  favors  that 
a  woman  can  bestow,  and  yet  she  did 
not  Lnow  him,  and  was  ignorant  of  his 
very  existence. 

The  regular  frequenters  of  the  Court 
theater  noticed  him  at  last,  and  spoke 
about  his  infatuation  for  her,  until  at 
last  she  heard  about  him.  Still  she  did 
not  know  him,  and  although  he  could  not 
send  her  any  costly  jewelry,  not  even  a 
bouquet,  he  at  last  succeeded  in  attract- 
ing her  attention. 

When  she  had  finished  acting  and  the 
audience  had  gone  home,  she  would  leave 
the  theater  wrapped  in  valuable  furs 
and  get  into  the  carriage  of  her  banker, 
which  v/as  waiting  for  her  at  the  stage 
door.  He  always  stood  there,  often  up 
to  his  ankles  in  snow,  or  in  the  pouring 
rain. 

At  first  she  did  not  notice  him,  but 
when  her  maid  said  something  to  her  in 
a  whisper  on  one  occasion,  she  looked 
round  in  surprise,  and  he  got  a  look 
from  those  large  eyes,  which  were  not 
dead  then,  but  dark  and  bright — a  look 
which  recompensed  him  for  all  his  suffer- 
ings and  filled  him  with  a  proud  hope, 
which  constantly  gained  more  power 
over  the  young  idealist,  usually  so 
modest. 

At  last  there  was  a  thorough,  silent 
understanding    between    the    theatrical 


princess  and  her  dumb  adorer.  Whea 
she  put  her  foot  on  the  carriage  step, 
she  looked  round  at  him,  and  everx 
time  he  stood  there,  devouring  her  with 
his  eyes;  she  saw  it  and  got  contentedly 
into  her  carriage,  but  she  did  not  see 
how  he  ran  after  her  carriage,  or  how  he 
reached  her  house,  panting  for  breath, 
when  she  did,  or  how  he  lay  down  out- 
side after  the  door  had  closed  behind 
her. 

One  stormy  summer  night,  when  the 
wind  was  fowling  in  the  chimneys,  and 
the  rain  was  beating  against  the  windows 
and  on  the  pavement,  the  poor  student 
was  again  lying  on  the  stone  steps  out- 
side her  house.  The  front  door  was 
opened  very  cautiously  and  quietly;  for 
it  was  not  the  economical  banker  who 
was  leaving  the  house,  but  a  wealthy 
young  ofiicer  whom  the  maid  was  letting 
out;  he  kissed  the  pretty  little  Cerberus 
as  he  put  a  gold  coin  into  her  hand,  and 
then  accidentally  trod  on  the  idealist, 
who  was  lying  outside. 

They  all  three  simultaneously  uttered 
a  cry;  the  girl  blew  out  the  candle,  the 
officer  instinctively  half  drew  his  sword, 
and  the  student  ran  away. 

Ever  since  that  night,  the  poor,  crazy 
fellow  went  about  with  a  dagger,  which 
he  concealed  in  his  belt.  It  was  his 
constant  companion  to  the  theater  and 
the  stage  door,  where  the  actress's  car- 
riage used  to  wait  for  her,  and  to  her 
house,  where  he  nightly  kept  his  painful 
watch 

His  first  idea  was  to  kill  his  fortunate 
rival,  then  himself,  then  the  theatrical 
princess,  but  at  last  he  lay  down  again 
outside  her  door,  or  stood  on  the  pave- 
ment and  watched  the  shadows  that 
flitted  hither  and  thither  on  her  window, 


THE  LOG 


016 


iis  head  turned  by  the  magic  spell  of 
the  woman. 

And  then,  the  most  incredible  thing 
happened,  something  which  he  could 
never  have  hoped  for,  and  which  he 
scarcely  believed  when  it  did  occur. 

One  evening,  when  she  had  been  play- 
ing a  very  important  part,  she  kept  her 
carriage  waiting  much  longer  than  usual. 
At  last  she  appeared,  and  got  into  it; 
she  did  not  shut  the  door,  however,  but 
beckoned  to  the  young  idealist  to  follow 
her. 

He  was  almost  delirious  with  joy, 
iust  as  a  moment  before  he  had  been 
almost  mad  from  despair.  He  obeyed 
her  immediately,  and  during  the  drive 
he  lay  at  her  feet  and  covered  her  hands 
with  kisses.  She  allowed  it  quietly  and 
even  merrily,  and  when  the  carriage 
stopped  at  her  door,  she  let  him  lift  her 
out  of  the  carriage,  and  went  upstairs 
leaning  on  his  arm. 

There,  the  lady's  maid  showed  him 
into  a  luxuriously  furnished  drawing- 
ioom,  while  the  actress  changed  her 
dress. 

Presently  she  appeared  in  her  peig' 
noir,  sat  down  carelessly  in  an  easy  chair, 
and  asked  him  to  sit  down  beside  her. 

''You  take  a  great  interest  in  me?" 
she  said. 

"^/ou  are  my  ideal!"  the  student  cried 
enthusiasticaiiy. 


The  theatrical  princess  smiled,  and 
said: 

"Well,  I  will  at  any  rate  be  an  honest 
ideal;  I  will  not  deceive  you,  and  you 
shall  not  be  able  to  say  that  I  have 
misused  your  youthful  enthusiasm.  T 
will  give  myself  to  you." 

*'0h!  Heavens!"  the  poor  idealist  ex- 
claimed, throwing  himself  at  hei'  feet. 

**Wait  a  moment!  Wait  a  moment!" 
Wait  a  moment!"  she  said,  with  a 
smile,  I  have  not  finished  yet.  I  can 
only  love  a  man  who  is  in  a  position 
to  provide  me  with  all  those  luxuries 
which  an  actress  or,  if  you  like, 
which  I,  cannot  do  without.  As 
far  as  I  know  you  are  poor,  but  1 
will  belong  to  you — only  for  to-night, 
however — and  in  return  you  must  prom- 
ise me  not  to  rave  about  me,  or  to  fol- 
low me,  from  to-night.  Will  you  do 
this?" 

The  wretched  idealist  v/as  kneeling 
before  her;  he  was  having  a  terrible 
mental  struggle. 

*'Will  you  promise  me  to  do  this?" 
she  said  again. 

*'Yes,"  he  said,  almost  groaning. 

The  next  morning  a  man  who  had 
buried  his  ideal  tottered  downstairs.  He 
was  pale  enough;  almost  as  pale  as  a 
corpse;  but  in  spite  of  this,  he  is  still 
alive,  and  if  ho  has  any  ideal  at  all  at 
present,  it  is  certainly  not  a  theatrical 
prmcess. 


The  Log 


It  was  a  small  drawing-room,  with 
tliick  hangings,  and  with  a  faint  aro- 
matic smell  of  flowers  and  scent  in  the 


air.  A  large  fire  was  burning  in  the  grate, 
and  one  lamp,  covered  with  a  shade  of 
old  lace,  on  the  corner  of  tb*^  mantel 


615 


VvORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


piece  threw  &  sol't  light  on  to  the  two 
persons  who  were  talking. 

She,  the  mistress  of  the  house,  was  an 
old  lady  with  white  hair,  one  of  those 
aaorable  old  ladies  whose  unwrinkled 
skin  is  as  smooth  as  the  finest  paper, 
and  is  scented,  impregnated  with  per- 
fume, the  delicate  essences  used  in 
the  bath  for  so  many  years  having 
penetrated   through  the  epidermis. 

He  was  a  very  old  friend,  who  had 
never  married,  a  constant  friend,  a  com- 
panion in  the  journey  of  life,  but  noth- 
ing else. 

They  had  not  spoken  for  about  a 
minute,  and  were  both  looking  at  the 
fire,  dreaming  of  nothing  in  particular. 
It  was  one  of  those  moments  of  sympa- 
thetic silence  between  people  who  have 
no  need  to  be  constantly  talking  in 
order  to  be  happy  together.  Suddenly 
a  large  log,  a  stump  covered  with  burn- 
ing roots,  fell  out.  It  fell  over  the 
firedogs  on  to  the  drawing-room  floor, 
scattering  great  sparks  all  round.  The 
old  lady  sprang  up  with  a  scream,  as  if 
to  run  away,  but  he  kicked  the  log 
back  on  to  the  hearth  and  trod  out  the 
burnm^-  sparks  with  his  boots. 

When  the  disaster  was  repaired,  there 
was  a  strong  smell  of  burning.  Sitting 
down  opposite  to  his  friend,  the  man 
looked  at  her  with  a  smile,  and  said,  as 
he  pointed  to  the  log: 

*'That  accident  recalls  the  reason  I 
never  married.*' 

She  looked  at  him  in  astonishment, 
with  the  inquisiu/*  gaze  of  women  who 
wish  to  kn'jw  r  very  thing,  eying  him  as 
women  dj  who  are  no  longer  young, 
with  intense  and  malicious  curiosity. 
Then  r^ne  a^,^ed: 


"Oh!  it  is  p  long  story,"  he  replied*, 
"a  rather  sad  and  unpleasant  story. 

*'.My  old  friends  were  often  sur- 
prised at  the  coldness  which  suddenly 
sprang  up  between  one  of  my  best 
friends,  whose  Christian  name  was 
Julien,  and  myself.  They  could  not 
understand  how  two  such  intimate  and 
inseparable  friends  as  we  had  been 
could  suddenly  become  almost  strangers 
to  one  another.  I  will  tell  you  the  reason 
of  it. 

"He.  and  I  used  to  live  together  at 
one  time.  We  were  never  apart,  and 
the  friendship  that  united  us  seemed 
so  strong  that  nothi::g  could  break  it. 

"One  evening  when  he  came  home,  he 
told  me  that  he  was  going  to  be  married, 
and  it  gave  me  a  shock  just  as  if  he 
had  robbed  me  or  betrayed  me.  When 
a  man's  friend  marries,  all  is  over  be- 
tween them.  The  jealous  affection  of 
a  woman,  a  suspicious,  uneasy,  and 
carnal  affection,  will  not  tolerate  that 
sturdy  and  frank  attachment,  that  at- 
tachment of  the  mind  and  of  the  heart, 
and  the  mutu::l  confidence  which  exists 
between  two  men. 

"However  great  the  love  may  be  that 
unites  them,  a  man  and  a  woman  arc 
always  strangers  in  mind  and  intellect; 
they  remain  belligerents,  they  belong 
to  different  races.  There  must  always 
be  a  conqueror  and  a  conquered,  a 
naster  and  a  slave;  now  the  one,  now 
the  other — they  are  never  equal.  They 
press  each  other's  hands,  hanas  :rem- 
bling  with  amorous  passion;  but  they 
never  press  them  with  a  long,  strong, 
loyal  pressure,  a  pressure  which  seems 
to  open  hearts  and  to  by  them  bare  in 
a  burst  of  sincere,  stro'ig,  manly  affec- 
tion.    Ancient  ohilosophers,  as  a  con- 


THE  LOG 


617 


eolation  for  old  age,  sought  for  a  good 
reliable  friend,  and  grew  old  with  him 
in  that  communion  of  thought  which 
exists  between  men.  They  did  not 
marry  and  procreate  chLd:en  who 
would,   when   grown,   abandon   them. 

"Well,  m}'  friend  Julien  married.  His 
wife  was  pretty,  charming,  a  light, 
curly-haired,  plump,  bright  little  woman, 
who  seemed  to  worship  him.  At  first  I 
went  but  rarely  to  their  house,  as  I  was 
afraid  of  interfering  with  their  affec- 
tion, and  averse  to  being  in  their  way. 
But  somehow  they  attracted  me  to 
their  house;  they  were  constantly  in- 
viting me,  and  seemed  very  fond  of 
me.  Consequently,  by  degrees  I  al- 
lowed myself  to  be  allured  by  the  charm 
of  their  life.  I  often  dined  with  them, 
and  frequently,  when  I  returned  home 
at  night,  thought  that  I  would  do  as  he 
had  done,  and  get  married,  as  I  found 
my  empty  house  very  dull.  They 
seemed  very  much  in  love  with  one 
another,  and   were  never  apart. 

"Well,  one  evening,  Julien  wrote  and 
asked  me  to  go  to  dinner,  and  naturally 
I  went. 

"  'My  dear  fellow,'  he  said,  'I  must 
go  out  directly  afterward  on  business, 
and  I  shall  not  be  back  until  eleven 
o'clock,  but  I  shall  not  be  later.  Can 
I  depend  on  you  to  keep  Bertha  com- 
pany?' 

"The  young  woman  smiled. 

"  *It  was  my  idea,*  she  said,  *to  send 
for  you.' 

"I  held  out  my  hand  to  her. 

"  'You  are  as  nice  as  ever,'  I  said,  and 
I  felt  a  long,  friendly  pressure  of  my 
fingers,  but  I  paid  no  attention  to  it. 
We  sat  down  to  dinner,  and  at  eight 
o'clock  Julien  went  out. 


"As  soon  as  he  had  gone,  a  kind  of 
strange  embarrassment  immediately 
seemed  to  come  over  his  wife  and  me. 
We  had  never  been  alone  together  yet, 
and  in  spite  of  our  daily  increasing  inti- 
macy this  tete-a-tete  placed  us  in  a  new 
position.  At  first  I  spoke  vaguely  of 
those  indifferent  matters  with  which  one 
fills  up  an  embarrassing  silence,  but 
she  did  not  reply,  and  remained  op- 
posite to  me  looking  down  in  an  unde- 
cided manner,  as  if  thinking  over  some 
difficult  subject.  As  I  was  at  a  loss 
for  commonplace  ideas,  I  held  my 
tongue.  It  is  surprising  how  hard  it  is 
at  times  to  find  anything  to  say. 

"And  then,  again,  I  felt  in  the  air, 
in  my  bones,  so  to  speak,  something 
which  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  ex- 
press, that  mysterious  premonition 
which  tells  you  beforehand  of  the  secret 
intentions,  be  they  good  or  evil,  of 
another  person  with  respect  to  your- 
self. 

"The  painful  silence  lasted  some  time, 
and  then   Bertha   said   to  me: 

"  'Will  you  kindly  put  a  log  on  the 
fire,  for  it  is  going  out.' 

"So  I  opened  the  box  where  the  wood 
was  kept,  which  was  placed  just  where 
yours  is,  took  out  the  largest  log,  and 
put  it  on  top  of  the  others,  which  were 
three-parts  burned,  and  then  silence 
reigned  in  the  room  again. 

"In  a  few  minutes  the  log  was  burning 
so  brightly  that  it  scorched  our  faces, 
and  the  young  woman  raised  her  eyes 
to  me — eyes  that  had  a  strange  look  to 
me. 

"*It  is  too  hot  now,'  she  said;  'let 
us  go  and  sit  on  the  sofa  over  there.' 

"So  we  went  and  sat   on   the  sofa. 


616 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  then  she  said  suddenly,  looking  me 
full  in  the  face; 

'*  'What  should  you  do  if  a  woman 
^ere  to  tell  you  that  she  was  in  love 
with  youf^' 

*'  'TJpon  my  word,'  I  replied,  very 
much  at  a  loss  for  an  answer,  I  can- 
not imagine  S'jch  a  case;  bat  it  would 
very  much  depend  upon  the  woman.* 

"She  gave  a  hard,  nervous,  vibrating 
laugh;  one  of  those  false  laughs  which 
seem  as  if  they  would  break  thin  glasses, 
and  then  she  added:  'Men  are  never 
venturesome  or  acute.'  And  after  a 
moment's  silence.,  she  continued:  'Have 
you  ever  been  in  love,  Monsieur  Paul?' 
I  was  obliged  to  acknov/ledge  that  I 
certainly  had  been,  and  she  asked  me 
to  tell  her  all  about  it,  whereupon  I 
made  up  some  story  or  other.  She 
listened  to  me  attentively  with  frequent 
signs  of  approbation  or  contempt,  and 
then  suddenly  she  said : 

"  *No,  you  understand  nothing  about 
the  subject.  It  seems  to  me  that  real 
love  must  unsettle  the  mind,  upset  the 
nerves,  and  distract  the  head;  that  it 
must — how  shall  I  express  it? — be 
dangerous,  even  terrible,  almost  criminal 
and  sacrilegious;  that  it  must  be  a 
kind  of  treason;  I  mean  to  say  that  it 
is  almost  bound  to  break  laws,  fraternal 
bonds,  sacred  obstacles;  when  love  is 
tranquil,  easy,  lawful,  and  without 
danger,  is  it  really  love?' 

"T  did  not  know  what  answer  to 
give  her,  and  this  philosophical  reflec- 
tion occurred  to  me :  *0h !  female  brain, 
here  indeed  you  show  yourself!' 

"While  speaking,  she  had  assumed 
a  demure,  saintly  air:  and  resting  on 
the  cushions,  she  str^.tched  herself  out 
at   full   length,  with   her  head   on  my 


shoulders  and  her  dress  pulled  up  a 
little,  so  as  to  show  her  red  silk  stock- 
ings, which  looked  still  brighter  in  the 
firelight.  In  a  minute  or  two  she  con- 
tinued : 

"  *I  suppose  I  have  frightened  you?** 
1  protested  against  such  a  notion,  and 
she  leaned  against  my  breast  altogether, 
and  without  looking  at  me  she  said: 
*If  I  were  to  tell  you  that  I  love  you, 
what  would  you  do?* 

"And  before  •!  could  think  of  an 
answer,  she  had  thrown  her  arms  round 
my  neck,  had  quickly  drawn  m^y  head 
down  and  put  her  lips  to  mine. 

"My  dear  friend,  I  can  teli  you  that 
I  did  not  feel  at  all  happy!  What!  de- 
ceive Julien? — become  the  lover  of  this 
little,  silly,  v/rong-headed,  cunning 
woman,  who  was  no  doubt  terribly 
sensual,  and  for  whom,  her  husband 
was  already  not  sufficient!  To  be- 
tray him  continually,  to  deceive  him, 
to  play  at  being  in  love  merely  be- 
cause 1  was  attracted  by  forbidden 
fruit,  danger  incurred  and  friendship 
betrayed!  No,  that  did  not  suit  me, 
but  what  was  I  to  do?  To  imitate 
Joseph  would  be  acting  a  very  stupid 
and,  moreover,  difficult  part,  for  this 
woman  was  maddening  in  her  perfidy, 
inflamed  by  audacity,  palpitating,  and 
excited.  Let  the  man  who  has  never 
felt  on  his  lips  the  warm  kiss  of  a 
woman  who  is  ready  to  give  herself  to 
him  throw  the  first  stone  at  me ! 

"Well,  a  minute  more — ^you  under- 
stand what  I  mean?  A  minute  more  and 
— I  should  have  been — no,  she  would 
would  have  been — when  a  loud  noise 
made  us  both  jump  up.  The  log  had 
fallen  into  the  room,  knocking  over 
the  fire-irons  ami  the  fender,  and  was 


DELlXA 


619 


scorching  the  carpet,  having  rolled  under 
an  armchair. 

"I  jumped  up  like  a  madman,  and  as 
I  was  replacing  the  log  on  the  fire,  the 
door  opened  hastily,  and  JuHen  came  in. 

"  *I  have  done,'  he  said,  in  evident 
pleasure.  "The  business  was  over  two 
hours  sooner  than  I  expected!* 

"Yes,  my  dear  friend,  without  that 
log,  I  should  have  been  caught  in  the 
very  act,  and  you  know  what  the  conse- 
quences would  have  been! 


*'You  may  be  sure  that  I  tbot  good 
care  never  to  be  overtaken  in  a  similar 
situation  again;  never,  never.  Soon 
afterward  I  saw  Julien  was  giving  me 
the  'cold  shoulder,'  as  they  say.  His 
wife  was  evidently  undermining  our 
friendship;  by  degrees  he  got  rid  of 
me,  and  we  have  altogether  ceased  to 
meet. 

"That  is  why  I  have  not  got  married; 
it  ought  not  to  surprise  you,  '/  think.*^ 


Delila 


In  a  former  reminiscence,  we  made 
the  acquaintance  of  a  lady  who  had 
done  the  police  many  services  in  former 
years,  and  whom  we  called  Wanda  von 
Chabert.  It  is  no  exaggeration,  if  we 
say  that  she  was  at  the  same  time  the 
cleverest,  the  most  charming,  and  the 
most  selfish  woman  one  could  possibly 
meet.  She  was  certainly  not  exactly 
what  is  called  beautiful,  for  neither 
her  face  nor  her  figure  were  sym- 
metrical enough  for  that,  but  if  her  head 
was  not  beautiful  in  the  style  of  the 
antique,  neither  like  the  "Venus"  of 
Milo  nor  Ludovisi's  "Juno,"  it  was,  on 
the  other  hand,  in  the  highest  sense 
delightful,  like  the  ladies  whom  Wat- 
teau  and  Mignard  painted.  Everything 
in  her  little  face,  framed  by  soft  brown 
hair,  was  attractive  and  seductive;  her 
low,  Grecian  forehead,  her  bright,  al- 
mond-shaped eyes,  her  small  nose,  her 
full  voluptuous  lips,  her  middling 
height,  and  her  small  waist  with  its,  per- 
haps, almost  too  full  bust,  and  above 


all  her  walk,  that  half  indolent,  half 
coquettish  swaying  of  her  hips,  were 
all  maddeningly  alluring. 

And  this  woman,  who  was  born  for 
love,  was  as  eager  for  pleasure  and  as 
amorous  as  few  other  women  have  ever 
been.  For  that  very  reason  she  never 
ran  any  danger  of  allowing  her  victims 
to  escape  from  her  pity.  On  the  con- 
trary, she  soon  grew  tired  of  each  of  her 
favorites,  and  her  connection  with  the 
pohce  was  then  extremely  useful  to 
her,  in  getting  rid  of  an  inconvenient  or 
jealous  lover. 

Before  the  war  between  Austria  and 
Italy  in  1859,  Frau  von  Chabert  was 
in  London,  where  she  lived  alone  in  a 
small,  one-storied  house  with  her  ser- 
vants, in  constant  communication  with 
emigrants  from  all  countries. 

She  herself  was  thought  to  be  a 
Polish  refugee,  and  the  luxury  by  which 
she  was  surrounded,  and  her  fondness 
for  sport,  and  above  all  for  horses, 
which  was  remarkable  even  in  England, 


620 


WORKS  or  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


made  people  give  her  the  title  of 
Countess.       At     that     period     Count 

T was  one  of  the  most  prominent 

members  of  the  Hungarian  propaganda, 
and  Frau  von  Chabert  was  commis- 
sioned to  pay  particular  attention  to  all 
he  said  and  did.  But  in  spite  of  all  the 
trouble  she  took,  she  had  not  hitherto 
even  succeeded  in  making  his  acquain- 
tance. Ha  lived  the  life  of  a  mis- 
anthrope, quite  apart  from  the  great 
Locial  stream  of  London,  and  he  was 
not  believed  to  be  either  gallant,  or 
ardent  in  love.  Fellow-countrymen  of 
his,  who  had  known  him  during  the 
Magyar  revolution,  described  him  as 
very  cautious,  cold,  and  silent,  so  that 
if  any  man  possessed  a  charm  against 
the  toils  which  she  set  for  him,  it  was 
he. 

Just  then  it  happened  that  as  Wanda 
was  riding  in  Hyde  Park  quite  early  one 
morning  before  there  were  many 
people  about,  her  thoroughbred  English 
mare  took  fright,  and  threatened  to 
throw  the  plucky  rider,  who  did  not 
for  a  moment  lose  her  presence  of  mind, 
from  the  saddle.  Pefore  hei  groom  had 
time  to  come  to  ^icr  assistance,  a  man 
in  a  Hungarian  briided  coat  rushed  from 
the  path,  and  caught  hold  of  the 
animal's  reins.  When  the  mare  had 
grown  quite  o\iet,  he  was  about  to 
go  away  with  a  slight  bow,  but  Frau 
von  Chabert  Jetained  him,  so  that  she 
might  thank  him  and  so  have  the 
leisure  to  ejimine  him  more  closely.  He 
was  neithri  young  nor  handsome,  but 
was  well  made  like  all  Hungarians 
are,  with  an  interesting  and  very  ex- 
pressive face.  He  had  a  sallow  com- 
plexion set  off  by  a  short,  black  full 
beard,    fnd   he  looked   zs   if   he   were 


suffering.  He  fixeo  two,  great,  black 
fanatical  eyes  on  the  beautiful  young 
woman  who  was  smiling  at  him  so 
amiably,  and  it  aroused  in  the  soul  of 
the  excitable  woman  that  violent  but 
passing  feeling  which  she  called  love. 
She  turned  her  horse  and  accompanied 
the  stranger  at  a  walk,  and  he  seemed 
to  be  even  more  charmed  by  her  chat- 
ter than  by  her  appearance,  for  his 
grave  face  grew  more  and  more  ani- 
mated, and  at  last  he  himself  became 
quite  friendly  and  talkative.  W  len  he 
took  leave  of  her,  Wanda  gave  him  her 
card,  on  the  back  of  which  her  ad- 
dress was  written,  and  he  immediately 
gave  her  his  in  return. 

She  thanked  him  and  rode  off,  look- 
ing at  his  name  as  she  did  so;  it  was 
Count  T . 

She  felt  inclined  to  give  a  shout 
of  pleasure  when  .*-!>e  found  that  the 
noble  quarry  she  had  been  hunting 
so  long  had  at  last  come  into  her  toils 
But  she  did  not  even  turn  her  head 
round  to  look  at  him,  such  was  the  com- 
mand which  that  woman  had  over  her- 
self and  her  movements. 

Count  T called  upon  her  the  very 

next  day;  soon  he  came  every  day, 
and  in  less  than  a  month  after  that  in- 
nocent adventure  in  Hyde  Park,  he  was 
at  her  feet;  for  when  Frau  von  Chabert 
made  up  her  mind  to  be  loved,  no- 
body was  able  to  withstand  her.  She 
became  the  Count's  confidant  almost 
as  speedily  as  she  had  become  hia  mis- 
tress, and  every  day  and  almost  every 
hour  she,  with  the  most  delicate  co- 
quetry, laid  fresh  fetters  on  the  Hun- 
garian Samson.    Did  she  love  him? 

Certainly  she  did,  after  her  own 
fashion,  and  at   first  she  had  not  the 


DELILA 


621 


remotest  idea  of  betraying  him;  she 
even  succeeded  in  completely  conceal- 
ing her  connection  with  him,  not  only 
in  London  but  also  in  Vienna. 

Then  the  war  of  1859  broke  out,  and 
Jike  most  Hungarian  and  Polish  refu- 
gees, Count  T hurried  off  to  Italy, 

in  order  to  place  himself  at  the  dis- 
posal of  that  great  and  patriotic  Pied- 
montese  statesn:>an,  Cavour. 

Wanda  went  with  him,  and  took  the 
greatest  interest  in  his  revolutionary 
intrigues  in  Turin;  for  some  time  she 
seemed  to  be  his  right  hand,  and  it 
looked  as  if  she  had  become  unfaith- 
ful to  her  present  patrons.  Through 
his  means,  she  soon  became  on  intimate 
terms  with  the  Piedmontese  govern- 
ment circles,  and  that  was  his  destruc- 
tion. 

A  young  Italian  diplomatist,  who 
frequently      negotiated      with      Count 

T ,  or  in  his  absence,  with  Wanda, 

fell  madly  in  love  with  the  charming 
Polish  woman.  Wanda,  who  was  never 
cruel,  more  especially  when  she  her- 
self had  caught  fire,  allowed  herself 
to  be  conquered  by  the  handsonie,  in- 
tellectual, daring  man.  In  measure  as 
her  passion   for  the   Italian   increased, 

\  so  her  feeling  for  Count  T declined, 

\  till  at  last  she  felt  that  her  connection 
[  with  him  was  nothing  but  a  hindrance 
and  a  burden.  As  soon  as  Wanda 
had  reached  that  point,  her  adored 
was  as  good  as  lost. 

Count  T was  not  a  man  whom 

she  could  just  cooly  dismiss,  cr  with 
whom  she  might  venture  to  trifle,  and 
this  she  knew  perfectly  well.  So  in 
order  to  avoid  a  catastrophe,  the  con- 
sequences of  which  m'ght  be  incal- 
culable for  her.  she  did  not  let  him  notice 


the  change  in  her  feelings  toward  him 
at  first,  and  kept  the  Italian,  who  be- 
longed  to  her,   at  proper  distance. 

When  peace  had  been  concluded,  and 
the  great,  peaceful  revolution  which 
found  its  provisional  settlement  in  the 
Constitution  of  February,  and  in  the 
Hungarian  agreement,  began  in  Austria, 
the  Hungarian   refugees   determined  to 

send    Count   T to    Hungary,    that 

he  might  assume  the  direction  of  af- 
fairs tnere.  But  as  he  was  still  an 
outlaw,  and  as  the  death  sentence  of 
Arad  hung  over  his  head  like  the  sword 
of  Damocles,  he  consulted  with  Wanda 
about  the  ways  and  means  of  reaching 
his  fatherland  unharmed  anc!  of  re- 
maining there  undiscovered.  Although 
that  clever  woman  though',  of  a  plan 
immediately,     yet     she     told      Count 

T that  she  would  think  the  matter 

over.  She  did  not  bring  forward  her 
proposition  for  a  fev/  days,  but  when 
she  did,  it  v/av'  received  by  the  Couift 
and  his  friends  with  the  highest  ap- 
proval, and  was  immediately  carried 
into  execution.  Frau  von  Chabert  went 
to  Vienna  as  Marchioness  Spinola,  and 

Count  T accomp-^nied   her  as  her 

footman;  he  had  cut  his  hair  short  and 
shaved  off  liis  beard,  so  that  in  his 
livery,  he  was  quite  imrecognizable. 
They  passed  the  frontier  in  safety,  and 
reached  Vienna  without  any  interference 
from  the  authorities.  There  they  first 
of  all  went  to  a  small  hotel,  but  soon 
triClc  a  small  handsome  liat  in  the  center 

of  the  town.    Count  T immediately 

hunted  up  some  members  of  his  party, 
who  had  been  in  constant  communica- 
tion with  the  emigrants  since  Vilagos, 
and  the  conspiracy  wis  soon  in  excel- 
lent train.     Wsrda  spent  her  t'me  with 


622 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


a  hussar  officer,  without,  however, 
losing  sight  of  her  lover  and  his 
dangerous  activity  for  a  moment,  on 
that  account. 

And  at  last,  when  the  fruit  was  ripe 
for  falling  into  her  lap,  she  was  sitting 
in  the  private  room  of  the  Minister  of 
Police,  opposite  to  the  man  with  whom 
she  was  going  to  make  the  evil  com- 
pact. 

"The  emigrants  must  be  very  uneasy 
and  disheartened  at  an  agreement  with, 
and  reconciliation  to,  Hungary,"  he  be- 
gan. 

"Do  not  deceive  yourself,"  Frau  von 
Chabert  replied;  "nothing  is  more 
dangerous  in  politics  than  optimism,  and 
the  influence  of  the  revolutionary  prop- 
aganda was  never  greater  than  it  is 
at  present.  Do  not  hope  to  conciliate 
the  Magyars  by  half  concessions,  and 
above  all  things,  do  not  underestimate 
the  movement  which  is  being  organized 
openly,  in  broad  daylight." 

"You  are  afraid  of  a  revolution?'* 

**I  know  that  they  are  preparing  for 
one,  and  that  they  expect  everything 
from  that  alone."' 

The  skeptical  man  smiled, 

"Give  me  something  beside?  vjfiws 
and  opinions,  and  then  I  will    )«='Iieve/' 

"I  will  give  you  the  proof,'  Wanda 
said,  "but  before  I  do  you  the  greatest 
service  that  lies  in  my  power,  I  must 
be  sure  that  I  shall  be  rewarded  for 
all  my  skill  and  trouble." 

"Can  you  doubt  it?" 

"I  will  be  open  with  you,"  Wanda 
continued.  "During  the  insurrectionary 
war  in  Transylvania,  Urban  had  ex- 
cellent spies,  but  they  have  not  been 
paid  to  this  day.    I  want  monev." 

"How  much?'* 


With  inimitable  ease,  the  beautiful 
woman  mentioned  a  considerable  sum. 
The  skeptical  man  got  up  to  give  a  few 
orders,  and  a  short  time  afterward  the 
money  was  in  Wanda's  hands. 

"Well?" 

"The  emigrants  have  sent  one  of 
their  most  influential  and  talented  mem- 
bers to  organize  the  revolution  in 
Hungary." 

"Have   they   sent  him  already?" 

"More   than   that:    Count   T is 

in  Vienna  at  this  moment." 

"Do  you  know  where  he  is  hiding?" 

"Yes." 

"And  you  are  sure  that  you  are  not 
mistaken?" 

"I  am  most  assuredly  not  mistaken," 
she    replied    with    a    frivolous    laugh; 

"Count  T ,  who  was  my  admirer  in 

London  and  Turin,  is  here  in  my  house, 
as  my  footman." 

An  hour  later,  the  Count  was  ar- 
rested. But  Wanda  only  wished  to 
get  rid  of  her  tiresome  adorer,  and  not 
to  destroy  him.  She  had  been  on  the 
most  intimate  terms  with  him,  an(f 
had  taken  part  in  his  political  plans 
and  intrigues  long  enough  to  be  able 
to  give  the  most  reliable  information 
about  him  personally,  as  well  as  about 
his  intentions.  That  information  was 
of  such  kind  that,  in  spite  of  the  past, 
and  of  the  Count's  revolutionary  stand- 
point, they  thought  they  had  in  him 
the  man  who  was  capable  of  bringing 
about  a  real  reconciliation  between  the 
monarch  and  his  people.  In  conse- 
quence   of    this.    Count    T ,    who 

thought  that  he  had  incurred  the  gal- 
lows, stood  in  the  Emperor's  presence, 
and  the  manner  In  which  the  latter  ex- 
\»!:esseQ  his  generous  intentions  with  re? 


THE    ILL-OMENED    GROOM 


62s 


gard  to  Hungary  carried  the  old  rebel 
away,  and  he  gave  him  his  word  of 
honor  that  he  would  bring  the  nation 
back  to  him,  reconciled.  And  he  kept 
his  word,  although,  perhaps,  not  exactly 
in  the  sense  in  which  he  gave  it. 

He  was  allowed  full  liberty  in  going 
to  Hungary,  and  Wanda  accompanied 
him.  He  had  no  suspicion  that  even 
in  his  mistress's  arms  he  was  under 
police  supervision,  and  from  the  mo- 
ment when  he  made  his  appearance  in 
his  native  land  officially,  as  the  in- 
termediary between  the  crown  and  the 
people,  she  had  a  fresh  interest  in  bind- 
ing a  man  of  such  importance,  whom 
everybody  regarded  as  Hungary's  fu- 
ture  Minister-President,   to  herself. 

He  began  to  negotiate,  and  at  first 
everything  went  well.  But  soon  the 
yielding  temper  of  the  government  gave 
rise  continually  to  fresh  demands.  Be- 
fore long,  what  one  side  offered  and 
what  the  other  side  demanded  were  so 
far    apart    that    no    immediate    agree- 


ment could  be  thought  of.  The  Count*s 
position  grew  more  painful  every  day; 
he  had  pledged  himself  too  deeply  to 
both  sides,  and  in  vain  he  sought  for 
a  way  out  of  the  difficulty. 

Then  one  day  the  Minister  of  Police 
unexpectedly  received  a  letter  from 
Wanda,  in  which  she  told  him  that 
Count  T ,  urged  on  by  his  fellow- 
countrymen,  and  branded  as  a  traitor 
by  the  emigrants,  was  on  the  point  of 
heading  a  fresh  conspiracy. 

Thereupon,  the  government  energet- 
ically reminded  that  thoroughly  honest 
and  noble  man  of  his  word  of  honor, 

and   Count    T ,   who    saw   that   he 

was  unable  to  keep  it,  ended  his  life 
by  a  pistol  bullet. 

Frau  von  Chabert  left  Hungary  im- 
mediately after  the  sad  catastrophe, 
and  went  to  Turin,  where  new  lovers, 
new  splendors,  and  new  laurels  awaited 
her. 

We  may,  perhaps,  hear  more  of  her 


The  Ill-omened  Groom 


An  impudent  theft,  to  a  very  large 
amount,  had  been  committed  in  the 
Capital.  Jewels,  a  valuable  watch  set 
with  diamonds,  a  miniature  in  a  frame 
studded  with  brilliants,  and  a  consider- 
able sum  in  money,  the  whole  amounting 
in  value  to  a  hundred  and  fifteen 
thousand  florins,*  had  been  stolen.  The 
banker  himself  went  to  the  Director  of 
Police,!  to  give  notice  of  the  robberies, 
but  at  i^  1  same  time  begged  as  a  spe- 
cial favor,  that  the  investigation  might 


be  carried  on  as  quietly  and  considerately 
as  possible,  as  he  declared  that  he  had 
not  the  slightest  ground  for  suspect- 
ing anybody  in  particular,  and  did 
not  wish  any  innocent  person  to  be 
accused. 

'First  of  all,  give  me  the  names  of 
all  the  persons  who  regularly  go  into 
your  bedroom,"  the  Police-director  said 


*About  $57,500. 

tHead   of   the   Criminal  Investxgatioi? 
Decariment. — Editor. 


624 


WCrvKG  OF  GU\"  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"Nobody,  except  my  wife,  my  chil- 
dren, and  Joseph,  my  valet;  a  man  for 
whom  I  would  answer,  as  I  would  for 
myself." 

"Then  you  think  him  absolutely  in- 
capable  of   committing   such  a   deed?" 

•'Most  decidedly  I  do,"  the  banket 
replied. 

"Very  well,  then.  Now,  can  you  re- 
member whether  on  the  day  on  which 
you  hrst  missed  the  articles  that  have 
been  stolen,  or  an  ^ny  day  immediately 
preceding  it,  anybody  who  was  not  a 
member  of  your  household  happened 
iy  chance  to  go  to  your  bedroom?'* 

The  banker  taought  for  a  moment, 
and  then  said  with  some  hesitation: 

"Nobody,  absolutely  nobody." 

The  .-experienced  official,  however, 
was,  struck  by  the  banker's  slight  em- 
barrassment and  momentary  blush.  So 
he  took  his  hand,  and  looking  him 
straight  in  the  face,  he  said: 

"You  are  not  quite  candid  with  me; 
somebody  was  with  you,  and  you  wish 
to  conceal  the  fact  from  me.  You 
must  tell  me  everything." 

"Nu,  no;  indeed  there  was  nobody 
here/' 

"Then  at  present  there  is  only  one 
person  on  whom  any  suspicion  can 
rest — and  that  is  your  valet." 

"I  will  vouch  for  his  honesty,"  the 
banker  replied  immediately. 

"You  may  be  mistaken,  and  I  shall 
be  obliged  to  question  the  man." 

"May  I  beg  you  to  do  it  with  every 
possible    consideration?" 

"You  may  rely  upon  me  for  that." 

An  hour  later,  the  banker's  valet  was 

in    the   Police-director's   private    room. 

The   latter   first   of    all   looked   at   his 

man  very  closely,  and  then  came  to  the 


conclusion  that  such  an  honest,  unem* 
barrassed  face  and  such  quiet,  steady 
eyes  could  not  possibly  belong  to  a 
criminal. 

"Do  you  know  why  I  have  sent  for 
you?" 

"No,  your  Honor." 

"A  large  theft  nas  been  committed 
in  your  master's  house,"  the  Police- 
director  continued,  "from  his  bedroom. 
Do  you  suspect  anybody?  Who  has 
been  into  the  room  within  the  last  few 
days?" 

"Nobody  but  myself,  except  my 
master's  family." 

"Do  you  not  see,  my  good  fellow, 
that  by  saying  that,  you  throw  sus- 
picion on  yourself?" 

"Surely,  sir,"  the  valet  exclaimed, 
"you  do  not  believe — " 

"I  must  not  believe  anything;  my 
duty  is  merely  to  investigate  and  to 
follow  up  any  traces  that  I  may  dis- 
cover," was  the  reply.  "If  you  have 
been  the  only  person  to  go  into  the 
room  within  the  last  few  days,  I  must 
hold  you  responsible." 

"My  master  knows  mc — " 

The  Police-director  shrugged  his 
shoulders.  "Your  master  has  vouched 
for  your  honesty,  but  that  is  not  enough 
for  me.  You  are  the  on!y  person  on 
v/hom,  at  present,  any  suspicion  restS; 
and  therefore  I  must — sorry  as  I  am  to 
l!o  so — have  you  arrested." 

"If  that  is  so,"  the  man  said,  after 
some  hesitation,  "I  prefer  to  speak  the 
truth,  for  my  good  name  ir  more  to  me 
than  my  situation.  Somebody  was  in 
my  master's  apartments  yesterday," 

"And  this  somebody  was — ?" 

"A  lady." 

"A  lady  of  his  acquaintance?" 


THE   ILL-OMENED   GROOM 


625 


The  valet  did  not  reply  for  some 
time. 

"It  must  come  out,"  he  said  at  length. 
*'My  master  has  a  mistress — you 
understand,  sir,  a  blond,  beautiful 
woman.  He  ^as  furnished  a  house  for 
her  and  goes  to  see  he-,  but  secretly 
of  course,  for  if  my  mistress  were  to 
find  it  out,  there  would  be  a  terrible 
scene.  This  person  was  with  him  yes- 
terday." 

"Were  they  alone?" 

'T  showed  her  in,  and  she  was  in  his 
bedroom  with  him ;  but  I  had  to  call  him 
out  after  a  short  time,  as  his  confidential 
clerk  wanted  to  speak  to  him,  and  so  she 
was  in  the  room  alone  for  about  a 
quarter  of  an  hour." 

"What  is  her  name?" 

"Caecilia  K ,  she  is  a  Hungarian." 

At  the  same  time,  the  valet  gave  him 
her  address. 

Then  the  Director  of  Polxe  sent  for 
the  banker,  who,  on  being  brought  face 
to  face  with  his  valet,  was  obliged  to 
acknowledge  the  truth  of  the  facts  which 
the  latter  had  alleged,  painful  as  it  was 
for  him  to  do  so ;  whereupon  orders  were 
given  to  take  Caecilia  K into  cus- 
tody. 

In  less  than  half  an  hour,  however, 
the  police  officer  who  had  been  dis- 
patched for  that  purpose  returned  and 
said  that  she  had  Isft  her  apartments, 
and  most  likely  the  Capital  also,  the 
previous  evening.  The  unfortunate 
banker  was  almost  in  despair.  Not  only 
had  he  been  robbed  of  a  hundred  and 
fifteen  thousand  florins,  but  at  the  same 
time  he  had  lost  the  beautiful  woman 
whom  he  loved  with  all  the  passion  of 
which  he  was  capable.  He  could  not 
grasp  the  idea  that  a  woman  whom  he 


had  surrounded  with  Asiatic  luxury, 
whose  strangest  whims  he  nad  gratified, 
and  whose  tyranny  he  had  borne  so 
patiently,  could  have  deceived  him  so 
shamefully.  And  now  he  had  a  quarrel 
with  his  wife,  and  an  end  of  all  domestic 
peace,  into  the  bargain. 

The  only  thin^^  the  police  could  do 
was  to  raise  a  hue  and  cry  after  the 
lady,  who  had  denounced  herself  by  her 
fligut,  but  it  was  all  of  no  use.  In 
vain  did  the  banker,  in  whose  heart 
hatred  and  thirst  for  revenge  had  taken 
the  place  of  love,  implore  the  Director 
of  Police  to  employ  every  means  to 
bring  the  beautiful  criminal  to  justice, 
and  in  vain  did  he  undertake  to  be  re- 
sponsible for  all  the  costs  of  her  prose- 
cution, no  matter  how  heavy  they  might 
be.  Special  police  officers  were  told  off 
to  try  and  discover  her,  but  Caecilia 
K was  so  rude  as  not  to  allow  her- 
self to  be  caught. 

Three  years  had  passed,  and  the  un- 
pleasant story  appeared  to  have  beeu 
forgotten.  The  banker  had  obtained 
his  wife's  pardon  and — ^what  he  cared 
about  a  good  deal  more — had  found 
another  charming  mistress,  and  the  po- 
lice did  not  appear  to  trouble  them- 
selves about  the  beautiful  Hungarian 
any  more. 

We  must  now  changv^j  the  scene  to 
London.  A  wealthy  lady  who  created 
much  sensation  in  society,  and  who  made 
many  conquests  bo::h  by  her  beauty  and 
her  free  behavior,  was  in  want  of  a 
groom.  Among  the  many  applicants  for 
the  situation  there  was  a  young  man, 
whose  good  looks  and  manners  gave  peo- 
ple the  impression  that  he  must  have 
been  very  well  educated.  This  was  3 
recommendation  in  the  eyes  of  the  Iady*3 


626 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


maid,  and  she  took  him  immediately  to 
her  mistress's  boudoir.  When  he  entered 
he  saw  a  beautiful,  voluptuous  looking 
woman  of  at  most,  twenty-five  years  of 
jige,  with  large,  bright  eyes,  and  with 
blue-black  hair  which  seemed  to  in- 
crease the  brilliancy  of  her  fair  com- 
plexion, lying  on  a  sofa.  She  looked 
at  the  young  man,  who  also  had  thick, 
black  hair.  He  turned  his  glowing 
black  eyes  to  the  floor,  beneath  her 
searching  gaze,  with  evident  satisfaction, 
and  she  seemed  particularly  taken  with 
his  slender,  athletic  build.  Then  she 
said  half  lazily  and  half  proudly: 

"What  is  your  name?" 

"Lajos  Mariassi." 

"A  Hungarian?" 

And  there  was  a  strange  look  in  her 
eyes. 

"Yes." 

"How  did  you  come  here?" 

"I  am  one  of  the  many  emigrants  who 
have  forfeited  their  country  and  their 
life.  I,  who  come  of  a  good  family, 
and  who  was  an  officer  of  the  Honveds, 
must  now  go  into  service,  and  thank 
God  if  I  find  a  mistress  who  is  at  the 
same  time  beautiful  and  an  aristocrat, 
as  you  are." 

Miss  Zoe — that  was  the  lovely  wo- 
man's name — smiled,  and  at  the  same 
time  showed  two  rows  of  pearly  teeth. 

"I  like  your  looks,"  she  said,  "and 
I  feel  inclined  to  take  you  into  my 
service  if  you  are  satisfied  with  my 
terms." 

"A  lady's  whim,"  said  the  maid  to 
herself,  when  she  noticed  the  ardent 
looks  which  Miss  Zoe  gave  her  man- 
servant; "it  will  soon  pass  away."  But 
that  experienced  female  was  mistaken 
that  time 


Zoe  was  really  in  love,  and  the  re- 
spect with  which  Lajos  treated  her  put 
her  into  a  very  bad  temper.  One  eve- 
ning, when  she  intended  to  go  to  the 
Italian  Opera,  she  countermanded  her 
carriage,  refused  to  see  the  noble  adorer 
who  wished  t'>  throw  himself  at  her 
feet,  and  ordered  her  groom  to  be  sent 
up  to  her  boudoir. 

"Lajos,"  she  began,  "I  am  not  at  all 
satisfied  with  you." 

"Why,  Madame?" 

"I  do  not  wish  to  have  you  about  me 
any  longer;  here  are  your  wages  for 
three  months.  Leave  the  house  imme- 
diately." And  she  began  to  walk  up 
and  down  the  room  impatiently. 

"I  will  obey  you,  Madame,"  the 
groom  replied,  "but  I  shall  not  take  my 
wages." 

"Why  not?"  she  asked  hastily. 

"Because  then  I  should  be  under  your 
authority  for  three  months,"  Lajos 
said,  "and  I  intend  to  be  free,  this  very 
moment,  so  that  I  may  be  able  to  tell 
you  that  I  entered  your  service,  not  for 
the  sake  of  your  money,  but  because  I 
love  and  adore  you  as  a  beautiful 
woman." 

"You  love  me!"  Zoe  exclaimed. 
"Why  did  you  not  tell  me  sooner?  I 
merely  wished  to  banish  you  from  my 
presence,  because  I  love  you,  and  did 
not  think  that  you  loved  me.  But  you 
shall  smart  for  having  tormented  me 
so.     Come  to  my  feet  immediately." 

The  groom,  kneeled  before  the  lovely 
creature,  whose  moist  lips  sought  his 
at  the  same  instant. 

From  that  moment  Lajos  became  her 
favorite.  Of  course  he  was  not  allowed 
to  be  jealous,  as  a  young  lord  was  still 
her  ofificial  lover,  and  had  the  pleasure 


THE  ODALISQUE  OF  SENICHOU 


627 


of  paying  for  everything.  Besides, 
there  was  a  whole  army  of  so-called 
"good  friends,"  who  were  fortunate 
enough  to  obtain  a  smile  now  and  then, 
and  occasionally  something  more,  and 
who,  in  return,  had  permission  to  pre- 
sent her  with  rare  flowers  or  diamonds. 

The  more  intimate  Zoe  became  with 
Lajos,  the  more  uncomfortable  she  felt 
when  he  looked  at  her,  as  he  frequently 
did,  with  undisguised  contempt.  She 
was  wholly  under  his  influence  and  was 
afraid  of  him,  and  one  day,  when  he  was 
playing  with  her  dark  curls,  he  said 
jerringly: 

"It  is  said  that  contrasts  usually  at- 
tract each  other,  and  yet  you  are  as  dark 
as  I  am." 

She  smiled,  then  tore  of!  her  t)lack 
curls,  and  immediately  the  most  charm- 
ing, fair-haired  woman  was  sitting  by 
tht  side  of  Lajos,  who  iook'^d  at  her  at- 
tentively, but  without  any  surprise. 

He  left  his  mistress  at  about  mid- 
night, in  order  to  look  after  the  horses, 


as  he  said,  and  she  put  on  a  very  pretty 
nightdress  and  went  to  bed.  She  re- 
mained awake  for  fully  an  hour,  ex- 
pecting her  lover,  and  then  she  went  to 
sleep.  But  in  two  hours'  time  she  was 
roused  from  her  slumbers,  and  saw  a 
Police  Inspector  and  two  constables  by 
the  side  of  her  magnificent  bed. 

"Whom  do  you  want?"  she  cried. 

"Caecila  K .'*• 

"I  am  Miss  Zoe." 

"Oh!  I  know  you,"  the  Inspector| 
said  with  a  smile;  "be  kind  enough  tc] 
take  off  your  dark  locks,  and  you  wiir 

be  Cae cilia  K .    I  arrest  you,  in  th^ 

name  of  the  law." 

"Good  heavens!"  she  stammered, 
"Lajos  has  betrayed  me. ' 

"You  are  mistaken,  Madame,'  the  In- 
spector replied ;  "he  has  merely  done  his 
auty/' 

"What?    Lajos— my  lover?" 

"No,  Lajos,  the  detective." 

Cflecilia  got  out  of  bed;  and  the  next 
moment  sank  famting  on  :c  thfc  floor. 


The  Odalisque  of  Senkhou 


In  Senichou,  which  is  a  suburb  of 
Prague,  there  lived  about  twenty  years 
ago  two  poor  but  honest  people,  who 
earned  their  bread  by  the  sweat  of  their 
brow.  The  man  worked  in  a  large  print- 
ing establishment,  and  his  wife  employed 
her  spare  time  as  a  laundress.  Their 
pride  and  their  only  pleasure  was  their 
daughter  Viteska,  a  vigorous,  voluptuous, 
handsome  girl  of  eighteen,  whom  they 
brought  up  very  well  and  carefully.  She 
worked  as  a  dressmaker,  and  was  thus 


able  to  help  her  parents  a  little.  She 
made  use  of  her  leisure  moments  to  im- 
prove her  education,  and  especially  her 
music,  was  a  general  favorite  iu  the 
neighborhood  on  account  of  her  quiet 
and  modest  demeanor,  and  was  looked 
upon  as  a  model  by  the  whole  suburb. 

When  she  went  to  work  in  town,  the 
tall  girl,  with  her  magnificent  head — 
which  resembled  that  of  an  ancient 
Amazon  in  its  wealth  of  black  hair— 
and  dark,  sparkling  yet  liquid  eyes,  at* 


(528 


W0RK3  0?  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


tfftcted  the  looks  cf  passers-by,  in  spite 
of  her  shabby  dress,  much  more  than 
the  graceful,  well-dressed  ladies  of  the 
aristocracy.  Frequently  some  wealthy 
young  lounger  would  follow  her  home; 
find  even  try  to  get  into  conversation 
with  her,  but  she  always  managed  to  get 
rid  of  them  and  their  importunities. 
She  did  not  require  any  protector,  for 
fihe  was  qr.ite  capable  of  protecting  her- 
self from  any  insults. 

One  evening,  however,  she  met  a  man 
on  the  suspension  bridge  whose  strange 
appearance  drew  from  her  a  look  which 
evinced  some  interest,  but  perhaps  even 
more  surprise.  He  was  a  tall,  handsome 
man  with  bright  eyes  and  a  black  beard', 
was  very  sunburned,  and  in  his  long 
coat — which  was  like  a  caftan — ^with  a 
red  fez  on  his  head,  he  gave  those  who 
saw  him  the  impression  of  an  Oriental. 
He  had  noticed  her  look  all  the  more 
as  he  himself  had  been  struck  by  her 
poor,  and  at  the  same  time  regal,  ap- 
pearance. He  remained  standin;^  and 
locking  at  her  in  such  a  way  that  he 
seemed  to  be  devouring  her  with  his 
eyes,  and  Viteska,  who  was  usually  so 
fearless,  looked  down.  She  hurried  on 
and  he  followed  her;  the  quicker  she 
walked,  the  more  rapidly  he  followed 
her,  and,  at  last,  when  they  were  in  a 
narrow,  dark  street  in  the  suburb,  he 
suddenly  said  in  an  insinuating  voice: 

**May  I  offer  you  my  arm,  my  pretty 
girl:"' 

"Vou  can  see  that  I  am  old  enough 
to  look  after  myself,"  Viteska  replied 
hartily;  "I  am  much  obliged  to  you,  and 
mnst  beg  you  not  to  follow  me  any 
m'jre;  I  am  known  in  this  neighborhood, 
Wid  it  might  damage  my  reputation.*' 

"Oh!     You  are  very  much,  njistaken 


if  you  think  you  will  get  rid  of  me  so 
easily,"  he  replied.  "I  have  just  come 
from  the  East  and  am  returnmg  there 
soon.  Come  with  me,  and  as  I  fancy 
that  you  are  as  sensible  as  you  are 
beautiful,  you  will  certainly  make  your 
fortune  there.  I  will  bet  that  before 
the  end  of  a  year,  you  will  be  covered 
with  diamonds  and  be  waited  on  by 
eunuchs  and  female  slaves." 

"I  am  a  respectable  girl,  sir,"  she  re- 
plied proudly,  and  tried  to  go  on  in 
front,  but  lh3  stranger  was  immediately 
at  her  side  again 

"You  were  born  to  rule,"  he  whispered 
to  her.  "Believe  me,  and  I  understand 
the  matter,  that  you  will  live  to  be  a 
Sultaness,  if  you  have  any  luck." 

The  girl  did  not  give  him  any  an- 
swer, but  walked  on. 

"But,  at  any  r?te,  listen  to  me,"  the 
tempter  continued. 

"I  will  not  listen  to  anything;  be- 
cause I  am  poor,  you  think  it  will  be 
easy  for  you  to  seduce  m?,"'  Viteska 
exclaimed;  "but  I  am  as  v'rtuous  as  X 
am  poor,  and  I  should  despise  any  posi- 
tion which  I  had  to  buy  with  my 
shame." 

They  had  reached  the  little  house 
where  her  parents  lived,  and  she  ran  in 
quickly  and  slammed  the  doer  behind 
her. 

When  she  went  into  the  town  the 
next  morning,  the  stranger  was  waiting 
at  the  corner  of  the  street  where  she 
lived,  and  bowed  to  her  very  respect- 
fully. 

"Allow  me  to  speak  a  few  words  with 
vou,"  he  began.  "I  feel  that  I  ought 
tv/  oeg  your  pardon  for  my  behavior 
yesterday." 

"Please  let  me  go  on  my  way  quietly/* 


THE  ODALISQUE  OF  SENICHOU 


629 


the  girl  replied.  "What  will  the  neigh- 
bors think  of  me?" 

"I  did  not  know  you,"  he  went  on, 
without  paying  any  attention  to  her 
angry  looks,  "but  your  extraordinary 
beauty  attracted  me.  Now  that  I  know 
that  you  are  as  virtuous  as  you  are 
charming,  I  wish  very  much  to  become 
better  acquainted  with  you.  Believe 
me,  I  have  the  most  honorable  inten- 
tions." 

Unfortunately,  the  bold  stranger  had 
taken  the  girl's  fancy,  and  she  could 
not  find  it  in  her  heart  to  refuse  him. 

**If  you  are  really  in  earnest,"  she 
stammered  in  charming  confusion,  "do 
not  follow  me  about  in  the  public 
streets,  but  come  to  my  parents'  house 
like  a  man  of  honor,  and  state  your  in- 
tentions there." 

"I  will  certainly  do  so,  and  imme- 
diately, if  you  like,"  the  itranger  re- 
plied, eagerly. 

*'No,  no,"  Viteska  said;  "but  come 
this  evening  if  you  like." 

The  stranger  bowed  and  left  her,  and 
really  called  on  her  parents  in  the  eve- 
ning. He  introduced  himself  as"  Ireneus 
Krisapolis,  a  merchant  from  Smyrna, 
spoke  of  his  brilliant  cricumstances,  and 
finally  declared  that  he  loved  Viteska 
passionately. 

*'That  is  all  very  nice  and  right,"  the 
cautious  father  replied,  "but  what  will 
it  all  lead  to?  Under  no  circumstances 
can  I  allow  you  to  visit  my  daughter. 
Such  a  passion  as  yours  often  dies  out 
as  quickly  aa  it  arises,  and  a  respectable 
girl  is  easily  robbed  of  her  virtue." 

"And  suppose  T  make  up  my  mind  to 
marry  your  dausrhter?"  the  stranger 
ask'^H.  after  a  moment^s  hesitation. 

"Then  I  shall  refer  you  to  my  child. 


for  I  shall  never  force  Viteska  to  marry 
against  her  will,"  her  farner  said. 

The  stranger  seized  the  pretty  girl's 
hand,  and  spoke  in  glowing  terms  tl  his 
love  for  her,  of  the  ^uxury  with  which 
she  would  be  surrounded  in  his  house, 
of  the  wonders  of  the  East,  to  which  he 
hoped  to  take  her,  and  at  last  Viteska 
consented  to  become  his  wife.  There- 
upon the  stranger  hurried  on  the  ar- 
rangements for  the  wedding  in  a  manner 
that  made  the  most  favorable  impression 
on  them  all,  and  during  the  time  before 
their  marriage,  he  virtually  lay  at  her 
feet  like  a  humble  slave. 

As  soon  as  they  were  married,  the 
newly-married  couple  set  off  on  their 
journey  to  Smyrna  and  promised  tc 
write  as  soon  as  they  got  there.  Bui  a 
month,  then  two  and  three,  passed  with- 
out the  parents — whose  anxiety  in- 
creased every  day — receiving  a  line  from 
them  until  at  last  the  father  in  terror 
applied  to  the  police. 

The  first  thing  was  to  write  to  the 
Consul  at  Sn-.yma  for  information:  his 
reply  was  to  the  effect  that  no  merchai.-t 
of  the  name  of  Ireneus  Krisapolis  was 
known  in  Smyrna,  and  that  he  had  never 
been  tiiere.  The  police,  at  the  entreaties 
of  the  frantic  parents,  continued  their 
investigations,  but  for  a  long  time  with- 
out any  result.  At  last,  however,  they 
obtained  a  little  light  on  the  subject, 
but  it  was  not  at  all  satisfactory.  The 
police  at  Pesth  said  that  a  man  v;hose 
personal  appearance  exactly  agreed  with 
the  description  of  Viteska's  husband  had 
a  short  time  before  carried  off  two  girls 
from  the  Hungarian  capital  to  Turkey, 
evidently  intending  to  trade  in  that 
coveted,  valuable  commodity  there,  but 
that  when  he  found  that  the  authorities 


630 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


were  on  his  track  he  had  escaped  from 
justice  by  sudden  flight. 


Four  years  after  Viteska's  mysterious 
disappearance,  two  persons,  a  man  and 
a  woman,  met  in  a  narrow  street  in 
Damascus,  in  a  manner  scarcely  less 
strange  than  that  in  which  the  Greek 
merchant  met  Viteska  on  the  suspension 
bridge  in  Prague.  The  man  with  the 
black  beard,  the  red  fez,  and  the  long, 
green  caftan,  was  no  one  else  than 
Ireneus  Krisapolis;  matters  appeared  to 
be  going  well  with  him;  he  had  his 
hands  comfortably  thrust  into  the  red 
shawl  which  he  had  round  his  waist, 
and  a  negro  was  walking  behind  him 
with  a  large  parasol,  v/hile  another  car- 
ried his  chibouque  after  him.  A  noble 
Turkish  lady  met  him  in  a  litter  borne 
by  four  slaves;  she  was  wrapped  like  a 
ghost  in  a  white  veil,  only  that  a  pair 
of  large,  dark,  threatening  eyes  flashed 
Pt  the  merchant. 

He  smiled,  for  he  thought  that  he  had 
found  favor  in  the  eyes  of  an  Eastern 
houri,  and  that  flattered  him.  But  he 
soon  lost  sight  of  her  in  the  crowd,  and 
forgot  her  almost  immediately.  The 
j^ext  morning,  however,  a  eunuch  of  the 
Pasha's  came  to  him,  to  his  no  small 
astonishment,  and  told  him  to  come 
with  him.  He  took  him  to  the  Sultan's 
most  powerful  deputy,  who  ruled  as  an 
absolute  despot  in  Damascus.  They 
went  through  dark,  narrow  passages, 
and  curtains  were  pushed  aside,  which 
rustled  behind  them  again.  At  last  they 
reached  a  large  rotunda,  the  center  of 
which  was  occupied  by  a  beautiful  foun- 
tain, while  scarlet  divans  ran  all  around 
it.    Here  the  eunuch  told  the  merchant 


to  wait,  and  left  him.  He  was  puzzling 
his  brains  as  to  the  meaning  of  it  all, 
when  suddenly  a  tall,  commanding  wo- 
man came  into  the  apartment.  Again  a 
pair  of  large,  threatening  eyes  looked 
at  him  through  the  veil,  while  he  knew 
from  her  green,  gold-embroidered  caftan, 
that  if  it  was  not  the  Pasha's  wife,  it 
was  at  least  one  of  his  favorites  who 
was  before  him.  So  he  hurriedly  knelt 
down,  and  crossing  his  hands  on  his 
breast,  he  put  his  head  on  the  ground 
before  her.  But  a  clear,  diabolical  laugh 
made  him  look  up,  and  when  ','iie  beau- 
tiful odalisque  threw  back  her  veil,  he 
uttered  a  cry  of  terror,  for  his  wife, 
his  deceived  wife,  whom  he  had  sold, 
was  standing  before  him. 

"Do  you  Ljiow  me?"  she  asked  with 
quiet  dignity. 

"Viteska!" 

"Yes,  that  was  my  name  whc-n  I  was 
your  wife,"  she  replied  quivkly,  in  a 
contemptuous  voice;  "but  now  that  I  am 
the  Pasha's  wife,  rny  name  is  Sarema, 
I  do  not  suppose  you  ever  expected  to 
find  me  again,  you  wretch,  when  you 
sold  me  in  Varna  to  an  old  Jewish  profli- 
gate, who  was  only  half  alive.  You  see 
I  have  got  into  better  hands,  and  I  have 
made  my  fortune,  as  you  said  I  should 
do.  Well?  What  do  you  expect  of  me; 
what  thanks,  what  reward?" 

Tne  wretched  man  was  lying  over- 
whelmed at  the  feet  of  the  woman  whom 
he  had  so  shamefully  deceived,  and  could 
not  find  a  word  to  say.  He  felt  that  he 
was  lost,  and  had  not  even  got  the 
courage  to  beg  for  mercy. 

"You  deserve  death,  you  miscreant," 
Sarema  continued.  "You  are  in  my 
hands,  and  I  can  do  whatever  I  pleasf 
with  you,  for  the  Pasha  has  left  vou^ 


THE  ODALISQUE  OF  Si:NICHOU 


631 


ounishment  to  me  alone.  I  ought  to 
have  you  impaled,  and  to  feast  my  eyes 
on  your  death  agonies.  That  would  be 
the  smallest  compensation  for  all  the 
years  of  degradation  that  I  have  been 
through,  and  which  I  owe  to  you." 

"Mercy,  Viteska!  Mercy!"  the 
wretched  man  cried,  trembling  all  over, 
and  raising  his  hands  to  her  in  supplica- 
tion. 

The  odalisque's  only  reply  was  a 
laugh,  in  Vv^hich  rang  all  the  cruelty  of 
an  insulted  woman's  deceived  heart.  It 
seemed  to  give  her  pleasure  to  see  the 
man  whom  she  had  loved,  and  who  had 
so  shamefully  trafficked  in  her  beauty, 
in  mortal  agony,  cringing  before  her, 
whining  for  his  life,  as  he  grovelled  on 
his  knees.  At  last  she  seemed  to  re- 
lent somewhat. 

"I  will  give  you  your  hfe,  you  miser- 
able wretch,"  she  said,  "but  you  shall 
not  go  unpunished."  So  saying,  she 
clapped  her  hands,  and  four  black 
eunuchs  came  in.  They  seized  the 
favorite^s  unfortunate  husband  and  in  a 
moment  bound  his  hands  and  feet. 

"I  have  altered  my  mind,  and  he  shall 
not  be  put  to  death,"  Sarema  said,  with 
a  smile  that  made  the  traitor's  blood 
run  cold  in  his  veins.  "But  give  him  a 
hundred  blows  with  the  bastinado,  and 
I  will  stand  by  and  count  them." 

"For  God's  sake,"  the  merchant 
screamed,  "I  can  never  endure  it." 

"We  will  see  about  that,"  the  favorite 
said,  coldly;  "if  you  die  under  it,  it  was 
allotted  you  by  fate;  I  am  not  going  to 
retract  my  orders." 

She  threw  herself  down  on  the  cush- 
ions, and  began  to  smoke  a  long  pipe, 


which  a  female  slave  handed  to  her  on 
her  knees.  At  a  sign  from  her  the 
eunuchs  tied  the  wretched  man's  feet 
to  the  pole,  by  which  tne  soles  of  the 
culprit  were  raised,  and  began  the  ter- 
rible punishment.  Already  at  the  tenth 
blow  the  merchant  began  to  roar  Ii!.e  a 
wild  animal,  but  the  wife  whom  he  had 
betrayed  remained  unmoved,  carelessly 
blowing  the  blue  wreaths  of  smoke  into 
the  air.  Resting  on  her  lovely  arm, 
she  watched  his  features,  which  were 
distorted  by  pain,  with  merciless  enjoy- 
ment. 

During  the  last  blows  he  only  groaned 
gently,  and  then  he  fainted. 


A  year  later  the  dealer  was  caught 
with  his  female  merchandise  by  the  po- 
lice in  an  Austrian  town  and  handed 
over  to  justice,  when  he  made  a  full 
confession.  By  that  means  the  parents 
of  the  "Odalisque  of  Senichou"  heard 
of  their  daughter's  position.  As  they 
knew  chat  she  vvas  happy  and  surrounded 
by  luxury,  they  made  no  attempt  to  get 
her  out  of  the  Pasha's  hands,  who,  like 
a  thorough  Mussulman,  had  become  the 
slave  of  his  slave. 

The  unfortunate  husband  was  sent 
over  to  the  frontier  when  he  was  re- 
leased from  prison.  His  shameful  traf- 
fic, however,  flourishes  still,  in  spite  of 
all  the  precautions  of  the  police  and  of 
the  consuls.  Every  year  he  provides 
the  harems  of  the  East  with  those 
voluptuous  Boxclanas,  especially  from 
Bohemia  and  Hungary,  who,  in  the  eyes 
of  a  Mussulman,  vie  with  the  slender 
Circassian  women  for  the  prize  of 
beauty. 


Brk-a-Brac 


"ll  YOU  v/ou1q  like  to  see  the  inter- 
esting bric-a-brac  there,  come  with  me," 
said  my  friend,  Boisrene. 

He  then  led  me  to  the  first  story  of 
a  beautiful  house,  in  a  great  street  in 
Paris.  We  were  received  by  a  very  strong 
man,  of  perfect  manners,  who  took  us 
from  piece  to  piece  showing  us  rare  ob- 
jects of  which  he  mentioned  the  price 
carelessly.  Great  sums,  ten,  twenty, 
thirty,  fifty  thousand  francs,  came  from 
his  lips  with  so  much  grace  and  facility 
that  one  could  not  doubt  that  millions 
were  shut  up  in  the  strong  boxes  of  this 
merchant  man  of  the  world. 

I  had  known  him  by  name  for  a  long 
time.  Very  clever,  very  tactful,  very 
intelligent,  he  served  as  intermediary  for 
all  sorts  of  transactions.  In  touch  with 
all  the  richest  amateurs  of  Paris,  and 
even  of  Europe  and  America,  knowing 
their  tastes,  their  preferences  for  the 
moment,  be  brought  them  by  a  word  or 
a  dispatch,  if  they  lived  in  some  far- 
off  town,  when  he  knew  that  some  ob- 
ject was  to  be  sold  that  would  please 
them. 

Men  in  the  best  of  society  had  had 
recourse  to  him  in  times  of  embarrass- 
ment,  perhaps  to  get  money  for  play, 
perhaps  to  pay  a  debt,  perhaps  to  sell 
a  picture,  a  family  jewel,  or  a  tapestry, 
or  even  to  sell  a  horse,  where  the  owner 
was  in  close  straits. 

It  was  said  that  he  never  refused  his 
services  when  he  could  foresee  any 
chance  of  gain. 

Boisrene  seemed  intimate  with  this 
curiosity  merchant.  They  had  managed 
more  than  one  affair  together.  I  myself 
looked  at  the  man  with  much  interest. 

He   was   tall,    thin,   bald,   and   very 


elegant.  His  sweet,  insinuating  voic 
had  a  particular  charm,  a  tentativt 
charm,  which  gives  to  things  a  special 
value.  When  he  held  an  article  in  his 
fingers,  he  turned  it,  re-turned  it,  and 
looked  at  it  with  so  much  directness, 
tactfulness,  elegance,  and  sympathy  that 
the  object  was  at  once  embellished, 
transformed  by  his  touch  and  his  look. 
And  one  v/ould  immediately  estimate  it 
at  a  higher  cost  than  before  it  passed 
from  the  show-case  to  his  hand. 

"And  your  Christ,  the  beautiful  Christ 
of  the  Renaissance,"  said  Boisrene, 
"that  you  showed  me  last  year?" 

The  man  smiled  and  replied: 

"It  is  sold,  and  in  rather  a  strange 
fashion.  In  fact,  the  whole  story  of  a 
Parisian  woman  is  in  the  sale.  Would 
you  l:ke  me  to  tell  it  to  you?" 

'•Yes,  indeed." 

"Do  you  know  the  Baroness  Sa- 
moris?" 

"Yes  and  no.  I  have  only  seen  her 
once,  but  I  know  who  she  is!" 

"You  know  fully?" 

"Yes.'' 

"Are  you  willing  to  tell  me,  that  I  may 
see  whether  you  are  deceived  or  not?" 

"Very  willing.  Madame  Samoris  is  a 
woman  of  the  world  who  has  a  daughter 
without  ever  having  had  a  husband,  as 
the  saying  goes.  But,  if  she  has  not 
had  a  husband,  she  has  lovers,  after  a 
discreet  fashion,  so  that  they  are  re- 
ceived into  certain  society  which  is 
tolerant  or  blind.  She  is  constant  at 
Church,  receives  the  sacrament  with  re- 
flection, after  the  fashion  of  one  who 
knows,  and  never  will  compromise  her- 
self. She  hopes  her  daughter  will  make 
a  good  marriage.    Is  it  not  so?'* 


6Z?. 


BRIC-A-BRAC 


633 


'*Yes,  but  I  will  complete  your  in- 
formation; she  is  a  kept  woman  who 
makes  herself  respected  by  her  lovers 
more  than  if  she  did  not  live  with  them. 
That  is  rare  merit;  for  in  this  way  one 
obtains  whatever  is  desired  of  a  man. 
The  one  whom  she  chooses,  without 
which  a  man  would  have  doubts,  pays 
court  a  long  tin:e,  des'res  her  with  fear, 
solicits  with  shame,  obtains  with  aston- 
ishment, and  possesses  with  considera- 
tion. He  docs  not  perceive  that  he  pays, 
so  much  tact  does  she  use  in  taking; 
and  she  maintains  their  relation  with 
such  a  tone  of  reserve,  cf  d'gnity,  of 
propriety,  that  in  going  away  from  her 
he  would  slap  the  face  of  a  man  capable 
of  suspecting  the  virtue  of  his  mistress. 
And  that  with  the  best  faith  in  the 
world. 

"I  have  rendered  some  services  to 
this  woman  in  many  cf  her  undertak- 
ings.    She  has  no  secrets  from  me. 

''Somewhere  in  the  first  days  of  Jan- 
uary, she  came  to  me  to  borrow  thirty 
thousand  francs.  I  had  not  the  amount 
at  hand,  you  understand,  but  as  I  de- 
sired to  oblige  her,  I  begged  her  to 
tell  me  tier  situation  fully,  that  I  might 
see  if  there  was  anything  I  could  do  for 
her. 

"She  told  me  things  in  such  precau- 
tionary language  as  she  might  use  in  re- 
lating a  most  delicate  story  for  her 
daughter's  first  communion.  I  finally 
understood  that  times  were  hard  and 
that  she  found  herself  without  a  sou. 
The  commercial  crisis,  political  disturb- 
ances which  the  government  actually 
seemed  to  entertain  with  pleasure, 
rumors  of  war,  and  the  general  con- 
straint had  made  money  hesitate,  even 
in  the  hands  of  lovers.    And  then,  she 


could  not,  this  honest  woman,  give  her- 
self to  the  first  comer. 

"A  man  of  the  world,  of  the  best 
world,  was  necessary  for  her,  one  who 
would  preserve  her  reputation  while 
furnishing  the  daily  needs.  A  rake 
would  compromise  her  forever,  even 
though  he  were  very  rich,  and  make  the 
marriage  of  her  daughter  problematical. 
She  could  not  think  of  business  ar- 
rangements, cf  dishonoring  inter- 
mediaries who  might  be  able  to  relieve 
her  of  her  embarrassment  for  a  time. 
She  must  maintain  the  standard  of  her 
house,  continue  to  receive  with  open 
doors,  in  order  not  to  lose  the  hope  of 
finding,  among  her  visitors,  the  discreet 
and  distinguished  friend  whom  she  was 
waiting  to  choose. 

"For  my  part,  I  observed  to  her  that 
there  seemed  little  chance  of  my  thirty 
thousand  francs  returning  to  me,  since, 
when  they  were  eaten  up,  she  would 
have  to  obtain  sixty  thousand  at  a  single 
blow  in  order  to  give  me  half. 

"She  was  disconsolate  while  listening 
to  me,  and  I  could  think  of  nothing  to 
be  done,  when  an  idea,  a  truly  genial 
idea,  crossed  my  mind.  I  had  just 
bought  the  Christ  of  the  Renaissance 
which  I  showed  you,  an  admirable  piece, 
the  most  beautiful  in  that  style  that  I 
have  ever  seen. 

"  'My  dear  friend,'  said  I  to  her,  1 
am  going  to  make  you  take  this  little 
ivory  home  with  you.  You  can  invent 
an  ingenious  story,  touching,  poetic, 
whatever  you  wish,  which  will  explain 
your  desire  of  parting  with  it.  It  can 
be  understood  that  it  is  an  heirloom  of 
the  family,  inherited  from  your  fnther. 

"  *I  will  see  some  amateurs  f'^r  you 
and  take  them  there  myself.    The  rest 


o3h 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


you  will  attend  to.  I  will  let  >ou  under- 
stand their  situation  by  a  word,  a  watch- 
word. This  piece  is  worth  fifty  thou- 
sand francs,  but  I  let  you  have  it  for 
thirty  thousand.  The  difference  will  be 
yours." 

"She  reflected  some  moments  with  a 
profound  air  and  then  replied: 

"  'Yes,  perhaps  it  is  a  good  idea.  I 
thank  you  very  much.' 

"The  next  day  I  sent  the  Christ  of 
the  Renaissance  to  her  house,  and  that 
evening  I  sent  to  her  the  Baron  Saint- 
Hospital.  For  three  months  I  addressed 
clients  *o  her,  clients  of  the  best,  who 
were  confident  of  my  judgment  in  busi- 
ness.   But  I  heard  no  one  speak  to  her. 

"Then,  having  received  a  foreign  cus- 
tomer who  spoke  very  bad  French,  I 
decided  to  present  him  myself  at  the 
house  of  Madame  Samoris,  in  order  to 
let  him  see  the  piece. 

"A  footman  all  in  black  received  us 
and  showed  us  into  a  pretty  drawing- 
room,  furnished  with  taste,  where  we 
waited  some  miautes.  She  appeared, 
charminp:,  extending  her  hand  to  me, 
making  us  be  seated.  When  I  explained 
the  motive  of  my  visit,  she  rang. 

"The  footman  reappeared. 

"  'See  if  Miss  Isabelle  can  let  us  enter 
der  chapel,'  she  said  to  him. 

"The  young  girl  herself  brought  the 
response.  She  was  about  fifteen,  with 
a  good,  modest  appearance,  and  all  the 
freshness  of  youth.  She  wished  to  guide 
us  herself  into  her  chapel. 

"It  was  a  sort  of  pious  boudoir,  where 
a  silver  lamp  was  burning  before  the 
t^rist  of  the  Renaissance,  my  property, 


couched  on  a  bed  of  black  velvet.  The 
setting  of  the  scene  was  charming  and 
very  clever.  The  child  made  the  sign 
of  the  cross,  and  then  said:  "Look, 
gentlemen,  is  it  not  beautiful?' 

"I  took  the  object,  examined  it,  and 
declared  it  remarkable.  The  stranger, 
also,  considered  it,  but  he  seemed  much 
more  occupied  with  the  women  than  with 
the  Christ. 

"One  felt  good  in  their  home,  felt 
the  incense,  the  flowers,  the  perfume. 
One  found  complete  repose  there.  It 
was  truly  a  comfortable  dwelling,  in- 
viting to  rest. 

"When  we  had  re-entered  the  draw- 
ing-room, I  broached,  with  reserve  and 
delicacy,  the  question  of  price.  Madame 
Samoris  asked,  lowering  her  eyes,  fifty 
thousand  francs.    Then  she  added : 

"  If  you  wish  to  see  it  again,  sir,  I 
scarcely  ever  go  out  before  three  o'clock, 
and  you  will  find  me  here  any  day.* 

"In  the  street,  the  stranger  asked  me 
some  details  about  the  Baroness,  whom 
he  found  charming.  But  I  did  not 
undertake  to  say  much  for  her,  nor  of 
her. 

"Three  months  more  passed. 

"One  morning,  not  more  than  five 
days  ago,  she  came  to  my  house  at  the 
breakfast  houi  and,  placing  a  pocket- 
book  in  my  hand,  said:  'My  dear,  you 
are  an  angel.  Here  are  fifty  thousand 
francs!  /  have  bought  your  Christ  of 
the  Renaissance,  and  I  pay  twenty 
thousand  francs  more  than  the  price 
agreed  upon,  on  the  condition  that  you 
will  alwavs — always  send  me  clients— 
because  the  piece  is  still  for  sale.' " 


The  Artisfs  Wife 


CURVim  like  a  crescent  moon,  the  lit- 
tle town  of  Etretat,  with  its  white  cliffs 
and  its  blue  sea,  is  reposing  under  the 
sun  of  a  grand  July  day.  At  the  two 
points  of  the  crescent  are  the  two  gates, 
the  little  one  at  the  right,  and  the  large 
one  at  the  left,  as  if  it  were  gradually 
advancing  to  the  water — on  one  side  a 
dwarfed  foot,  on  the  other,  a  leg  of 
giant  proportions;  and  the  spire,  nearly 
as  high  as  the  cliff,  large  at  the  base  and 
fine  at  the  summit,  points  its  slim  head 
toward  the  heavens. 

Along  the  beach,  upon  the  float,  a 
crowd  is  seated  watching  the  bathers. 
Upon  the  terrace  of  the  Casino,  another 
crowd,  seated  cr  walking,  parades  under 
the  full  light  of  day,  a  garden  of  pretty 
costumes,  shaded  by  red  and  blue  um- 
brellas embroidered  in  great  flowers  of 
silk.  At  the  end  of  the  promenade,  on 
'he  terrace,  there  are  orher  people,  calm, 
quiet,  walking  slowly  along  up  and 
down,  as  far  as  possible  from  the  elegant 
multitude. 

A  young  man,  well-known,  and  cele- 
brated as  a  painter,  John  Summer,  was 
walking  along  with  a  listless  air  beside 
an  invalid  chair  in  which  reposed  a 
I  young  woman,  his  wife.  A  domestic 
I  rolled  the  little  carriage  along,  gently, 
while  the  crippled  woman  looked  with 
sad  eyes  upon  the  joy  of  the  heavens, 
the  joy  of  the  day,  and  the  joy  of  other 
people. 

They  were  not  talking,  they  were  not 
looking  at  each  other.  The  woman  said: 
"Let  us  stop  a  little." 

They  stopped,  and  the  painter  seated 
himself  upon  a  folding  chair  arranged 
^or  him  by  the  valet.    Those  who  passed 


behind  the  couple,  sitting  there  mute  and 
motionless,  regarded  him  with  pitying 
looks.  A  complete  legend  of  devotion 
had  found  its  way  about.  He  had  mar- 
ried her  in  spite  of  her  infirmity,  moved 
by  his  love,  they  said. 

Not  far  from  there,  two  young  men 
were  seated  on  a  capstan,  chatting  and 
looking  off  toward  the  horizon. 

"So,  it  is  not  true,"  said  one  of  them, 
'T  tell  you  I  know  much  of  John  Sum- 
mer's life." 

"Then  why  did  he  marry  her?  For 
she  was  really  an  invalid  at  the  time, 
was  she  not?" 

"Just  as  you  see  her  now.  He  mar- 
ried her — he  married  her — as  one 
marries — well,  because  he  was  a  fool!" 

"How  is  that?" 

"How  is  that?  That  is  how,  my 
friend.  That  is  the  whole  of  it.  One  is 
a  goose  because  he  is  a  goose.  And 
then  you  know,  painters  make  a  spe- 
cialty of  ridiculous  marriages;  they 
nearly  always  marry  their  models,  or 
some  old  mistress,  or  some  one  of  the 
women  among  the  varied  assortment 
they  run  up  against.  Why  is  it?  Does 
anyone  know?  It  would  seem,  on  the 
contrary,  that  constant  association  with 
this  race  that  we  call  models  would  be 
enough  to  disgust  them  forever  with 
that  kind  of  female.  Not  at  all.  After 
having  made  them  pose,  they  marry 
them.  Read  that  little  book  of  Alphonse 
Daudet,  'Artists'  Wives,'  so  true,  so 
cruel,  and  so  beautiful. 

"As  for  the  couple  you  see  there,  the 
accident  that  brought  about  that  mar- 
riage was  of  a  unique  and  terrible  kind 
The  little  woman  played  a  comedy,  or 


635 


636 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


rather  a  frightful  drama.  In  fact,  she 
risked  all  for  all.  Was  she  sincere? 
Does  she  really  love  John?  Can  one 
ever  know  that?  Who  can  determine, 
with  any  precision,  the  real  from  the 
make-believe,  in  the  acts  of  women? 
They  are  always  sincere  in  an  eternal 
change  of  impressions.  They  are  pas- 
sionate, criminal,  devoted,  admirable, 
and  ignoble,  ready  to  obey  unseizable 
emotions.  They  lie  without  ceasing", 
without  wishing  to,  without  knowing  it, 
without  comprehension,  and  they  have 
with  this,  in  spite  of  this,  an  absolute 
freedom  from  sensation  and  sentiment, 
which  they  evince  in  violent  resolutions, 
unexpected,  incomprehensible  folly,  put- 
ting to  rout  all  our  reason,  all  our  cus- 
tom of  deliberation,  and  all  our  com- 
bination of  egotism.  The  unforeseen 
biuntness  of  their  determination  makes 
them,  to  us,  indecipherable  enigmas. 
We  are  always  asking:  'Are  they  sin- 
cere?   Are  ihey  false?' 

"But,  my  friend,  they  are  sincere  and 
false  at  the  same  time,  because  it  is  in 
their  nature  to  be  the  two  extremes  and 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  Look  at 
the  means  the  most  honest  employ  for 
obtaining  what  they  wish.  They  are 
both  complicated  and  simple,  these 
means  arc.  So  complicated  that  we 
never  guess  them  in  advance,  so  simple 
that  after  we  have  been  the  victims  of 
them,  we  cannot  help  being  astonished 
and  saying  to  ourselves:  *My!  Did 
she  play  me  as  easily  as  that?'  And 
they  succeed  always,  my  good  friend, 
especially  when  it  is  a  question  of  mak- 
ing us  marry  them. 

"But  here  is  John  Summer's  story: 

"The  little  wife  was  a  model,  as  the 
;etni  is  usually  understood.     She  posed 


for  him.  She  was  pretty,  particularly 
elegant,  and  posscssea,  it  appears,  s, 
divine  figure.  He  became  her  lover,  as 
one  becomes  the  lover  of  any  seductive 
woman  he  sees  often.  He  imagines  he 
loves  her  with  his  whole  soul.  It  is  a 
singular  phenomenon.  As  soon  as  one 
desires  a  woman,  he  believes  sincerely 
that  he  can  no  longer  live  without  her. 
They  know  very  well  that  their  time  has 
arrived.  They  know  that  disgust  always 
follows  possession;  that,  in  order  to  pass 
one's  existence  by  the  side  of  another 
being,  not  brutal,  physical  appetite,  so 
quickly  extinguished,  is  the  need,  but  an 
accordance  of  soul,  of  temperament,  of 
humor.  In  a  seduction  that  one  under- 
takes, in  bodily  form,  it  is  necessary  to 
mingle  a  certain  sensual  intoxication  with 
a  charming  depth  of  mind. 

''Well,  he  beheved  that  he  loved  her; 
he  made  her  a  heap  of  promises  of  fi- 
delity and  lived  completely  with  her. 
She  was  gentle  and  endowed  with  that 
undeniable  elegance  which  the  Parisian 
woman  acquires  so  easily.  She  tippled 
and  babbled  and  said  silly  things,  which 
seemed  spirituelle,  from  the  droll  way  in 
whic}-.  she  put  them.  She  had  each  mo- 
ment some  little  trick  or  pretty  gesture 
to  charm  the  eye  of  the  painter.  When 
she  raised  an  arm,  or  stooped  down,  her 
movements  were  always  perfect,  exactly 
as  they  should  b«\ 

"For  three  months  John  did  not  per- 
ceive that,  in  reality,  she  was  like  a!l 
models.  They  rented  for  the  summer 
a  little  house  at  Andressy.  I  was  there 
one  evening,  when  the  first  disquiet 
germinated  in  the  mind  of  my  friend. 

"As  the  night  was  radiant,  we  w^'shed 
to  take  a  turn  along  the  b-^-k  rf  the 
river.    The  moon  threw  in  the  water  a 


THE  ARTIST'S  WIFE 


637 


littering  shower  of  light,  crumbling  its 
'/ellow  renecLions  in  the  eddy,  in  the  cur- 
rent, in  the  wnoie  of  tne  large  river, 
flowing  slowly  aiong. 

"We  were  going  along  the  bank,  a 
little  quiet  from  the  vague  exaltation 
which  the  dreaminess  of  the  evening 
threw  about  us.  We  were  wishing  we 
might  accomplish  superhuman  things, 
might  love  some  unknown  beings,  de- 
liciously  poetic  Strange  ecstasies,  de- 
sires, and  aspirations  were  trembling  in 
us. 

"And  we  kept  silent,  penetrated  by 
the  serene  and  living  freshness  of  the 
charming  night,  by  that  freshness  of 
the  moon  which  seems  to  go  through 
the  body,  penetrate  i^,  bathe  the  mind, 
perfume  it  and  steep  in  it  happiness. 

"Suddenly  Josephine  (she  called  her- 
self Josephine)  cried  out: 

"  'Oh !  did  you  see  the  great  fish  that 
jumped  down  there?' 

"He  replied,  without  looking  or  know- 
ing:   *Yes,  dearie.' 

"She  was  angry.  'No,  you  have  not 
seen  it  since  your  back  was  turned  to 
it.' 

"He  laughed.  *Yes,  it  is  true.  It  is 
so  fine  here  that  I  was  thinking  of 
nothing.' 

"She  was  silent;  but  at  the  end  of  a 
minute,  the  need  of  speaking  seized  her, 
and  she  asked : 

"  'Are  you  going  to  Paris  to-morrow?* 

"He  answered:    'I  don't  know.' 

"Again  she  was  irrtated: 

"  'Perhaps  you  think  it  is  amusing  to 
walk  out  without  saying  anything,'  she 
said;  'one  usually  talks  if  he  is  not  too 
siupid.' 

"He  said  nothing.  Then,  knowing 
well,  thanks  to  h^^r  wicked.  wom.^Tilv  in- 


stinct, that  he  would  be  exasperated, 
she  began  to  smg  thai  irruatiiig  u^r  w.Lii 
which  our  ears  and  minds  had  been 
wearied  for  the  past  two  years: 

"  *I  was  looking  in   the   air. 

"He  murmured :    'I  beg  you  be  quiet/ 

"She  answered  furiously:  'Why 
should  I  keep  quiet?' 

"He  replied:  'You  will  arouse  the 
neighborhood.' 

"Then  the  scene  took  place,  the  odious 
scene,  with  unexpected  reproaches,  tem- 
pestuous recriminations,  then  tc^.'s.  All 
was  over.  They  went  back  to  t-i'  house. 
He  allowed  her  to  go  on  without  reply, 
calmed  by  the  divine  evening  and  over- 
whelmed by  the  whirlwind  of  foolish- 
ness. 

"Three  months  later,  he  was  strug- 
gling desperately  in  the  invincible,  in- 
visible bonds  with  which  habit  enlaces 
our  life.  She  held  him,  oppressed  him 
martyrized  him.  They  quarreled  from 
morning  until  evening,  insulting  and 
conibating  each  other. 

"Finally,  he  wished  to  end  it,  to  break, 
at  any  price.  He  sold  all  his  work, 
realizing  some  twenty  thousand  franci 
(he  was  then  little  known)  and,  borrow- 
ing some  money  from  friends,  he  left 
it  all  on  the  chimney-piece  with  a  letter 
of  adieu. 

"He  came  to  my  house  as  a  refugo. 
Toward  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
the  bell  rang.  I  opened  the  door.  A 
woman  jumped  into  my  face,  brushed 
me  aside,  and  rushed  into  my  studio; 
it  was  she. 

"He  stood  up  on  seeins:  her  enter. 
She  threw  at  his  feet  the  envelope  con- 
^'^'-'-''    the    h^nk-nctcs,   with    a   trulv 


6SS 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


noble    gesture    and    said,    with    short 
breath: 

'  'Here   is  your  money.     I  do  not 

care  for  it.' 

"She  was  very  pale  and  trembling, 
ready,  apparently  for  any  folly.  He, 
too,  grew  pale,  pale  from  anger  and 
vexation,  ready,  perhaps,  for  any  vio- 
lence. 

"He  asked:  'What  do  you  want, 
then?' 

"She  replied:  'I  do  not  wish  to  be 
treated  like  a  child.  You  have  implored 
me  and  taken  me.  I  ask  you  for  nothing 
— only  protect  me.' 

"He  stamped  his  foot,  saying:  *No, 
it  is  too  much!  And  if  you  believe 
that  you  are  going — ' 

"I  took  hold  of  his  arm.  'Wait,  John,' 
said  I,  'let  me  attend  to  it.' 

"I  went  toward  her,  and  gently,  little 
by  little,  I  reasoned  with  her,  emptying 
the  sack  of  arguments  that  are  usually 
employed  in  such  cases.  She  listened 
to  me  motionless,  with  eyes  fixed,  ob- 
stinate and  dumb.  Finally,  thinking  of 
nothing  more  to  say,  and  seeing  that 
the  affair  would  not  end  pleasantly,  I 
struck  one  more  last  note.    I  said: 

"  'He  will  always  love  you,  little  one, 
but  his  family  wishes  him  to  marry,  and 
you  know — ' 

"This  was  a  surprise  for  her!  *Ah! — 
Ah! — now  I  comprehend — '  she  began. 

"And  turning  toward  him  she  con- 
tinued: 'And  so — you  are  going  to 
marry!' 

"He  answered  carelessly:     'Yes.' 

"Then  she  took  a  step  forward:  'If 
you  marry,  I  wil)  kill  myself — ^you  un- 
derstand.' 

"  'Well,  then,  kill  yourself,'  he  hissed 
over  his  sh'ouldpr 


"5he  choked  two  or  three  times,  her 
throat  seeming  bound  by  a  frightful  an- 
guish. 'You  say — ^you  say —  Repeat 
it!' 

"He  repeated:  'Well,  kill  yourself,  if 
that  pleases  you!' 

"She  replied,  very  pale  with  fright: 
'It  is  not  necessary  to  dare  me.  I  will 
throw  myself  from  that  window.' 

"He  began  to  laugh,  advanced  to  the 
window,  opened  it,  bowed  like  a  person 
allowing  some  one  to  precede  him,  say- 
ing: 

"  'Here  is  the  way;  after  youl' 

"She  looked  at  him  a  second  with  fixed 
eyes,  terribly  excited;  then,  taking  a 
leap,  as  one  does  in  jumping  a  hedge 
in  the  field,  she  passed  before  him,  be- 
fore me,  leaped  over  the  sill  and  dis- 
appeared. 

"I  shall  never  forget  the  effect  that 
this  open  window  made  upon  me,  after 
having  seen  it  traversed  by  that  falling 
body;  it  appeared  to  me  in  a  second, 
great  as  the  sky  and  as  em.pty  as  space. 
And  I  recoiled  instinctively,  not  daring 
to  look,  as  if  I  had  fallen  myself. 

"John,  dismayed,  made  no  motion. 

"They  took  up  the  poor  girl  with 
both  legs  broken.  She  could  never  walk 
again. 

"Her  lover,  foolish  with  remorse,  and 
perhaps  touched  by  remembrance,  took 
her  and  married  her.  There  you  have 
it,  my  dear." 

The  evening  was  come.  The  young 
woman,  being  cold,  wished  to  go  in;  and 
the  domestic  began  to  roll  the  invalid's 
little  carriage  toward  the  village.  The 
painter  walked  along  beside  his  wite, 
without  having  exchanged  a  word  with 
her  for  an  hour. 


In  the  Spring 


When  the  first  fine  spring  days  come, 
and  the  earth  awakes  and  assumes  its 
garment  of  verdure,  when  the  perfumed 
warmth  of  the  air  caresses  your  face 
and  fills  your  lungs,  and  even  seems  to 
reach  your  heart,  you  feel  vague  long- 
ings for  an  undefined  happiness,  a  wish 
to  run,  to  walk  anywhere  and  every- 
where, to  inhale  the  soul  of  the  spring. 
As  the  winter  had  been  very  severe  the 
year  before,  this  longing  assumed  an  in- 
toxicating feeling  in  May;  it  was  like  a 
superabundance  of  sap. 

Well,  one  morning  on  waking,  I  saw 
from  my  window  the  blue  sky  glowing 
in  the  sun  above  the  neighboring  houses. 
The  canaries  hanging  in  the  windows 
were  singing  loudly,  and  so  were  the 
servants  on  every  floor;  a  cheerful  noise 
rose  up  from  the  streets,  and  I  went 
out,  with  my  apirits  as  bright  as  the 
day,  to  go — I  did  not  exactly  know 
where.  Everybody  I  met  seemed  to  be 
smiling;  an  air  of  happiness  appeared  to 
pervade  everything  in  the  warm  light  of 
returning  spring.  One  might  almost 
have  said  that  a  breeze  of  love  was 
blowing  through  the  city,  and  the  young 
women  whom  I  saw  in  the  streets  in 
morning  toilettes,  in  the  depths  of 
whose  eyes  there  lurked  a  hidden  tender- 
ness, and  who  walked  with  languid  grace, 
iilled  my  heart  with  agitation. 

Without  knowing  how  or  why,  I  found 
myself  on  the  banks  of  the  Seine. 
Steamboats  were  starting  for  Suresnes, 
and  suddenly  I  was  seized  by  an  un- 
conquerable wish  for  a  walk  through  the 
wood.  The  deck  of  the  mouche*  was 
crowded  with  passengers,  for  the  sun 
in  early  spring  draws  you  out  of  the 


house,  in  spite  of  yourself,  and  every, 
one  is  active,  visiting  and  gossiping  with 
the  people  sitting  near. 

I  had  a  female  neighbor ;  a  little  work- 
girl,  no  doubt,  who  possessed  the  true 
Parisian  charm.  Her  little  head  had 
light  curly  hair  like  frizzed  light,  which 
came  down  to  her  ears  and  to  the  nape 
of  her  neck,  danced  in  the  wind,  and 
then  became  Zach  fine,  such  light-colored 
down,  that  you  could  scarcely  see  it, 
but  on  wlrich  you  felt  an  irresistible  de- 
sire to  impress  a  shower  of  kisses. 

Under  the  magnetism  of  my  looks, 
she  turned  her  head  toward  me,  and 
then  immediately  looked  down,  while  a 
slight  dimpling  of  the  flesh,  the  fore- 
runner of  «.  smile,  also  showed  that  fine, 
pale  down  which  the  sun  was  gilding  a 
little. 

The  calm  river  grew  wider;  the  at- 
mosphere was  warm  and  perfectly  still, 
but  a  murmur  of  life  seemed  to  fill  all 
space. 

My  neighbor  raised  her  eyes  again, 
and,  this  time,  as  I  was  still  looking  at 
her,  she  smiled,  decidedly.  She  was 
charming,  and  in  her  passing  glance  I 
saw  a  thousand  things  of  which  I  had 
hitherto  been  ignorant.  I  saw  in  it  un- 
known depths,  all  the  charm  of  tender- 
ness, all  the  poetry  which  we  dream  of, 
all  the  happiness  which  we  are  continu- 
ally in  search  of.  I  felt  an  insane  long- 
ing to  open  m^  arms  and  to  carry  hei 
off  somewhere,  so  as  to  whisper  the 
sweet  music  of  words  of  love  into  her 
ears. 

I  was  just  going  to  speak  to  her  when 


*Fly.      A    name    given    to    the   small 
steamboats  on  the  Seine. 


630 


640 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


somebody  touched  me  on  the  shoulder. 
Turning  round  in  some  surprise,  I  saw 
an  ordinary  looking  man,  who  was 
neither  young  nor  old,  and  who  ^azed 
at  me  sadly: 

*1  should  like  to  speak  to  you,"  he 
said. 

I  made  a  grimace,  which  he  no  doubt 
saw,  for  he  added: 

"It  is  a  matter  of  importance." 

I  got  up,  therefcro,  and  followed  him 
to  the  other  end  of  the  boat,  and  then 
he  said: 

"Monsieur,  when  winter  comes,  with 
its  cold,  wet,  and  snowy  weather,  your 
doctor  says  to  you  constantly:  'Keep 
four  feet  warm,  guard  against  chills, 
colds,  bronchitis,  rheumatism,  and 
pleurisy.' 

"Then  you  are  very  careful,  you  wear 
flannel,  a  heavy  great-coat,  and  thick 
shoes,  but  all  this  does  not  prevent  you 
from  passing  two  months  in  bed.  But 
when  spring  returns,  v/ith  its  leaves  and 
flowers,  its  warm,  soft  breezes,  and  its 
smell  of  the  fields,  causing  you  vague 
disquiet  and  causeless  emotion,  nobody 
says  to  you: 

"  'Monsieur,  beware  of  love !  It  is 
lying  in  ambush  everywhere ;  it  is  watch- 
ing for  you  at  every  corner;  all  its 
snares  are  laid,  all  its  w^eapons  are  sharp- 
ened, all  its  guiles  are  prepared!  Be- 
ware of  love.  Beware  of  love.  It  is 
more  dangerous  than  brandy,  bronch'^'s, 
or  pleurisy!  It  never  forgives,  and 
makes  everybody  commit  irreparable 
follies.' 

"Yes,  Monsieur,  I  say  tha^  the  French 
government  ought  to  put  large  public 
notices  on  the  walls,  with  these  words: 
*Return  of  spring.     French  citizens,  be- 


ware of  love';  just  as  they  put;  'Be* 
ware  of  paint.' 

'•However,  as  the  government  will  not 
do  this,  I  roust  supply  its  place,  and  I 
say  to  you:  'Beware  of  love,'  for  it  is 
just  going  to  seize  you,  and  it  is  my 
duty  to  inform  you  of  it,  just  as  in 
Russia  they  inform  anyone  that  his  nose 
is  frozen." 

I  was  much  astonished  at  this  in- 
dividual, and  assuming  a  dignified  man- 
ner, I  said: 

"Really,  Monsieur,  you  appear  to  me 
to  be  interfering  ia  a  matter  whiCh  is  no 
business  of  yours." 

He  made  an  abrupt  movement,  and 
replied : 

"Ah,  Monsieur,  Monsieur!  If  I  see 
that  a  man  is  in  danger  of  being 
drowned  at  a  dangerous  spot,  ought  I 
to  let  him  perish?  So  just  listen  to  my 
story,  and  you  will  see  why  I  ventured 
to  spjak  to  you  like  this. 

"It  was  about  this  time  last  year  that 
it  occurred.  But,  first  of  ail,  I  must 
tell  you  that  I  am  a  clerk  in  (he  Ad- 
miralty, where  our  chiefs,  the  com- 
missioners, take  their  gold  lace  as  quill- 
driving  ofiicers  seriously,  and  treat  us 
like  foretop  men  on  board  a  ship.  Well, 
from  my  office  I  could  see  a  small  bit  of 
blue  sky  and  the  swallows,  and  I  felt  in- 
clined to  dance  among  my  portfolios. 

"My  yearning  for  freedom  grew  so 
intense,  that,  in  spite  of  my  repugnance, 
I  went  to  see  my  chief,  who  was  a  short, 
bad-tempered  man,  v/ho  was  always 
cross.  When  I  told  him  that  I  was  not 
well,  he  looked  at  me,  and  said:  *I  do 
not  believe  it.  Monsieur,  but  be  off  with 
you!  Do  you  think  that  any  office  can 
go  on  with  clerks  like  you?'  I  started 
at  once,  and  went  down  the  Seine.    It 


IN  THE  SPRING 


641 


p^as  a  day  like  this,  and  I  took  the 
mouche  to  go  ai  far  as  Saint-Cloud.  Ah! 
What  a  good  thing  it  would  have  been 
if  my  chief  had  refused  me  permission 
to  leave  the  ofifice  for  the  day! 

"I  seemed  to  expand  in  the  sun.  I 
loved  it  all;  the  steamer,  the  river,  the 
trees,  the  houses,  my  fellow-passengers, 
everything.  I  felt  inclined  to  kiss  some- 
thing, no  matter  what;  it  was  love  lay- 
ing its  snare.  Presently,  at  the  Troc- 
adero,  a  girl,  with  a  small  parcel  in  her 
hand,  came  on  board  and  sat  down  op- 
posite to  me.  She  was  certainly  pretty; 
but  it  is  surprising,  Monsieur,  how  much 
prettier  women  seem  to  us  when  it  is 
fine,  at  the  beginning  of  the  spring. 
Then  they  have  an  intoxicating  charm, 
something  quite  peculiar  about  them. 
It  is  just  like  drinking  wine  after  the 
cheese. 

"I  looked  Li  her,  and  she  also  looked 
at  me,  but  only  occasionally,  like  that 
girl  did  at  you,  just  now;  but  at  last, 
by  dint  of  looldng  at  each  other  con- 
stantly, it  seem.ed  to  me  that  we  knew 
each  other  well  enough  to  enter  into 
conversation,  and  I  spoke  to  her,  and 
she  replied.  She  was  decidedly  pretty 
and  nice,  and  she  intoxicated  me,  Mon- 
sieur! 

"She  got  out  at  Saint-Cloud,  and  I 
followed  her.  She  went  and  delivered 
her  parcel,  but  when  she  returned,  the 
boat  had  just  started.  I  walked  by  her 
side,  and  the  warmth  of  the  air  made  us 
both  sigh. 

"  It  would  be  very  nice  :n  the  wood/ 
I  said. 

"'Indeed,  it  would!'  she  replied. 

"  'Shall  we  go  there  for  a  walk.  Ma- 
demoiselle?' 

"She  gave  me  a  quick,  upward  look. 


as  if  to  see  exactly  what  I  was  like,  and 
then,  after  a  little  hesitation,  she  ac- 
cepted my  proposal,  and  soon  we  were 
there,  walking  side  by  side.  Under  the 
foliage,  which  was  still  rather  thin,  the 
tall,  thick,  bright,  green  grass  was  in- 
undated by  the  sun  and  full  of  small 
insects  making  love  to  one  another,  and 
birds  were  singing  in  all  directions.  My 
companion  began  to  jump  and  to  run, 
intoxicated  by  the  air  and  the  smell  of 
the  country,  and  I  ran  and  jumped  be- 
hind her.  How  stupid  we  are  at  times, 
Monsieur! 

"Then  she  wildly  sang  a  thousand 
things;  opera  airs  and  the  song  of 
Musette!  The  song  of  Musette!  How 
poetical  it  seemed  to  me,  then!  I  al- 
most cried  over  it.  Ah!  Those  silly 
songs  make  us  lose  our  heads;  take  my 
advice,  never  marry  a  woman  who  sings 
in  the  country,  especially  if  she  sings 
the  song  of  Musette! 

"She  soon  grew  tired,  and  sat  down 
on  a  grassy  slope,  and  I  sat  down  at  hei 
feet.  I  took  her  hands,  her  little  hands, 
so  marked  with  the  needle,  and  they 
moved  me.  I  said  to  myself:  'These 
are  the  sacred  marks  of  toil.'  Oh,  Mon- 
sieur! do  you  know  whai  those  sacred 
marks  of  labor  mean?  They  mean  all 
the  gossip  of  the  workroom,  the  whis- 
pered blackguardism,  the  mind  soilec* 
by  all  the  filth  that  is  talked ;  they  mean 
lost  chastity,  foolish  chatter,  all  the 
wretchedness  of  daily  bad  habits,  all 
the  narrowness  of  ideas  which  belongs 
to  women  of  the  lower  orders,  united 
in  the  girl  whose  sacred  fingers  bear 
the  sacred  marks  of  toil. 

"Then  we  looked  into  each  other's 
eyes  for  a  long  while.  What  power  a 
woman's  eye  has!    How  it  agitates  us 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


642 

how  it  invades  our  very  being,  takes 
possession  of  us,  and  dominates  us. 
How  profound  it  seems,  how  full  of  in- 
finite promise!  People  call  that  looking 
into  each  other's  souls!  Oh!  Monsieur, 
what  humbug!  If  we  could  see  into 
each  other's  souls,  we  should  be  more 
careful  of  what  we  did.  However,  I 
was  caught,  and  crazy  after  her,  and 
tried  to  take  her  into  my  arms,  but 
she  said:  'Hands  off!'  Then  I  threw 
myself  down,  and  opened  my  heart  to 
her,  and  poured  out  all  the  affection  that 
was  suffocating  me,  my  head  on  her 
knees.  She  seemed  surprised  at  my 
manner,  and  gave  me  a  sidelong  glance, 
as  if  to  say:  'Ah!  So  that  is  the  way 
women  make  a  fool  of  you,  old  fellow! 
Very  well,  we  will  see.'  In  love.  Mon- 
sieur, men  are  the  artists,  and  women 
are  the  dealers. 

*'No  doubt  I  could  have  won  her, 
and  I  saw  my  own  stupidity  later,  but 
what  I  wanted  was  not  a  woman's  per- 
son, it  was  love,  it  was  the  ideal.  I  was 
sentimental,  when  I  ought  to  have  been 
using  my  time  to  a  better  purpose. 

"As  soon  as  she  h:id  had  enough  of 
my  declarations  of  affection,  she  got  up, 
and  we  returned  to  Saint-Cloud,  but  I 
did  not  leave  her  until  we  got  to  Paris. 
But  she  looked  so  sad  as  we  were  re- 
turning, that  at  last  I  asked  her  what 
WSLS  the  matter. 

"*I  am  thinking,'  she  replied,  'that 
this  has  been  one  of  those  days  of 
which  we  have  but  few  in  life.' 

"And  my  heart  beat  as  if  it  would 
break  my  ribs. 

"I  saw  her  on  the  following  Sunday, 
and  the  next  Sunday,  and  every  Sun- 
day.    I   took  her  to    Bougival,   Saint- 


Germain,     Maison-Lafitte,     Poissy;     to 
every  suburban  resort  of  lovers. 

"The  little  jade,  in  turn,  pretended  to 
love  me,  until,  at  last,  I  altogether  lost 
my  head,  and  three  months  later  I 
married  her. 

"What  can  you  expect,  Monsieur, 
when  a  man  is  a  clerk,  living  alone, 
without  any  relations,  or  anyone  to  ad- 
vise him?  You  say  to  yourself:  'How 
sweet  life  would  be  with  a  wife ! ' 

"And  so  you  get  married,  and  she 
calls  you  names  from  morning  till  night, 
understands  nothing,  knows  nothing, 
chatters  continually,  sings  the  song  of 
Musette  at  the  top  of  her  voice  (oh! 
that  song  of  Musette,  how  tired  one  gets 
of  it!);  quarrels  with  the  charcoal 
dealer,  tells  the  porter  all  her  domestic 
details,  confides  all  the  secrets  of  her 
bedroom  to  the  neighbor's  servant,  dis- 
cusses her  husband  with  the  tradespeo- 
ple, and  has  her  head  so  stuffed  with 
stupid  stories,  with  idiotic  superstitions, 
with  extraordinary  ideas,  and  monstrous 
prejudices,  that  I — for  what  I  have  said, 
ppplies  particularly  to  myself  —  shed 
tears  of  discouragement  every  time  I 
talk  to  her." 

He  stopped,  as  he  was  rather  out  of 
breath,  and  very  much  moved.  I  looked 
at  him,  for  I  felt  pity  for  this  poor, 
artless  devil,  and  I  was  just  going  to 
give  him  some  sort  of  answer,  when  the 
boat  stopped.    We  were  at  Saint-Cloud. 

The  little  woman  who  had  so  taken 
my  fancy  got  up  in  order  to  land.  She 
passed  close  to  me,  and  gave  me  a  side 
glance  and  a  furtive  smile  —  one  of 
those  smiles  that  drive  you  wild;  then 
she  jumped  on  the  landing-stage.  I 
sprang  forward  to  follow  her,  but  my 


THE  REAL  ONE  AND  THE  OTHER 


643 


neighbor  laid  hold  of  my  arm.  I  shook 
myself  loose,  however,  whereupon  he 
seized  the  skirt  of  my  coat,  and  pulled 
me  back,  exclaiming: 

"You  shall  not  go!  You  shall  not 
go!"  in  such  a  loud  voice,  that  every- 
body turned  round  and  laughed.  I  re- 
mained standing  motionless  and  furious, 


but  without  venturing  to  face  scandal 
and  ridicule,  and  the  steamboat  started. 

The  little  woman  on  the  landing-stage 
looked  at  me  as  I  went  off  with  an  air 
of  disappointment,  while  my  persecutor 
rubbed  his  hands  and  whispered  to  me; 

"You  must  admit  that  I  have  done 
you  a  great  service.'* 


The  Real  One  and  the  Other 


"Well,  really,"  said  Chasseval,  stand- 
ing with  his  back  to  the  fire,  "could 
any  of  those  respectable  shopkeepers 
and  wine-growers  have  possibly  believed 
that  that  pretty  little  Parisian  woman, 
with  soft  innocent  eyes,  like  those  of  a 
Madonna,  with  smiling  lips  and  golden 
hair,  who  always  dressed  so  simply,  was 
their  candidate's  mistress?" 

She  was  a  wonderful  help  to  him,  and 
accompanied  him  even  to  the  most  out- 
lying farms;  went  to  the  meetings  in 
the  small  village  cafcSf  had  a  pleasant 
and  suitable  word  for  everyone,  did  not 
recoil  at  a  glass  of  mulled  wine  or  a 
grip  of  the  hand,  and  was  always  ready 
to  join  the  farandole/^  She  seemed  to 
be  so  in  love  with  Elieane  Rulhiere,  to 
trust  him  so  entirely,  to  be  so  proud 
of  forming  half  of  his  life,  and  of  be- 
longing to  him,  giving  him  such  looks 
full  of  pleasure  and  of  hope,  and  listen- 
ing to  all  he  said  so  intently,  that 
voters  who  might  have  hesitated  allowed 
themselves  by  degrees  to  be  talked  over 
and  persuaded,  and  promised  their  votes 
to  the  young  doctor  whose  name  ttiey 
never  heard  mentioned  in  the  district 
before. 


That  electoral  campaign  had  been  like 
a  truant's  escapade  for  Jane  Dardenne; 
it  was  a  delightful  and  unexpected 
holiday,  and  as  she  was  an  actress  at 
heart,  she  played  her  part  seriously,  and 
threw  herself  into  her  character,  en- 
joying herself  more  than  she  had  ever 
enjoyed  herself  in  her  most  adventurous 
outings. 

And  then  there  came  in  the  pleasure 
of  being  taken  for  a  woman  of  thf 
world,  of  being  flattered,  respected,  and 
envied,  of  getting  out  of  the  usual 
groove  for  a  time,  and  also  the  dream 
that  this  journey  of  a  few  weeks  would 
have  this  result,  that  her  lover  would 
not  separate  from  her  on  their  return, 
but  would  sacrifice  the  woman  whom 
he  no  longer  loved,  and  whom  he  ironi- 
cally used  to  call  his  "Cinderella,"  to 
her. 

At  night,  when  they  had  laid  aside 
all  pretense,  and  were  alone  in  their 
room  in  the  hotel,  she  coaxed  him  and 
flattered  him,  spurred  his  ambition  on, 
Ihrew  her  quivering  arms  around  him, 


*A  dance  in  Provence  in  which  the 
dancers  form  a  chain,  and  the  movementi 
are  directed  by  the  leader. 


>44. 


WORKS  CF  cm'  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  amid  her  kisses,  whispered  those 
words  to  Lim  which  make  a  man  proud, 
warm  his  heart,  and  give  him  strength, 
•  ike  a  dram  cf  alcchcl. 

The  two  between,  them  captured  the 
district,  ar.d  won  th3  election  easily,  for 
in  spite  cf  h:s  youth,  Elieane  Rulhiere 
was  elected  by  a  majority  cf  five  thou- 
sand. Then,  of  course,  there  were  more 
fetes  and  banquets,  at  which  Jane  was 
present,  and  where  she  was  received 
with  enthusiastic  shouts;  there  were  fire- 
works, where  she  W2s  obliged  to  set  light 
to  the  first  rocket,  and  balls  at  which 
she  astonished  these  worthy  people  by 
her  affability.  And  when  they  left,  three 
little  girls  dressed  in  white,  as  if  they 
were  going  to  be  confirmed,  came  on 
to  the  platform  and  recited  some  verses 
complimentary  to  her,  while  the  band 
played  the  '^Marseillaise,*'  the  women 
waved  their  pocket  handkerchiefs,  and 
the  men  their  hats;  and  leaning  out  of 
the  carriage  window,  looking  charming 
in  her  traveling  costume,  with  a  smile 
on  her  lips  and  moist  eyes,  as  was  fitting 
at  such  a  pathetic  leave-taking,  actress 
as  she  was,  with  a  sudden  and  childlike 
gesture  she  blew  kisses  to  them  from 
the  tips  cf  her  fingers,  and  said: 

^*Good-bye,  my  friends,  good-bye, 
o«ly  for  the  present;  I  shall  never  for- 
get you!" 

The  deputy,  who  was  also  very  effu- 
sive, had  invited  his  principal  supporters 
to  come  and  see  him  in  Paris,  as  there 
were  plenty  of  excursion  trains.  They 
all  took  him  at  his  word,  and  Rulhiere 
was  obliged  to  invite  them  all  to  dinner. 

In  order  to  avoid  any  possible  mis- 
haps, he  gave  his  wife  a  foretaste  of 
their  guests.  He  told  her  that  they 
tvere   rather  noisy,   talkative,  and   un- 


polished, and  that  they  would,  no  doubt, 
citonish  her  by  their  manners  a^id  their 
accent,  but  that,  as  they  h.A  g.eat  in- 
fluence, and  were  excellent  men,  they 
deserved  a  good  reception.  It  was  a  . 
very  useful  precaution,  for  when  they 
came  into  the  drawing-room  in  their 
new  clothes,  beaming  with  pleasure,  and 
v/ith  hair  pomatumed  as  if  they  had 
been  going  to  a  country  wedding,  they 
felt  inclined  to  fall  down  before  the 
new  ]Madame  Rulhiere  to  whom  the 
deputy  introduced  them,  ai.d  who  seemed 
to  be  perfectly  at  home  there. 

At  first  they  were  embarrassed,  felt 
uncomfortable,  and  out  of  place,  did 
not  know  what  to  say,  and  had  to  seek 
their  words.  They  buttoned  and  un- 
buttoned their  gloves,  answered  her 
questions  at  random,  and  racked  their 
brains  to  discover  the  solution  of  the 
enigma.  Captain  ^louredus  looked  at 
the  fire,  with  the  fixed  gaze  of  a  som- 
nambulist; Marius  Barbaste  scratched 
his  fingers  mechanically;  while  the 
three  others,  the  factory  manager, 
Casemajel,  Roquetton,  the  lawyer,  and 
Dustugue,  th3  hotel  proprietor,  looked 
at  Rulhiere  anxiously. 

The  lawyer  was  the  first  to  recovei 
himself.  He  got  up  from  his  armchair 
hushing  heartily,  dug  the  deputy  in  the 
rib.-,  with  his  elbow,  and  said: 

'1  understand  it  all,  I  understand  it; 
you  thought  that  people  do  not  come  to 
Paris  to  be  bored,  eh?  Madame  is  de- 
lightful, and  I  congratulate  you,  Mon- 
sieur.'* 

He  gave  a  wink,  and  made  signs 
behind  his  back  to  his  friends,  and  then 
the  captain  had  his  turn. 

"We  are  not  boobies,  and  that  fellow 
Roauetton  is  the  most  knowing  of  *he 


THE  CARTER'S  WENCH 


64S 


lot  of  us.  Ah!  Monsieur  Rulhiere, 
without  any  exaggeration,  you  are  the 
cream  of  gooc  fellows." 

And  with  a  fiushed  face,  and  expand- 
ing his  chest,  he  said  sonorously: 

"They  certainly  turn  them  out  very 
pretty  in  your  part  of  the  country,  my 
little  lady!" 

Madame  Rulhiere,  who  did  not  know 
what  to  say,  had  gone  to  her  husband 
for  prctectlcn;  but  she  felt  much  in- 
clined to  go  to  her  own  roon  under  some 
pretext  or  other,  in  order  to  escape  from 
her  intolerable  tack.  Che  kept  her 
ground,  however,  during  the  whole  of 
dinner,  which  was  a  ncicy,  jovial  meal, 
during  which  the  five  electors,  with  their 
elbows  on  the  table,  and  their  waist- 
coats unbuttoned,  and  half  drunk,  told 
coarse  stories  and  swore  like  troopers. 
But  as  the  coffee  and  the  liqueurs  were 
served  in  the  smoking-room  she  took 
leave  of  her  guests  in  an  inpatient  voice, 
and  went  to  her  own  room  with  the 


hasty  step  of  an  escaped  pnsvner,  who 

is  afraid  of  being  r^Lakui. 

The  electors  sat  «='.arlng  aTter  her  with 
gaping  mouth?,  and  IMouredus  lit  a 
cigar,  and  said; 

"Just  listen  to  me,  Monsieur  Rul- 
hiere; it  was  very  kind  of  you  to  in- 
vite us  here,  to  your  little  quiet  estab- 
lishmert,  but  to  speak  to  you  frankly, 
I  should  not  in  your  place  wrong  my 
lawful  wife  for  such  a  stuck-up  piece 
of  goods  as  this  one  is." 

"The  captain  is  quite  right,"  Roquet- 
ton  the  notary  opined;  "Madame  Rul- 
hiere, the  lawful  Madame  Rulhiere,  is 
much  more  amiable  and  altogether  nicer. 
You  are  a  scoundrel  to  deceive  her: 
but  when  may  we  hope  to  see  her?'* 

And  with  a  paternal  grimace,  he 
added; 

"But  do  not  be  uneasy,  we  will  all 
hold  our  tongues;  it  would  be  too  sad 
if  she  were  to  find  it  out." 


The  Carter's  Wench 


The  driver,  who  had  jumped  from  his 
box,  was  now  walking  slowly  by  the 
side  of  his  thin  horses,  waking  them  up 
every  moment  by  a  cut  of  the  whip  or 
a  coarse  oath.  He  pointed  to  the  top 
of  the  hill,  where  the  windows  of  a 
solitary  house,  although  it  was  verv  late 
and  quite  dark,  were  shining  like  yellow 
lamps,  and  said  to  me: 

"One  gets  good  liquor  there,  Mon- 
sieur, and  well  served,  by  George!" 

His  eyes  flashed  in  his  thin,  sunburned 
face,  which  was  a  deep  brickdust  color. 


and  he  smacked  his  lips  like  a  drunkard 
Li  the  remembrance  of  a  bottle  of  primi 
liquor  that  he  had  lately  imb.bed.  Then 
drawing  himself  u^)  i.i  his  blouse  he 
shivered  like  an  ox,  when  it  is  sharply 
pricked  with  the  goad. 

"Yes — ^well  served  by  a  wench  who 
will  turn  your  head  for  you  before  you 
have  tilted  your  elbow  and  drunk  a 
glass!" 

The  moon  was  rising  behind  the  snow- 
covered  mountain  peaks,  reddening 
them  to  blood  with  its  rays,  and  tingeina 


646 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


the  dark,  broken  clouds,  which  whirled 
and  floated  about  the  summits,  remind- 
ing the  traveler  of  some  terrible 
Medusa's  head.  The  gloomy  plains  of 
Capsir,  which  are  traversed  by  torrents, 
extensive  meadows  in  which  undefined 
forms  were  moving  about,  fields  of  rye 
like  huge  golden  tablecovers,  and  here 
and  there  wretched  villages  and  broad 
sheets  of  water,  into  which  the  stars 
gazed  in  melancholy  manner,  opened  out 
to  the  view.  Damp  gusts  of  v/ind  swept 
along  the  road,  bringing  a  strong  smell 
of  hay,  cf  resin,  and  of  unknown  flowers 
with  them,  and  erratic  masses  of  rock, 
which  were  scattered  on  the  surface  like 
huge  boundary  stones,  presented  spectral 
outlines. 

The  driver  pulled  his  broad-brimmed 
felt  hat  over  his  eyes,  twirled  his  large 
mustache,  and  said  in  an  obsequious 
voice: 

"Does  Monsieur  wish  to  stop  here? 
This  is  the  place!" 

It  was  a  wretched,  wayside  public- 
house,  with  a  reddish  slate  roof,  that 
looked  as  if  it  were  suffering  from 
leprosy.  Before  the  door  there  stood 
three  wagons  drawn  by  mubs  and 
loaded  with  huge  stems  of  trees,  which 
took  up  nearly  the  whole  of  the  road. 
The  animals,  who  were  used  to  halting 
there,  were  dozing,  and  their  heavy  loads 
exhaled  the  smell  of  a  pillaged  forest. 

Inside,  three  wagoners,  one  of  whom 
was  an  old  man,  wh"le  the  other  two 
were  young,  were  sitting  in  front  of  the 
fire,  w^hich  crackled  loudly.  There  were 
bottles  and  glasses  on  a  large  round 
table  by  their  side,  and  they  were  sing- 
ing and  laughing  boisterously.  A  wo- 
man with  large  round  bins,  and  with  a 
lace  cap  pinned  on  to  her  hair,  in  the 


Catalan  fashion,  who  looked  strong  and 
bold,  had  a  certain  amount  of  graceful- 
ness about  her,  and  a  pretty,  but  un- 
tidy head,  was  urging  them  to  undo  the 
strings  of  their  great  leather  purses. 
She  replied  to  their  somewhat  indelicate 
jokes  in  a  shrill  voice,  as  she  sat  on 
the  knee  of  the  youngest  and  allowed 
him  to  kiss  her  and  caress  her  without 
any  signs  of  shame. 

The  coachman  pushed  open  the  door 
like  a  man  who  knows  that  he  is  at 
home. 

''Good  evening,  Glaizette,  and  every- 
body; there  is  room  for  two  more,  I 
suppose?" 

The  wagoners  did  not  speak,  but 
looked  at  us  furtively  and  angrily,  like 
dogs  whose  food  has  been  taken  from 
them,  and  who  show  their  teeth,  ready 
to  bite.  The  girl  shrugged  her  shoul- 
ders, and  looked  into  their  eyes  like 
some  female  wild-beast  tamer;  then  she 
asked  us  w'th  a  strange  smile: 

"What  am  I  to  get  you?" 

"Two  glasses  cf  cognac  and  the  best 
you  have  in  the  cupboard,  Glaizette," 
the  coachman  replied,  rolling  a  cigarette. 

While  she  v/as  uncorking  the  bottle  I 
noticed  how  green  her  eyeballs  were; 
it  was  a  fascinating,  tempting  green, 
like  the  hue  of  the  great  green  grass- 
hopper. I  saw,  too,  how  small  her  hands 
were,  which  showed  that  she  did  not  use 
them  much.  Her  teeth  were  very  white, 
and  her  voice,  which  was  rather  rough, 
though  cooing,  had  a  cruel,  and  at  the 
same  time  a  coaxing,  sound.  I  fancied 
I  saw  her,  as  in  a  vision,  reclining 
triumphantly  on  a  couch,  indifferent  to 
the  fights  which  were  Roine  on  about 
her,  always  waiting,  longing  for  him  who 
would  prove  himself  the  stronger  and 


IHE  CARTER'S  WENCH 


647 


come  out  victorious.  She  was,  in  short, 
a  hospitable  dispenser  of  love,  by  the 
side  of  that  difficult,  stony  road,  who 
opened  her  arms  to  poor  men,  and  made 
them  forget  everything  in  the  profusion 
of  her  kisses.  She  probably  knew  se- 
crets which  nobody  in  the  world  besides 
herself  should  know,  secrets  which  her 
sealed  lips  would  carry  away  inviolate 
to  the  other  world.  She  could  never 
yet  have  loved,  and  would  never  really 
love,  because  she  was  vowed  to  passing 
kisses,  which  are  so  soon  forgotten. 

I  was  anxious  to  escape  from  her  as 
soon  as  possible;  to  fly  from  the  spell 
of  her  pale,  green  eyes,  and  her  mouth 
that  bestowed  caresses  from  pure  char- 
ity, to  feel  her  beautiful  white  hands  no 
longer  so  near  me.  So  I  threw  her  a 
piece  of  gold  and  made  my  escape  with- 
out saying  a  word,  without  waiting  for 
any  change,  and  without  even  wishing 
her  good  night,  fcr  I  felt  the  caress  of 
her  smile,  and  the  disdainful  restlessness 
of  her  looks. 

The  carriage  started  off  at  a  gallop  to 
Formigueres,  amid  a  furious  jingling 
of  bells.  I  could  not  sleep  any  more; 
I  wanted  to  know  where  that  woman 
came  from,  but  I  was  ashamed  to  ask 
the  driver,  or  to  show  any  interest  in 
such  a  creature.  But  when  he  began 
to  talk,  as  we  were  going  up  another 
hill,  divining  my  sweet  thoughts,  he  told 
me  all  he  knew  about  Glaizette.  I  lis- 
tened to  him  with  the  attention  of  a 
child,  to  whom  somebody  is  telling  some 
wonderful  fairy  tale. 

She  came  from  Fontpedrouze,  a 
muleteers'  village,  where  the  men  spend 
their  time  in  drinking  and  gambling  at 
the  inn,  when  tbev  are  not  traveling  on 


the  highroads  with  their  mules.  The 
women  do  all  the  field  work,  carry  the 
heaviest  loads  on  their  back,  and  lead  a 
life  of  pain  and  misery. 

Her  father  kept  an  inn,  and  the  girl 
grew  up  very  happily.  She  was  courted 
before  she  was  fifteen,  and  was  so 
coquettish  that  she  was  generally  found 
in  front  of  her  looking-glass,  smiling 
at  her  own  beauty,  arranging  her  hair, 
and  trying  to  make  herself  like  a  young 
Udy  on  the  prado.  Now  as  none  of  the 
family  knew  how  to  keep  a  half -penny, 
but  spent  more  than  they  earned,  re- 
sembling cracked  jugs,  from  which  the 
water  escapes  drop  by  drop,  they  found 
themselves  ruined  one  fine  day,  just  as 
if  they  had  been  at  the  bottom  of  a 
blind  alley.  So  on  the  Feast  of  our 
Lady  of  Succor,  when  people  go  on  a 
pilgrimage  to  Font  Romea,  and  the  viU 
lages  are  consequently  deserted,  the  inn- 
keeper set  fire  to  the  house.  The  crime 
was  discovered  through  La  Glaizette, 
who  could  not  make  up  her  mind  to 
leave  the  looking-glass  with  which  her 
room  was  adorned  behind  her,  and  so 
had  carried  it  off  under  her  petticoat. 

The  parents  were  sentenced  to  many 
years'  imprisonment.  Compelled  to  live 
the  best  way  she  could,  the  girl  became 
a  servant,  passed  from  hand  to  hand, 
inherited  some  property  from  an  old 
farmer  whom  she  had  caught  as  you 
catch  a  thrush  en  a  twig  covered  with 
bird-lime,  and  with  the  money  had  built 
this  public-house  on  the  new  road  which 
was  being  built  across  the  Capsir. 

"A  regular  bad  one.  Monsieur,"  said 
the  coachman  in  conclusion,  "a  vixen 
such  as  one  does  not  see  now  in  the 
worst   garrison   towns,   one  who  would 


648 


WOKKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


open  the  door  to  the  whole  confraternity, 
yet  not  at  all  avaricious,  and  thoroughly 
honest." 

I  interrupted  him  in  spite  of  myself, 
as  if  his  words  had  pained  me.  1 
thought  of  those  pale  green  eyes,  those 
magic  eyes,  eyes  to  be  dreamed  about, 
which  were  the  color  of  grasshoppers. 
I  looked  for  them,  and  saw  them  in  the 


darkness;  they  danced  before  me  like 
phosphorescent  lights,  and  I  would  have 
given  the  whole  contents  of  my  purse  to 
that  man  if  he  would  only  have  been 
silent  and  have  urged  his  horses  on  to 
full  speed,  so  that  their  mad  gallop 
might  carry  me  off  quickly,  quickly  and 
further,  continually  further  from  that 
girl. 


The  Rendezvous 


Although  she  had  her  bonnet  and 
jacket  on,  with  a  black  veil  over  her 
face,  and  another  in  h^r  pocket,  which 
would  be  put  on  over  the  other  as  soon 
as  she  had  got  into  a  cab,  she  was  tap- 
ping the  tcp  of  her  little  boot  with  the 
point  of  her  parasol,  and  remained  sit- 
ting in  her  room,  unable  to  make  up  her 
mind  to  keep  this  appointment. 

And  yet  how  man/  times  within  the 
last  two  years  had  she  dressed  herself 
thus,  when  she  knew  that  hzr  husband 
would  be  on  the  Stock  Exchange,  in  or- 
der to  go  to  the  bachelor  chambers  of 
handsome  Viscount  de  Martelet. 

The  clock  behind  her  was  ticking 
loudly,  a  bock  v/hich  she  had  half  read 
was  lying  open  oii  a  little  rosewood 
writinsr-table,  between  the  windows,  and 
a  strong  sweet  smell  of  violets  from  two 
bunches  in  Dresden  china  vases  mingled 
with  a  vague  sme^.l  of  verbena  which 
came  through  the  half-open  door  of  her 
dressing-room. 

The  clock  struck  three,  she  rose  up 
from  her  chair,  turned  round  to  look  at 
terself  in  the  glass  and  smiled.    "He  is 


already  v/aiting  for  me,  and  will  be 
Cutting  tired." 

Then  she  left  the  room,  told  her  foot- 
man that  she  would  be  back  in  an  hour, 
at  the  latest — which  was  a  He — went 
downstairs,  and  ventured  into  the  street 
on  foot. 

It  was  toward  the  end  of  May,  that 
delightful  time  of  the  year  when  spring 
seems  to  be  besieging  Paris,  flowing  over 
its  roofs,  invading  its  houses  through 
their  walls,  and  making  the  city  look 
gay,  shedding  brightness  over  its  granite 
fagadeSf  the  asphalt  of  its  pavements, 
the  stones  on  its  streets,  bathing  and 
intoxicating  it  w.th  new  life,  like  a 
forest  puttinj  on  ils  spring  vesture. 

Madame  Haggan  went  a  few  steps  to 
the  right,  intending,  as  usual,  to  go  along 
the  Parade  Provence,  where  she  would 
hail  a  cab.  But  the  soft  air,  that  feel- 
ing of  summer  which  penetrates  our 
breasts  on  some  days,  now  took  posses- 
sion of  her  so  suddenly  that  she  changed 
her  mind  and  went  down  the  Rue  de  la 
Chaussee  d'Antin,  without  knowing  why, 
but  vaguely  attracted  by  a  desire  to  see 
the  trees  in  the  Place  da  la  Trinite. 


I 


THE  RENDEZVOUS 


649 


**He  may  just  wait  ten  minutes  longer 
for  me,"  she  said  to  herself.  And  the 
idea  pleased  her  as  she  walked  slowly 
through  the  crowd.  She  fancied  that 
she  saw  him  growing  impatient,  looking 
at  the  clock,  opening  the  window,  listen- 
ing at  the  door,  silting  down  for  a  few 
moments,  getting  up  again,  not  daring 
to  smoke,  as  she  had  forbidden  him  to 
do  so  when  she  was  coming  to  him,  and 
throwing  despairing  looks  at  his  box  of 
cigarettes. 

She  walked  slowly,  interested  in  what 
she  saw,  the  shops  and  the  people  she 
met,  walking  slower  and  slower,  and  so 
little  eager  to  get  to  her  destination, 
that  she  only  sought  for  some  pretext 
for  stopping.  At  the  end  of  the  street, 
in  the  little  square,  the  green  lawns  at- 
tracted her  so  much  that  she  went  in, 
took  a  chair,  and,  sitting  down,  watched 
the  hands  of  the  clock  as  they  moved. 

Just  then,  the  half  hour  struck,  and 
her  heart  bsat  with  pleasure  when  she 
heard  the  chimes.  She  had  gained  half- 
an-hour,  then  it  would  take  her  a  quar- 
ter of  an  hour  to  reach  the  Rue  de 
Miromesnil,  and  a  few  minutes  more  in 
strolling  along — an  hour!  a  whole  hour 
saved  from  her  rendezvous!  She  would 
not  stop  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  and 
that  business  would  be  finished  once 
more. 

She  disliked  going  there  as  a  patient 
dislikes  going  to  the  dentist.  She  had 
an  intolerable  recollection  of  all  their 
past  meetings,  one  a  week  on  an  aver- 
age, for  the  last  two  years;  and  the 
thought  that  another  was  to  take  place 
immediately  made  her  shiver  with 
misery  from  head  to  foot.  Not  that  it 
was  exactly  painful,  like  a  visit  to  the 
dentist,  but  it  was  wearisome,  so  weari- 


some, so  complicated,  so  long,  so  un* 
pleasant,  that  anything,  even  a  visit  to 
the  dentist,  would  have  seemed  prefer- 
able to  her. 

She  went  on,  hov/ever,  but  very 
slowly,  stopping,  sitting  down,  going 
hither  and  thither,  but  she  went.  Oh  I 
how  she  would  have  liked  to  miss  this 
meeting,  but  she  had  left  the  unhappy 
Viscount  in  the  lurch,  twice  running, 
during  the  last  month,  and  she  did  not 
dare  to  do  it  again  so  soon.  Why  did 
she  go  to  see  him?  Oh!  why?  Because 
she  had  acquired  the  habit  of  doing  it, 
and  had  no  reason  to  give  poor  Martelet 
when  he  wanted  to  know  the  why!  Why 
had  she  begun  it?  Why?  She  did  not 
know  herself,  any  longer.  Had  she 
been  in  love  with  him?  Very  possibly! 
Not  very  much,  but  a  little,  a  long  time 
ago!  He  was  very  nice,  much  sought 
after,  perfectly  dressed,  most  courteous, 
and  after  the  first  glance,  he  was  a  per- 
fect lover  fcr  a  fashionable  woman. 

He  had  courted  her  fcr  three  months 
— the  normal  period,  an  honorable  strife 
and  sufficient  resistance — and  then  sh& 
had  consented.  What  emotion,  what 
nervousness,  what  terrible,  delightful 
fear,  attended  thet  first  meeting  in  his 
small,  ground-flocr  bachelor  rooms,  in 
the  Rue  de  Miromesnil.  Uer  heart? 
What  did  her  little  heart  of  a  woman 
who  had  been  seduced,  vanquished,  con- 
quered, feel  when  she  for  the  first  time 
entered  the  door  of  the  house  which  was 
her  nightmare?  She  really  did  not 
know!  She  had  quite  forgotten.  One 
remembers  a  fact,  a  date,  a  thing,  but 
one  hardly  remembers,  after  the  lapse 
of  two  years,  what  an  emotion,  which 
soon  vanished  because  it  was  very  slight, 
was  like.     But  she  had   certainly  not 


650 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


forgotten  the  others,  that  rosary  of 
meetings,  that  road  to  the  cross  of  love 
and  its  stations,  which  were  so  monoto- 
nous, so  fatiguing,  so  similar  to  each 
other,  that  she  felt  nauseated. 

The  very  cabs  were  not  like  the  other 
cabs  which  you  use  for  ordinary  pur- 
poses! Certainly,  the  cabmen  guessed. 
She  felt  sure  of  it,  by  the  very  way  they 
looked  at  her,  and  the  eyes  of  these 
Paris  cabmen  are  terrible!  When  you 
realize  that  these  jchus  constantly  iden- 
tify in  the  Courts  of  Justice,  after  'i 
lapse  of  several  years,  the  faces  of 
criminals  whom  they  have  only  driven 
once,  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  from 
some  street  or  other  to  a  railway  sta- 
tion, and  that  they  carry  daily  almost 
as  many  passengers  as  there  are  hours  in 
the  da}'',  and  that  their  memory  is  good 
enough  for  them  to  declare:  "That  is 
the  man  whom  I  took  up  in  the  Rue  des 
Martyrs,  and  put  down  rt  the  Lyons 
Railways  Station,  at  12  o'clock  at  night, 
on  July  10,  last  year!"  Is  it  not  terri- 
ble to  rick  what  a  young  woman  risks 
when  she  is  going  to  meet  her  lover,  and 
has  to  trust  her  reputation  to  the  first 
cabman  she  meets?  In  two  years  she 
had  em::lcyed  at  least  one  hundred  or 
more  of  them  in  that  drive  to  the  Rue 
de  Miromesnil,  reckoning  only  one  a 
week.  They  were  so  many  witnesses, 
who  might  appear  against  her  at  a  crit- 
ical moment. 

As  soon  as  she  was  in  the  cab,  she 
took  another  veil,  as  thick  and  dark  as 
a  domino  mask,  out  of  her  pocket,  and 
put  it  on.  That  hid  her  face,  but  what 
about  the  rest,  her  dress,  her  bonnet, 
and  her  parasol?  They  might  be  re- 
marked— they  mi::ht,  in  fact,  have  been 
seen  already.     Oh!     What  misery  she 


endured  in  this  Rue  de  Miromesnil!  She 
thought  she  recognized  the  foot-passen- 
gers, the  servants,  everybody,  and  al- 
most before  the  cab  had  stopped,  she 
jumped  out  and  ran  past  the  porter  who 
was  standing  outside  his  lodge.  Hz  must 
know  everything,  everything!- -her  ad- 
dress, her  name,  her  husband's  profes- 
sion,— everything,  for  those  porters  are 
the  most  cunning  of  policemen!  For 
two  years  she  had  intended  to  bribe  him, 
to  give  him  (to  throw  at  liim  one  day  as 
she  passed  him)  a  hundred  franc  bank- 
note, but  she  had  never  dared  to  do  it. 
She  was  frightened.  What  of?  She  did 
not  know!  Of  his  calling  her  back,  if 
he  did  not  understand?  Of  a  scandal? 
Of  a  crowd  on  the  stairs?  Of  being 
arrested,  perhaps?  To  reach  the  Vis- 
count's door,  she  had  only  to  ascend  half 
a  flight  cf  stairs,  but  it  seemed  to  her 
as  high  as  the  tower  of  Saint  Jacques's 
Church. 

As  soon  as  she  had  reached  the  vesti- 
bule, she  felt  £s  if  she  were  caught  in  a 
trap.  The  slightest  noise  before  or  be- 
hind her  nearly  made  her  faint.  It  was 
impossible  for  her  to  go  back,  because 
of  that  porter  who  barred  her  retreat; 
and  if  anyone  came  down  at  that  mo- 
ment she  would  not  dare  to  ring  at 
Martelet's  door,  but  would  pass  it  as  if 
she  had  been  going  elsewhere!  She 
would  have  gone  up,  and  up,  and  up! 
She  would  have  mounted  forty  flights 
of  stairs!  Then,  when  everything 
seemed  quiet  again  down  below,  she 
would  run  down  feeling  terribly  fright- 
ened, lest  she  should  not  recognize  the 
apartment. 

He  would  be  there  in  a  velvet  coat 
lined  with  silk,  very  stylish,  but  rather 
ridiculous,  and  for  two  years  he  had 


THE  RENDEZVOUS 


651 


never  altered  his  manner  of  receiving 
her,  not  in  a  single  movement!  As 
soon  as  he  had  shut  the  door  he  used  to 
say:  "Let  me  kiss  your  hands,  my  dear, 
dear  friend l"  Then  he  would  follow 
her  into  the  room,  where  with  closed 
shutters  and  lighted  candles,  out  of  re- 
finement, no  doubt,  he  would  kneel  down 
before  her  and  look  at  her  from  head 
to  foot  with  an  air  of  adoration.  On 
the  first  occasion  that  had  been  very 
nice  and  very  successful;  but  now  it 
seemed  to  her  as  if  she  saw  Monsieur 
Delaunay  acting  the  last  scene  of  a  suc- 
cessful piece  for  the  hundred  and  twen- 
tieth time.  He  might  really  change 
his  manner  of  acting.  But  no,  he  never 
altered  his  manner  of  acting,  poor  fel- 
low. What  a  good  fellow  he  was,  but  so 
commonplace! 

And  how  difficult  it  was  to  undress 
and  dress  without  a  lady's  maid!  Per- 
haps that  was  the  moment  when  she 
began  to  take  a  dislike  to  him.  When 
he  said:  "Do  you  want  me  to  help 
you?"  she  could  have  killed  him.  Cer- 
tainly there  were  not  many  men  as  awk- 
ward as  he  was,  or  as  uninteresting. 
Certainly  little  Baron  de  Isombal 
would  never  have  asked  her  in  such  a 
manner:  "Do  you  want  me  to  help 
you?'*  He  would  have  helped  her,  he 
was  so  witty,  do  funny,  so  active.  But 
there!  He  was  a  diplomatist,  he  had 
been  about  in  the  world,  and  had 
roamed  everywhere,  and,  no  doubt,  had 
dressed  and  undressed  women  arrayed 
in  every  possible  fashion! 

The  church  clock  struck  the  three- 
quarters.  She  looked  at  the  dial,  and 
said:  **'0h,  how  anxious  he  will  be!'* 
and  then  she  quickly  left  the  square. 
But  she  had  not  taken  a  dozen  steps 


outside,  when  she  found  herself  face  to 
face  with  a  gentleman  who  bowed  pro- 
foundly to  her. 

"Why!  Is  that  you,  Baron?"  she  said, 
in  surprise.  She  had  just  been  thinking 
of  him. 

"Yes,  madame.  And  then,  after 
asking  how  she  was,  he  continued: 
"Do  you  know  that  you  are  the  only  one 
— you  will  allow  me  to  say  of  my  lady 
friends,  I  hope — who  has  not  yet  seen 
my  Japanese  collection?'* 

"But,  my  dear  Baron,  a  lady  cannot 
go  to  a  bachelor's  room  like  this." 

"What  do  you  m.ean?  That  is  a  great 
mistake,  when  it  is  a  question  of  seeing 
a  rare  collection!" 

"At  any  rate,  she  cannot  go  alone." 

"And  why  not?  I  have  received  a 
number  of  ladies  alone,  only  for  the 
sake  of  seeing  my  collection!  They 
come  every  day.  Shall  I  tell  you  their 
names?  No — I  will  not  do  that,  one 
must  be  discreet,  even  when  one  is  not 
guilty.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is 
nothing  improper  in  going  to  the  house 
of  a  well-known  seriously  minded  man 
who  holds  a  certain  position,  unless  one 
goes  for  an  improper  reason!" 

"Well,  what  ycu  have  said  is  cer- 
tainly correct,  at  bottom.** 

"So  you  will  come  and  see  my  collec- 
tion?" 

"When?" 

"Well,  now,  immediately.** 

"Impossible,  I  am  in  a  hurry." 

"Nonsense,  you  have  been  sitting  in 
the  square  for  this  last  half  hour." 

"You   were   watching   me?" 

"I  was  looking  at  you." 

"But  I  am  sadly  in  a  hurry." 

"I  am  sure  you  are  not.  Confess  that 
you  are  in  no  particular  hurry." 


652 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Madame  Haggan  began  to  laugh,  and 
said:     "Well,  no — not  very." 

A  cab  passed  close  by  them,  and  the 
little  Baroa  called  out:  "Cabman!" 
The  vehicle  stopped,  and  opening  the 
door,  he  said:     "Get  in,  madame." 

"But,  Baron!  No,  it  is  impossible  to- 
day; I  really  cannot." 

"Madame,  you  are  acting  very  im- 
prudently. Get  in!  People  are  begin- 
ning to  look  at  U3,  and  you  will  collect  a 
crowd;  they  will  think  I  am  tryirg  to 
carry  you  off,  and  we  shall  both  be 
arrested;  please  get  in!" 

She  got  in,  frightened  and  bewildered, 
and  he  sat  down  by  her  side,  saying  to 
the  cabman:     "Rue  de  Provence." 

But  suddenly  she  exclaimed:  **Good 
heavens!  I  have  forge  .ten  a  very  im- 
portant telesrram;  please  drive  to  the 
Dearest  t^letrr^^h  office  first  rf  all." 

The  cab  stopped  a  little  farther  on,  in 


the  Rue  de  Chateaudun,  and  she  said  to 
the  Baron:  "Would  you  kindly  get  me 
a  fifty-centimes  telegraph  form?  I 
promised  my  husband  to  invite  Martelet 
to  dinner  to-morroW;  and  had  quite  for- 
gotten it." 

When  the  Baron  returned  and  gave 
her  the  blue  telegraph  form,  she  wrote 
in  a  pencil: 

"My  dear  friend,  I  am  not  at  all  well. 
I  am  sufferin:^  terribly  from  neuralgia, 
v.'hich  keeps  me  in  bed.  Impossible  to 
fro  cut.  Come  and  dine  to-morrov/  night, 
'JO  that  I  may  obtain  my  pardon. 

"Jeanne." 

She  wetted  the  gum,  fastened  it  care- 
fully, and  addressed  it  to  "Viscount  de 
Martelet,  240  Rue  de  Miromesnil,"  and 
then,  giving  it  back  to  che  Baron,  she 
raid:  "New,  w'll  yon  b'*  k'^d  e^'ougb 
to  throw  this  in  the  telegram  box?" 


Solkude 


We  had  been  dining  at  the  hcuso  cf 
a  friend,  and  the  dinner  had  been  very 
gay.  After  it  brcke  up,  one  of  the 
party,  an  eld  friend,  said  to  me: 

"Let  us  take  a  stroll  in  the  Champs- 
Elysees." 

I  agreed,  and  we  went  out,  slowly 
walking  up  the  long  promenade,  under 
trees  hardly  yet  covered  with  leaves. 
Thtre  was  hardly  a  sound,  save  that 
confused  and  constant  murmur  which 
Paris  makes.  A  fresh  breeze  fanned 
our  faces,  and  a  legion  cf  stars  were 
scattered  over  the  black  sky  like  a 
^golden  powder. 


My  companion  said  to  me : 

"I  do  net  know  why,  but  I  breathe 
better  here  at  nicht  than  anywhere  else. 
It  seems  to  me  that  my  thoughts  are  en- 
larged. I  have  at  times,  a  sort  of 
glimmering  in  my  soul,  that  makes  me 
believe,  for  a  second,  that  the  divine 
secret  of  things  is  about  to  be  dis- 
covered. Then  the  window  is  closed, 
and  my  vision  is  ended." 

From  time  to  time  we  saw  two  sha- 
dows glide  along  the  length  of  the 
thickets;  then  we  passed  a  bench,  where 
two  people,  seated  side  by  side,  made 
but  one  black  soot. 


I 


SOLITUDE 


^53 


My  friend  murmured: 

''Poor  things!  They  do  not  inspire 
me  with  disgust,  but  with  an  immense 
pity.  Among  all  the  mysteries  of  hu- 
man life  there  is  one  which  I  have  pene- 
trated; our  great  torment  in  this  exis- 
tence comes  from  the  fact  that  we  are 
eternally  alone — all  our  efforts  and  all 
our  actions  are  directed  toward  escaping 
this  solitude.  Those  two  lovers  there 
on  the  benches  in  the  open  air  are  seek- 
ing, as  we — as  all  creatures  arc  seek- 
ing, to  make  their  isolation  cease,  if 
only  for  a  minute  or  less.  They  are 
liN^ing  and  always  will  live  alone;  and 
we  also. 

"This  is  more  or  less  apparent  to  all 
of  us.  For  some  time  I  have  endured 
this  abominable  pain  of  having  under- 
stood, of  having  discovered  the  fright- 
ful solitude  in  v/hich  I  live,  and  I  know 
that  nothing  can  make  it  cease — noth 
ing.  Do  you  hear?  Whatever  we  may 
attempt,  whatever  we  m^y  do,  whatever 
may  be  the  misery  cf  cur  hearts,  the 
appeal  of  our  lips,  the  clasp  of  our  arms, 
we  are  always  alone.  I  have  asked  you 
to  walk  to-night,  so  that  I  shall  not 
have  to  enter  my  own  house,  because 
now  I  suffer  horribly  from  the  solitude 
of  my  home.  What  good  does  it  do  me? 
I  speak  to  you,  you  listen  to  me,  yet 
we  are  both  alone,  side  by  side  but  alone. 
You  understand? 

"  'Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit,'  say 
the  Scriptures.  They  have  the  illusion  of 
happiness.  They  do  not  feel  our  solitary 
misery,  they  do  not  wander,  as  I  do. 
through  life,  without  contact  save  of  el- 
bows, without  joy  save  the  egotistic 
satisfaction  of  understanding,  of  seeing, 
of  divining,  and   of  suffering  eternally 


from  the  knowledge  of  our  never-ending 
isolation. 

''You  think  me  slightly  deranged — do 
you  not?  Listen  to  me.  Smce  I  have 
felt  the  solitude  of  my  being,  it  seems 
to  me  that  I  am  daily  sinking  more 
deeply  intn  a  dark  vault,  whose  sides  I 
cannot  find,  whose  end  I  do  not  know, 
and  which,  perhaps,  has  no  end.  1  sink 
without  anyone  with  me,  or  around  me, 
without  any  living  person  making  this 
same  gloomy  journey.  This  vault  is 
life.  Sometimes  I  hear  noises,  voices, 
cries.  I  timidly  advance  toward  these 
confused  sounds.  But  I  never  know  ex- 
actly from  whom  they  come;  I  never 
meet  anybody,  I  never  find  another 
hand  in  this  darkness  that  sur/ounds 
me.     Do  you  understand? 

"Some  men  have  occasionally  divined 
this  frightful  suffering.  De  Musset  has 
written : 

" 'Who  comes?    Who  calls  me?    No  one. 
I  am  alone.    One  o'clock  strikes. 
O  Solitude !     O  Misery !' 

But  with  him  there  is  only  a  passing 
doubt,  and  rot  a  definite  certainty  as 
with  me.  He  was  a  poet;  he  peopled 
life  with  fantasies,  with  dreams.  He 
was  never  really  alone.    I — I  am  alone. 

"Gustave  Flaubert,  one  of  the  great 
unfortunates  of  this  world,  because  he 
was  one  of  the  great  lights,  wrote  to  a 
friend  this  despairing  phrase:  'We  are 
all  in  a  desert.  Nobody  understands 
anybody.' 

"No,  nobody  understands  anybody — 
whatever  one  thinks,  whatever  one  says. 
whatever  one  attempts.  Does  the  earth 
know  what  passes  in  those  stars  that 
are  hurled  bke  a  spark  of  fire  across  th3 
firm.aroent — so  far  that  we  perceive  only 


654 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


the  splendor  of  some?  Think  of  the 
innumerable  army  of  others  lost  in  in- 
finitude— so  near  to  each  other  that 
they  form  perhaps  a  whole,  as  the  mole- 
cules of  a  body! 

"Well,  man  does  not  know  what 
passes  in  another  man  any  more.  We 
are  farther  from  one  another  than  the 
stars,  and  far  more  isolated,  because 
thought  is  unfathomable. 

"Do  you  know  anything  more  fright- 
ful than  this  constant  contact  with 
beings  that  we  cannot  penetrate?  We 
love  one  another  as  if  we  were  fettered, 
very  close,  with  extended  arms,  without 
succeeding  in  reaching  one  another.  A 
torturing  need  of  union  hampers  us,  but 
all  our  efforts  remain  barren,  our 
abandonment  useless,  our  confidences 
unfruitful,  our  embraces  powerless,  our 
caresses  vain.  When  we  wish  to  join 
each  other,  our  sudden  emotions  make 
us  only  clash  against  each  other. 

"I  never  feel  myself  more  alone  than 
when  I  open  my  heart  to  some  friend, 
because  I  then  better  understand  the 
insuperable  obstacle.  He  is  there,  my 
friend;  I  see  his  clear  eyes  above  me, 
but  the  soul  behind  them  I  do  not  see. 
He  listens  to  me.  What  is  he  thinking? 
Ves,  what  is  he  thinking?  You  do  not 
mderstand  this  torment!  He  hates  me, 
perhaps, — or  scorns  me, — or  mocks  me! 
He  reflects  upon  what  I  have  said;  he 
fudges  me,  he  rails  at  me,  he  condemns 
me,  and  considers  me  either  very  medi- 
ocre or  a  fool. 

"How  am  I  to  know  what  he  thinks? 
How  am  I  to  know  whether  he  loves 
me  as  I  love  him,  and  what  is  at  work 
in  that  little  round  head?  What  a 
mystery  is  the  unknown  thought  of  a 
being,     the    hidden     and    independent 


thought,  that  we  can  neither  know  noi 
control,  neither  command  nor  conquer! 

"And  I!  I  have  wished  in  vain  to 
give  myself  up  entirely;  to  open  all  the 
doors  of  my  soul,  and  I  do  not  suc- 
ceed in  giving  myself  up.  I  still  remain 
in  the  depth,  the  very  depth,  the  secret 
abode  of  me,  where  no  one  can  pene- 
trate. No  one  can  discover  it,  or  enter 
there,  because  no  one  resembles  me,  be- 
cause no  one  understands  anyone. 

"You,  at  least,  understand  me  at  this 
moment ;  no :  you  think  I  am  mad !  You 
examine  me ;  you  shrink  from  me !  You 
ask  yourself:  'What's  the  matter  with 
him  to-night?'  But  if  you  succeed  in 
seizing,  in  divining,  one  day,  my  horrible 
and  subtle  suffering,  come  to  me  and  say 
only:  'I  have  understood  you!'  and 
you  will  make  me  happy,  for  a  second, 
perhaps. 

"Women  make  me  still  more  conscious 
of  my  solitude.  Misery!  Misery! 
How  I  have  suffered  through  women; 
because  they,  more  than  men,  have  often 
given  me  the  illusion  of  not  being 
alone! 

"When  one  falls  in  love  it  seems  as 
though  one  expands.  A  superhuman 
felicity  envelops  you!  Do  you  know 
why?  Do  you  know  why  you  feel  then 
this  sensation  of  exceeding  happiness? 
It  is  simply  because  one  imagines  him^ 
self  no  longer  alone.  Isolation,  the 
abandonn.ent  of  the  human  being  seems 
to  cease.     What  an  error! 

"More  torrr.ented  even  than  we,  by 
this  eternal  need  of  love  which  gnaws  at 
our  solitary  heart,  are  women,  the  great 
delusion  and  the  dream. 

"You  know  those  delicious  hours 
passed  face  to  face  with  a  being  with 
long  hair,  charming  features,  and  a  look 


SOLITUDE 


655 


that  excited  us  to  love.  What  delirium 
misleads  our  mind!  What  illusion  car- 
ries us  away!  Does  it  not  seem  that 
presently  our  souls  shall  form  but  one? 
But  this  'presently'  never  comes;  and, 
after  weeks  of  waiting,  of  hope,  and  of 
deceptive  joy,  you  find  yourself  again, 
one  day,  more  alone  than  you  have  ever 
been  before. 

"After  each  kiss,  after  each  embrace, 
the  isolation  is  increased.  And  how 
frightfully  one  suffers! 

"Has  not  Sully  Prudhomme  written: 

*'  'Caresses  are  only  restless  transports, 
Fruitless  attempts  of  poor  love  which 

essay 
The  impossible  union  of  souls  by  the 

bodies.' 

**And  then — good-bye.  It  is  over. 
One  hardly  recognizes  the  woman  who 
has  been  everything  to  us  for  a  moment 
of  life,  and  whose  thoughts,  intimate 
and  commonplace,  undoubtedly,  we  have 
never  known. 

"At  the  very  hour  when  it  would 
seem,  in  that  mysterious  accord  of 
beings,  in  the  complete  intermingling  of 
ideas  and  of  aspirations,  that  you  were 
sounding  the  very  depth  of  her  soul,  one 
word — one  word  only,  sometimes — ^will 
reveal  your  error,  will  show  you,  like 
a  flash  of  lightning  in  the  night,  the 
black  abyss  between  you. 

"And  still,  that  which  is  best  in  the 
world  is  to  pass  a  night  near  a  woman 
you  love,  without  speaking,  completely 


happy  in  the  sole  sensation  of  her  pres- 
ence. Ask  no  more,  for  two  beings  have 
never  yet  been  united. 

"As  to  myself,  now,  I  have  closed  my 
soul.  I  tell  no  more  to  anybody  what 
I  believe,  what  I  think,  or  what  I  love. 
Knowing  myself  condemned  to  this  hor- 
rible solitude,  I  look  upon  things  with- 
out expressing  my  opinion.  What  mat- 
ter to  me  opinions,  quarrels,  pleasures, 
or  beliefs!  Being  unable  to  participate 
with  anyone,  I  have  withdrawn  myself 
from  all.  My  invisible  self  lives  un- 
explored. I  have  common  phrases  for 
answers  to  the  questions  of  each  day, 
and  a  smile  which  says  'Yes,'  when  I 
do  not  even  wish  to  take  the  trouble  of 
speaking.     Do  you  understand?'' 

We  had  traversed  the  long  avenue  to 
the  Arc  de  Triomphe,  and  had  then 
walked  back  to  the  Place  de  la  Con- 
corde, for  he  had  said  all  this  slowly, 
adding  many  other  things  which  I  no 
longer  remember. 

He  stopped,  and  stretching  his  arm 
toward  the  great  granite  obelisk  stand- 
ing on  the  pavement  of  Paris,  losing  its 
long  Egyptian  profile  in  the  night  of  the 
stars — an  exiled  monument,  bearing  on 
its  side  the  history  of  its  country  writ- 
ten in  strange  signs — said  brusquely: 
"Look — ^we  are  all  like  that  stone." 

Then  he  left  me  without  adding  a 
word.  Was  he  intoxicated?  Was  he 
mad?  Was  he  wise?  I  do  not  yet 
know.  Sometimes  it  seems  to  me  that 
he  was  right;  sometimes  it  seems  to 
me  that  he  had  lost  his  mind. 


The  Man  with  the  Blue  Eyes 


Monsieur  Pierre  Agenor  de  Varg- 
KES,  the  Examining  Magistrate,  was  the 
exact  opposite  of  a  practical  joker.  He 
was  dignity,  staidness,  correctness  per- 
sonified. As  a  sedate  man,  he  was  quite 
incapable  of  being  guilty,  even  in  his 
dreams,  of  anything  resembling  a  prac- 
tical joke,  however  remotely.  I  know 
nobody  to  whom  he  could  be  compared, 
unless  it  be  the  present  president*  of  the 
French  Republic.  I  think  it  is  useless 
to  carry  the  analogy  any  further,  and 
having  said  thus  much,  it  will  be  easily 
understood  that  a  cold  shiver  passed 
through  me  when  I  heard  the  following: 

At  about  eight  o'clock,  one  morning 
last  winter,  as  he  was  leaving  the  house 
to  go  to  the  Palais  de  Justice,  his  foot- 
man handed  him  a  card,  on  which  was 
printed : 

DOCTOR  JAMES  FERDINAND, 

Member   of  the   Academy    of  Medicine, 

Port-au-Prince, 

Chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honor. 

At  the  bottom  of  the  card,  there  was 
written  in  pencil:  "From  Lady  Fro- 
gere." 

Monsieur  de  Vargnes  knew  the  lady 
very  well.  She  was  a  very  agreeable 
Creole  from  Haiti,  whom  he  had  met 
in  many  drawing-rooms,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  though  the  doctor's  name 
did  not  awaken  any  recollections  in 
him,  his  quality  and  titles  alone  de- 
manded the  courtesy  of  an  interview, 
however  short  it  might  be.  Therefore, 
although  he  was  in  a  hurry  to  get  out, 
Monsieur  de  Vargnes  told  the  footman 
to  show  in  his  early  visitor,  but  to  tell 
him   beforePand   that   his   master   was 


much  pressed  for  time,  as  lie  had  to  go 
to  the  Law  Courts. 

When  the  doctor  came  in,  in  spite  of 
his  usual  imperturbabihty,  the  magis- 
trate could  not  restrain  a  movement  of 
surprise,  for  the  doctor  presented  the 
strange  anomaly  of  being  a  negro  of 
the  purest,  blackest  type,  with  the  eyes 
of  a  white  man — of  a  man  from  the 
North — pale,  cold,  clear,  blue  eyes.  His 
surprise  increased.,  when,  after  a  few 
words  of  excuse  for  an  untimely  visit, 
the  doctor  added,  with  an  enigmatical 
smile : 

"My  eyes  surprise  you,  do  they  not? 
I  was  sure  that  they  would,  and,  to 
tell  you  the  truth,  I  came  here  in  order 
that  you  might  look  at  them  well,  and 
never  forget  them." 

His  smile,  and  his  words,  even  more 
than  his  smile,  seemed  to  be  those  of  a 
madman.  He  spoke  very  softly,  with 
that  childish,  lisping  voice  which  is  pe- 
culiar to  negroes,  and  his  mysterious, 
almost  menacing,  words  consequently 
sounded  all  the  more  as  if  they  were 
uttered  at  random  by  a  man  bereft  of 
reason.  But  the  doctor's  looks,  the 
looks  of  those  pale,  cold,  clear,  blue 
eyes,  were  certainly  not  those  of  a  mad- 
man. They  clearly  expressed  menace, 
yes,  menace,  as  well  as  irony,  and  above 
all,  implacable  ferocity,  and  their  glance 
was  like  a  flash  of  lightning,  which  one 
could  never  forget. 

"I  have  seen,"  Monsieur  de  Vargnes 
used  to  say,  when  speaking  about  it, 
"the  looks  of  many  murderers,  but  in 
none    of   them   have   I    ever   observed 


*Jules  Grevy. 


656 


THE  MAN  WITH  THE  BLUE  EYES 


657 


such  a  depth  of  crime,  and  of  impudent 
oecurity  in  crime." 

And  this  impression  was  so  strong 
that  Monsieur  de  Vargnes  thought  he 
was  the  victim  of  some  hallucination, 
especially  as  when  he  spoke  about  his 
eyes,  the  doctor  continued  with  a  smile, 
and  in  his  most  childish  accents: 

"Of  course,  Monsieur,  you  cannot 
understand  what  I  am  saying  to  you, 
and  I  must  beg  your  pardon  for  it. 
To-morrow  you  will  receive  a  letter 
which  will  explain  it  all  to  you,  but, 
first  of  all,  it  was  necessary  that  I 
should  let  you  have  a  good,  a  careful 
look  at  my  eyes,  my  eyes,  which  are 
myself,  my  only  and  true  self,  as  you 
will  see." 

With  these  words,  and  with  a  polite 
bow,  the  doctor  went  out,  leaving  Mon- 
sieur de  Vargnes  extremely  surprised, 
and  a  prey  to  doubt.  He  said  to  him- 
self: "Is  he  merely  a  madman?  The 
fierce  expression  and  the  criminal  depths 
of  his  looks  are  perhaps  caused  merely 
by  the  extraordinary  contrast  between 
his  fierce  looks  and  his  pale  eyes." 

And  absorbed  in  these  thoughts,  Mon- 
sieur de  V^argnes  unfortunately  allowed 
several  minutes  to  elapse.  Then  he 
thought  to  himself  suddenly: 

"No,  I  am  rot  the  sport  of  any  hal- 
lucination, and  this  is  no  case  of  an 
optical  i.-nenomenon.  This  man  is  evi- 
dently some  terrible  criminal,  and  I 
have  altogether  failed  in  my  duty  in 
not  arresting  him  myself  at  once, 
illegally,  even  at  the  risk  of  my  life." 

The  judge  ran  downstairs  in  pursuit 
of  the  doctor,  but  it  was  too  late;  he 
had  disappeared.  In  the  afternoon,  he 
called  on  Madame  de  Frogere,  to  ask 
her  whether  she  could  tell  him  anything 


about  the  matter.  She,  however,  did 
not  know  the  negro  doctor  in  the  least, 
and  was  even  able  to  assure  him  that 
he  was  a  fictitious  personage,  for,  as 
she  was  well  acquainted  with  the  upper 
classes  in  Haiti,  she  knew  that  the 
Academy  of  Medicine  at  Port-au-Prince 
had  no  doctor  of  that  name  among  its 
members.  As  Monsieur  de  Vargnes 
persisted,  and  gave  descriptions  of  the 
doctor,  especially  mentioning  his  ex- 
traordinary eyes  Madame  de  Frogere 
began  to  laugh,  and  said: 

"You  have  certainly  had  to  do  with 
a  hoaxer,  my  dear  Monsieur.  The  eyes 
which  you  have  described  are  certainly 
those  of  a  white  man,  and  the  individual 
must  have  been  painted." 

On  thinking  it  over.  Monsieur  de 
Vargnes  remembered  that  the  doctor 
had  nothing  of  the  negro  about  him  but 
his  black  skin,  his  woolly  hair  and 
beard,  and  his  way  of  speaking,  which 
was  easily  imitated.  He  had  not  the 
characteristic,  undulating  walk.  Per- 
haps, after  all,  he  was  only  a  practical 
joker,  and  during  the  whole  day,  Mon- 
sieur de  Vargnes  took  refuge  in  that 
view,  which  rather  wounded  his  dignity 
as  a  man  of  consequence,  but  appeased 
his  scruples  as  a  magistrate. 

The  next  day,  he  received  the  prom- 
ised letter,  which  was  written,  as  well 
as  addressed,  in  characters  cut  out  of 
the  newspapers.     It  was  as  follows: 

"Monsieur: 

"Doctor  James  Ferdinand  does  not 
exist,  but  the  man  whose  eyes  you  saw- 
does,  and  you  v/ill  certainly  recopTiize  his 
eyes.  This  man  has  conimitted  two 
crimes,  for  which  he  does  not  feel  any 
remorse,  but,  as  he  is  a  psychologist,  he 
is  afraid  of  some  day  yielding  to  the 
irresistible  temptation  of   confessing   his 


658 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


crimes.  You  know  better  than  anyone 
(and  that  is  your  most  powerful  aid), 
with  what  imperious  force  criminals,  es- 
pecially intellectual  ones,  feel  this  tempta- 
tion. That  great  poet,  Edgar  Allan  Toe, 
has  written  masterpieces  on  this  subject, 
which  express  the  truth  exactly,  but  he 
has  omitted  to  mention  the  last  phenom- 
enon, which  I  will  tell  you.  Yes,  I,  a 
criminal,  feel  a  terrible  wish  for  some- 
body to  know  of  my  crimes,  and  when 
this  requirement  is  satisfied,  when  my 
secret  has  been  revealed  to  a  confidant,  I 
shall  be  tranquil  for  the  future,  and  be 
freed  from  this  demon  of  perversity, 
which  only  tempts  us  once.  Well !  Now 
that  is  accomplished.  You  shall  have  my 
secret:  from  the  day  that  you  recognize 
me  by  my  eyes,  you  will  try  and  find 
out  what  I  am  guilty  of,  and  how  I  was 
guilty,  and  you  will  discover  it,  being  a 
master  of  your  profession,  which,  by-the- 
bye,  has  procured  you  the  honor  of  hav- 
ing been  chosen  by  me  to  bear  the  weight 
of  this  secret,  which  now  is  shared  by  us, 
and  by  us  two  alone.  I  say,  advisedly, 
by  lis  two  alone.  You  could  not,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  prove  the  reality  of  this 
secret  to  anyone,  unless  I  were  to  confess 
it,  and  I  defy  you  to  obtain  my  public 
confession,  as  I  have  confessed  it  to  you, 
and  zvithout  danger  to  myself.'* 

Three    months    later,    Monsieur    de 

Vargnes  met  Monsieur  X  at  an 

evening  party,  and  at  first  sight,  and 
without  the  slightest  hesitation,  he 
recognized  in  him  those  very  pale,  very 
cold,  and  very  clear  blue  eyes,  eyes 
which  it  was  impossible  to  forget. 

The  man  himself  remained  perfectly 
impassive,  so  that  Monsieur  de  Vargnes 
was  forced  to  say  to  himself: 

"Probably  I  am  the  sport  of  an  hal- 
lucination at  this  moment,  or  else  there 
are  two  pairs  of  eyes  that  are  perfectly 
similar,  in  the  world.  And  what  eyes! 
Can  it  be  possible?" 

The    magistrate    instituted    inquiries 


into  his  life,  and  he  discovered  this, 
which  removed  all  his  doubts. 

Five     years     previously,      Monsieur 

X had  been  a  very  poor  but  very 

brilliant  medical  student,  who  although 
he  never  took  his  doctor's  degree,  had 
already  made  himself  remarkable  by  his 
microbiological  researches. 

A  young  and  very  rich  widow  had 
fallen  in  love  with  him  and  married 
him.  She  had  one  child  by  her  first 
marriage,  and  in  the  space  of  six 
months,  first  the  child  and  then  the 
mother   died   of   typhoid   fever.     Thus 

Monsieur  X had  inherited  a  large 

fortune,  in  due  form,  and  without  any 
possible  dispute.  Everybody  said  that 
he  had  attended  to  the  two  patients 
with  the  utmost  devotion.  Now,  were 
these  two  deaths  the  two  crimes  men- 
tioned in  his  letter? 

But  then.  Monsieur  X musthav?^ 

poisoned  his  two  victims  with  the 
microbes  of  typhoid  fever,  which  he 
had  skillfully  cultivated  in  them,  so  as 
to  make  the  disease  incurable,  even  by 
the  most  devoted  care  and  attention. 
Why  not? 

"Do  you  really  believe  it?"  I  asked 
Monsieur  de  Vargnes. 

"Absolutely,"  he  replied.  "And  the 
most  terrible  thing  about  it  is  that  the 
villain  is  I'ght  when  he  defies  me  to 
force  him  to  confess  his  crime  publicly, 
for  I  see  no  means  of  obtaining  a  con- 
fession, none  whatever.  For  a  mo- 
ment I  thought  of  magnetism,  but  who 
could  magnetize  that  man  with  those 
pale,  cold,  bright  eyes?  With  such 
eyes,  he  would  force  the  magnetizer  to 
denounce  himself  as  the  culprit." 

And  then  he  said,  with  a  deep  sigh: 


AN  ARTIFICE 


659 


**Ah!  Formerly  mere  was  someining 
good  about  justice!" 

When  he  saw  my  inquiring  looks,  he 
added  in  a  firm  and  perfectly  convinced 
voice: 

"Formerly,  justice  had  torture  at  its 
command." 


"Upon  my  word,"  I  replied,  with  aU 
an  author's  unconscious  and  simple 
egotism,  "it  is  quite  certain  that  without 
the  torture,  this  strange  tale  will  have 
no  conclusion,  and  that  is  very  unfor- 
tunate, so  far  as  regards  the  story  I  in- 
tended to  make  out  of  it." 


An  Artifice 


The  old  doctor  and  his  young  patient 
were  talking  by  the  side  of  the  fire. 
There  was  nothing  really  the  matter  with 
her,  except  that  she  had  one  of  those 
little  feminine  ailments  from  which 
pretty  women  frequently  suffer — slight 
anaemia,  nervous  attack,  and  a  suspicion 
of  fatigue,  probably  of  that  fatigue  from 
which  newly-married  people  often  suffer 
at  the  end  of  the  first  month  of  their 
married  life,  when  they  have  made  a 
love  match. 

She  was  lying  on  the  couch  and  talk- 
ing, "No,  doctor,"  she  said;  "I  shall 
never  be  able  to  understand  a  woman 
deceiving  her  husband.  Even  allowing 
that  she  does  not  love  him,  that  she  pays 
no  heed  to  her  vows  and  promises,  how 
can  she  give  herself  to  another  man? 
How  can  she  conceal  the  intrigue  from 
other  people's  eyes?  How  can  it  be 
possible  to  love  amid  lies  and  treason?" 

The  doctor  smiled,  and  replied:  "It 
is  perfectly  easy,  and  I  can  assure  you 
that  a  woman  does  not  think  of  all  those 
little  subtle  details,  when  she  has  made 
up  her  mind  to  go  astray.  I  even  feel 
certain  that  no  woman  is  ripe  for  true 
love  until  she  has  passed  through  all 
the  promiscuousness  and  all  the  irksome- 


nes3  of  married  life,  which,  according  to 
an  illustrious  man,  is  nothing  but  aa 
exchange  of  ill-tempei3d  words  by  day 
and  perfunctory  caresses  at  night. 
Nothing  is  more  true,  for  no  woman 
can  love  passionately  until  after  she 
has  married. 

"As  for  dissimulation,  all  women  iiave 
plenty  of  it  on  hand  on  such  occasions. 
The  simplest  of  them  are  wonderful 
tacticians,  and  extricate  themselves  from 
the  greatest  dilemmas  in  an  extraor- 
dinary way." 

The  young  woman,  however,  seemed 
incredulous.  "No,  doctor,"  she  said; 
"one  never  thinks,  until  after  it  has 
happened,  of  what  one  ought  to  have 
done  in  a  dangerous  affair,  and  women 
are  certainly  more  liable  than  men  to 
lose  their  head  on  such  occasions." 

The  doctor  raised  his  hands:  "After 
it  has  happened,  you  say!  Now  I  will 
tell  you  something  that  happened  to  one 
of  my  female  patients,  whom  I  always 
considered  an  immaculate  woman. 

"It  happened  in  a  provincial  town. 
One  night  when  I  was  sleeping  pro- 
foundly, in  that  deep,  first  sleep  from 
which  it  is  so  difficult  to  rouse  your- 
self, it  seemed  to  me  in  my  dreams  as 


660 


works"  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


if  the  bells  in  the  town  were  sounding  a 
fire  alarm  and  1  woke  up  with  a  start. 
It  was  my  own  bell  which  was  ringing 
wildly,  and  as  my  footman  did  not  seem 
to  be  answering  the  door,  I  in  turn 
pulled  the  bell  at  the  head  of  my  bed. 
Soon  I  heard  banging  and  steps  in  the 
sile)it  house,  and  then  Jean  came  into 
my  room  and  handed  me  a  letter  which 
said:  'Madame  Lelievre  begs  Dr. 
Simeon  to  come  to  her  immediately.' 

*'i  thought  for  a  few  moments,  and 
then  I  said  to  myself:  *A  nervous  at- 
tack, vapors,  nonsense;  I  am  too  tired.* 
And  so  I  replied:  'As  Doctor  Simeon 
is  not  at  all  well,  he  must  beg  Madame 
Lelievre  to  be  kind  enough  to  call  in 
his  colleague.  Monsieur  Bonnet.* 

"J  put  the  note  into  an  envelope,  and 
went  to  sleep  again,  but  about  half  an 
hour  later,  the  street  bell  rang  again, 
and  Jean  came  to  me  and  said:  'There 
is  somebody  downstairs — I  do  not  quite 
know  whether  It  is  a  man  or  a  woman, 
as  the  individual  is  so  wrapped  up — who 
wishes  to  speak  to  you  immediately. 
He  says  it  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death 
for  two  people.  Whereupon,  I  sat  up 
in  bed  and  told  him  to  show  the  person 
m. 

"A  kind  of  black  phantom  appeared, 
who  raised  her  veil  as  soon  as  Jenn  had 
left  the  room.  It  was  Madame  Bertha 
Lelievre,  quite  a  young  woman,  who 
had  been  married  for  three  years  to  a 
large  shopkeeper  in  the  town,  and  was 
said  to  have  been  the  prettiest  girl  in  the 
neighborhood. 

"She  was  terribly  pale,  her  face  was 
contracted  like  the  faces  of  mad  peo- 
ple are,  occasionally,  and  her  hands 
trembled  violently.  Twice  she  tried  to 
R\>*?gk  without   being   able   to   utter   a 


sound,  but  at  last  she  stammered  out: 

"  'Come  —  quick  —  quick,  doctor — 
Come — my — my  lover  has  just  died  in 
my  bedroom.'  She  stopped,  half  suffo- 
cated with  emotion,  and  then  went  on: 
'My  husband  will — be  coming  home 
from  the  club  very  soon.' 

"I  jumped  out  of  bed,  without  even 
considering  that  I  was  only  in  my  night- 
shirt, and  dressed  myself  in  a  few  mo- 
ments. Then  T  said:  'Did  you  come  a 
short  time  ago?' 

"  'No,'  she  said,  standing  like  a  statue 
petrified  with  horror.  'It  was  my  serv- 
ant— she  knows.'  And  then,  after  a 
short  silence,  she  went  on :  'I  was  there 
— ^by  his  sidf.'  And  she  uttered  a  sort 
of  cry  of  horror,  and  after  a  fit  of  chok- 
ing, which  made  her  gasp,  she  wept  vio- 
lently, shaking  with  spasmodic  sobs  for 
a  minute  or  two.  Then  her  tears  sud- 
denly ceased,  as  if  dried  by  an  internal 
fire,  and  with  an  air  of  tragic  calmness, 
she  said:    'Let  us  make  haste.' 

"I  was  ready,  but  I  exclaimed:  'I 
cuite  forgot  to  order  my  carraeie.' 

"  'I  have  one,'  she  said ;  'it  is  hiSj 
which  was  v/aiting  for  him!'  She 
wrapped  herself  up,  so  as  to  completely 
conceal  her  face,  and  we  started. 

"When  she  was  by  my  side  in  the 
darkness  of  the  carriage,  she  suddenly 
seized  my  hand,  and  crushing  it  in  her 
delicate  fingers  she  said,  with  a  shaking 
voice,  that  proceeded  f^'om  a  distracted 
heart:  'Oh!  If  you  onlv  knew,  if  you 
only  knew  whrt  I  am  suffering!  I  loved 
him,  I  have  loved  h'm  distractedly,  like 
a  mad  woman,  for  the  last  six  months." 

"  'Is  anyone  up  in  your  house?'  I 
asked. 

"'No,  nobody  except  Rose,  who 
knows  everything.' 


AN  ARTIFICE 


661 


"We  stopped  at  the  door.  Evidently 
everybody  was  asleep,  and  we  went  in 
without  making  any  noise,  by  means  of 
her  latchkey,  and  walked  upstairs  on 
tiptoe.  The  frightened  servant  was  sit- 
ting on  the  top  of  the  stairs,  with  a 
lighted  candle  by  her  side,  as  she  was 
afraid  to  stop  by  the  dead  man.  I  went 
into  the  room,  which  was  turned  up- 
side down,  as  if  there  had  been  a  strug- 
gle in  it.  The  bed,  which  was  tumbled 
and  open,  seemed  to  be  waiting  for 
somebody ;  one  of  the  sheets  was  thrown 
on  to  the  floor,  and  wet  napkins,  with 
which  they  had  bathed  the  young  man's 
temples,  were  lying  by  the  side  of  a 
wash-hand  basin  and  a  glass,  while  a 
strong  smell  of  vinegar  pervaded  the 
room. 

"The  dead  man's  body  was  lying  at 
full  length  in  the  middle  of  the  room, 
and  I  went  up  to  it,  looked  at  it,  and 
touched  it.  I  opened  the  eyes,  and  felt 
the  hands,  and  then,  turning  to  the  two 
women,  who  were  shaking  as  if  they 
were  frozen,  I  said  to  them:  'Help 
me  to  lift  him  on  to  the  bed.'  When 
we  had  laid  him  gently  on  to  it,  I 
listened  to  his  heart,  put  a  looking-glass 
to  his  lips,  and  then  said:  'It  is  all  over; 
let  us  make  haste  and  dress  him.'  It 
wa3  a  terrible  sight! 

"I  took  his  limbs  one  by  one,  as  if 
they  had  belonged  to  some  enormous 
doll,  and  held  them  out  to  the  clothes 
which  the  women  brought,  and  they  put 
on  his  socks,  drawers,  trousers,  waist- 
coat, and  lastly  the  coat;  but  it  was 
a  difficult  matter  to  get  the  arms  into 
the  sleeves. 

"When  it  came  to  buttoning  his  boots, 
the  two  women  kneeled  down,  while  I 
held  the  light.     As  his  feet  were  rather 


swollen,  it  was  very  difficult,  and  as 
they  could  not  find  a  button  hook,  they 
had  to  use  their  hairpins.  When  the 
terrible  toilette  was  over,  I  looked  at 
our  work  and  said:  'You  ought  to  ar- 
range his  hair  a  little.'  The  girl  went 
and  brought  her  mistress's  large-toothed 
comb  and  brush,  but  as  she  was  trem- 
bling, and  pulling  out  his  long,  tangled 
hair  in  doing  it,  Madame  LeHevre  took 
the  comb  out  of  her  hand,  and  arranged 
his  hair  as  if  she  were  caressuxg  him. 
She  parted  it,  brushed  his  beard,  rolled 
his  mustaches  gently  round  her  fingers, 
as  she  had  no  doubt  been  in  the  habit 
of  doing,  in  the  familiarities  of  their 
intrigue. 

"Suddenly,  however,  letting  go  of  his 
hair,  she  took  her  dead  lover's  inert  head 
in  her  hands,  and  looked  for  a  long  time 
in  despair  at  the  dead  face,  which  no 
longer  could  smile  at  h?r.  Then,  throw- 
ing herself  on  to  him.  she  took  him 
into  her  arms  and  kissed  him  ardently. 
Her  kisses  fell  like  blows  on  to  his 
closed  mouth  and  eyes,  on  to  his  fore- 
head and  temples,  and  then,  putting  her 
lips  to  his  ear,  as  if  he  could  still  hear 
her,  and  as  if  she  were  about  to  whisper 
something  to  him,  to  make  their  em- 
braces still  more  ardent,  she  said  sev- 
eral times,  in  a  heartrending  voice: 
'Adieu,  my  darling!' 

"Just  then  the  clock  struck  twelve, 
and  I  started  up.  Twelve  o'clock!'  I 
exclaimed.  'That  is  the  time  when  the 
club  closes.  Come,  Madame,  we  have 
not  a  moment  to  lose!' 

"She  started  up,  and  I  said:  *We 
must  carry  him  into  the  drawinsr-room.* 
When  we  had  done  this,  I  placed  him  on 
a  sofa,  and  lit  the  chandeliers,  and  just 
then  the  front  door  was  opened  and  shut 


662 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSAN'l 


aoisily.  The  husband  had  come  back, 
and  I  said:  'Rose,  bring  me  the  basin 
and  the  towels,  and  make  the  room 
look  tidy.  Make  haste,  for  heaven's 
sake!     Monsieur  Lehevre  is  coming  in. 

"I  heard  his  steps  on  the  stairs,  and 
then  his  hands  feeling  along  the  walls. 
'Come  here,  my  dear  fellow,'  I  said; 
'we  have  had  an  accident.' 

"And  the  astonished  husband  ap- 
peared in  the  door  with  a  cigar  in  his 
mouth,  and  said:  'What  is  the  matter? 
What  is  the  meaning  of  this?' 

"  'My  dear  friend,'  I  said,  going  up 
to  him;  'you  find  us  in  great  embarrass- 
ment. I  had  remained  late,  chatting 
with  your  wife  and  our  friend,  who  had 
brought  me  in  his  carriage,  when  he 
suddenly  fainted,  and  in  spite  of  all  we 
have  done,  he  has  remained  unconscious 
for  two  hours.  I  did  not  like  to  call  in 
strangers,  and  if  you  will  now  help  me 
downstairs  with  him,  I  shall  be  able  to 
attend  to  him  better  at  his  own  house.' 

"The  husband,  who  was  surprised,  but 
quite  unsuspicious,  took  off  his  hat. 
Then  he  took  his  rival,  who  would  be 
quite  inoffensive  for  the  future,  under 
the  arms.  I  got  between  his  two  legs, 
as  if  I  bad  been  a  horse  between  the 
shafts,  and  we  went  downstairs,  while 
his  wife  lisrhted  us.  When  we  got  out- 
side, I  held  the  body  ud,  so  as  to  de- 
ceive the  coachman,  and  said:    'Come, 


my  friend;  it  is  nothing;  you  feel  bettex 
already,  I  expect.  Pluck  up  your  cour- 
age, and  make  an  attempt.  It  will  soon 
be  over.'  But  as  I  felt  that  he  was 
slipping  out  of  my  hands,  I  gave  him  a 
slap  on  the  shoulder,  which  sent  him 
forward  and  made  him  fall  into  the  car- 
riage; then  I  got  in  after  him. 

"Monsieur  Lelievre,  who  was  rather 
alarmed,  said  to  me:  'Do  you  think  it 
is  anything  serious?'  To  which  I  re- 
plied, 'No*  with  a  smile,  as  I  looked  at 
his  wife,  who  had  put  her  arm  into 
that  of  her  legitimate  husband,  and  was 
trying  to  see  into  the  carriage. 

"I  shook  hands  with  them,  and  told 
my  coachman  to  start,  and  during  the 
whole  drive  the  dead  man  kept  falling 
against  me.  When  we  got  to  his  house, 
I  said  that  he  had  become  unconscious 
on  the  way  home,  and  helped  to  carry 
him  upstairs,  where  I  certified  that  he 
was  dead,  and  acted  another  comedy  to 
his  distracted  family.  At  last  I  got 
back  to  bed,  not  without  swearing  at 
lovers." 

The  doctor  ceased,  though  he  was  still 
smiling,  and  the  young  woman,  who  was 
in  a  very  nervous  state,  said:  "Why 
have  you  told  me  that  terrible  story." 

He  gave  her  a  gallant  bow,  and  re- 
plied : 

"So  that  I  may  offer  you  my  services, 
if  necessary." 


The  Specter 


In  speaking  of  a  recent  lawsuit,  our 
conversation  had  turned  on  sequestra- 
tion, and  each  of  us,  thereupon,  had  a 


story  to  tell — a  story  affirmed  to  be 
true.  We  were  a  party  of  intimate 
friends,  who  had  passed  a  pleasant  eve- 


THE  SPECTER 


ning,  now  drawing  to  a  close,  in  an  old 
family  residence  in  the  Rue  de  Crenelle. 
The  aged  Marquis  de  la  Tour-Samuel, 
bowed  'neath  the  weight  of  eighty-two 
winters,  at  last  rose,  and  leaning  on 
the  mantelpiece,  said,  in  somewhat  trem- 
bling tones: 

"I  also  know  something  strange,  so 
strange  that  it  has  been  a  haunting 
memory  all  my  hfe.  It  is  now  fifty- 
six  years  since  the  incident  occurred, 
and  yet  not  a  month  has  passed  in  which 
I  have  not  seen  it  again  in  a  dream, 
so  great  was  and  is  the  impression  of 
fear  it  left  on  my  mind.  For  ten  min- 
utes I  experienced  such  horrible  fright 
that,  ever  since,  a  sort  of  constant  ter- 
ror has  made  me  tremble  at  unexpected 
noises,  and  objects  half-seen  in  the  gloom 
of  night  inspire  me  with  a  mad  desire 
to  take  flight.  In  short,  I  am  afraid 
of  the  dark! 

"Ah,  no!  I  would  not  have  avowed 
that  before  having  reached  my  present 
age!  Now  I  can  say  anything.  I  have 
never  receded  before  real  danger.  So 
at  eighty-two  years  of  age,  I  do  not  feel 
compelled  to  be  brave  over  an  imag- 
inary danger. 

"The  affair  upset  me  so  completely, 

,.     and  caused  me  such  lasting  and  mys- 

l    terious  uneasiness,  that  I  never  spoke 

of  it  to  anyone.     I  will  now  tell  it  to 

you  exactly  as  it  happened,  without  any 

attempt  at  explanation. 

"In  July,  1827,  I  was  in  garrison  at 
Rouen.  One  day,  as  I  was  walking  on 
the  quay,  I  met  a  man  whom  I  thought 
I  recognized,  without  being  able  to  re- 
call exactly  who  he  was.  Instinctively, 
I  made  a  movement  to  stop;  the 
stranger  perceived  it  and  at  once  ex- 
tended his  hand 


663 


"He  was  a  friend  to  whom  I  had  been 
deeply  attached  as  a  youth.  For  liva 
years  I  had  not  seen  him,  and  he  seemed 
to  have  aged  half  a  century.  His  hair 
was  quite  white,  and  he  walked  with 
a  stoop  as  though  completely  worn  out. 
He  apparently  comprehended  my  sur* 
prise,  for  he  told  me  of  the  misfortune 
which  had  shattered  his  life. 

"Having  fallen  madly  in  love  with  a 
young  girl  he  had  married  her,  but, 
after  a  year  of  more  than  earthly  happi- 
ness, she  died  suddenly  of  heart  failure. 
lie  had  left  his  chateau  on  the  very  da> 
of  her  burial  and  had  come  to  live  at 
Rouen.  There  he  still  dvxlt,  more  dead 
than  alive,  desperate  and  solitary,  ex- 
hausted by  grief,  and  so  miserable  that 
he  thought  constantly  of  suicide. 

"  'Now  that  I  have  found  you  again,* 
said  he,  T  will  ask  you  to  render  me 
an  impoitant  service.  It  is  to  go  to 
my  old  home  and  get  for  me,  from  the 
desk  of  my  bedroom — our  bedroom — 
some  papers  which  I  greatly  need.  I 
cannot  send  a  servant  or  an  agent,  as 
discretion  and  absolute  silence  are  neces- 
sary. As  for  myself,  nothing  on  earth 
v/ould  induce  me  to  re-enter  that  house. 
I  will  give  you  the  key  of  the  room, 
which  I  myself  locked  on  leaving,  and 
the  key  of  my  desk — also  a  note  to  my 
gardener,  telling  him  to  open  the  cha- 
teau for  you.  But  come  and  breakfast 
with  me  to-morrow,  and  we  will  arrange 
all  that.' 

'1  promised  to  do  him  the  slight 
favor  he  asked.  For  that  matter,  it 
was  nothing  of  a  trip,  his  property 
being  but  a  few  miles  distant  from 
Rouen  and  easily  reached  in  an  hour  on 
horseback. 

"At  tcp  o'clock  the  following  day  X 


664 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


breakfasted,  tete-d-tete,  with  my  friend, 
but  he  scarcely  spoke. 

"He  begged  me  to  pardon  him;  the 
thought  of  the  visit  I  was  about  to  make 
to  that  room,  the  scene  of  his  dead 
happiness,  overwhelmed  him,  he  said. 
He,  indeed,  seemed  singularly  agitated 
and  preoccupied,  as  though  undergoing 
some  mysterious  mental  combat. 

"At  length  he  explained  to  me  exactly 
what  I  had  to  do.  It  was  very  simple, 
I  must  take  two  packages  of  letters  and 
a  roll  of  papers  from  the  first  drawer 
on  the  right  of  the  desk  of  which  I  had 
the  key.  He  added,  'I  need  not  beg 
you  to  refrain  from  glancing  at  them.' 

"I  was  wounded  at  that  remark,  and 
told  him  so  somewhat  sharply.  He 
stammered,  'Forgive  me,  I  suffer  so,' 
and  tears  came  to  his  eyes. 

"At  about  one  o'clock  I  took  leave 
of  him  to  accomplish  my  mission. 

"The  weather  was  glorious,  and  I 
cantered  over  the  turf,  listening  to  the 
songs  of  the  larks  and  the  rhythmical 
striking  of  my  sword  against  my  boot. 
Then  I  entered  the  forest  and  walked 
my  horse.  Branches  of  the  trees  ca- 
ressed mv  face  as  I  passed,  and,  now  and 
then,  I  caught  a  leaf  with  my  teeth, 
from  sheer  gladness  of  heart  at  being 
alive  and  strong  on  such  a  radiant  day. 

"As  I  approached  the  chateau,  I  took 
from  my  pocket  the  letter  I  had  for 
the  gardener,  and  was  astonished  ai 
finding  it  sealed.  I  was  so  irritated 
that  I  was  about  to  turn  back  without 
having  fulfilled  my  promise,  but  re- 
flected that  I  should  thereby  display  un- 
due suscentibility.  My  friend's  state  of 
mind  might  easily  have  caused  him  to 
close  the  envelope  without  noticing  that 
he  d^d  so 


"The  manor  seemed  to  have  been 
abandoned  for  twenty  years.  The  open 
gate  was  dropping  from  its  hinges;  the 
walks  were  overgrown  with  grass,  and 
the  flower-beds  were  no  longer  distin- 
guishable. 

"The  noise  I  made  by  tapping  loudly 
on  a  shutter  brought  an  old  man  from 
out  a  door  near  by,  who  seemed  stunned 
with  astonishment  at  seeing  me.  On 
receiving  my  letter,  he  read  it,  reread 
it,  turned  it  over  and  over,  looked  me 
up  and  down,  put  the  paper  in  his 
pocket,  and  finally  asked : 

"'Well!  what  is  it  you  wish?' 

"I  replied  shortly:  'You  ought  to 
know,  since  you  have  just  read  your 
master's  orders.  I  wish  to  enter  the 
chateau.' 

"He  seemed  overcome.  'Then  you 
are  going  in — in  her  room?' 

"I  began  to  lose  patience  and  said 
sharply:  'Of  course;  but  is  that  your 
affair?' 

"He  stammered  in  confusion:  'No — 
sir — but  it  is  because — that  is,  it  has 
not  been  opened  since — since  the — 
death.  If  you  will  be  kind  enough  to 
wait  five  minutes,  I  will  go  to — to  see 
if—' 

"I  interrupted  him,  angrily:  *Look 
here,  what  do  you  mean  with  your 
tricks?  You  know  very  well  you  can- 
not enter  the  room,  since  I  have  the 
key!' 

"He  no  longer  objected.  'Then,  sir, 
I  will  show  you  the  way.' 

"  'Show  me  the  staircase  and  leave 
me.    I'll  find  my  way  without  you.* 

'*  'But— sir— indeed— ' 

"This  time  I  silenced  h*m  effectually, 
pushed  him  aside,  and  went  into  the 
house. 


THE  SPECTER 

"I  first  traversed  the  kitchen;  then 
two  rooms  occupied  by  the  servant  and 
his  wife;  next,  by  a  wide  haU,  I  reached 
the  stairs,  which  I  mounted,  and  recog- 
nized the  door  indicated  by  my  friend. 

"I  easily  opened  it  and  entered.  The 
apartment  was  so  dark  that,  at  first,  I 
could  distinguish  nothing.  I  stopped 
short,  my  nostrils  penetrated  by  the  dis- 
agreeable, moldy  odor  of  long-unoccu- 


665 


the  window  was  moving  gome  drapery. 
But,  in  a  minute  or  so,  another  move^ 
ment,  almost  imperceptible,  sent  a 
strangely  disagreeable  little  shiver  over 
my  skin.  It  was  so  stupid  to  be  af- 
fected, even  slightly,  that  self-respect 
prevented  my  turning  around.  I  had 
then  found  the  second  packet  I  needed 
and  was  about  to  lay  my  hand  on  the 
third  when  a  long  and  painful  sigh,  ut- 


pied  rooms.     Then    as  my  eyes  slowly      tered  just  over  my  shoulder,  made  me 


became  accustomed  to  the  darkness,  I 
saw  plainly  enough,  a  large  and  dis- 
ordered bedroom,  the  bed  without 
sheets,  but  still  retaining  its  mattresses 
and  pillows,  on  one  of  which  was  a 
deep  impression,  as  though  an  elbow  or 
a  head  had  recently  rested  there. 

"The  chairs  all  seemed  out  of  place. 
I  noticed  that  a  door,  doubtless  that  of 
a  closet,  hnd  remained  half  open. 

"I  first  went  to  the  window,  which  I 
opened  to  let  in  the  light;  but  the  fast- 
enings of  the  shutters  had  grown  so 
rusty  that  I  could  not  move  them.  I 
even  tried  to  break  them  with  my  sword, 
but  without  success.  As  I  was  growing 
irritated  over  my  useless  efforts,  and 
could  now  see  fairly  well  in  the  semi- 
obscurity,  I  renounced  the  idea  of  get- 
ting more  light  and  went  over  to  the 
writing-table. 

"Seating  myself  in  an  armchair  and 
letting  down  the  lid  of  the  desk,  I 
opened  the  designated  drawer.  It  was 
full  to  the  top.  I  needed  but  three 
packages,  which  I  knew  how  to  recog- 
nize, and  began  searching  for  them. 

*T  was  straining  my  eyes  in  the  effort 
to  read  the  superscriptions,  when  I 
seemed  to  hear,  or  rather  feel,  some- 
thing rustle  back  of  me.  I  paid  no  at- 
tention, believing  that  a  draught  fron^ 


bound  like  a  madman  from  my  seat  and 
land  several  feet  away.  As  I  jumped  I 
had  turned  about,  my  hand  on  the  hilt 
of  my  sword,  and,  truly,  had  I  not  felt 
it  at  my  side,  I  should  have  taken  to 
my  heels  like  a  coward. 

**A  tall  woman,  dressed  in  white, 
stood  gazing  at  me  from  the  back  of  the 
chair  where  I  had  been  sitting  an  instant 
before. 

"Such  a  shudder  ran  through  all  my 
limbs  that  I  nearly  fell  backward.  No 
one  can  understand  unless  he  has  felt 
it,  that  frightful,  unreasoning  terror! 
The  mind  becomes  vague,  the  heart 
ceases  to  beat ;  the  entire  body  grows  as 
limp  as  a  sponge. 

"I  do  not  believe  in  ghosts,  never- 
theless I  completely  gave  way  to  a 
hideous  fear  of  the  dead ;  and  I  suffered 
more  in  those  few  moments  than  in  all 
the  rest  of  my  life,  from  the  irresistible 
anguish  of  supernatural  fright.  If  she 
had  not  spoken,  I  should  have  died,  per- 
haps! But  she  spoke,  she  spoke  in  a 
sweet,  sad  voice,  that  set  my  nerves 
vibrating.  I  dare  not  say  that  I  became 
master  of  myself  and  recovered  my  rea- 
son. No!  I  was  so  frightened  that  I 
scarcely  knew  what  I  was  doing;  but  a 
certain  innate  pride,  a  remnant  of  sol- 
dierly instinct,  made  me,  almost  in  spit« 


666 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ot  myself,  maintain  a  creditable  coun- 
tenance. 

"She  said:  *0h!  sir,  you  can  render 
me  a  great  service.' 

"I  wanted  to  reply,  but  it  was  im- 
possible for  me  to  pronounce  a  word. 
Only  a  vague  sound  came  from  my 
throat. 

"She  continued:  'Will  you?  You  can 
save  me,  cure  me.  I  suffer  frightfully. 
I  suffer,  oh!  how  I  suffer!'  and  she 
slowly  seated  herself  in  the  armchair, 
still  looking  at  me. 

"  'Will  ycu?'  she  said. 

"I  replied  *Yes'  by  a  nod,  my  voice 
still  being  paralyzed. 

"Then  she  held  out  to  me  a  tortoise- 
shell  comb,  and  murmured: 

"  'Comb  my  hair,  oh!  comb  my  hair; 
that  will  cure  me;  it  must  be  combed. 
Look  at  my  head — how  I  suffer;  and  my 
hair  pulls  so!' 

"Her  hair,  unbound,  very  long  and 
very  black,  it  seemed  to  me,  hung  over 
the  back  of  the  chair  and  touched  the 
floor. 

"Why  did  I  receive  that  comb  with  a 
shudder,  and  why  did  I  take  in  my  hands 
the  long,  black  hair  which  gave  to  my 
skin  a  gruesomely  cold  sensation,  as 
though  I  were  handling  snakes?  I  can- 
not tell. 

"That  sensation  has  remained  in  my 
fingers  and  I  still  tremble  when  I  think 
of  it. 

"I  combed  her  hair.  I  handled,  I 
know  not  how,  those  icy  locks.  I 
twisted,  knotted,  and  plaited,  and 
braided  them.  She  sighed  and  bowed 
her  head,  seeming  to  be  happy.  Sud- 
denly she  said:  'Thank  you!'  snatched 
the  comb  from  my  hands,  and  fled  by 
the  door  that  I  had  noticed  ajar.      ^ 


"Left  alone,  I  experienced  for  several 
seconds  the  horrible  agitation  of  one 
who  awakens  from  a  nightmare.  At 
length  I  regained  my  full  senses;  I  ran 
to  the  window,  and  with  a  mighty  effort 
burst  open  the  shutters,  letting  a  flood 
of  light  into  tha  room.  Immediately 
I  sprang  to  the  door  by  which  she  had 
departed.  I  found  it  closed  and  im- 
movable ! 

"Then  a  mad  desire  to  flee  came  on 
me  like  a  panic,  the  panic  which  sol- 
diers know  in  battle.  I  seized  the  three 
packets  of  letters  on  the  open  secretary; 
ran  from  the  room,  dashed  down  the 
stairs,  found  myself  outside,  I  know 
not  how,  and  seeing  my  horse  a  few 
steps  off,  leaped  into  the  saddle  and 
galloped  away. 

"I  stopped  only  when  I  reached  Rouen 
and  my  lodgings.  There  I  shut  myself 
into  my  room  to  reflect.  For  an  hour 
I  anxiously  strove  to  convince  myself 
that  I  had  been  the  victim  of  a  hal- 
lucination. I  was  about  ready  to  be- 
lieve that  all  I  had  seen  was  a  vision,  an 
error  of  my  senses,  when,  as  I  ap- 
proached the  window,  my  eyes  fell,  by 
chance,  upon  my  chest.  Around  the 
buttons  of  my  uniform  were  entwined 
a  quantity  of  long,  black  hairs!  One 
by  one,  with  trembling  fingers,  I  plucked 
them  off  and  threw  them  away. 

"I  then  called  my  orderly,  feeling 
unable  to  see  my  friend  that  day;  wish- 
ing, also,  to  reflect  more  fully  upon 
what  I  ought  to  tell  him.  I  had  his 
letters  carried  to  him,  for  which  he  gave 
the  messenger  a  receipt.  He  asked  after 
me  most  particularly,  and,  on  being  told 
I  was  ill — ^had  had  a  sunstroke — ap- 
peared exceedingly  anxious.  Next 
morning  I  went  to  him.  determined  to 


p 


THE  RELIC 


667 


tell  him  the  truth.  He  had  gone  out 
the  evening  before  and  not  yet  returned. 
I  called  again  during  the  day ;  my  friend 
was  still  absen:.  After  waiting  a  week 
longer  without  news  of  him,  I  advised 
the  authorities,  and  a  judicial  search 
was  instituted.  Not  the  slightest  trace 
of  his  whereabouts  or  manner  of  dis- 
appearance was  discovered. 


"A  minute  inspection  of  the  aban- 
doned chateau  revealed  nothing  of  a 
suspicious  character.  There  was  no  in- 
dication that  a  woman  had  been  con- 
cealed there. 

"After  these  fruitless  researches  all 
further  efforts  were  abandoned,  and  in 
the  fifty-six  years  that  have  elapsed 
since  then  I  have  heard  nothing  more." 


The  Relic 


"To    the   AbbS    Louis   d'Ennemare,    at 

Soissons: 
"My  Dear  Abbe, — 

"My  marriage  with  your  cousin  is 
broken  off  in  the  stupidest  manner,  on 
account  of  a  foolish  trick  which  I  in- 
voluntarily played  my  intended,  in  a  fit 
of  embarrassment,  and  I  turn  to  you, 
my  old  school-fellow  to  help  me  out  of 
the  difficulty.  If  you  can,  I  shall  be 
grateful  to  you  until  I  die. 

"You  know  Gilberte,  or  rather  you 
think  you  know  her,  for  do  we  ever 
understand  women?  All  their  opinions, 
their  ideas,  their  creeds,  are  a  surprise  to 
us.  They  are  all  full  of  twists  and 
turns,  of  the  unforeseen,  or  unintelli- 
gible arguments,  of  defective  logic,  and 
of  obstinate  ideas,  which  seem  final, 
but  which  they  alter  because  a  little 
bird  comes  and  perches  on  the  window 
ledge. 

"I  need  not  tell  you  that  your  cousin 
is  very  religious,  as  she  was  brought  up 
by  the  White  (or  was  it  the  Black?) 
Ladies  at  Nancy.  You  know  that  bet- 
ter than  I  do,  br.t  what  you  perhaps  do 
«ot  know  is  that  she  is  just  as  excitable 


about  other  matters  as  she  is  about  re- 
ligion. She  is  as  unstable  as  a  leaf 
whirled  away  by  the  wind;  and  she  is 
more  of  a  girl  than  a  woman,  for  she 
is  moved  or  irritated  in  a  moment,  loves 
in  a  moment,  hates  in  a  moment,  and 
changes  in  a  moment.  She  is  pretty,  as 
you  know,  and  more  charming  than  I 
can  say  or  you  can  guess. 

"Well,  we  became  engaged,  and  I 
adored  her,  as  I  adore  her  still,  and  she 
appeared  to  love  me. 

"One  evening,  I  received  a  telegram 
summoning  me  to  Cologne  for  a  con- 
sultation, which  might  be  followed  by 
a  serious  and  difficult  operation.  As  1 
had  to  start  the  next  morning,  I  went 
to  wish  Gilberte  good-bye,  and  tell  hei 
that  I  should  not  dine  with  them  on 
Wednesday,  but  on  Friday,  the  day  of 
my  return.  Ah!  Take  care  of  Fridays, 
for  I  assure  you  they  are  unlucky! 

"When  I  told  her  that  I  had  to  go 
to  Germany,  I  saw  that  her  eyes  filled 
with  tears,  but  when  I  said  I  should  be 
back  very  soon,  she  clapped  her  hands, 
and  said: 

"  *I  am  very  glad  you  are  going,  then! 


668 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


You  must  brng  me  back  something;  a 
mere  inile,  just  a  souvenir,  but  a  souve- 
nir that  yuu  have  chosen  for  me.  You 
n»ust  find  out  what  I  should  Uke  best, 
do  you  hear?  And  then  I  shall  see 
whether  you  have  any  imagination.' 

"She  thought  for  a  few  moments  and 
then  added: 

"  1  forbid  you  to  spend  more  than 
twenty  francs  on  it.  I  want  it  for  the 
intention  and  for  the  remembrance  of 
your  penetration,  and  not  for  its  in- 
trinsic value.' 

"And  then,  after  another  moment's 
silence,  she  said,  in  a  low  voice,  and 
with  downcast  eyes: 

"  If  it  costs  you  nothing  in  money, 
and  if  it  is  something  very  ingenious 
and  pretty,  I  will — I  will  kiss  you.* 

"The  next  day,  I  was  in  Cologne. 
It  was  a  case  of  a  terrible  accident, 
which  had  thrown  a  whole  family  into 
despair,  and  a  difficult  amputation  was 
necessary.  They  put  me  up — I  might 
almost  say,  they  locked  me  up,  and  I 
saw  nobody  but  people  in  tears,  who 
almost  deafened  me  with  their  lamenta- 
tions. I  operated  on  a  man  who  ap- 
peared to  be  in  a  moribund  state,  and 
nearly  died  under  my  hands.  I  re- 
mained with  him  two  nights,  and  then, 
when  I  saw  that  there  was  a  chance  of 
his  recovery,  I  drove  to  the  station.  I 
had,  however,  made  a  mistake  in  the 
trains,  and  had  an  hour  to  wait,  and  so 
I  wandered  about  the  streets,  still  think- 
ing of  my  poor  patient,  when  a  man 
accosted  me.  I  do  not  know  German, 
and  he  was  totally  ignorant  of  French, 
but  at  last  I  made  out  that  he  was 
offering  me  some  reliques.  I  thought  of 
Gilberte,  for  I  knew  her  fanatical  de- 
votion- and  here  was  my  present  ready 


to  hand,  so  I  followed  the  man  into  a 
shop  where  religious  objects  were  for 
sale,  and  I  bought  a  small  piece  of  a 
bone  of  one  of  the  Eleven  Thousand 
Virgins. 

"The  pretended  relic  was  inclosed  in 
a  charming  old  sliver  box,  and  that  de- 
termined my  choice.  Putting  my  pur- 
chase into  my  px)cket,  I  went  to  the  rail- 
way station,  and  so  to  Paris. 

"As  soon  as  I  got  home,  I  wished 
to  examine  my  purchase  again,  and  on 
takirg  hold  of  it,  I  four.d  that  the  box 
was  open  and  the  relic  lost!  It  was  no 
good  to  hunt  in  my  pocket,  and  to  turn 
it  inside  out;  the  small  b't  of  bone, 
which  was  no  bigger  than  half  a  pin,  had 
disappeared. 

"You  know  my  dear  little  Abbe,  that 
my  faith  is  not  very  great,  but,  as  my 
friend  you  are  magnanimous  enough  to 
put  up  with  my  coldness,  to  leave  me 
alone,  rnd  wait  for  the  future,  as  yoi 
say.  But  I  absolutely  disbelieve  in  the 
relics  of  second-hand  dealers  in  piety, 
and  you  share  my  doubts  in  that  respect. 
Therefore,  the  loss  of  that  bit  of  sheep's 
carcass  did  not  grieve  me,  and  I  easily 
procured  a  similar  fragment,  which  I 
carefully  fastened  inside  my  casket  and 
then  I  went  to  see  my  intended. 

"As  soon  as  she  saw  me,  she  ran  up 
to  me,  smiling  and  anxious,  and  said  to 
me: 

"  'What  have  you  brought?* 

"I  pretended  to  have  forgotten,  but 
she  did  not  believe  me,  and  I  made  her 
beg  me,  and  beseech  me,  even.  But 
when  I  saw  that  she  was  devoured  by 
curiosity,  I  gave  her  the  sacred  silver 
box.     She  appeared  overjoyed. 

"'A  relic!     Oh!    A  relic!' 

"And  ^hc  kissed  the  box  passionately. 


THE  RELIC 


so  that  I  was  ashamed  of  my  deception. 
She   was   not   quite   satisfied,   however, 
and  her  uneasiness  soon  turned  to  ter- 
rible fear,  and  looking  straight  into  my 
eyes,  she  said: 
"  'Are  you  sure  that  it  is  authentic?* 
"  'Absolutely  certain/ 
"  'How  can  you  be  so  certain?' 
"I  was  caught,  for  to  say  that  I  had 
bought  it  through  a  man  in  the  streets 
would  be  my  destruction.    What  was  I 
to  say?    A  wild  idea  struck  me,  and  I 
said,  in  a  low,  mysterious  voice: 
**  'I  stole  it  for  you.' 
"She  looked  at  me  with  astonishment 
and  delight  in  her  large  eyes. 
*"0h!     You  stole  it?     Where?' 
"  In  the  cathedral;  in  the  very  shrine 
of  the  Eleven  Thousand  Virg'ns.' 

"Her  heart   beat  with  pleasure,  and 
she  murmured: 

"'Oh!     Did  you   really  do  that  for 
me?    Tell  me  all  about  it!' 

"There  was  an  end  of  it,  and  I  could 
not   go   back      I   made   up   a   fnnciful 
story,  with  precise  deta'ls.    I  had  given 
the  custodian  of  the  building  .i  hundred 
francs  to  be  allowed  to  go  about  the 
building  by  myself;  the  shrine  was  being 
repaired,  but  T  happened  to  be  there  at 
the  breakfast  time  of  the  workmen  and 
clergy;   by  removing  a   smaU   panel,   I 
had  been  enabled  to  seize  a  small  piece 
of  bone  (oh!  so  small),  among  a  quan- 
tity of  others  (I  said  a  quantity,  as  I 
thought  of  the  amount  that  the  remains 
of  the  skeletons  of  eleven  thousand  vir- 
gins must  produce).     Then  I  went   to 
a    goldsmith's    and    bought    a    casket 
worthy  of  the  relic;  and  I  was  not  sorry 
to  let  her  know  that  the  silver  box  cost 
tne  five  hundred  francs. 

"But  she  did  not  think  of  that:  she 


66^ 


listened  to  me,  trembling,  in  an  ecstasy, 
and  whispering:  'How  I  love  youT 
she  threw  herself  into  my  arms. 

"Just  note  this:  I  had  committed 
sacrilege  for  her  sake;  I  had  committed 
a  theft;  I  had  violated  a  shrine;  violated 
and  stolen  holy  relics,  and  for  that  she 
adored  me,  thought  me  loving,  tender, 
divine.  Such  is  woman,  my  dear  Abbe, 
every  woman. 

"For  two  months  I  was  the  best  of 
lovers.  In  her  room  she  had  made  a 
kind  of  magnificent  chapel  in  which  to 
keep  this  bit  of  mutton  chop  which,  as 
she  thought,  had  made  me  commit  that 
love-crime,  and  she  worked  up  her  re- 
ligious enthusiasm  in  front  of  it  every 
morning  and  evening.  I  had  asked  her 
to  keep  the  matter  secret,  for  fear,  as 
I  said,  that  I  might  be  arrested,  con- 
demned, and  given  over  to  Germany, 
and  she  kept  her  promise. 

"Well,  at  the  beginning  of  the  sum- 
mer she  was  seized  by  an  irresistible 
wish  to  see  the  scene  of  my  exploit,  and 
she  begged  her  father  so  persistently 
(without  telling  him  her  secret  reason), 
that  he  took  her  to  Cologne,  but  with- 
out telling  me  of  their  trip,  according 
to  his  daughter's  wish. 

"I  need  not  tell  you  that  I  had  not 
seen  the  interior  of  the  cathedral.  I 
do  not  know  where  the  tomb  (if  there 
be  a  tomb)  of  the  Eleven  Thousand 
Virgins  is,  and  then,  it  appears  that  it 
is  unapproachable,  alas! 

^  "A  week  afterward  I  received  ten 
lines,  breaking  off  our  engagement,  and 
then  an  explanatory  letter  from  her  fa- 
ther, whom  she  had,  somewhat  late, 
taken  into  her  confidence. 

"At  the  sight  of  the  shrine,  she  had 
suddenly  seen  through  my  trickery  and 


670 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


my  lie,  and  had  also  found  out  that 
I  was  innocent  of  any  other  crime.  Hav- 
ing asked  the  keeper  of  the  relics 
whether  any  robbery  had  been  com- 
mitted, the  man  began  to  laugh,  and 
pointed  out  to  them  how  impossible 
such  a  crime  was,  but  from  the  moment 
I  had  plunged  my  profane  hand  into 
venerable  relics,  I  was  no  longer  worthy 
of  my  fair-haired  and  delicate  betrothal. 

"I  was  forbidden  the  house!  I  begged 
and  prayed  in  vain,  nothing  could  move 
the  fair  devotee,  and  I  grew  ill  from 
grief.  Well,  last  week,  her  cousin, 
Madame  d'Arville,  who  is  also  your  rel- 
ative, sent  word  that  she  should  like  to 
see  me,  and  when  I  called,  she  told  me 
on  what  conditions  I  might  obtain  my 
pardon,  and  here  they  are.  I  must  bring 
Gilberte  a  relic,  a  real,  authentic  relic, 
certified  to  be  such  by  our  Holy  Father, 
the  Pope,  of  some  virgin  and  martyr, 
and  I  am  going  mad  from  embarrass- 
ment and  anxiety. 

"I  will  go  to  Rome,  if  needful,  but  I 
cannot  call  on  the  Pope  unexpectedly 
and  tell  him  my  stupid  adventure;  and, 


besides,  I  doubt  whether  they  let  pri- 
vate individuals  have  relics.  Could  not 
you  give  me  an  introduction  to  some 
cardinal,  or  only  to  some  French  pre- 
late, who  possesses  some  remains  of  a 
female  saint?  Or  perhaps  you  may  have 
the  precious  object  she  wants  in  your 
collection? 

"Help  me  out  of  my  difficulty,  my 
dear  Abbe,  and  I  promise  you  that  I 
will  be  converted  ten  years  sooner  than 
I  otherwise  should  be! 

"Madame  d'Arville,  who  takes  the 
matter  seriously,  said  to  me  the  other 
day: 

"  'Poor  Gilberte  will  never  marry.' 

"My  dear  old  schoolfellow,  will  you 
allow  your  cousin  to  die  the  victim  of  a 
stupid  piece  of  business  on  my  part? 
Pray  prevent  her  from  being  the 
eleventh  thousand  and  one  virgin. 

"Pardon  me,  I  am  unworthy,  but  I 
embrace  you,  and  love  you  with  all  my 
heart. 

"Your  old  friend, 

"Henri  Fontal." 


The  Marquis 


It  was  quite  useless  to  expostulate 
when  obstinate  little  Sonia,  with  a  Rus- 
sian name  and  Russian  caprices,  had 
said:  "I  choose  to  do  it."  She  was  so 
delicate  and  pretty,  with  her  slightly 
turned-up  nose  and  her  rosy  and  childish 
cheeks.  Every  female  perversity  was 
reflected  in  the  depths  of  her  strange 
eyes,  which  were  the  color  of  the  sea 
on  a  stormy  evening.    Yes,  she  was  very 


charming,  very  fantastic,  and  above  all, 
so  Russian,  so  deliciously  and  imperi- 
ously Russian,  the  more  so  as  she  came 
from  Montmartre.  In  spite  of  this, 
not  one  of  the  seven  lovers  who  com- 
posed her  usual  court  had  laughed  when 
their  enslaver  said  one  day: 

"You  know  my  feudal  castle  at 
Pludun-Heriouet,  near  Saint  Jacut-de-la- 
Mer,  which  I  bought  two  years  ago,  and 


THE  MARQUIS 


671 


in  which  I  have  not  yet  set  foot?  Very 
well,  then!  The  day  after  to-morrow, 
which  is  the  first  of  May,  we  will  have 
a  housewarming  there." 

The  seven  had  not  asked  for  any 
further  explanation,  but  had  accom- 
panied little  Sonia,  and  were  now  ready 
to  sit  down  to  dinner  under  her  presi- 
dency in  the  dining-room  of  the  old 
castle,  which  was  about  ten  hours'  dis- 
tant from  Paris.  They  had  arrived 
there  that  morning;  they  were  going  to 
have  dinner  and  supper  together,  and 
were  to  start  off  again  at  daybreak  next 
morning;  such  were  Sonia's  orders,  and 
nobody  had  made  the  slightest  objection. 

Two  of  her  admirers,  however,  who 
were  not  yet  used  to  her  sudden  whims, 
had  felt  some  surprise.  But  this  was 
quickly  checked  by  expressions  of  en- 
thusiastic pleasure  on  the  part  of  the 
others. 

"Wliat  a  delightfully  original  idea! 
Nobody  else  would  have  thought  of 
such  a  thing!  Positively,  nobody  else. 
Oh!  these  Russians!"  But  those  who 
had  known  her  for  some  time,  and  who 
had  been  consequently  educated  not  to 
be  surprised  at  anything,  found  it  all 
quite  natural. 

It  was  half  past  six  in  the  evening, 
and  the  gentlemen  were  going  to  dress. 
Sonia  had  made  up  her  mind  to  keep 
on  her  morning-gown,  or  if  she  dressed, 
she  would  do  so  later.  Just  then,  she 
was  not  inclined  to  move  out  of  her 
great  rocking-chair  from  which  she  could 
see  the  sun  setting  over  the  sea.  The 
sight  always  delighted  her  very  much. 
It  mJght  have  been  taken  for  a  large, 
red  billiard  ball,  rebounding  from  the 
green  cloth.  How  funny  it  was!  And 
how  lucky  that   she  was   all   alone   to 


look  at  it,  for  those  seven  would  not 
have  understood  it  at  all!  Men  never 
have  any  soul,  have  they? 

The  sunset  was  novel  at  first,  but  at 
length  it  made  her  sad,  and  Soma's 
heart  felt  almost  heavy,  though  the  very 
sadness  was  sweet.  She  was  congratulat- 
ing herself  more  than  ever  on  being 
alone,  so  as  to  enjoy  that  languor  which 
was  like  a  gentle  dream  when,  in  per- 
fect harmony  with  that  melancholy  and 
sweet  sensation,  a  voice  rose  from  the 
road  beneath  the  terrace,  a  tremulous, 
but  fresh  and  pure  voice,  and  sang  the 
following  words  to  a  slow  melody : 

"Walking  in  Paris, 

Having  a   drink, 
A  friend  of  mine  whispered; 

What  do  you  think f 
If  love  makes  you  thirsty. 
Then  wine  makes  you  lusty." 

The  sound  died  away,  as  the  singer 
continued  on  his  way,  and  Sonia  was 
afraid  that  she  should  not  hear  the  rest. 
That  would  have  been  terrible;  so  she 
jumped  out  of  the  rocking-chair,  ran 
to  the  balustrade  of  the  terrace,  and 
leaning  over  it,  she  called  out:  "Sing 
it  again!  I  insist  on  it.  The  song,  the 
whole  song!" 

On  hearing  this,  the  singer  looked 
round  and  then  came  back  —  without 
hurrying,  however,  and  as  if  prompted 
by  curiosity  rather  than  by  any  desire 
to  comply  with  her  order.  Holding  his 
hand  over  his  eyes,  he  looked  at  Sonia 
attentively,  and  she,  on  her  part,  had 
plenty  of  time  to  look  closely  at  him. 

He  was  an  old  man  of  about  sixty- 
five,  and  his  rags  and  the  wallet  over  his 
shoulder  denoted  a  beggar,  but  Sonia 
immediately  noticed  that   there  was  a 


672 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


certain  amount  of  affectation  in  his 
wretchedness.  His  hair  and  beard  were 
not  matted  and  ragged,  as  is  usual  with 
beggars,  and  evidently  he  had  them  cut 
occasionally.  Deiides  he  had  a  fine, 
and  even  distinguished  face,  as  Sonia 
said  to  herself.  But  she  did  not  pay 
much  attention  to  that,  as  for  some 
time  she  had  noticed  that  old  men  at  the 
seaside  nearly  all  looked  like  gentlemen. 

When  he  got  to  the  foot  of  the  ter- 
race the  beggar  stopped,  wagged  his  head 
and  said  "Pretty!  The  little  woman 
is  very  pretty!"  But  he  did  not  obey 
Sonia's  order,  and  she  repeated  it,  al- 
most angriiy  this  time,  beating  a  violent 
tattoo  on  the  stonework:  "The  song, 
the  whole  song!" 

He  did  not  seem  to  hear,  but  stood 
there  gaping,  with  a  vacant  smile  on  his 
face,  and  as  his  head  was  inclined  toward 
his  left  shoulder,  a  thin  stream  of  saliva 
trickled  from  his  lips  on  to  his  beard. 
His  looks  became  more  and  more  ar- 
dent. "How  stupid  I  am!"  thought 
Sonia  suddenly.  "Of  course  he  is  wait- 
ing for  something."  She  felt  in  her 
pocket,  in  which  she  always  carried 
some  gold  by  way  of  half-pence,  took 
out  a  twenty- franc  piece  and  threw  it 
down  to  the  old  man.  He,  however,  did 
not  take  any  notice  of  it,  but  continued 
looking  at  her  ecstatically.  He  was 
only  roused  from  his  state  of  bliss  by 
receiving  a  handful  of  gravel  which  she 
threw  at  him,  right  in  his  face. 

"Do  sing!"  she  exclaimed.  'You 
must;  I  will  have  it;  I  have  paid  you." 

Still  smiling,  he  picked  up  the  na- 
poleon and  threw  it  back  on  to  the  ter- 
race, and  then  said  proudly,  though  in 
d  very  gentle  voice:  "I  do  not  ask  for 
charity,  little  ladv;  but  if  it  give  you 


pleasure,  I  will  sing  you  the  whole  song, 
tne  whole  of  it,  as  oiien  as  you  please." 
And  he  began  the  song  agam,  in  his 
tremulous  voice,  which  was  more  trem- 
ulous than  it  had  been  before,  as  if  he 
were  much  touched. 

Sonia  was  overcome  and  unconsciously 
moved  to  tears;  delighted  because  the 
man  had  spoken  to  her  so  familiarly,  and 
rather  ashamed  at  having  treated  him 
as  a  beggar.  Her  whole  being  was  car- 
ried away  by  the  slow  rhythm  of  the 
melody,  which  related  an  old  love  storr, 
and  when  he  had  ended  he  again  looked 
at  her  with  a  smile.  As  she  was  crying 
he  said  to  her: 

"I  daresay  you  have  a  beautiful  horse, 
or  a  little  dog  that  you  are  very  fond 
of,  wh'ch  is  ill?  Take  me  to  i\  and  I 
will  cure  it :  I  understand  it  thoroughly. 
I  will  do  it  gratis,  because  you  are  so 
pretty." 

She  could  not  help  laughing: 

"You  must  not  laugh,"  he  said. 
'What  are  you  laughing  at?  Because  I 
am  poor?  But  I  am  not,  for  I  had  work 
yesterday,  and  again  to-day.  I  have  a 
bag  full.  See,  look  here!"  And  from 
his  belt  he  drew  a  leather  purse  in  which 
coppers  rattled.  He  poured  them  out 
into  the  palm  of  his  hand,  and  said 
merrily:  "You  see,  little  one,  I  have 
a  purse.  Forty-seven  sous;  forty- 
seven!"* 

"So  you  will  not  take  my  napoleon?" 
Sonia  said: 

"Certainly  not,"  he  replied.  "I  do 
not  want  it;  and  then,  I  tell  you  again, 
I  will  not  accept  alms.  So  you  do  not 
know  me?" 

"No,  I  do  not." 


*About  47  cents. 


THE  MARQUIS 


673 


*'Very  well,  ask  anyone  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. Everybody  will  tell  you  that 
the  Marquis  does  not  live  on  charity.'' 

The  Marquis!  At  that  name  she  sud- 
denly remembered  that  two  years  ago 
she  had  heard  his  story.  It  was  at  the 
time  that  she  bought  the  property,  and 
the  vendor  had  mentioned  the  Marquis 
as  one  of  the  curiosities  of  the  soil.  He 
was  said  to  be  half  silly,  at  any  rate  an 
original,  almost  in  his  dotage,  living  by 
any  lucky  bits  that  he  could  make  as 
horse-coper  and  veterinary.  The  peas- 
ants gave  him  a  little  work,  as  they 
feared  that  he  might  throw  spells  over 
anyone  who  refused  to  employ  him. 
They  also  respected  him  on  account  of 
his  former  wealth  and  of  his  title,  for 
he  had  been  very  rich,  and  really  was  a 
marquis.  It  was  said  that  he  had  ruined 
himself  in  Paris  by  speculating.  The 
reason,  of  course,  was  women! 

At  that  moment  the  dinner  bell  began 
to  ring,  and  a  wild  idea  entere(^  Soma's 
head.  She  ran  to  the  little  door  that 
opened  on  to  the  terrace,  overlook  the 
musician,  and  with  a  ceremonious  bow 
she  said  to  him:  "Will  you  give  me  the 
pleasure  and  the  honor  of  dining  with 
me.  Marquis?" 

The  old  man  left  off  smiling  and  grew 
serious:  he  put  his  hand  to  his  forehead, 
as  if  to  bring  old  recollections  back,  and 
then  with  a  very  formal,  old-fashioned 
bow,  he  said:  "With  pleasure,  my 
dear.'*  And  letting  his  wallet  drop,  he 
offered  Sonia  his  arm. 

When  she  introduced  this  new  guest 
to  them,  all  the  seven,  even  to  the  best 
drilled,  started.  "I  see  what  disturbs 
you,"  she  said.  "It  is  his  dress.  Well! 
It    really   leaves    much   to   be   desired. 


But  wait  a  moment,  that  can  soon  be 
arranged." 

She  rang  for  her  lady's  maid  and 
whispered  something  to  her.  Then  she 
said:  "Marquis,  your  bath  is  ready  in 
your  dressing-room.  If  you  will  follow 
Sabina  she  will  show  you  to  it.  These 
gentlemen  and  I  will  wait  dinner  for 
you."  And  as  soon  as  he  had  gone  out 
she  said  to  the  youngest  there:  "And 
now,  Ernest,  go  unstairs  and  undress;  I 
will  allow  you  to  dine  in  your  morning 
coat,  and  you  will  give  your  dress  coat 
and  the  rest  to  Sabina,  for  the  Marquis." 

Ernest  was  delighted  at  having  to  play 
a  part  in  the  piece,  and  the  six  othei^ 
applauded.  "Nobody  else  could  think 
of  such  things;  nobody,  nobody!'' 

Half  an  hour  later  they  were  sitting 
at  dinner,  the  Marquis  in  a  dress  coat 
on  Sonia 's  left.  It  was  a  great  disap- 
pointment for  the  seven.  They  had 
reckoned  on  having  some  fun  with  him, 
and  especially  Ernest,  who  b2ing  a  wit, 
had  intended  to  draw  him.  But  at  the 
first  attempt  of  this  sort,  Sonia  had 
given  him  a  look  which  they  all  under- 
stood. Dinner  began  very  ceremonious- 
ly for  the  seven,  but  merrily  and  with- 
out restraint  between  Sonia  and  the 
old  man. 

They  cut  very  long  faces,  did  the 
seven,  but  inwardly,  if  one  may  say  so. 
for  of  course  they  could  not  dream  of 
showing  how  put  out  they  were.  But 
the  inward  long  faces  grew  longer  still, 
when  Sonia  said  to  the  old  fellow,  qm^.e 
suddenly:  "How  stupid  these  gentlemen 
are!  Suppose  we  leave  them  to  theiD 
selves?" 

The  Marquis  rose,  offered  her  his  arm 
again  and  said:  "Where  shall  we  go 
to?" — But  Som'a's  only  renly  was  to  sing 


674 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


the  couplet  of  that  song,  which  shs  had 
remembered : 

*'For  three  years  I  passed 
The  nights  with  my  love, 
On  a  beautiful  couch 
In  a  splendid  alcove. 
Though  wine  makes  me  sleepy, 
Yet  love  keeps  me  frisky." 

The  seven,  who  werb  altogether  ex- 
asperated this  time,  and  could  not  con- 
ceal their  vexation,  saw  the  couple  dis- 
appear through  the  door  which  led  to 
Soma's  apartments. 

"Hum ! "  Ernest  ventured  to  say,  "this 
is  really  rather  strong!" 

"Yes,"  the  eldest  of  the  menagerie  re- 
plied. 'Tt  certainly  is  rather  strong, 
but  it  will  do!  You  know  there  is  no- 
body like  her  for  thinking  of  such 
things!" 

The  next  morning,  the  chateau  bell 
woke  them  up  at  six  o'clock,  the  hour 
they  had  agreed  on  to  return  to  Paris. 
The  seven  men  asked  each  other  whether 
they  should  go  and  wish  Sonia  good 
morning,  as  usual,  before  she  v;as  out 
of  her  room.  Ernest  hesitated  more 
than  any  of  them  about  it,  and  it  was 
not  until  Sabina,  her  maid,  came  and 
told  them  that  her  mistress  insisted 
upon  it,  that  they  could  make  up  their 
minds  to  do  so.  They  were  surprised 
to  find  Sonia  in  bed  by  herself. 


"Well!"  Ernest  asked  boldly,  "and 
what  about  the  Marquis?" 

"He  left  very  early,"  Sonia  replied. 

"A  queer  sort  of  Marquis,  I  must 
say!"  Ernest  observed,  contemptuously, 
and  growing  bolder:  "Why,  I  should 
like  to  know?" 

Sonia  replied,  drawing  herself  up. 
"The  man  has  his  own  habits,  I  sup- 
pose!" 

"Do  you  know,  Madame,"  Sabina 
observed,  "that  he  came  back  half  an 
hour  after  he  left?" 

"Ah!"  said  Sonia,  getting  up  and 
walking  about  the  room.  "He  came 
back?     What  did  he  want,  I  wonder?" 

"He  did  not  say,  Madame.  He  mere- 
ly went  upstairs  to  see  you.  He  was 
dressed  in  his  old  clothes  again." 

Suddenly  Sonia  uttered  a  loud  cry, 
and  clapped  her  hands,  and  the  seven 
came  round  to  see  what  had  caused  her 
emotion. 

"Look  here!  Just  look  here!"  she 
cried.  "Do  look  on  the  mantelpiece! 
It  is  really  charming!    Do  look!" 

And  with  a  smiling,  yet  somewhat 
melancholy  expression  in  her  eyes,  with 
a  tender  look  which  they  could  not  un- 
derstand, she  showed  them  a  small  bunch 
of  wild  flowers,  by  the  side  of  a  heap  of 
half-pennies.  Mechanically  she  took 
them  up  and  counted  them,  and  then 
began  to  cry. 

There  were  forty-seven  of  them. 


A  Deer  Park  in  the  Provinces 

It  is  not  very  long  ago  that  an  Hun-  tered  in  a  wealthy  Austrian  garrison 
garian  Prince,  who  was  an  officer  in  the  town.  The  ladies  of  the  local  aristoc- 
Austrian    cavalry   regiment,   was   quar-      racy    naturally    did     everything    they 


A  DEER  PARK  IN  THE  PROVINCES 


675 


could  to  allure  the  new-comer,  who  was 
young,  good-looking,  animated,  and 
amusing,  into  their  nets,  and  at  last 
one  of  these  ripe  beauties,  who  was  now 
resting  on  her  amorous  laurels,  after 
innumerable  victories  on  the  hot  floors 
of  Viennese  society,  succeeded  in  taking 
him  in  her  toils.  But  only  for  a  short 
time,  for  she  had  very  nearly  reached 
that  limit  in  age  where,  on  the  man's 
side,  love  ceases  and  esteem  begins. 
She  had  more  sense,  however,  than  most 
women,  and  she  recognized  the  fact  in 
good  time.  As  she  d-d  not  wish  to  give 
up  the  leading  part  which  she  played  in 
society  there  so  easily  she  reflected  as 
to  what  means  she  could  employ  to  bind 
him  to  her  in  another  manner.  It  is 
well  known  that  the  notorious  Madame 
de  Pompadour,  who  was  one  of  the 
mistresses  cf  Louis  XV.  of  France,  when 
her  own  charms  did  not  suffice  to  fetter 
that  changeable  monarch,  conceived  the 
idea  of  securing  the  chief  power  in  the 
State  and  in  society  for  herself,  by  hav- 
ing a  pavilion  in  the  deer  park — which 
belonged  to  her,  and  where  Louis  XV. 
was  in  the  habit  of  hunting — fitted  up 
with  every  accommodation  of  a  harem, 
where  she  brought  beautiful  women  and 
girls  of  all  ranks  of  life  to  the  arms  of 
her  rcyal  lover. 

Inspired  by  such  an  historical  exam- 
ple, the  Baroness  began  to  arrange  eve- 
ning parties,  balls,  and  private  theatri- 
cals in  the  winter,  and,  in  the  summer 
excursions  into  the  country.  Thus  she 
gave  the  Prince,  who  at  that  time  was 
still,  so  to  say,  at  her  feet,  the  oppor- 
tunity of  plucking  fresh  flowers.  But 
even  this  clever  expedient  did  not  avail 
in  the  long  run,  for  beautiful  women 
vera  scarce  in  that  provincial  town»  and 


the  few  which  the  local  aristociacy  could 
produce  were  not  able  to  offer  the 
Prince  any  fresh  attraction,  when  he 
had  made  their  closer  acquaintance.  At 
last,  therefore,  he  turned  his  back  on 
these  highly-born  Messalinas,  and  began 
to  bestow  marked  attention  on  the 
pretty  women  and  girls  of  the  middle 
classes,  either  in  the  streets  or  when 
he  was  in  his  box  at  the  theater. 

There  was  one  girl  in  particular,  the 
daughter  of  a  well-to-do  merchant,  who 
was  supposed  to  be  the  most  beautiful 
girl  in  the  capital.  On  her  his  opera 
glass  was  constantly  leveled,  and  he 
even  followed  her  occasionally  without 
being  noticed.  But  this  modern  Pompa» 
dour  soon  got  wind  of  his  unprincely 
taste,  and  determined  to  do  everything 
in  her  power  to  keep  her  lover  and  the 
whole  nobility,  which  was  also  threat- 
ened, from  such  an  unheard-of  disgrace 
as  the  intrigue  of  a  prince  with  a  girl 
of  the  middle  classes. 

*Tt  is  really  sad,"  the  outraged  Bar- 
oness once  said  to  me,  ''that  in  these 
days  princes  and  monarchs  choose  their 
mistresses  only  from  the  stage,  or  from 
the  scum  of  the  people.  But  it  is  the 
fault  of  our  ladies  themselves.  They 
mistake  their  vocation!  Ah!  Where 
are  those  delightful  times  when  the 
daughters  of  the  first  families  looked 
upon  it  as  an  honor  to  become  their 
prince's  mistress?" 

Consequently,  the  horror  of  the  blue* 
blooded,  aristocratic  lady  was  intense 
when  the  Prince,  in  his  usual,  amiable, 
careless  manner,  suggested  to  her  to  peo- 
ple her  deer  park  with  girls  of  the  lower 
orders. 

"It  is  a  ridiculous  prejudice,"  the 
Prince   said    on    that    occasion,    "which 


676 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


obliges  us  to  shut  ourselves  off  from  the 
other  ranks,  and  to  confine  ourselves 
altogether  to  our  own  circle,  for  mo- 
notony and  boredom  are  the  inevitable 
consequences  of  it.  How  many  honor- 
p.ble  men  of  sense  and  education,  and 
especially  how  many  charming  women 
and  girls  there  are,  not  of  the  aristoc- 
racy, who  would  infuse  fresh  life  and 
a  new  charm  into  our  dull,  listless  so- 
ciety! I  very  much  wish  that  a  lady 
like  you  would  make  a  beginning,  would 
give  up  an  exclusiveness  which  cannot 
be  maintained  in  these  days,  and  would 
enrich  our  circle  with  the  charming 
daughters  of  middle-class  families." 

A  wish  of  the  Prince's  was  as  good  as 
a  command;  so  the  Baroness  made  a 
wry  face,  but  accommodated  herself  to 
circumstances,  and  promised  to  invite 
some  of  the  prettiest  girls  of  the  plebes 
to  a  ball  in  a  few  days.  She  really 
issued  a  number  of  invitations,  and  even 
condescended  to  drive  to  the  house  of 
each  of  them  in  person. 

"But  I  must  ask  one  thing  of  you," 
she  said  to  each  of  the  pretty  girls, 
"and  that  is  to  come  dressed  as  simply 
as  possible;  washing  muslins  will  be 
best.  The  Prince  dislikes  all  finery  and 
ostentation,  and  he  would  be  very  vexed 
with  me  if  I  were  the  cause  of  any  ex- 
travagance on  your  part/' 

The  great  day  arrived.  It  was  quite 
an  event  for  the  little  town,  and  all 
classes  of  society  were  in  a  state  of  the 
greatest  excitement.  The  pretty,  ple- 
beian girls,  with  the  one  whom  the 
Prince  had  first  noticed  at  their  head, 
appeared  in  all  their  innocence,  in  plain, 
washing     dresses,     according     to     the 


Prince's  orders,  with  their  hair  plainly 
dressed,  and  without  any  ornament  ex- 
cept their  own  fresh  charms.  They  were 
all  captives  in  the  den  of  the  proud, 
aristocratic  Baroness,  and  the  poor  little 
mice  were  very  much  terrified  when  sud- 
denly the  aristocratic  ladies  came  into 
the  ball-room,  rustling  in  whole  oceans 
of  silks  and  lace,  with  their  haughty 
heads  changed  into  so  many  hanging 
gardens  of  Semiramis,  loaded  with  all 
the  treasures  of  the  Indies,  and  radiant 
as  the  sun. 

At  first  the  poor  girls  looked  down  in 
shame  and  confusion,  and  the  Baroness's 
eyes  glistened  with  all  the  joy  of  tri- 
umph. But  her  ill-natured  pleasure  did 
not  last  long,  for  the  intrigue  on  whicK 
the  Prince's  ignoble  passions  were  to 
make  shipwreck  recoiled  on  the  highly- 
born  lady  patroness  of  the  deer  park. 

No,  the  aristocratic  ladies  in  their 
magnificent  toilettes  did  not  throw  the 
girls  from  the  middle  classes  into  the 
shade.  On  the  contrary,  these  pretty 
girls  in  their  washing  dresses,  and  with 
the  plain  but  splendid  ornament  of  their 
abundant  hair,  looked  more  charming 
than  they  would  have  looked  in  silb 
dresses  and  long  trains,  with  flowers  in 
their  hair;  and  the  novelty  and  un- 
wontedness  of  their  appearance  there 
allured  not  only  the  Prince,  but  all  the 
other  gentlemen  and  officers,  so  tha' 
the  proud  granddaughters  of  heraldic 
lions,  griffins,  and  eagles  were  quite  neg- 
lected by  the  gentlemen,  who  danced  al- 
most exclusively  with  the  pretty  giris 
of  the  middle  class. 

The  faded  lips  of  the  Baroness  and 
Countesses  uttered  many  a  *Tof 
shame!"  but  all  in  vain.     Neither  wa< 


AN  ADVENTURE 


677 


it  any  good  for  the  Baroness  to  make  up  her  intrigue,  and  gave  her  up  altogether, 

her  mind  that  she  would  never  again  put  Sic  transit  gloria  mujidi! 

a  social  medley  before  the  Prince  in  her  The  Baroness,  however,  consoled  hcr- 

drawing-room,  for  he  had  seen  through  self  as  best  she  could. 


An  Adventure 


"Come!  Come!"  said  Pierre  Du- 
faille,  shrugging  his  shoulders.  "Do  you 
know  what  you  are  talking  about,  when 
you  say  that  there  are  no  more  adven- 
tures? Say  that  there  are  no  more  ad- 
venturous men  and  you  will  be  right! 
Yes,  nobody  takes  a  chance,  in  these 
days,  for  as  soon  as  there  is  any  slight 
mystery,  or  a  spice  of  danger,  they 
draw  back.  If,  however,  a  man  is  will- 
ing to  go  into  anything  blindly  and  to 
run  the  risk  of  anything  that  may  hap- 
pen he  can  still  meet  with  adventures. 
Even  I,  who  never  look  for  them,  met 
with  one  in  my  life,  and  a  very  startling 
one.    Let  me  tell  you  of  it. 

"I  was  staying  m  Florence,  and  was 
living  very  quietly.  All  I  indulged  in, 
in  the  way  of  adventures,  was  to  listen 
occasionally  to  the  imm.oral  proposals 
with  which  every  stranger  is  beset  at 
night  on  the  Piazza  della  Signora,  by 
some  worthy  Pandarus  or  other,  with  a 
head  like  that  of  a  venerable  priest. 
These  excellent  fellows  generally  intro- 
duce yoiT  to  their  families,  where  de- 
bauchery is  carried  rn  in  a  very  simple 
and  almost  patriarchal  fashion,  and 
where  one  does  not  run  the  slightest  risk. 
*'One  day  as  I  was  admiring  Benvenuto 
Cellini's  wonderful  Perseus,  in  front  of 
the  Loggia  dei  Lanzi.  I  suddenly  felt  my 
sleeve   pulled    somewhat    roughly.      On 


turning  round,  I  found  myself  face  to 
face  with  a  woman  of  about  fifty  who 
said  to  me  with  a  strong  German  ac- 
cent: 'You  are  French,  Monsieur,  are 
you  not?' 

"  'Certainly,  I  am,'  I  replied. 
"  'And  would  you   like   to  go  home 
with  a  very  pretty  woman?' 

"'Most  certainly  I  should,"  I  re- 
plied, with  a  laugh. 

"Nothing  could  have  been  funnier 
than  the  looks  and  serious  air  of  the 
procuress,  save  the  strangeness  of  the 
proposal,  made  in  broad  daylight,  and 
in  very  bad  French.  It  was  even  worse 
when  she  added:  'Do  you  know  every- 
thing they  do  in  Paris?' 

"  'What  do  you  mean,  my  good  wo- 
man?' J  asked  her,  rather  startled 
'What  is  done  in  Paris  that  is  not  dont 
everywhere  else?' 

"However,  when  she  explained  htr 
meaning,  I  replied  that  I  certainly  diil 
not,  and  as  I  was  not  quite  so  immodest 
as  the  lady,  I  blushed  a  little.  Cut  no' 
for  long,  for  almost  immediately  after- 
ward I  grew  pale,  when  she  said:  'I 
want  to  assure  myself  of  it  personally.' 
And  she  said  this  in  the  same  phleg- 
matic manner,  which  did  not  seem  so 
funny  to  me  now,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
rather  frightened  roe. 


0/8 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


•^ 'What!' I  said.  Tersonally!  You! 
Explain  yourself!' 

"If  I  had  been  rather  surprised  be- 
fore, I  was  now  altogether  astonished  at 
her  explanation.  It  was  indeed  an  ad- 
venture—  almost  like  a  romance.  I 
could  scarcely  believe  my  ears,  but  this 
is  what  she  told  me. 

"She  was  the  confidential  attendant 
on  a  lady  moving  in  high  society,  who 
wished  to  be  initiated  into  the  most  se- 
cret refinements  of  Parisian  h'gh  life, 
and  had  done  me  the  honor  of  choosing 
me  for  her  companion.  But  then,  this 
preliminary  test! 

"'By  Jove!'  I  said  to  myself,  'this 
eld  German  hag  is  not  so  stupid  as  she 
looks!'  And  I  laughed  in  my  sleeve,  as 
I  listened  inattentively  to  what  she  was 
saying  to  presuade  me. 

"  'My  mistress  is  the  prettiest  woman 
you  can  dream  of;  a  real  beauty; 
springtime!     A  flower!' 

"  'You  must  excuse  me,  but  if  your 
mistress  is  really  like  springtime  and  a 
flower,  you  (pray  excuse  me  for  being 
so  blunt)  are  not  exactly  that,  and  per- 
haps I  should  not  exactly  be  in  a  mood 
to  humor  you,  my  dear  lady,  in  the 
same  way  that  I  might  her.' 

"She  jumped  back,  astonished  in 
turn:  'Why,  I  only  want  to  satisfy 
myself  with  my  own  eyes;  not  by  in- 
juring you.'  And  she  finished  her  ex- 
planation, which  had  been  incomplete 
before.  All  she  had  to  do  was  to  go 
with  me  to  'Mother  Patata's  well-known 
establishment,  and  there  to  be  present 
while  I  conversed  with  one  of  its  fair 
and  frail  inhabitants. 

"'Oh!'  I  said  to  myself,  'I  was  mis- 
taken in  her  tastes.  She  is  of  course  an 
old,  shriveled-up  woman,  as  I  guessed, 


but  she  is  a  specialist.  This  is  interest- 
ing; upon  my  word!  I  never  met  with 
such  a  one  before!' 

"Here,  gentlemen,  I  must  beg  you  to 
allow  me  to  hide  my  face  for  a  moment. 
What  I  said  was  evidently  not  strictly 
correct,  and  I  am  rather  ashamed  of  it; 
my  excuse  must  be,  that  I  was  young, 
that  Patata's  was  a  celebrated  place,  of 
which  I  had  heard  wonderful  things 
said,  but  the  entry  to  which  was  barred 
me,  on  account  of  my  small  means. 
Five  napoleons  was  the  price!  Fancy! 
I  could  not  treat  myself  to  it,  and  so  I 
accepted  the  good  lady's  offer.  I  do  not 
say  that  it  was  not  disagreeable,  but 
what  was  I  to  do?  And  then,  the  old 
woman  was  a  German,  and  so  her  five 
napoleons  were  a  sl'ght  return  for  our 
five  milliards,  which  we  paid  them  as 
our  war  indemnity. 

"Well,  Patata's  boarder  was  charming, 
the  old  woman  was  not  too  trouble- 
come,  and  your  humble  servant  did  his 
best  to  sustain  the  ancient  glory  of 
Frenchmen. 

"Let  me  drink  my  disgrace  to  the 
dregs!  On  the  next  day  but  one  after, 
I  was  waiting  at  the  statue  of  Perseus. 
It  was  shameful,  I  confess,  but  I  en- 
joyed the  partial  restitution  of  the  five 
milliards,  and  it  is  surprising  how  a 
Frenchman  loses  his  dignity  when  he  is 
traveling. 

"The  good  lady  made  her  appearance 
at  the  appointed  time.  It  was  quite 
dark  and  I  followed  her  without  a  word, 
for,  after  all,  I  was  not  very  proud  of 
the  part  I  was  playing.  But  if  you  only 
knew  how  fair  that  little  girl  at  Patata^s 
was.  As  I  went  along,  I  thought  only 
of  her,  and  did  not  pav  any  attention  to 
where    we    were    going.      I    was    only 


AN  ADVENTURE 


o;^ 


roused  from  my  reverie  by  hearing  the 
old  woman  say:  'Here  we  are.  Try 
and  be  as  entertaining  as  you  were  the 
day  before  yesterday.' 

"We  were  not  outside  Patata's  house, 
but  in  a  narrow  street  running  by  the 
side  of  a  palace  with  high  walls,  and  in 
front  of  us  was  a  small  door,  which  the 
old  woman  opened  gently. 

*Tor  a  moment  I  felt  inclined  to  draw 
back.  Apparently  the  old  hag  was  also 
ardent  on  her  own  account!  She  had 
me  in  a  trap!  No  doubt  she  wanted 
in  her  turn  to  make  use  of  my  small 
talents!  But,  no!  That  was  impos- 
sible ! 

"'Go  in!  Go  in!'  she  said.  'What 
are  you  afraid  of?  My  mistress  is  so 
pretty,  so  pretty,  much  prettier  than  the 
little  gill  of  the  other  day.' 

"So  it  was  really  true,  this  story  out 
of  The  Arabian  Nights?'  Why  not? 
And  after  all,  what  was  I  risking?  The 
good  woman  would  certainly  not  injure 
me,  and  so  I  went  in,  though  somewhat 
nervously. 

"My  friend,  what  an  hour  I  spent 
there!  Paradise!  It  would  be  useless, 
impossible  to  describe  it  to  you.  Apart- 
ments fit  for  a  princess,  and  one  of 
those  princesses  out  of  fairy  tales,  a 
fairy  herself.  An  exquisite  German 
woman,  exquisite  as  German  women  can 
be,  when  they  try.  An  Undine  of  Hein- 
rich  Heine's,  with  hair  like  the  Virgin 
Mary's,  innocent  blue  eyes,  and  a  skin 
like  strawberries  and  cream. 

"Suddenly,  however,  my  Undine  got 
up,  and  her  face  convulsed  with  fury 
and  pride.  Then,  she  rushed  behind 
some  hangings,  where  she  began  to  give 
vent  to  a  flood  of  German  words,  which 
I  did  not  understand,  while  I  remained 


standing,  dumfounded.  But  just  then 
the  old  v/oman  came  in,  and  said,  shak- 
ing with  fear:  'Quick,  quick;  dress 
yourself  and  go.  if  you  do  not  wish  to 
be  killed.' 

"I  asked  no  questions,  for  whai  was 
the  good  of  trying  to  understand?  Be- 
sides, the  old  woman,  who  grew  more 
and  more  terrified,  could  not  find  any 
French  words,  and  chattered  wildly.  I 
jumped  up  and  got  into  my  shoes  and 
overcoat  and  ran  down  the  stairs  and 
into  the  street. 

"Ten  minutes  later,  I  recovered  my 
breath  and  my  senses,  without  knowing 
what  streets  I  had  been  through,  nor 
where  I  had  come  from,  and  I  stole  fur- 
tively into  my  hotel,  as  if  I  had  been  a 
malefactor. 

"In  the  cajes  the  next  morning,  noth- 
ing was  talked  of  atcept  a  crime  that 
had  been  committed  during  the  night. 
A  German  Baron  had  killed  his  wife 
with  a  revolver,  but  liad  been  liberated 
on  bail,  as  he  had  appealed  to  his  coun- 
sel to  whom  he  had  given  the  following 
explanation,  to  the  truth  of  which  the 
lady  companion  of  the  Baroness  had 
certified. 

"She  had  been  married  to  her  hus- 
band almost  by  force;  she  detested  him, 
and  had  some  particular  reasons  (which 
were  not  specified)  for  her  hatied  of 
him.  In  order  in  have  her  revenge  on 
him,  she  had  had  him  seized,  bound,  and 
gagged  by  four  hired  ruffians,  who  had 
been  caught,  and  who  had  confessed 
everything.  Thus,  reduced  to  immo- 
bility, and  unable  to  help  himself,  the 
Baron  had  been  obliged  to  witness  a 
degrading  scene,  in  which  his  wife  ca- 
ressed a  Frenchman,  and  thus  outraged 
conjugal  fidelity  and  German  honor  at 


680 


VVORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ihe  same  lime.  As  soon  as  ho  was  set 
at  liberty,  the  Baron  had  punished  his 
faithless  wife,  and  was  now  seeking  her 
accomplice.' 

''And  what  did  you  do?"  some  one 
asked  Pierre  Dufaille. 

'The  only  thing  I  could  do,  by 
George!"  he  renlied.  "I  put  myself  at 
the   poor   devil's   disposal;   it  wa:>   his 


right,  and  so  we  fought  a  duel.  Alasl 
It  was  with  swords,  and  he  ran  m** 
right  through  the  body.  That  was  also 
his  right,  but  he  exceeded  his  right 
when  he  called  me  her  ponce.  Then  I 
gave  him  h's  change,  and  as  I  fell,  I 
called  out  with  all  the  strength  that  re- 
mained to  me:  *A  Frenchman!  A 
Frenchman!     Long  live  France!'" 


The  Bed 


On  a  hot  afternoon  during  last  sum- 
mer, the  iaige  auction  rooms  seemed 
asleep,  and  the  auctioneers  were  knock- 
ing down  the  various  lots  in  a  listless 
manner.  In  a  back  room,  on  the  first 
floor,  two  or  three  lots  of  old  silk  eccle- 
siastical vestments  were  lying  in  a 
corner. 

They  were  copes  for  solemn  occa- 
sions, and  graceful  chasubles  on  which 
embroidered  flowers  surrounded  sym- 
bolic letters  on  a  yellowish  ground, 
which  had  originally  been  white.  Some 
secondhand  dealers  were  there,  two  or 
three  men  with  dirty  beards,  and  a  fat 
woman  with  a  big  stomach,  one  of  those 
women  who  deal  in  secondhand  finery 
and  manage  illicit  love  affairs,  women 
who  are  brokers  in  old  and  young  hu- 
man flesh,  lust  as  much  as  they  are  in 
new  and  old  clothes. 

Presently,  a  beautiful  Louis  XV. 
chasuble  was  put  up  for  salt,  which  was 
as  pretty  as  the  dress  of  a  marchioness 
of  that  period.  It  had  retained  all  its 
colors,  and  was  embroidered  with  lilies 
of  th*^  vallev  rmmd  the  cross,  and  long 
blue  irises,  which  came  up  to  the  foot 


of  the  sacred  emblem,  and  with  ^  reaths 
of  roses  in  the  corners.  When  l  had 
bought  it,  I  noticed  that  there  was  a 
faint  scent  about  it,  as  if  it  were  per- 
meated with  the  remains  of  incemo,  or 
still  pervaded  by  dehcate,  sweet  s^'ents 
of  bygone  years,  by  the  memory  ^i  a 
perfume,  the  soul  of  an  evaporated  es- 
sence. 

When  I  got  home,  I  wished  to  na^o  a 
small  chair  of  the  same  period  covered 
with  it;  and  as  I  was  handling  it  in  or- 
der to  take  the  necessary  measures,  I 
felt  some  paper  beneath  my  f>ngers. 
When  I  cut  the  lining,  some  letters  fell 
at  my  feet.  They  were  yellow  with 
age,  and  the  faint  ink  was  the  color  of 
rust;  outside  the  sheets,  whicli  were 
folded  in  the  fashion  of  years  long  past, 
it  was  addressed  in  a  delicate  hand 
"To  Monsieur  FAbbe  d'Argence.^* 

The  first  three  letters  merely  settled 
places  of  meeting,  but  here  is  the  third: 

"My  Friend. — I  am  very  unwell,  ill 
in  fact,  and  I  cannot  leave  mv  bed.  The 
rain  is  beating  against  mv  windows,  and 
I  lie  dreaming  comfortably  and  warnaly 


THE  BED 


681 


under  my  eider-down  coverlet.  I  have 
a  book  of  which  I  am  very  fond,  and 
which  seems  as  if  it  really  applied  to 
me.  Shall  I  tell  you  what  it  is?  No, 
for  you  would  only  scold  me.  Then, 
when  I  have  read  a  little,  I  think,  and 
will  tell  you  what  about. 

"Having  been  in  bed  for  three  days, 
I  think  about  my  bed,  and  even  in  my 
sleep  I  meditate  on  it  still.  I  have  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  bed  compre- 
hends our  whole  life;  for  we  were  born 
in  it,  we  live  in  it,  and  we  shall  die  in 
it.  If,  therefore,  I  had  Monsieur  de 
Crebillon's  pen,  I  should  write  the  his- 
tory of  a  bed,  and  what  exciting  and 
terrible,  as  well  as  delightful  and  mov- 
ing, occurrences  would  not  such  a  book 
contain!  What  lessons  and  what  sub- 
jects for  moralizing  could  one  not  draw 
from  it,  for  everyone? 

''You  know  my  bed,  my  friend,  but 
you  will  never  guess  how  many  things 
I  have  discovered  in  it  within  the  last 
three  days,  and  how  much  more  I  love 
it,  in  consequence.  It  seems  to  me  to 
be  inhabited,  haunted,  if  I  may  say  so, 
by  a  number  of  people  I  never  thought 
of  who,  nevertheless,  have  left  some- 
thing of  themselves  in  that  couch. 

"Ah!  I  cannot  understand  people 
who  buy  new  beds,  beds  to  which  no 
memories  or  cares  are  attached.  Mine, 
ours,  which  is  so  shabby,  and  so  spa- 
cious, must  have  held  many  existences 
in  it,  from  birth  to  the  grave.  Think 
of  that,  my  friend;  think  of  it  all; 
review  all  those  lives,  a  great  part  of 
which  was  snent  between  these  four 
posts,  surrounded  bv  these  hangings 
embroidered  by  human  figures,  which 
have  seen  so  many  things.  What 
have  they  seen  during  the  three  cen- 


turies  since    they  were   first   put    up? 

"Here  is  a  young  woman  lying  in 
this  bed. 

"From  time  to  time  she  sighs,  and 
then  she  groans  and  cries  out;  her 
mother  is  with  her,  and  presently  a  little 
creature  that  makes  a  noise  like  a  cat 
mewing,  and  which  is  all  shiveled  and 
wrinkled,  appears.  It  is  a  male  child  to 
which  she  has  given  birth,  and  the  youn^ 
mother  feels  happy  in  spite  of  her  pain; 
she  is  nearly  suffocated  with  joy  at  that 
first  cry,  and  stretches  out  her  arms, 
and  those  around  her  shed  tears  of 
pleasure.  For  that  little  morsel  of  hu- 
manity which  has  come  from  her  means 
perpetuation  of  the  blood,  of  the  heart, 
and  of  the  soul  of  the  old  people,  who 
are  looking  on,  trembling  with  excite- 
ment. 

"And  then,  here  are  two  lovers,  who 
for  the  first  time  are  together  in  that 
tabernacle  of  life.  They  tremble;  but 
transported  with  delight,  they  have  the 
delicious  sensation  of  being  close  to- 
gether, and  by  degrees  their  lips  meet. 
That  divine  ki=s  makes  them  one,  that 
kiss  which  is  the  gate  of  a  terrestrial 
heaven,  that  kiss  which  speaks  of  hu- 
man delights,  which  continually  prom- 
ises them,  announces  them,  and  pre- 
cedes them.  And  their  bed  is  agitated 
like  the  tempestuous  sea,  it  bends  and 
murmurs,  and  itself  seems  to  become 
animated  and  joyous,  for  the  maddening 
mystery  of  love  is  being  accomplished 
on  it.  What  is  there  sweeter,  what  more 
perfect  in  this  world  than  those  em- 
braces which  make  one  single  being  out 
of  two,  and  which  give  to  both  of  them 
at  the  same  moment  the  same  thought, 
the  same  exoectation,  and  the  same 
maddening  pleasure,  a  joy  which  de- 


682 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


scends  upon  them  like  a  celestial  and 
devouring  fire? 

"Do  you  remember  those  lines  from 
some  old  poet,  which  you  read  to  me 
last  year?  I  should  like  to  have  them 
embroidered  on  the  top  of  my  bed, 
where  Pyramus  and  Thisbe  are  continu- 
ally looking  at  me  out  of  their  tapes- 
tried eyes. 

"And  think  of  death,  my  friend,  of 
all  those  who  have  breathed  out  their 
last  sigh  to  God  in  this  bed.  For  ii  is 
also  the  tomb  of  hopes  ended,  the  door 
which  closes  everything,  after  having 
been  the  entrance  to  the  world.  What 
cries,  what  anguish,  what  sufferings, 
what  groans;  how  many  arms  stretched 
out  toward  the  past;  what  appeals  to 
a  happiness  that  has  vanished  forever; 
what  ''-onvulsions,  what  death-rattles, 
what  gaping  lips  and  distorted  eyes, 
have  there  not  been  in  this  bed  from 
which  I  am  writing  to  you,  during  the 
three  centuries  that  it  has  sheltered  hu- 
man beings! 


*'The  bed,  you  must  remember,  is  the 
symbol  of  life;  I  have  discovered  this 
within  the  last  three  days.  There  is 
nothing  good  except  the  bed,  and  are 
not  some  of  our  best  moments  spent  in 
sleep? 

"But  then,  again,  we  suffer  in  bed! 
It  is  the  refuge  of  those  who  are  ill  and 
suffering;  a  place  of  repose  and  comfort 
for  worn-out  bodies,  in  one  word,  a  part 
and  i^rcel  of  humanity. 

"Many  other  thoughts  have  struck 
me,  but  I  have  no  time  to  note  them 
down  for  you,  and  then,  should  I  re- 
member them  all?  Besides  that  I  am 
so  tired  that  I  mean  to  shake  up  my 
pillows,  stretch  myself  out  at  full  length, 
and  sleep  a  little.  But  be  sure  and 
come  to  see  me  at  three  o'clock  to- 
morrow; perhaps  I  may  be  better,  and 
able  to  prove  it  to  you. 

"Good-bye,  my  fnend;  here  are  my 
hands  for  you  to  kiss,  and  I  also  offei 
you  my  lips," 


Under  the  Yoke 


As  he  was  a  man  of  quiet  and  regular 
habits,  of  a  simple  and  aitectionate  dis- 
position, and  nad  nothing  to  disturb  the 
even  tenor  of  his  life,  Monsieur  de 
Loubancourt  suffered  from  widower- 
hood  more  than  most  men  do.  He  re- 
gretted his  lost  happiness,  was  angry 
with  the  fate  which  separated  a  united 
couple  so  brutally,  the  fate  which  had 
pitched  upon  a  tranquil  existence,  whose 
sleepy  quietude  had  not  been  troubled  by 


any  v,ares  or  chimeras,  in  order  to  rob 
it  of  happiness. 

Had  he  been  ycunger,  he  might,  per- 
haps, have  been  tempted  to  form  a  new 
line,  to  fill  up  the  vacant  place,  and  to 
marry  again.  But  when  a  man  is  nearly 
sixty  such  ideas  make  people  laugh,  for 
they  have  something  ridiculous  and  in- 
sane about  them.  So  he  dragged  on  hi? 
dull  and  weary  existence,  shunned  all 
those  familiar  objects  which  constantly 


UNDER  THE  YOKE 


0S3 


recalled  the  past  to  him  and  flitted  from 
hotel  to  hotel  without  taking  interest 
in  anything,  or  becoming  intimate  with 
anyone,  even  temporarily;  inconsolable, 
silent,  enigmatic,  and  funereal  in  his 
eternal  black  clothes. 

He  was  generally  alone — though  on 
rare  occasions  he  was  accompanied  by 
his  only  son  who  used  to  yawn  by 
stealth,  and  seemed  to  be  mentally 
counting  the  hours  as  if  he  were  per- 
forming some  hateful,  enforced  duty  in 
spite  of  himself. 

Two  years  of  this  crystallization 
slipped  by  and  one  was  as  monotonous 
and  as  void  of  incident  as  the  other. 

One  evening,  however,  in  a  boarding- 
house  at  Cannes,  where  he  was  staying 
on  his  wanderings,  a  young  woman 
dressed  in  mourning,  a  new  arrival,  sat 
next  to  him  at  dinner  She  had  a  sad, 
pale  face  that  told  of  suffering,  a  beau- 
tiful figure,  and  large,  blue  eyes  with 
deep  rings  round  them,  which,  never- 
theless, were  like  stars  in  the  twilight. 

All  remarked  ner  and  although  Lou- 
bancourt  usually  took  no  notice  of 
women,  no  matter  v/ho  they  were,  ugly 
or  pretty,  he  looked  at  her  and  listened 
to  her.  He  felt  less  lonely  by  her 
side,  though  he  did  not  know  why.  He 
trembled  with  instinctive  and  confused 
happiness,  just  as  if  in  some  distant 
country  he  had  found  some  female 
friend  or  relative,  who  at  last  would 
understand  him,  tell  him  some  news, 
and  talk  to  him  in  his  dear  native  lan- 
guage about  everything  that  a  man 
leaves  behind  him  when  he  exiles  him- 
self from  home. 

What  strange  affinity  had  thus  thrown 
them  together?  What  secret  forces  had 
brought  their  grief  in  contact?     What 


made  him  so  sanquine  and  so  calm,  and 
incited  him  to  take  her  suddenly  into 
his  confidence,  and  urged  him  on  to 
resistless  curiosity? 

She  was  an  experienced  traveler,  who 
had  no  illusions,  and  was  in  search  of 
adventure;  one  of  those  women  who 
frequently  change  their  name,  and  who, 
as  they  have  made  up  their  mind  to 
swindle  if  luck  is  not  on  their  side,  play 
the  continuous  role  of  adventuress;  one 
who  could  put  on  every  accent;  who 
for  the  sake  of  her  purse  could  trans- 
form herself  into  a  Slav,  or  into  an 
American,  or  simply  into  a  provincial; 
who  was  ready  to  take  part  in  any 
comedy  in  order  to  make  money,  and 
not  be  obliged  to  waste  strength  and 
brains  on  fruitless  struggles  or  on 
wretched  expedients.  Thus  she  imme- 
diately guessed  the  state  of  this  melan- 
choly sexagenarian's  mind,  and  the  illu- 
sion which  attracted  him  to  her.  She 
scented  the  spoils  which  offered  them- 
selves to  her  without  struggle,  and  di' 
vined  under  what  guise  she  could  make 
herself  accepted  and  loved. 

She  initiated  him  into  depths  of  griefs 
which  were  unknown  to  him,  by  phrases 
which  were  cut  short  by  sighs,  by  frag- 
ments of  her  story,  which  she  finished 
by  a  disgusted  shrug  of  the  shoulders 
and  a  heartrending  smile,  and  by  in- 
sensibly exciting  his  feelings.  In  a  word, 
she  triumphed  over  the  last  remaining 
doubts  which  might  still  have  mingled 
with  the  affectionate  pity  with  which 
that  poor,  solitary  heart,  so  full  ot  bit- 
terness, overflowed. 

And  so,  for  the  first  time  since  he 
had  become  a  widower,  the  old  man 
confided  in  another  person,  poured  out 
his  old  heart  into  the  soul  which  seemed 


684 


W0RK3  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


to  be  so  like  his  own,  which  seemed  to 
offer  him  a  haven  of  cheer  where  the 
wounds  of  his  heart  could  be  healed. 
He  longed  to  throw  himself  into  those 
sisterly  arms,  to  dry  his  tears,  and  to 
still  his  grief  there. 

*  ***** 

Monsieur  de  Loubancourt,  who  had 
married  at  twenty-five,  as  much  from 
love  as  from  judgment,  had  lived  quietly 
and  peacefully  in  the  country,  rarely 
visiting  Paris.  He  was  ignorant  of  fe- 
male wiles  and  of  the  temptations 
offered  by  creatures  like  Wanda  Pulska, 
who  are  made  up  of  lies,  and  only  care 
for  pleasure,  a  virgin  soil  on  which  any 
evil  will  grow. 

She  attached  herself  to  him,  became 
his  shadow,  and  by  degrees,  part  of  his 
life.  She  showed  herself  to  be  a  chari- 
table woman  who  devoted  herself  to  an 
unhappy,  man,  endeavored  to  consoh 
him,  and  in  spite  of  her  youth  was  will- 
mg  to  be  h:3  inseparable  companion  in 
Lis  slow,  daily  walks  She  never  ap- 
peared to  tire  of  his  anecdotes  and  rem- 
inisceLces,  and  she  phyed  cards  with 
him.  She  waited  on  him  carefully  when 
he  was  confined  to  his  bed,  appeared 
to  have  no  sex,  in  fact,  transformed  her- 
self; and  though  she  handled  him  skill- 
fully, she  seemed  ingenuous  and  igno- 
rant of  evil.  She  acted  like  an  inno- 
cent voung  girl,  who  has  just  been  con- 
firmed: but  for  all  that,  she  chose  dan- 
gerous hours  and  certain  spots  in  which 
to  be  sentimental  and  to  ask  questions 
which  agitated  and  disconcerted  him, 
abandoning  her  slender  fingers  to  his 
feverish  hands,  which  pressed  and  held 
them  in  a  tender  clasp. 

And   then,  there  were  wild  declara- 


tions of  love,  prayers  and  sobs  which 
frightened  her;  wild  adieus,  which  were 
not  followed  by  his  departure,  but  which 
brought  about  a  touching  reconciliation 
and  the  first  kiss:  and  then,  one  night, 
while  they  were  traveling  together,  he 
opened  the  door  of  her  bedroom  at  the 
hotel,  which  she  had  not  locked,  and 
came  in  like  a  madman.  There  was  the 
phantom  of  resistance,  and  the  fallacious 
submission  of  a  woman  who  was  over- 
come by  so  much  tenderness,  who  re- 
belled no  longer,  but  who  accepted  the 
yoke  of  her  master  and  lover.  And 
then,  the  conquest  of  the  body  after 
the  conquest  of  the  heart,  while  she 
forged  his  chains  link  by  link,  with  plea- 
sures which  besot  and  corrupt  old  men, 
and  dry  up  their  brains,  until  at  last  he 
allowed  himself  to  be  induced,  almost 
unconsciously,  to  make  an  odious  and 
stupid  will. 

Informed,  perhaps,  by  anonymous 
letters,  or  astonished  because  his  father 
kept  him  altogether  at  a  distance  from 
him  and  gave  no  signs  of  life,  Monsieur 
de  Loubancourt's  son  joined  them  ini 
Provence.  But  Wanda  Pulska,  who 
had  been  preparing  for  that  attack  for 
a  long  time,  waited  for  it  fearlessly. 

She  did  not  seem  discomposed  at  that 
sudden  visit,  but  was  very  charming  and 
affable  toward  the  newcomer,  reassured 
him  by  the  careless  airs  of  a  girl,  who 
took  life  as  it  came,  who  was  suffering 
from  the  consequences  of  a  fault,  and 
did  not  trouble  her  head  about  the  fu- 
ture. 

He  envied  his  father  and  grudged 
him  such  a  treasure.  Although  he  had 
come  to  combat  her  dangerous  influence, 
and  to  treat  the  woman  who  had  as- 
sumed the  place  made  vacant  by  death 


A  FASHIONABLE  WOMAN 


685 


^who  governed  her  lover  as  his  sov- 
ereign mistress — as  an  enemy,  he  shrank 
from  his  task,  panted  with  desire,  lost 
his  head,  and  thought  of  nothing  but 
treason  and  of  an  odious  partnership. 

She  managed  him  even  more  easily 
than  she  had  managed  Monsieur  de 
Loubancourt,  molded  him  just  as  she 
chose,  made  him  her  tool,  without  even 
giving  him  the  tips  of  her  fingers,  or 
granting  him  the  slightest  favor,  in- 
duced him  to  be  so  imprudent  that  the 
old  man  grew  jealous,  watched  them, 
discovered  the  intrigue,  and  found  mad 
letters  in  which  his  son  stormed,  begged, 
threatened,  and  implored. 

One  evening,  when  she  knew  that 
her  lover  had  come  in,  and  was  hiding 
in  a  dark  cupboard  in  order  to  watch 
them,  Wanda  happened  to  be  alone  in 
the  drawing-room,  which  was  full  of 
light  and  of  beautiful  flowers,  with  this 
young  fellow  of  five-and-twenty.  He 
threw  himself  at  her  feet  and  declared 
his  love,  and  besought  her  to  run  away 
with  him.  When  she  tried  to  bring  him 
to  reason  and  repulsed  him,  and  told 
him  in  a  loud  and  distinct  voice  how 
she  loved  Monsieur  de  Loubancourt,  he 
seized  her  wrists  with  brutal  violence, 
and,  maddened  with  passion,  stammered 
out  words  of  love  and  lust. 

"Let  me  go."  she  cried,  "let  me  go  im- 
mediately.    You  are  a  brute  to   take 


advantage  of  a  woman  like  that.  Please 
let  me  go,  or  I  shall  call  the  servants 
to  my  assistance." 

The  next  moment  the  old  man,  terri- 
ble in  his  rage,  rushed  out  of  his  hid- 
ing pl'^.ce  with  clenched  fists  and  a  slob- 
bering mouth,  threw  himself  on  the 
startled  son,  and  pointing  to  the  door 
with  a  superb  gesture,  said: 

"You  are  a  dirty  scoundrel,  sir.    Get 
out  of  my  house  immediately,  and  nevot 
let  me  see  you  again!" 
Hs  *  *  *  *  1 

The  comedy  was  over.  Grateful  for 
such  fidelity  and  real  affection.  Mon- 
sieur de  Loubancourt  married  Wanda 
Pulska,  whose  name  appeared  on  the 
civil  register — a  detail  of  no  importance 
to  a  man  who  was  in  love — as  Frida 
Krubstein;  she  came  from  Saxony,  and 
had  been  a  servant  at  an  inn.  Then  he 
disinherited  his  son,  as  far  as  he  could.* 

And  now  that  she  is  a  respectable  and 
respected  widow,  Madame  dc  Louban- 
court is  received  everywhere  by  society 
in  those  places  of  winter  resort  where 
people's  antecedents  are  rarely  gone 
into,  and  where  women  of  noble  name, 
who  are  pretty  and  can  waltz — like  the 
Germans  can — ^are  always  well  received. 


*According  to  French  law,  nobody  can 
altogether  disinherit  a  child,  and  no  son 
or  daue:hter  can  be  "cut  off"  with  tVir^ 
proverbial  "shilling." 


A  Fashionable  Woman 


It  can  easily  be  proved  that  Austria 
is  far  richer  in  talented  men,  in  every 
domain,  than  North  Gerniany,  but  wbUe 


men  are  systematically  drilled  there  for 
the  vocation  which  they  choose,  just  as 
Prussian  soldiers  are,  with  us  tbiev  lack 


bS6 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


the  necessary  training,  especially  tech- 
nical training,  and  consequently  very 
few  of  them  get  beyond  mere  dilettant- 
ism. Leo  Wolfram  was  one  of  these  in- 
tellectual dilettantes,  and  the  more 
pleasure  one  took  in  his  materials  and 
characters,  which  were  usually  taken 
boldly  from  real  life,  and  woven  into  a 
certain  political,  and  what  is  still  more, 
a  plastic  plot,  the  more  one  was  obliged 
to  regret  that  Wolfram  had  never 
learned  to  compose  or  to  mold  his  char- 
acters or  to  write — in  one  word,  that  he 
had  never  become  a  literary  artist.  But 
how  greatly  he  had  in  himself  the  mate- 
rials for  a  master  of  narration,  his 
''Dissolving  Views,"  and  still  more  his 
"Goldkind,"*  prove. 

'  Goldldnd"  is  a  striking  type  of  our 
modern  society,  and  contains  all  the  ele- 
ments of  a  classic  novel,  although  of 
course  in  a  crude,  unfinished  state. 
What  an  exact  reflection  of  our  social 
circumstances  Leo  Wolfram  gave  in 
that  story  will  be  shown  by  our  prtsent 
reminiscences,  in  which  a  lady  of  that 
race  plays  the  principal  part. 

Some  ten  years  ago,  four  very  stylish- 
ly dressed  persons  used  to  dine  every 
day  in  a  comer  of  the  small  dining- 
room  of  one  of  the  best  hotels  in 
Vienna,  and  both  there  and  elsewhere 
gave  occasion  for  a  great  amount  of 
talk.  They  were  an  Austrian  land- 
owner, his  charming  wife,  and  two  young 
diplomatists,  one  of  whom  came  from 
the  North,  while  the  other  was  a  pure 
son  of  the  South.  There  was  no  doubt 
that  the  lady  came  in  for  the  greatest 
share  of  the  general  interest  in  every 
respect. 

The  practiced  observer  and  discemer 
of  human  nature  easily  recognized  in 


her  one  of  those  characters  which 
Goethe  has  so  aptly  named  "problem- 
atical." She  was  one  of  those  in- 
dividuals who  are  always  dissatisfied 
and  at  variance  with  themselves  and 
with  the  world,  who  are  a  riddle  to 
themselves,  and  can  never  he  relied  on. 
With  the  interesting  and  captivating, 
though  unfortunate  contradictions  of 
her  nature,  she  made  a  strong  impres- 
sion on  everybody,  as  well  as  by  hei 
mere  outward  appearance.  She  was  one 
of  those  women  who  are  called  beau- 
tiful, without  their  being  really  so.  Her 
face,  as  well  as  her  figure,  lacked 
aesthetic  lines,  but  there  was  no  doubt, 
that,  in  spite  of  that,  or  perhaps  on  that 
very  account,  she  was  the  most  dan- 
gerously fascinating  woman  that  one 
could  imagine. 

She  was  tall  and  thin,  and  there  was 
a  certain  hardness  about  her  figure 
which  became  a  charm  through  the 
vivacity  and  grace  of  her  movements. 
Her  features  harmonized  with  her  fig- 
ure, for  she  had  a  high,  clever,  cold 
forehead,  a  strong  mouth  with  sensual 
lips,  and  an  angular,  sharp  chin,  the 
effect  of  which,  however,  was  diminished 
by  her  small  slightly  turned-up  nose, 
her  beautifully  arched  eye-brows,  and 
her  large,  animated,  swimming  blue 
eyes. 

In  her  face,  which  was  almost  too  full 
of  expression  for  a  woman,  there  was 
as  much  feeling,  kindness,  and  candor 
a£  there  was  calculation,  coolness,  and 
deceit,  and  when  she  was  angry  and 
curled  her  upper  lip,  so  as  to  show  her 
dazzlingly  white  teeth,  it  had  a  devilish 
look   of  wickedness  and  cruelty.     At 


♦Golden  Child. 


A  FASHIONABLE  WOMAN 


687 


that  time,  when  women  still  wore  their 
own  hair,  the  beauty  of  her  long,  chest- 
nut plaits,  which  she  coiled  on  the  top 
of  her  head  like  a  crown,  was  very 
striking.  Besides  this,  she  was  remark- 
able for  her  elegant  and  tasteful  dresses, 
and  for  a  bearing  which  blended  with 
the  dignity  of  a  lady  of  rank,  that  inde- 
finable something  which  makes  actresses 
and  women  who  belong  to  the  higher 
classes  of  the  demi-monde  so  interesting 
to  us. 

In  Paris  she  would  have  been  taken 
for  a  demi-mondaine,  but  in  Vienna  the 
best  drawing-rooms  were  open  to  her, 
and  she  was  not  looked  upon  as  more  re- 
spectable or  less  respectable  than  any 
other  aristocratic  beauties. 

Her  husband  belonged  to  that  class 
of  men  whom  the  witty  Balzac  so  de- 
lightfully calls  les  hommes  predesHjtes 
in  his  "Physiologie  du  Mariage."  With- 
out doubt,  he  was  a  very  good-looking 
man,  but  he  bore  that  stamo  of  insig- 
nificance which  often  conceals  coarse- 
ness and  vulgarity,  and  was  one  of  those 
men  who,  in  the  long  run,  become  un- 
endurable to  a  woman  of  refined  tastes. 
He  had  a  good  private  income,  but  his 
wife  understood  the  art  of  enjoying  life, 
and  so  a  deficit  in  the  yearly  accounts 
of  the  young  couple  became  the  rule, 
without  causing  the  lively  lady  to  check 
her  noble  pissions  in  the  least  on  that 
account.  She  kept  horses  and  carnages, 
rode  with  the  greatest  boldness,  had  her 
box  at  the  opera,  and  gave  beautiful 
little  suppers,  which  at  that  time  was 
the  fad  among  Viennese  women  of  her 
class. 

One  of  the  two  young  diplomats  who 
accompanied  her,  a  young  Count,  be- 
longing to  a  well-known  family  in  North 


Germany,  a  perfect  gentleman  in  the 
highest  sense  of  the  word,  was  looked 
upon  as  her  adorer,  while  the  other,  the 
Count's  most  intimate  friend,  in  spite 
of  his  ancient  name  and  his  position  as 
attache  to  a  foreign  legation,  gave  peo- 
ple a  distinct  impression  that  he  was  an 
adventurer  of  the  sort  the  police  watch 
closely.  He  had  the  reputation  of  being 
an  unscrupulous  and  dangerous  duelist. 
Short,  thin,  with  a  yellow  complexion, 
with  strongly-marked  but  engaging  fea- 
tures, an  aquiline  nose,  and  bright,  dark 
eyes,  he  was  the  typical  picture  of  a 
man  who  seduces  women  and  kills  men. 

The  lady  appeared  to  be  in  love  with 
the  Count  and  to  take  an  interest  in  his 
friend.  At  least,  that  was  the  construc- 
tion that  the  others  in  the  dining-room 
put  upon  the  situation,  sa  far  as  it  could 
be  made  out  from  the  behavior  and 
looks  of  the  people  concerned, — espe- 
cially from  their  looks,  for  it  was 
strange  how  devotedly  and  ardently  the 
beautiful  woman's  blue  eyes  would  rest 
on  the  Count,  and  with  what  wild,  dia- 
bolical intensity  she  would  gaze  at  the 
Italian  from  time  to  time.  It  was  hard 
to  guess  whether  there  was  more  love  or 
more  hatred  in  that  glance.  None  of 
the  four,  however,  who  were  then  din- 
ing and  chatting  so  gaily  together,  had 
any  presentiment  that  they  were  amus- 
ing themselves  over  a  mine,  which 
might  explode  at  any  moment,  and  bury 
them  all. 

It  was  the  husband  who  provided  the 
tinder.  One  day  he  told  her  that  she 
must  make  up  her  mind  to  the  most 
rigid  retrenchment,  must  give  up  her 
box  at  the  opera  and  sell  her  carriage 
and  horses,  if  she  did  not  wish  to  risk 
her    whole    position    in    society.      His 


688 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


creditors  had  lost  all  patience,  and  were 
threatening  to  distrain  on  his  property, 
and  even  to  put  him  in  prison.  She 
made  no  reply  to  this  revelation,  but 
during  dinner  she  said  to  the  Count,  in 
a  whisper,  that  she  must  speak  to  him 
later,  and  would,  therefore,  come  to  see 
him  at  his  house.  When  it  was  dark 
she  came  thickly  veiled  and  after  she 
had  responded  to  his  demonstrations  of 
affection  for  some  time,  with  more  pa- 
tience than  amiableness,  she  began 
(their  conversation  is  extracted  from 
his  diary): 

*'You  are  so  unconcerned  and  happy, 
while  misery  and  disgrace  are  threat- 
ening me!" 

"Please  explain  what  you  mean!" 

"I  have  incurred  some  debts." 

"Again?"  he  said  reproachfully;  then 
he  added:  "Why  do  you  not  come  to 
me  at  once,  for  you  must  do  it  in  the 
end,  and  then  at  least  you  would  avoid 
any  exposure?" 

"Please  do  not  take  me  to  task  "  she 
repHed;  "you  know  it  only  makes  me 
angry.  I  want  some  money;  can  you 
give  me  some?" 

"How  much  do  you  want?" 

She  hesitated,  for  she  had  not  the 
courage  to  name  the  real  amount,  but 
at  last  she  said,  in  a  low  voice: 

"Five  thousand  florins  *" 

It  was  evidently  only  a  small  portion 
of  what  she  really  required,  so  he  re- 
plied: 

"I  am  sure  you  want  more  than 
that!" 

"No." 

"Really  not?" 

"Do  not  make  me  angry." 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders,  went  to 
his  strong  box,  and  gave  her  the  money, 


whereupon  she  nodded,  and  giving  hhn 
her  hand,  she  said:  "You  are  always 
kind,  and  as  long  as  I  have  you,  I  am 
not  afraid;  but  if  I  were  to  lose  you,  I 
should  be  the  most  unhappy  woman  in 
the  world." 

"You  always  have  the  same  fears;  but 
I  shall  never  leave  you ;  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  me  to  separate  from  you," 
the  Count  exclaimed. 

"And  if  you  die?"  she  interrupted 
him  hastily. 

"If  I  die?"  the  Count  said  with  a 
peculiar  smile.  "I  have  provided  for 
you  in  that  eventuality  also." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  she  stam- 
mered, flushing,  and  her  large,  lovely 
eyes  rested  on  her  lover  with  an  in- 
describable expression  in  them.  He, 
however,  opened  a  drawer  in  his  writing- 
table  and  took  out  a  document,  which 
he  gave  her.  It  was  his  will.  She 
opened  it  with  almost  indecent  haste, 
and  when  she  saw  the  amount — thirty 
thousand  florins — she  grew  pale  to  her 
very  lips. 

That  moment  the  germs  of  a  crime 
were  sown  in  her  breast,  but  one  oi 
those  crimes  whxh  cannot  be  touched 
by  the  Criminal  Code.  A  few  days 
after  she  paid  her  visit  to  the  Count, 
she  herself  received  one  from  the 
Italian.  In  the  course  of  conversation 
he  took  a  jewel  case  out  of  his  breast 
pocket,  asked  her  opinion  of  the  orna- 
ments, as  she  was  well  known  for  her 
taste  in  such  matters,  and  told  her  at 
the  same  time  that  it  was  intended  as 
a  present  for  an  actress,  with  whom  he 
was  on  intimate  terms. 

"It  is  a  magnificent  set!"  she  said,  sl* 


♦About  $2500.  nominally, 


A  FASHIONABLE  WOMAN 


669 


she  looked  at  it.  **You  have  made  an 
excellent  selection."  Then  she  sud- 
denly became  absorbed  in  thought,  while 
her  nostrils  began  to  quiver,  and  that 
touch  of  cold  cruelty  played  on  her 
lips. 

"Do  you  think  that  the  lady  for 
whom  this  ornament  is  intend:^d  will  be 
pleased  with  it?"  asked  the  Italian. 

"Certainly,"  she  replied;  "I  myself 
would  give  a  great  deal  to  have  it." 

"Then  may  I  venture  to  offer  it  to 
you?"  the  Italian  said. 

She  blushed,  but  did  not  refuse  it. 
The  same  evening  she  rushed  into  her 
lover's  room  in  a  state  of  the  greatest 
excitement, 

"I  am  beside  myself,"  she  stam- 
mered; "I  have  been  most  deeply  in- 
sulted." 

"By  whom?"  the  Count  asked,  ex- 
citedly. 

"By  your  friend,  who  has  dared  to 
send  me  some  jewelry  to-day.  I  sup- 
pose he  looks  upon  me  as  a  lost  woman , 
perhaps  I  am  already  looked  upon  as  be- 
longing to  the  demi-monde,  and  this  I 
owe  to  you,  to  you  alone,  and  to  my 
mad  love  for  you,  to  which  I  have 
sacrificed  my  honor  and  everything  — 
everything!" 

She  threw  herself  down  and  sobbed, 
and  would  not  be  pacified  until  the 
Count  gave  her  his  word  of  honor  that 
he  would  set  aside  every  consideration 
for  his  friend,  and  obtain  satisfaction 
for  her  at  any  price.  He  met  the 
Italian  the  same  evening  at  a  card 
party  and  questioned  him. 

"I  did  not,  in  the  first  place,  send 
the  lady  the  jewelry,  but  gave  it  to  her 
myself  —  not,  however,  until  she  had 
asked  me  to  do  so." 


"That  is  a  shameful  lie!"  the  Count 
shouted,  furiously.  Unfortunately,  there 
were  others  present,  and  his  friend  took 
the  matter  seriously,  so  the  next  morn- 
ing he  sent  his  seconds  to  the  Count. 

Some  of  their  real  friends  tried  to 
settle  the  matter  in  another  way,  but 
his  bad  angel,  his  mistress,  who  required 
thirty  thousand  florins,  drove  the  Count 
to  his  death.  He  was  found  in  the 
Prater  with  his  friend's  bullet  in  his 
chest.  A  le'ter  in  his  pocket  spoke  of 
suicide,  but  the  police  did  not  doubt  for 
a  moment  that  a  durl  had  taken  place. 
Suspicion  soon  fell  on  the  Italian,  but 
when  they  went  to  arrest  him,  he  had 
already  made  his  escape. 

The  husband  of  the  beautiful, 
problematical  woman  called  on  the  dead 
man's  broken-hearted  father,  who  had 
hastened  to  Vienna  on  receipt  of  a  tele- 
graphic message,  a  few  hours  after  his 
arrival,  and  demanded  the  money. 

"My  wife  was  your  son's  most  inti- 
mate friend,"  he  stammered,  in  em- 
barrassment, in  order  to  justify  his  ac- 
tion as  well  as  he  could. 

"Oh!  I  know  that,"  the  old  Count 
replied,  "and  femaie  friends  of  that  kind 
want  to  be  paid  immediately,  and  in  full. 
Here  are  the  thirty  thousand  florins." 

And  our  "Goldkind?"  She  paid  her 
debts,  and  then  withdrew  from  the 
scene  for  a  while.  She  had  been  com- 
promised, certainly — but  then,  she  had 
risen  in  value  in  the  eyes  of  those  nu- 
merous men  who  can  only  adore  and 
sacrifice  themselves  for  a  woman  when 
her  foot  is  on  the  threshold  of  vice  and 
crime. 

I  saw  her  last  during  the  Franco- 
German  war,  in  the  beautiful  Mirabell- 


ogo 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSAIsT 


garden  at  Salzberg.  She  did  not  seem 
to  feel  any  qualms  of  conscience,  for 
«be   had   become    considerably   stouter, 


which  made  her  more  attractive,  more 
beautiful,  and  consequently,  more  dan- 
gerous, than  before. 


Words  of  hove 


"Sunday, 

"You  do  not  write  to  me,  I  never  see 
you,  you  never  come,  so  I  must  suppose 
that  you  have  ceased  to  love  me.  But 
why?  What  have  I  done?  Pray  tell 
me,  my  own  dear  love.  I  love  you 
so  much,  so  dearly!  I  should  like  al- 
ways to  have  you  near  me,  to  kiss  you 
all  day  while  I  call  you  every  tender 
name  that  I  could  think  of.  I  adore 
you,  I  adore  you,  I  adore  you,  my  beau- 
tiful cock.    Your  affectionate  hen. 

"Sophie." 

"Monday, 

"My  Dear  Friend: 

"You  will  understand  absolutely  noth- 
ing of  what  I  am  going  to  say  to  you, 
but  that  does  not  matter,  and  if  my 
letter  happens  to  be  read  by  another 
woman,  it  may  be  profitable  to  her. 

"Hod  you  been  deaf  and  dumb,  I 
should  no  doubt  have  loved  you  for 
a  very  long  time,  and  the  cause  of  what 
has  happened  is  that  you  can  talk; 
that  is  all. 

"In  love,  you  see,  dreams  are  always 
made  to  sing,  but  in  order  that  they 
may  do  so,  they  must  not  be  in- 
terrupted, and  when  one  talks  between 
two  kisses,  one  always  interrupts  that 
frenzied  dream  which  our  souls  indulge 
in,  that  is,  unless  they  utter  sublime 
words;  and  sublime  words  do  not  come 
out  of  the  little  mouths  of  pretty  girls. 


"You  do  net  understand  me  at  all, 
do  you?  So  much  the  better;  I  will  go 
on.  You  are  certainly  one  of  the  most 
charming  and  adorable  women  I  have 
ever  seen. 

"Are  there  any  eyes  on  earth  that 
contain  more  dreams  than  yours,  more 
unknown  promises,  greater  depths  of 
love?  I  do  not  think  so.  And  when 
that  mouth  of  yours,  with  its  curved 
lips,  smiles  and  shows  the  ivory  gates 
within,  one  is  tempted  to  say  that  from 
this  ravishing  mouth  comes  ineffable 
music,  something  inexpressibly  dehcate, 
a  sweetness  which  extorts  sighs. 

"It  is  then  that  you  speak  to  me,  and 
that  is  what  troubles  me,  don't  you  see, 
troubles  me  more  than  tongue  can  tell. 
I  would  prefer  never  to  see  you  at  all. 

"You  go  on  pretending  not  to  under- 
stand anything,  do  you  not?  But  I 
calculated  on  that. 

"Do  you  remember  the  first  time  you 
came  to  see  me  at  my  residence?  How 
gaily  you  stepped  inside,  an  odor  of 
violets,  which  clung  to  your  skirts, 
heralding  your  entrance;  how  we  looked 
at  each  other,  for  ever  so  long,  without 
uttering  a  word,  after  which  we  era- 
braced  like  two  fools  Then  from  that 
time  to  the  end  we  never  exchanged  a 
word. 

"But  when  we  separated,  did  not  ouf 
trembling  hands  and  our  eyes  say  many 


WORDS  OF  LOVE 


691 


tilings,  things  which  cannot  be  expressed 
'"»n  any  language.  At  least,  I  thought  so; 
and  when  you  went  away,  you  mur- 
mured : 

"'We  shall  meet  again  soon!' 

"That  was  all  you  said,  and  you  will 
never  guess  what  delightful  dreams  you 
ieft  me,  all  that  I,  as  it  were,  caught  a 
gUmpse  of,  all  that  I  fancied  I  could 
guess  in  your  thoughts. 

"You  see,  my  poor  child,  for  men 
who  are  not  stupid,  who  are  rather  re- 
fined and  somewhat  superior,  love  is 
such  a  complicated  instrument  that  the 
merest  trifle  puts  it  out  of  order.  You 
women  never  perceive  the  ridiculous 
side  of  certain  things  when  you  love,  and 
you  fail  to  see  the  grotesqueness  of 
some  expressions. 

"Why  does  a  word  which  sounds  quite 
right  in  the  mouth  of  a  small,  dark 
woman  seem  quite  wrong  and  funny  in 
the  mouth  of  a  fat,  light-haired  woman? 
Why  are  the  wheedling  ways  of  the  one 
altogether  out  of  place  in  the  other? 

"Why  is  it  that  certain  caresses  which 
are  delightful  from  the  one  should  be 
wearisome  from  the  other?  Why? 
Because  in  everything,  and  especially  in 
love,  perfect  harmony — absolute  agree- 
ment in  motion,  voice,  words,  and  in 
demonstrations  of  tenderness,  is  neces- 
sary in  the  person  who  moves,  speaks, 
and  manifests  affection;  harmony  is 
necessary  in  age,  in  height,  in  the  color 
of  the  hair,  and  in  the  style  of  beauty. 

"If  a  woman  of  thirty-five,  who  has 
arrived  at  the  age  of  violent  tem- 
pestuous passion,  were  to  preserve  the 
slightest  traces  of  the  caressing  arch- 
ness of  her  love  affairs  at  twenty,  were 
not  to  understand  that  she  oupfht  to  ex- 
press  herself   aifferently.  look   at   her 


lover  differently  and  kiss  him  dif- 
ferently, were  not  to  see  that  she  ought 
to  be  a  Dido  and  not  a  Juliette,  she 
would  infallibly  disgust  nine  lovers  out 
of  ten,  even  if  they  could  not  account  to 
themselves  for  their  estrangement.  Do 
you  understand  me?  No?  I  hoped  so. 

"From  the  time  that  you  gave  rein 
to  your  tenderness,  it  was  all  over  for 
me,  my  dear  friend.  Sometimes  we 
would  embrace  for  five  minutes,  in  one 
interminable  kiss,  one  of  those  kisses 
which  makes  lovers  close  their  eyes,  lest 
part  of  it  should  escape  through  their 
clouded  soul  which  it  is  ravaging.  And 
then,  when  our  lips  separated,  you 
would  say  to  me: 

"  'That  was  nice,  you  fat  old  dog.* 

"At  such  moments,  I  could  have 
beaten  you;  for  you  gave  me  succes- 
sively all  the  names  of  animals  and 
vegetables  which  you  doubtless  found 
in  some  cookery  book,  or  gardener's 
manual.    But  that  is  nothing. 

"The  caresses  of  love  are  brutal, 
bestial,  and  if  one  comes  to  think  of  it. 
grotesque!  Oh!  My  poor  child,  what 
joking  elf,  what  perverse  sprite  could 
have  prompted  the  concluding  words  of 
your  letter  to  me?  I  have  made  a  col- 
lection of  them,  but  out  of  love  for  you, 
I  will  not  show  them  to  you. 

"And  sometimes  you  really  said 
things  which  were  quite  inopportune. 
For  instance  you  managed  now  and  then 
to  let  out  an  exalted  /  love  you!  on  such 
singular  occasions  that  I  was  obliged  to 
restrain  a  strong  desire  to  laugh.  There 
are  times  when  the  words  I  love  you! 
are  so  out  of  place  that  they  become 
indecorous;  let  me  tell  you  that. 

"But  you  do  not  understand  me,  and 
many  other  women  also  will  not  under* 


602 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


stand  me,  but  think  me  stupid,  though 
that  matters  very  little  to  me.  Hungry 
men  eat  like  gluttons,  but  people  of  re- 
finement are  disgusted  at  it  and  often 
feel  an  invincible  dislike  for  a  dish,  on 
account  of  a  mere  trifle.  It  is  the  same 
with  love,  as  with  cookery. 

"What  I  cannot  comprehend  for  ex- 
ample is  that  certain  women  who  fully 
understand  the  irresistible  attraction  of 
fine,  embroidered  stockings,  the  exqui- 
site charm  of  shades,  the  witchery  of 
valuable  lace  concealed  in  the  depths  of 
their  underclothing,  the  exciting  zest  of 
hidden  luxury,  and  all  the  subtle 
delicacies  of  female  elegance,  never  un- 
derstands the  invincible  disgust  with 
which  words  that  are  out  of  place  or 
foolishly  tender,  inspire  us. 

"At  times  coarse  and  brutal  expres- 


sions work  wonders,  as  they  excite  the 
senses  and  make  the  heart  beat,  and 
they  are  allowable  at  the  hours  of  com- 
bat. Is  not  that  sentence  of  Cam- 
bronne's  sublime?* 

"Nothing  shocks  us  that  comes  at  the 
light  time;  but  then,  we  must  also  know 
when  to  hold  our  tongue,  and  to  avoid 
phrases  a  la  Paul  de  Kock,  at  certain 
moments. 

"And  I  embrace  you  passionately,  on 
the  condition  that  you  say  nothing. 

"Rene." 


*At  Waterloo,  General  Cambronne  is 
reported  to  have  said,  when  called  on  to 
surrender :  "The  Guard  dies,  but  does 
not  surrender."  But  nccording  to  Victor 
Hugo,  in  "Les  Miserables,"  he  used  the 
expression  "Merdc!"  which  cannot  be 
put  into  English  fit  for  ears  polite. 


The  Upstart 


You  know  good-naiured,  stout  Du- 
pontel,  who  looks  Lke  the  type  of  a 
happy  man,  with  fat  cheeks  the  color 
of  ripe  apples,  a  small,  reddish  mus- 
tache, turned  up  over  his  thick  lips, 
prominent  eyes,  which  never  know  any 
emotion  or  sorrow,  and  remind  one  of 
the  calm  eyes  of  cows  and  oxen,  and  a 
long  back  fixed  on  to  two  wriggling 
crooked  legs,  which  have  obtain'^d  for 
him  the  nickname  of  "corkscrew"  from 
some  nymph  of  the  ballet. 

Dupontel,  who  had  taken  the  trouble 
to  be  bom,  but  not  like  the  grand 
seigneurs  whom  Beaumarchais  made  fun 
of  once  upon  a  time,  was  ballasted  with 
a  respectable  number  of  millions,  as  be- 


fitted the  sole  heir  of  a  house  that  had 
sold  household  utensils  and  appHances 
for  over  3  century. 

Naturally,  like  every  other  upstart 
who  respects  himself,  he  wished  to  ap- 
pear to  be  something,  to  be  known  as 
a  clubman,  and  to  play  to  the  gallery, 
because  he  had  been  educated  at 
Vaugirard  and  knew  a  little  English,  had 
gone  through  his  voluntary  service  in 
the  army  for  twelve  months*  at  Rouen; 


*Although,  in  France,  as  in  Germany, 
military  service  Is  compulsory,  men  are 
allowed  to  serve  in  both  countries  as 
one-year  volunteers ;  they  en'oy  certain 
privileges,  find  their  own  uniform,  etc., 
which  entails,  of  course,  considerable  ex- 
pense. 


THE  UPSTART 


693 


was  a  tolerable  singer,  could  drive  four- 
in-hand,  and  play  lawn-tennis. 

Always  studiously  well-dressed,  cor- 
rect in  every  way,  he  copied  his  way  of 
from  the  three  or  four  snobs  who  set 
the  fashion,  reproduced  other  people's 
witticisms,  learned  anecdotes  and  jokes 
by  heart,  like  a  lesson,  to  use  them 
again  at  small  parties,  constantly 
laughed,  without  knowing  why  his 
friends  burst  into  roars  of  merriment, 
and  was  in  the  habit  of  keeping  pretty 
girls  for  the  pleasure  of  his  best  friends. 
Of  course,  he  was  a  perfect  fool,  but 
after  all,  was  a  capital  fellow,  to  whom 
it  was  only  right  to  extend  a  good  deal 
of  indulgence. 

When  he  had  taken  his  thirty-first 
mistress,  and  had  made  the  discovery 
that  in  love  money  does  not  create  hap- 
piness two-thirds  of  the  time,  that  they 
had  all  deceived  him,  and  made  him  per- 
fectly ridiculous  at  the  end  of  a  week, 
Charles  Dupontel  made  up  his  mind  to 
settle  down  as  a  respectable  married 
man,  and  to  marry  not  from  calculation 
or  from  reason,  but  for  love. 

One  autumn  afternoon,  at  Auteuil,  he 
noticed  in  front  of  the  club  stand  among 
a  number  of  pretty  women  who  were 
standing  round  the  braziers,  a  girl  with 
such  a  lovely,  delicate  complexion  that 
it  looked  like  apple  blossoms.  Her  hair 
was  like  threads  of  gold,  and  she  was 
so  slight  and  supple  that  she  reminded 
him  of  those  outlines  of  saints  which 
one  sees  in  old  stained  glass  church 
windows.  There  was  also  something 
enigmatical  about  her,  for  she  had  the 
delightfully  ingenuous  look  of  a  school- 
girl during  the  holidays,  combined  with 
the  sovoir  faire  of  some  enlightened 
young  lady,  who  already  knows  the  how 


and  the  why  of  everything,  who  is  ex. 
uberant  with  youth  and  life,  and  who 
is  eagerly  waitmg  for  the  moment  when 
her  marriage  will  at  length  allow  her 
to  say  and  to  do  everythmg  that  comes 
into  her  head  to  amuse  herself  to 
satiety. 

Then  she  had  such  small  feet  thaf 
they  would  have  gone  into  a  woman's 
hand,  a  waist  that  :ould  have  been 
clasped  by  a  bracelet,  turned-up  eye- 
lashes, which  fluttered  like  the  wings  of 
a  butterfly,  an  impudent  and  saucy 
nose,  and  a  vague  mocking  smile  that 
made  folds  in  her  lips,  like  the  petals 
of  a  rose. 

Her  father  was  a  member  of  the 
Jockey  Club.  He  was  generally 
''cleaned,"  as  they  call  it,  in  great  races, 
but  managed  by  his  coolness  and  wit 
to  keep  himself  afloat.  He  belonged 
to  a  race  which  could  prove  that  his 
ancestors  had  been  at  the  Court  of 
Charlemagne,  and  not  as  musicians  or 
cooks,  as  some  people  declared. 

Her  youth  and  beauty,  and  her 
father's  pedigree,  dazzled  Dupontel,  up- 
set his  br-iin,  and  altogether  turned 
him  upside  down.  The  combination 
seemed  to  him  to  be  a  mirage  of  hap- 
piness and  of  pride  of  family. 

He  got  introduced  to  her  father  at  the 
end  of  a  game  of  a  baccarat,  invited  him 
to  shoot  with  him,  and  a  month  later, 
as  if  it  were  an  affair  to  be  hurried 
over,  he  asked  for  and  obtained  the 
hand  of  Mademoiselle  Therese  de 
Montsaigne.  Then  he  felt  as  happy 
.*5  a  miner  who  has  discovered  a  vein 
of  precious  metal. 

The  young  woman  did  not  require 
more  than  twenty-four  hours  to  dis- 
cover that  her  husband  was  nothing  but 


694 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


a  ridiculous  puppet,  and  immediately 
set  about  to  consider  how  she  might 
best  escape  from  her  cage,  and  befool 
the  poor  fellow,  who  loved  her  with  all 
his  heart. 

She  deceived  him  without  the  least 
pity  or  the  slightest  scruple;  she  did 
it  as  from  instinctive  hatred,  as  if  it 
were  necessary  for  her  not  only  to  make 
him  ridiculous,  but  also  to  forget  that 
she  ought  to  sacrifice  her  virgin  dreams 
to  him,  to  belong  to  him,  and  to  sub- 
mit to  his  hateful  caresses  without  be- 
ing able  to  repel  him. 

She  was  cruel,  like  all  women  are 
when  they  do  not  love,  and  delighted 
in  doing  audacious  and  absurd  things, 
in  visiting  everything,  and  in  braving 
danger.  She  seemed  like  a  young  colt 
intoxicated  with  the  sun,  the  air,  and 
its  liberty,  which  gallops  wildly  across 
the  meadows,  jumps  hedges  and  ditches, 
kicks,  and  whinnies  joyously,  and  rolls 
about  in  the  long,  sweet  grass. 

But  Dupontcl  remained  quite  im- 
perturbable; he  had  net  the  slightest 
suspicion,  and  was  the  first  to  laugli 
when  anybody  tcld  him  some  good  story 
of  a  husband  who  had  been  cuckolded, 
although  his  wife  repelled  him,  quarreled 
with  him,  and  constantly  pretended  to 
be  out  of  sorts  or  tired  out,  in  order 
to  escape  from  him.  She  seemed  to 
take  a  malicious  pleasure  in  checkmat- 
ing him  by  her  personal  remarks,  her 
disenchanting  answers,  and  her  ap- 
parent listlessness. 

They  saw  a  great  deal  of  company 
and  he  called  himself  Du  Pontel  now, 
even  entertaining  thoughts  of  buving  a 
title  from  the  Pope.    He  only  read  cer- 
tain newspapers,  kept  up  a  regular  cor- 


respondence with  the  Orleans  Princes, 
was  thinking  of  starting  a  racing  stable, 
and  finished  up  by  believing  that  he 
really  was  a  fashionable  man.  He 
strutted  about  and  was  puffed  out  with 
conceit,  having  probably  never  read 
La  Fontaine's  fable  of  the  ass  that  is 
laden  with  relics  which  people  salute, 
and  takes  the  bow  himself. 

Suddenly,  however,  anonymous  let- 
ters disturbed  his  quietude,  and  tore 
the  bandage  from  his  eyes. 

At  first  he  tore  them  up  without 
reading  them,  and  shrugged  his  shoulders 
disdainfully;  but  he  received  so  many 
of  them,  and  the  writers  seemed  so 
determined  to  dot  his  i*s  and  cross  his 
t's  and  to  clear  his  brain  for  him,  that 
the  unhappy  man  began  to  grow  dis- 
turbed, and  to  watch  and  to  ferret 
about.  He  instituted  minute  inquiries, 
and  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  he 
no  longer  had  the  right  to  make  fun 
of  other  husbands — that  he  was  the 
perfect  counterpart  of  Sganarelle* 

Furious  at  having  been  duped,  he 
set  a  w^hole  private  inquiry  agency  to 
work,  continually  acted  a  part,  and  one 
evening  appeared  unexpectedly  with  a 
commissary  of  police  in  the  snug  little 
bachelor's  quarters  which  concealed  bis 
wife's  escapades. 

Therese,  pale  with  terror  and  ter- 
ribly frightened,  at  her  wits'  end  at  be- 
ing thus  surprised  in  all  the  disorder  of 
her  lover's  apartments,  hid  herself  be- 
hind the  bed  curtains,  while  he,  who  was 
an  officer  of  dragoons,  very  much  vexed 
at  being  mixed  up  in  such  a  pinchbeck 


*The  Cocu  Jmaginaire  (The  Imaginary 
Cuckold),  in  Moliere's  plav  c^  thot  nHme. 


HAPPINESS 


695 


scandal,  and  at  being  caught  in  a  silk 
shirt  by  men  who  were  so  correctly 
dressed  in  frock  coats,  frowned  angrily, 
and  had  to  restrain  himself  from  throw- 
ing his  victim  out  of  the  window. 

The  police  commissioner,  who  was 
calmly  looking  at  this  little  scene  with 
the  coolness  of  experience,  prepared  to 
verify  the  fact  that  they  were  caught 
m  flagrante  delictum  and  in  an  ironical 


voice  said  to  the  husband,  who  had 
claimed  his  services: 

"I  must  ask  for  you  name  in  full, 
Monsieur?" 

"Charles  Joseph  Edward  Dupontel," 
was  the  ansvrer.  And  as  the  commis- 
sary was  writing  it  down  from  his  J  "- 
tation,  he  added  suddenly:  *'Du  Puniel 
in  two  words,  if  you  please,  Monsieur 
I3  Commissiormaire!" 


Happiness 


The  sky  was  blue,  with  light  clouds 
that  looked  like  swans  slowly  sailing  on 
the  waters  of  a  lake,  and  the  atmos- 
phere was  so  warm,  so  saturated  with 
the  subtle  odors  of  the  mimosas,  that 
Madame  de  Viellemont  ordered  coffee 
to  be  served  on  the  terrace  which  over- 
looked the  sea. 

As  the  steam  rose  from  the  delicate 
china  cups,  one  felt  an  almost  inex- 
pressible pleasure  in  watching  the  sails 
as  they  gradually  disappeared  in  the 
mysterious  distance.  The  almost  mo- 
tionless sea  had  the  sheen  of  jewels 
and  attracted  the  eyes  like  the  looks  of 
%  dreamy  woman. 

Monsieur  de  Pardeillac,  who  had  just 
arrived  from  Paris,  fresh  from  the  re- 
membrance of  the  last  election  there, 
from  that  carnival  of  variegated  posters 
which  for  weeks  had  imparted  the 
strange  aspect  of  an  Oriental  bazaar  le 
the  whole  city,  had  just  been  relating 
the  victory  of  "The  General,"  and  went 
on  to  say  that  those  who  had  thought 
that  the  game  was  lost  were  beginning  to 
hope  again. 


After  listening  to  him,  old  Count  de 
Lancolme,  who  had  spent  his  whole 
life  in  rummaging  libraries,  and  who 
had  certainly  annotated  more  manu- 
scripts than  any  Benedictine  friar, 
shook  his  bald  head  and  exclaimed  in 
his  shrill,  rather  mocking  voice: 

"Will  you  allow  me  to  tell  you  a 
very  old  story,  which  came  into  ray 
head  while  you  were  speaking,  my  dear 
friend?  I  read  it  formerly  in  an  old 
Ita'ian  city,  though  I  forget  at  thia 
moment  where. 

'It  happened  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
which  is  far  removed  from  our  epoch, 
but  you  shall  judge  for  yourselves 
whether  it  might  not  have  happened 
yesterday. 

"Since  the  day,  when  mad  with  rage 
and  rebellion,  the  town  had  made  a 
bonfire  of  the  Ducal  palace,  and  had 
ignoirJ^iousIy  expelled  the  patrician 
who  haJ  been  their  podestat*  as  if  he 
had  been  some  vicious  scoundrel,  had 
thrust  his  lovely  daughter  into  a  coth- 


♦A  Venetian  or  Genoese  magistrate. 


696 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  M.VUl'ASSANT 


vent  and  had  forced  his  sons,  who 
might  have  claimed  their  parental  heri- 
tage and  have  again  imposed  the  ab- 
horred yoke  upon  them,  into  a  monas- 
tery, the  town  had  never  known  any 
prosperous  times.  One  after  another, 
the  shops  closed,  and  money  became 
as  scarce  as  if  some  invasion  of  bar- 
barian hordes  had  emptied  the  State 
Treasury  and  stolen  the  last  gold  coin. 

*'The  poor  people  were  in  abject 
misery,  and  in  vain  held  out  their  hands 
to  passers-by  under  the  church  porches 
and  in  the  squares.  Only  the  watchmen 
disturbed  the  silence  of  the  starlit 
nights,  by  the  monotonous  and  melan- 
choly call  which  announced  the  flight 
of  the  hours  as  they  passed. 

"There  were  no  more  serenades;  no 
longer  did  viol  and  flute  trouble  the 
slumbers  of  the  lover's  choice;  no  longer 
were  amorous  arms  thrown  round  wo- 
men's supple  waists,  or  bottles  of  red 
wine  put  to  cool  in  the  fountains  under 
the  trees.  There  were  no  more  love 
adventures,  to  the  rhythm  of  laughter 
and  of  kisses;  nothing  but  heavy,  mo- 
notonous weariness,  and  anxiety  as  to 
what  the  next  day  might  bring  forth, 
and  ceaseless,  unbridled  ambitions  and 
lusts. 

"The  palaces  were  deserted,  one  by 
one,  as  if  the  plague  were  raging,  and 
the  nobility  had  fled  to  Florence  and 
to  Rome.  In  the  beginning,  the  com- 
mon people,  artisans  and  shopkeepers, 
had  installed  themselves  in  power,  as 
in  a  conquered  city,  had  seized  posts 
of  honor  and  well-paid  offices,  and  had 
sacked  the  Treasury  with  their  greedy 
and  eager  hands.  After  them  came  the 
middle  classes,  and  these  solemn  up- 
starts and  hypocrites,  like  leather  bot- 


tles blown  out  with  wind,  acting  like 
tyrants  and  lying  without  the  least 
shame,  disowned  their  former  promises, 
and  would  soon  have  g"ven  the  finishing 
stroke  to  the  unfortunate  city,  which 
was  already  on  its  last  legs. 

"Discontent  was  increasing,  and  tnc 
sblrri^  could  scarcely  find  time  to  tear 
the  seditious  placards,  posted  up  by 
unknown  hands,  from  the  walls. 

"But  now  that  the  old  podestat  had 
died  in  exile,  worn  out  with  grief,  and 
his  children,  brought  up  under  monastic 
rule,  were  accustomed  to  nothing  but 
prayer,  and  thought  only  of  their  own 
salvation,  there  was  nobody  to  take  his 
place. 

"And  so  these  kinglets  profited  by 
the  occasion  to  strut  about  at  their 
ease  like  nobles,  to  stuff  themselves 
with  luxurious  meals,  to  increase  their 
property  by  degrees,  to  put  everything 
up  for  sale,  and  to  get  rid  of  those  who, 
later  on,  would  have  called  for  ac- 
countings,  and  have  nailed  them  to  the 
pillory  by  their  ears. 

"Their  arrogance  knew  no  bounds,, 
and  when  they  were  questioned  about 
their  acts,  they  only  replied  by  menaces 
or  raillery.  This  state  of  affairs  lasted 
for  twenty  years,  when,  as  war  was  im- 
minent with  Lucca,  the  Council  raised 
troops  and  enrolled  mercenaries.  Sev- 
eral battles  were  fought,  in  which  the 
enemy  was  beaten  and  was  obliged  to 
flee,  abandoning  their  colors,  their  arms, 
prisoners,  and  all  the  bcoty  in  their 
camp. 

"The  man  who  led  the  soldiers  to 
victory,  whom  they  had  acclaimed  as 
a  triumphant  and  laurel -crowned  Cassar 


♦Italian  police  officers. 


HAPPINESS 


697 


around  their  camp-fires,  was  a  poor 
condottiere,*  who  possessed  nothing  in 
the  world  except  his  clothes,  his  buff 
jerkin,  and  his  heavy  sword. 

"They  called  him  'Hercules,*  on  ac- 
count of  his  strong  muscles,  his  im- 
posing build,  and  his  large  head,  and 
also  'Malavista'  because  in  battle  he 
had  no  pity,  no  weakness,  but  seemed, 
with  his  great  murderous  arms,  as  if 
he  had  the  long  reach  of  death  itself. 
He  had  neither  title-deeds,  fortune, 
nor  relatives,  for  he  had  been  born  one 
night  in  the  tent  of  a  female  camp  fol- 
lower. For  a  long  time,  an  old  broken 
drum  had  been  his  cradle,  and  he  had 
grown  up  without  knowing  those  ma- 
ternal kisses  and  endearments  that 
warm  the  heart,  or  the  pleasure  of 
sleeping  on  a  soft  bed,  or  of  eating  de- 
cent beef.  He  had  known  what  it  was 
to  tighten  his  sword  belt  when  luck  had 
turned — like  a  weathercock  when  the 
wind  shifts,  and  sometimes  would 
gladly  have  given  his  share  of  the  next 
booty  for  a  mouldy  crust  of  bread  and 
a  glass  of  water. 

"He  was  a  simple  and  brave  man, 
whose  heart  was  as  virgin  as  some  shore 
on  which  no  human  has  ever  yet  left 
its  imprint. 

"The  Chiefs  of  the  Council  were  im- 
prudent enough  to  summon  Hercules 
Malavista  within  the  walls  of  the  town, 
and  to  celebrate  his  arrival  with  almost 
imperial  splendor — more,  however,  to 
deceive  the  people  and  to  regain  their 
waning  popularity  by  means  of  a  cere- 
mony copied  from  pagan  Rome,  than 
to  honor  and  recompense  the  services 
of  a  soldier  whom  they  despised  at  the 
bottom  of  their  hearts. 

"The  bells  rang  a  full  peal,  and  the 


archbishop  and  clergy  and  choir  boys 
went  to  meet  the  Captain,  singing 
psalms  and  hymns  of  joy,  as  if  it  were 
Easter.  The  streets  and  squares  were 
strewn  with  branches  of  box,  roses,  and 
marjoram,  while  the  meanest  homes 
were  decorated  with  flags  and  hung 
with  drapery  and  rich  stuffs. 

"The  conque/or  came  in  through 
Trajan's  gate,  bare-headed,  and  with  the 
symbolical  golden  laurel  wreatli  on  his 
head.  Sitting  on  his  horse,  which  was 
as  black  as  a  starless  night,  he  appeared 
even  taller,  more  vigorous  and  more  mas-^ 
culine  than  he  really  was.  He  had  a 
jo3'ous  and  tranquil  smile  on  his  lips, 
and  a  hidden  fire  burning  in  his  eyes. 
His  soldiers  bore  flags  end  the  trophies 
that  he  had  gained  before  him,  and  be- 
hind him  there  was  a  noise  of  clash- 
ing partisans  and  crossbows,  and  of 
loud  voices  shouting  vivats  in  his  honor. 

"In  this  fashion,  he  traversed  all  the 
quarters  of  the  town,  and  even  the  sub- 
urbs. The  women  thought  him  hand- 
some and  proud,  blew  kisses  to  him, 
and  held  up  their  children  so  that  they 
might  see  him,  and  he  might  touch 
them.  The  men  cheered  him,  and 
looked  at  him  with  emotion,  and  many 
of  them  reflected  and  dreamed  about 
this  bright,  unknown  man,  who  ap- 
peared to  be  surrounded  by  a  halo  of 
glory. 

"The  members  of  the  Council  be- 
gan to  perceive  the  extent  of  the  al- 
most irreparable  fault  they  had  com- 
mitted. They  did  not  know  what  to  do 
in  order  to  ward  off  the  danger  by 
which  they  were  menaced,  and  to  rid 


*An  Italian  mercenary  or  free-lance,  in 
the  Middle  As^es. 


C98 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


themselves  of  a  guest  who  was  quite 
ready  to  become  their  master.  They 
saw  clearly  that  their  hours  were  num- 
bered, that  they  were  approaching  the 
fatal  period  at  which  rioting  becomes 
imminent,  and  leaders  are  carried  away 
like  pieces  of  straw  in  a  swift  current. 

"Hercules  could  not  show  himself  in 
public  without  being  received  with 
shouts  of  acclamation  and  noisy  greet- 
ings, and  deputations  from  the  nobility, 
as  well  as  from  the  people,  came  re- 
peatedly and  told  him  that  he  had  only 
to  make  a  sign  and  to  say  a  word,  for 
his  name  to  be  in  every  mouth,  and  for 
his  authority  to  be  accepted.  They 
begged  him  on  their  knees  to  accept 
the  supreme  authority,  as  though  he 
would  be  conferring  a  favor  on  them, 
bi  t  the  free-lance  did  not  seem  to  under- 
stand them,  and  repelled  their  offers 
with  the  superb  indifference  of  a  soldier 
who  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  people 
or  a  crown. 

"At  length,  however,  his  resistance 
grew  weaker;  he  felt  the  intoxication 
of  power  and  grew  accustomed  to  the 
idea  of  holding  the  lives  of  thousands 
in  his  hands,  of  having  a  palace,  ar- 
senals full  of  arms,  chests  full  of  gold, 
ships  which  he  could  send  on  ad- 
venturous cruises  wherever  he  pleased, 
of  governing  that  city,  with  all  its 
houses  and  all  its  churches,  and  of  be- 
ing a  leading  fi^^ure  at  all  grand  func- 
tions in  the  cathedral. 

"The  shopkeepers  and  merchants 
were  overcome  by  terror  at  the  idea, 
and  bowed  before  th  shadow  of  the 
sword,  which  might  sweep  them  all  away 
and  upset  their  false  weights  and 
scales.  So  they  assembled  secretly  in  a 
monastery  of  the  Carmelite  friars  out- 


side the  gates  of  the  city  and  a  short 
time  afterward  the  weaver  Marconelli 
and  the  money  changer  Rippone 
brought  Giaconda,  who  was  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  courtesans  in  Venice, 
who  knew  every  secret  in  the  Art  of 
Love,  and  whose  kisses  were  a  fore- 
taste of  Paradise,  back  with  them  from 
that  city.  She  soon  managed  to  touch 
the  soldier  with  her  delicate,  fair  skin, 
to  make  him  inhale  its  bewitching  odor 
in  close  embrace,  to  dazzle  him  with 
her  large,  dark  eyes,  in  which  the  re- 
flection of  stars  seemed  to  shine,  and 
when  he  had  once  tasted  that  feast  of 
love,  and  drunk  the  heavy  wine  of 
kisses,  when  he  had  clasped  that  pink 
and  white  body  in  his  arms,  and  had 
listened  to  a  voice  which  sounded  as 
soft  as  music  and  promised  him 
eternities  of  joy  and  eternities  of 
pleasures,  Hercules  lost  his  head,  and 
forgot  his  dreams  and  his  oaths. 

"Why  lose  precious  hours  in  con* 
spiring,  in  deluding  himself  with 
chimeras;  why  risk  his  life  when  he 
loved  and  was  loved — ^when  the  minutes 
were  all  too  short  to  detach  his  lips 
from  those  of  the  woman  he  loved? 

"And  so  he  did  whatever  Giaconda 
demanded. 

"They  fled  from  the  city,  without 
even  telling  the  sentinels  who  were  on 
guard  before  his  palace.  They  went 
far,  far  away  as  they  could  not  find 
any  retreat  that  was  sufficiently  un- 
known and  hidden.  At  last  they 
stopped  at  a  small  quiet  fishing  vil- 
lage, where  there  were  gardens  full  of 
lemon  trees,  where  the  deserted  beach 
looked  as  if  it  were  covered  with  gold, 
and  where  the  sea  was  a  deep  blue  un- 


CHRISTMAS  EVE 


699 


til  it  was  lost  in  the  distance.  And 
while  the  Captain  and  the  courtesan 
loved  each  other  and  wore  themselves 
out  with  pleasure — with  the  enchant- 
ment of  the  sea  close  to  them — the  ir- 
ritated citizens  whom  he  had  left  were 
clamoring  for  their  idol,  were  indig- 
nant  at  his  desertion,  and  tore  up  the 


paving  stones  in  the  streets  to  hurl  at 
the  man  who  had  betrayed  their  con- 
fidence  and  worship. 

"So  they  pulled  his  statue  down  from 
its  pedestal,  amid  spiteful  songs  and 
jokes,  and  the  members  of  the  Council 
breathed  again,  no  longer  afraid  of 
Malavista's  great  sword." 


Christmas  Eve 


The  Christmas-eve  supper!*  Oh! 
no,  I  shall  never  go  in  for  that  again!" 
Stout  Henri  Templier  said  that  in  a 
furious  voice,  as  if  some  one  had  pro- 
posed some  crime  to  him,  while  the 
others  laughed  and  said: 

"What  are  you  flying  into  a  rage 
about?" 

"Because  a  Christmas-eve  supper 
played  me  the  dirtiest  trick  in  the 
world,  and  ever  since  I  have  felt  an 
insurmountable  horror  for  that  night 
of  imbecile  gaiety." 

"Tell  us  about  it." 

"You  want  to  know  what  it  was? 
Very  well  then,  just  listen. 

"You  remember  how  cold  it  was  two 
years  ago  at  Christmas;  cold  enough  to 
kill  poor  people  in  the  streets.  The 
Seine  was  covered  with  ice;  the  pave- 
ments froze  one's  feet  through  the 
soles  of  one's  boots,  and  the  whole 
world  seemed  to  be  at  the  point  of  con- 
gealing. 

"I  had  a  big  piece  of  work  on,  and 
refused  every  invitation  to  supper,  as 
I  preferred  to  spend  the  night  at  my 
writing  table.  I  dined  alone  and  then 
began  to  work.     But  about  ten  o'clock 


I  grew  restless  at  the  thought  of  the 
gay  and  busy  life  all  over  Paris,  at  the 
noise  in  the  streets  which  reached  me  in 
spite  of  everything,  at  my  neighbors* 
preparations  for  supper,  which  I  heard 
through  the  walls.  I  hardly  new  any 
longer  what  I  was  doing;  I  wrote  non- 
sense, and  at  last  I  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  I  had  better  give  up  all  hope 
cf  producing  any  good  work  that  night. 

"I  walked  up  and  down  my 
room;  I  sat  down  and  got  up  again.  I 
was  certainly  under  the  mysterious  in- 
fluence of  the  enjoyment  outside,  and 
I  resigned  myself  to  it.  So  I  rang  for 
my  servant,  and  said  to  her: 

"  'Angela,  go  and  get  a  good  supper 
for  two;  some  oysters,  a  cold  partridge, 
some  crayfish,  ham,  and  some  cakes. 
Put  out  two  bottles  of  champagne,  lay 
the  cloth  and  go  to  bed.* 

"She  obeyed  in  some  surprise,  and 
when  all  was  ready,  I  put  on  my  great- 
coat and  went  out.  The  great  question 
remained :  *\Vhom  was  I  going  to  bring 
in  to  supper?*    My  female  friends  had 


*A  great  institution  in  France,  and  es- 
pecially in  Paris,  at  which  black  puddings 
are  an  indispensable  dish. 


700 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


all  been  invited  elsewhere,  and  if  I  had 
wished  to  have  one,  I  ought  to  have 
seen  about  it  beforehand.  So  I  thought 
that  I  would  do  a  good  action  at  the 
same  time,  and  said  to  myself: 

"  'Paris  is  full  of  poor  and  pretty  girls 
who  will  have  nothing  on  the  table  to- 
night, and  who  are  or  the  lookout  for 
some  generous  fellow.  I  will  act  tha 
part  of  Providence  to  one  of  them  this 
evening;  and  I  will  find  one  if  I  have 
to  go  to  every  pleasure  resort  and  I  will 
hunt  till  I  fmd  one  to  my  choice.  So 
I  started  off  on  my  search. 

"I  certainly  found  many  poor  girls 
who  were  on  the  lookout  for  some  ad- 
venture, but  they  were  ugly  enough  to 
give  a  man  a  fit  of  indigestion,  or  thin 
enough  to  freeze  in  their  tracks  if  they 
stopped,  and  you  all  know  that  I  have 
a  weakness  for  stout  women.  The  more 
flesh  they  have,  the  better  I  like  them, 
and  a  female  colossus  would  be  my 
ideal. 

"Suddenly,  opposite  the  'Theatre  des 
Varietes,'  I  saw  a  figure  to  my  liking.  I 
trembled  with  pleasure,  and  said: 

"'By  jove!     What  a  fine  girl!* 

"It  only  remained  for  me  to  see 
her  face,  for  a  woman's  face  is  the 
dessert. 

"I  hastened  on,  overtook  her,  and 
turned  round  suddenly  under  a  gas 
lamp.  She  was  charming,  quite  young, 
dark,  with  large,  black  eyes,  and  I  im- 
mediately made  my  proposition  which 
she  accepted  without  any  hesitation, 
and  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later  we  were 
sitting  at  supper  in  my  lodgings.  *0h! 
how  comfortable  it  is  here,'  she  said  as 
she  came  in,  and  looked  about  her  with 
evident  satisfaction  at  having  found  a 
supper  and  a  bed  on  that  bitter  night. 


She  was  superb;  so  beautiful  that  sbo 
astonished  me,  and  so  stout  that  she 
fairly  captivated  me. 

"She  took  off  her  cloak  and  hat,  sat 
down  and  began  to  eat;  but  she  seemed 
in  low  spirits,  and  sometimes  her  pale 
face  twitched  as  if  she  were  suffering 
from  hidden  sorrow. 

"  'Have  you  anything  troubling  you!' 
I  asked  her. 

"'Bah!  Don't  let  us  think  of 
troubles!' 

"And  she  began  to  drink.  She 
emptied  her  champagne  glass  at  a 
draught,  filled  it  again,  and  emptied  it 
again,  without  stopping,  and  soon  a  little 
color  came  into  her  cheeks  and  she  be- 
gan to  laugh. 

"I  adored  her  already,  kissed  her  con- 
tinually, and  discovered  that  she  was 
neither  stupid,  nor  common,  nor  coarse 
as  ordinary  street -walkers  are.  I  asked 
her  for  some  details  about  her  life,  but 
she  replied: 

"  'My  little  fellow,  that  is  no  busi- 
ness of  yours!'  Alas!  an  hour  later! 

"At  last  it  was  time  to  retire,  and 
while  I  was  clearing  the  table,  which 
had  been  laid  in  front  of  the  fire,  she 
undressed  herself  quickly,  and  got  in. 
My  neighbors  were  m.aking  a  terrible 
din,  singing  and  laughing  like  lunatics, 
and  so  I  said  to  myself: 

"  'I  was  quite  right  to  go  out  and 
bring  in  this  girl;  I  should  never  have 
been  able  to  do  any  work.' 

"At  this  moment,  however,  a  deep 
groan  made  me  look  around,  and  X  said: 

"  'What  ii-  the  matter  with  you,  my 
dear?' 

"She  did  not  reply,  but  continued  to 
utter  painful  sighs,  as  if  she  were  suf- 
fering horribly,  and  I  continued: 


CHRISTMAS  EVE 


701 


"  *Do  you  feel  Ul?'  And  suddenly 
she  uttered  a  cry,  a  heartrending  cry, 
and  I  rushed  up  to  the  bed,  with  u 
candle  in  my  hand. 

"Her  face  was  distorted  with  pain, 
and  she  was  wringing  her  hands,  panting 
and  uttering  long,  deep  groans,  which 
sounded  like  a  rattle  in  the  throat,  and 
were  painful  to  hear.  I  asked  her  in 
consternation : 

"  'What  is  the  matter  with  you?  Do 
tell  me  what  is  the  matter.' 

"'Oh!  the  pain!  the  pain!'  she  said. 
I  pulled  up  ^he  bedclothes,  and  I  saw, 
my  friends,  that  she  was  in  labor. 

"Then  I  lost  my  head,  and  ran  and 
knocked  at  the  wall  with  my  fists, 
shouting:   'Help!  help!' 

"My  door  was  opened  almost  im- 
mediatel} ,  and  a  crowd  of  people  came 
in,  men  in  evening  clothes,  women  in 
full  dress,  harlequins,  Turks,  mus- 
keteers, and  the  inroad  startled  me  so, 
that  I  could  not  explain  myself,  while 
they  who  had  thought  that  some  ac- 
cident had  happened  or  that  a  crime 
had  been  committed,  could  not  under- 
stand what  was  the  matter.  At  last, 
however,  I  managed  to  say: 

"  'This — this — woman — is  being  con- 
fined.' 

"Then  they  looked  at  her,  and  gave 
their  opinion,  A  frair,  especially,  de- 
clared that  he  knew  all  about  it,  and 
wished  to  assist  nature,  but  as  they 
were  all  as  drunk  as  pigs  I  was  afraid 
that  they  would  kill  her.  So  I  rushed 
downstairs  without  my  hat,  to  fetch 
an  old  doctor,  who  lived  in  the  next 
street.  When  I  came  back  with  him, 
the  whole  house  was  up;  the  gas  on 
the  stairs  had  been  relighted,  the 
lodgers   from   every  floor  were  in  my 


room,  while  four  boatmen  were  finishing 
my  champagne  and  cray-fish. 

"As  soon  as  they  saw  me  they  raised 
a  loud  shout.  A  milkmaid  presented 
me  with  a  horrible  little  wrinkled  speci- 
men of  humanity,  that  was  mewing 
like  a  cat,  and  said  to  me: 

"  'It  is  a  girl.' 

"The  doctor  examined  the  woman, 
declared  that  she  was  in  a  dangerous 
state,  as  the  event  had  occurred  imme- 
diately after  supper,  and  took  his  leave, 
saying  he  would  immediately  send  a 
sick  nurse  and  a  wet  nurse.  An  hour 
later,  the  two  women  came,  bringing  all 
that  was  requisite  with  them. 

"I  spent  the  night  in  my  armchair, 
too  distracted  to  be  able  to  think  of  the 
consequences,  and  almost  as  soon  as 
it  was  light  the  doctor  came  again.  He 
found  his  patient  very  ill,  and  said  to 
me: 

"  'Your  wife,  Monsieur — * 

"  'She  is  not  my  wife,'  I  interrupted 
him. 

"'Very  well  then,  your  mistress;  it 
does  not  matter  to  me.' 

"He  told  me  what  must  be  done  for 
her,  what  her  diet  must  be,  and  then 
wrote  a  prescription. 

"What  was  I  to  do?  Could  I  send 
the  poor  creature  to  the  hospital?  I 
should  have  been  looked  upon  as  a 
brute  in  the  house  and  in  all  the  neigh- 
borhood. So  I  kept  her  in  my  rooms, 
and  she  had  my  bed  for  six  weeks. 

"I  sent  the  child  to  some  peasants 
at  Poissy  to  be  taken  care  of,  and 
she  still  costs  me  fifty  francs*  a  month, 
for  as  I  had  paid  at  first,  I  shall  ba 

*$10. 


702 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DiL  MAUPASSANT 


obliged  to  go  on  paying  as  long  as  I  live. 
Later  on,  she  will  believe  that  I  am  her 
father.  But  to  crown  my  misfortunes, 
when  the  girl  had  recovered,  I  found 
that  she  was  in  love  with  me,  madly  in 
love  with  me,  the  baggage!" 

"Well?" 

"Well,  she  had  grown  as  thin  as  a 


homeless  cat,  and  I  turned  the  skele. 
ton  out  of  doors.  But  she  watches  for 
me  in  the  streets,  hides  herself,  so  that 
she  may  see  me  pass,  stops  me  in  the 
evening  when  I  go  out,  in  order  to  kiss 
my  hand,  and,  in  fact,  worries  me 
enough  to  drive  me  mad.  That  is  why 
I  never  keep  Christmas  eve  now." 


The  A 


wakening 


During  the  three  years  that  she  had 
been  married,  she  had  not  left  the  Val 
<le  Cire,  where  her  husband  possessed 
two  cotton-mills.  She  led  a  quiet  life, 
and,  although  without  children,  she  was 
quite  happy  in  her  house  among  the 
trees,  which  the  work-people  called  the 
"chateau." 

Although  Monsieur  Vassenr  was  con- 
siderably older  than  she  was,  he  was 
very  kind.  She  loved  him,  and  no  guilty 
thought  had  ever  entered  her  mind 

Her  mother  came  and  spent  every 
summer  at  Cire,  and  then  returned  to 
Paris  for  the  winter,  as  soon  as  the 
leaves  began  to  falL 

Jeanne  coughed  a  little  every  autumn, 
for  the  narrow  valley  through  which  the 
civer  wound  was  very  foggy  for  five 
months  in  the  year.  First  of  all,  slight 
mists  hung  over  the  meadows,  making 
all  the  low-lying  ground  look  like  a 
farge  pond,  out  of  which  the  roofs  of 
the  houses  rose.  Then  a  white  vapor, 
which  rose  like  a  tide,  enveloped  every- 
thing, turning  the  valley  into  a  phan- 
tom land,  through  which  men  moved 
like  ghosts,  without  recognizing  each 
-other    ten    yard*    off,    and    the    trees, 


wreathed    in    mist    and    dripping    with 
moisture,  rose  up  through  it. 

But  the  people  who  went  along  the 
neighboring  hills,  and  looked  down  upon 
the  deep,  white  depression  of  the  val- 
ley, saw  the  two  huge  chimneys  of 
Monsieur  Vasseur's  factories  rising 
above  the  mist  below.  Day  and  night 
they  vomited  forth  two  long  trails  of 
black  smoke,  the  sole  indication  that 
people  were  living  in  the  hollow,  which 
looked  as  if  it  were  filled  with  a  cloud 
of  cotton. 

That  year,  when  October  came,  the 
medical  men  advised  the  young  woman 
to  go  and  spend  the  winter  in  Paris 
with  her  mother,  as  the  air  of  the  valley 
was  dangerous  for  her  weak  chest,  and 
she  went.  For  a  month  or  so,  she 
thought  continually  of  the  house  which 
she  had  left,  the  home  to  which  sha 
seemed  rooted,  the  well-known  furniture 
and  quiet  ways  of  which  she  loved  so 
much.  But  by  degrees  she  grew  accus^ 
tomed  to  her  new  life,  and  got  to  like 
entertainments,  dinner  and  evening  par 
ties,  and  balls. 

Till  then  she  had  retained  her  girlisli 


THE  AWAKENING 


703 


manners,  had  been  undecided  and  rather 
sluggish,  walked  languidly,  and  had  a 
tired  smile,  but  now  she  became  ani- 
mated and  merry,  and  was  always  ready 
for  pleasure.  Men  paid  her  marked  at- 
tentions, and  she  was  amused  at  their 
talk  and  made  fun  of  their  gallantries, 
as  she  felt  sure  that  she  could  resist 
them,  for  she  was  rather  disgusted 
with  love  from  what  she  had  learned 
of  it  in  marriage. 

The  idea  of  giving  up  her  body  to  the 
coarse  caresses  of  such  bearded  crea- 
tures made  her  laugh  with  pity  and 
shudder  a  little  with  ignorance. 

She  asked  herself  how  women  could 
consent  to  degrading  contacts  with 
strangers,  the  more  so  as  they  were  al- 
ready obliged  to  endure  them  with  their 
legitimate  husbands.  She  would  have 
loved  her  husband  much  more  if  they 
had  lived  together  like  two  friends,  and 
had  restricted  themselves  to  chaste 
kisses,  which  are  the  caresses  of  the 
scul. 

But  she  was  much  amused  by  their 
compliments,  by  the  desire  which 
showed  itsel<^  in  their  eyes,  a  desire 
she  did  not  share,  by  declarations  of  love 
whispered  into  her  ear  as  they  were 
returning  to  the  drawing-room  after 
some  grand  dinner,  by  words  mur- 
mured so  low  that  she  almost  had  to 
guess  them,  words  which  left  her  blood 
quite  cool,  and  her  heart  untouched, 
while  gratifying  her  unconscious  co- 
quetry, kindling  a  flame  of  pleasure 
within  her,  making  her  lips  open,  her 
eyes  grow  bright,  and  her  woman's  heart, 
to  which  homage  was  due,  quiver  with 
delight. 

She  was  fond  of  those  tete-h-tetes  in 
the  dusk,  when  a  man  grows  pressing, 


hesitates,  trembles  and  falls  on  his 
knees.  It  was  a  delicious  and  new  plea- 
sure to  her  to  know  that  they  felt  a  pas- 
sion which  left  her  quite  unmoved,  able 
to  say  no  by  a  shake  of  the  head  and  by 
pursing  her  lips,  able  to  withdraw  her 
hands,  to  get  up  and  calmly  ring  for 
lights,  and  to  see  the  man  who  had  been 
trembling  at  her  feet  get  up,  confused 
and  furious  when  he  heard  the  footman 
coming. 

She  often  uttered  a  hard  laugh,  which 
froze  the  most  burning  words,  and  said 
harsh  things,  which  fell  like  a  jet  of  icy 
water  on  the  most  ardent  protestations, 
while  the  intonations  of  her  voice  were 
enough  to  make  any  man  who  really 
loved  her  kill  himself.  There  were  two 
especially  who  made  obstinate  love  to 
her,  although  they  did  not  at  all  re- 
semble one  another. 

One  of  them,  Paul  Peronel,  was  a  tall 
man  of  the  world,  gallant  and  enter- 
prising, a  man  who  was  accustomed  to 
successful  love  affairs,  one  who  knew 
how  to  wait,  and  when  to  seize  his  ojn 
portunity. 

The  other,  Monsieur  d'Avancelle, 
quivered  when  he  came  near  her,  scarce- 
ly ventured  to  express  his  love,  but  fol- 
lowed her  like  a  shadow,  and  gave  utter- 
ance to  his  hopeless  desire  by  distracted 
looks,  and  the  assiduity  of  his  atten- 
tions to  her.  She  made  him  a  kind  of 
servant  and  treated  him  as  if  he  had 
been  her  slave. 

She  would  have  been  much  amused  if 
anybody  had  told  her  that  she  would 
love  him,  and  yet  she  did  love  him,  after 
a  singular  fashion.  As  she  saw  him  con- 
tinually, she  had  grown  accustomed  to 
his  voice,  to  his  gestures,  and  to  hii 
manner,  just  as  one  grows  accustomed 


704 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


to  those  with  whom  one  meets  con- 
tinually. Often  his  face  haunted  her  in 
her  dreams,  and  she  saw  him  as  he 
really  was;  gentle,  delicate  in  all  his 
actions,  humble,  but  passionately  in 
love.  She  would  awake  full  of  these 
dreams,  fancying  that  she  still  heard  him 
and  felt  him  near  her,  until  one  night 
(most  hkely  she  was  feverish)  she  saw 
herself  alone  with  him  in  a  small  wood, 
where  they  were  both  sitting  on  the 
grass.  He  was  saying  charming  things 
to  her,  while  he  pressed  and  kissed  her 
hands.  She  could  feel  the  warmth  of 
his  skin  and  of  his  breath  and  she  was 
stroking  his  hair  in  a  very  natural  man- 
ner. 

We  are  quite  different  in  our  dreams 
to  what  we  are  in  real  life.  She  felt 
full  of  love  for  him,  full  of  calm  and 
deep  love,  and  was  happy  in  stroking  his 
forehead  and  in  holding  him  against  her. 
Gradually  he  put  his  arms  around  her, 
kissed  her  eyes  and  her  cheeks  with- 
out her  attempting  to  get  away  from 
him;  their  lips  met,  and  she  yielded. 

When  she  saw  him  again,  unconscious 
of  the  agitation  that  he  had  caused  her, 
she  felt  that  she  grew  red,  and  while 
he  was  telling  her  of  his  love,  she  was 
continually  recalling  to  mind  their  previ- 
ous meeting,  without  being  able  to  get 
rid  of  the  recollection. 

She  loved  him,  loved  him  with  refined 
tenderness,  chiefly  from  the  remem- 
brance of  her  dream,  although  she 
dreaded  the  accomplishment  of  the  de- 
sires which  had  arisen  in  her  mind. 

At  last  he  perceived  it,  and  then  she 
told  him  everything,  even  to  the  dread 
of  his  kisses,  and  she  made  him  swear 
that  he  would  respect  h^f:  and  he  did  so. 
They  spent  long  hours  of  transcendental 


love  together,  during  which  their  souls 
alone  embraced,  and  when  they  sepa- 
rated, they  were  enervated,  weak,  and 
feverish. 

Sometimes  their  lips  met,  and  with 
closed  eyes  they  reveled  in  that  long, 
yet  chaste  caress.  She  felt,  however, 
that  he  could  not  resist  much  longer,  and 
as  she  did  not  wish  to  yield,  she  wrote 
and  told  her  husband  that  she  wanted  to 
come  to  him,  and  to  return  to  her  tran- 
quil, solitary  life.  But  in  reply,  he  wrote 
her  a  very  kind  letter,  and  strongly  ad- 
vised her  not  to  return  in  the  middle 
of  the  winter,  and  so  expose  herself  to 
the  sudden  change  of  climate,  and  to 
the  icy  mists  of  the  valley,  and  she  was 
thunderstruck  and  angry  with  that  con- 
fiding man,  who  did  not  guess,  who  did 
not  understand,  the  struggles  of  her 
heart. 

February  was  a  warm,  bright  month, 
and  although  she  now  avoided  being 
alone  with  Monsieur  Avancelle,  she 
sometimes  accepted  his  invitation  to 
drive  round  the  lake  in  the  Bois  de 
Boulogne  with  him,  when  it  was  dusk. 

On  one  of  those  evenings,  it  was  so 
warm  that  it  seemed  as  if  the  sap  in 
every  tree  and  plant  were  rising.  Theii 
cab  was  going  at  a  walk;  it  was  grow- 
ing dusk,  and  they  were  sitting  clos€ 
together,  holding  each  other's  hands 
and  she  said  to  herself: 

"It  is  all  over,  I  am  lost ! "  for  she  fell 
her  desires  rising  in  her  again,  the  im- 
perious demand  for  that  supreme  em- 
brace which  she  had  undergone  in  he^ 
dream.  Every  moment  their  lips  sought 
each  other,  clung  tosjether,  and  sepa- 
rated, only  to  meet  again  immediately- 

He  did  not  venture   to  go  into  the 


THE  WHITE  LADY 


705 


house  with  her,  but  left  her  at  her  door, 
more  in  love  with  him  than  ever,  and 
half  fainting. 

Monsieur  Paul  Peronel  was  waiting 
for  her  in  the  little  drawing-room, 
without  a  light,  and  when  he  shook 
hands  with  her,  he  felt  how  feverish  she 
was.  He  began  to  talk  in  a  low,  tender 
voice,  lulling  her  tired  mind  with  the 
charm  of  amorous  words. 

She  listened  to  him  without  replying, 
for  she  was  thinking  of  the  other;  she 
thought  she  was  listening  to  the  other, 
and  thought  she  felt  him  leaning  against 
her,  in  a  kind  of  hallucination.  She 
saw  only  him,  and  did  not  remember 
that  any  other  man  existed  on  earth, 
and  when  her  ears  trembled  at  those 
three  syllables:  *T  love  you,"  it  was 
he,  the  other  man,  who  uttered  them, 
who  kissed  her  hands,  who  strained 
her  to  his  breast  like  the  other  had  done 
shortly  before  in  the  cab.  It  was  he 
who  pressed  victorious  kisses  on  her 
lips,  it  was  he  whom  she  held  in  her 
arms  and  embraced,  to  whom  she  was 
calling,  with  all  the  longings  of  her 
heart,  with  all  the  overwrought  ardor  of 
her  body. 

When  she  awoke  from  her  dream,  she 
uttered  a  terrible  cry.  Paul  Peronel 
was  kneeling  by  her  and  was  thanking 
her  passionntely,  while  he  covered  her 
disheveled  haii  with  kisses,  and  she  al- 


most screamed  out:  "Go  away!  go 
away!  go  away!" 

And  as  he  did  not  understand  what 
she  meant,  and  tried  to  put  his  arm 
round  her  waist  again,  she  writhed,  as 
she  stammered  out: 

"You  are  a  wretch,  and  I  hate  you! 
Go  away!  go  away!"  And  he  got  up  in 
great  surprise,  took  up  his  hat  and 
went. 

The  next  day  she  returned  to  Val 
de  Cir6,  and  her  husband,  who  had  not 
expected  her  for  some  time,  blamed  her 
for  her  freak. 

"I  could  not  live  away  from  you  any 
^.onger,"  she  said. 

He  found  her  altered  in  character  and 
sadder  than  formerly,  but  when  he  said 
to  her:  "What  is  the  matter  with  you? 
You  seem  unhappy.  What  do  you 
want?"  she  replied: 

"Nothing.  Happiness  exists  only  in 
our  dreams  in  this  world." 

Avancelle  came  to  see  her  the  next 
summer,  and  she  received  him  without 
any  emotion  and  without  regret,  for  she 
suddenly  perceived  that  she  had  never 
loved  him,  except  in  a  dream,  from 
which  Paul  Peronel  had  brutally  roused 
her. 

But  the  young  man,  who  still  adored 
her,  thought  as  he  returned  to  Paris: 

"Women  are  really  very  strange,  com- 
plicated, and  inexplicable  beings." 


The  White  Lady 


FoRTUNA,  goddess  of  chance  and  good 
luck,  has  always  been  Cupid's  best  ally, 
and  Arnold  T ,  who  was  a  lieutenant  in 


a  hussar  regiment,  was  evidently  a  spe- 
cial favorite  of  both  deities. 
This    good-lookingj,    well-bred    young 


706 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


officer  had  been  an  enthusiastic  admirer 
of  the  two  Countesses  W.,  mother  and 
daughter,  during  a  tolerably  long  leave 
of  absence,  which  he  spent  with  his  rela- 
tions in  Vienna.  He  had  admired  them 
in  the  Prater,  had  worshipped  them  at 
the  opera,  but  he  had  never  had  an  op- 
portunity of  making  their  acquaintance, 
and  when  he  was  b^ck  at  his  dull  quar- 
ters in  Galicia,  he  liked  to  think  about 
those  two  aristocratic  beauties.  Last 
summer  his  regiment  was  transferred  to 
Bohemia,  to  a  wildly  romantic  district, 
which  has  been  made  illustrious  by  a 
talented  writer.  It  abounds  in  magnifi- 
cent woods,  lofty  mountain-forests, 
and  castles,  and  is  a  favorite  summer 
resort  of  the  neighboring  aristocracy. 

Who  can  describe  his  joyful  surprise 
when  he  and  his  men  were  quartered  in 
ai*  old,  weatherbeaten  castle  in  the  mid- 
dle of  a  wood,  and  he  learned  from 
the  house-steward  who  received  him 
that  the  owner  of  the  castle  was  the  hus- 
band, and,  consequently,  also  the  father 
of  his  Viennese  ideals.  An  hour  after 
he  had  taken  possession  of  his  old- 
fashioned  but  beautifully  furnished 
room  in  a  side-wing  of  the  castlo,  he 
put  on  his  full-dress  uniform,  and 
throwing  his  dolman  over  his  shoulders 
went  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  Count 
and  the  ladies. 

He  was  received  with  the  greatest 
cordiality.  The  Count  was  delighted 
to  have  a  companion  when  he  went  out 
shooting,  and  the  ladies  were  no  less 
pleased  at  having  some  one  to  accom- 
pany them  on  their  walks  in  the  forests, 
or  on  their  rides,  so  that  he  felt  only 
half  on  the  earth  and  half  in  the  seventh 
heaven  of  Mohammedan  bliss.  Before 
supper  he   found   time   to   inspect   the 


house  more  closely,  and  even  to  take 
a  sketch  of  the  large,  gloomy  build- 
ing from  a  favorable  point.  The  an- 
cient seat  of  the  Counts  of  W.  was  really 
very  gloomy.  The  walls,  which  were 
crumbiing  away  here  and  there,  were 
covered  with  dark  ivy;  the  round 
towers  harbored  jackdaws,  owls,  and 
hawks;  an  JEolmn  harp  complained  and 
sighed  and  wept  in  the  wind ;  the  stones 
in  the  castle  yard  were  overgrown  with 
grass;  the  cloisters  re-echoed  to  every 
footstep;  great  ancestral  portraits  hung 
on  the  v/alls,  coated  as  it  were  with 
dark,  mysterious  veils  by  the  centuries 
which  had  passed  over  them.  All  this 
recalled  to  him  the  le:;;ends  and  fairy 
tales  of  his  youth,  and  he  involuntarily 
thought  of  the  "Sleeping  Beauty  in  the 
Wood*'  and  of  "Blue  Beard,"  of  the 
cruel  mistress  of  the  Kynast,*  and  of 
that  aristocratic  tigress  of  the  Car- 
pathians, who  obtained  the  unfading 
charm  cf  eternal  youth  by  bathing  in 
human  blood. 

He  came  in  to  supper,  where  he  found 
himself  for  the  first  time  in  the  com- 
pany cf  all  the  members  of  the  family, 
just  in  the  frame  of  mind  that  was 
suitable  for  ghost  stories,  and  was  not 
a  little  surprised  when  his  host  told 
him,  half  smiling  and  half  seriously,  that 
the   "White  Lady"  was  disturbing  the 


*A  castle,  now  a  well-preserved  ruin, 
in  the  Giant  Mountains  in  N.  Germany. 
The  legend  is  that  its  mistress,  Kuni- 
cerude,  vowed  to  marry  nobody  except 
the  ICni:3ht  who  should  ride  round  the 
parapet  of  the  castle,  and  many  perished 
in  the  attempt.  At  last  one  of  them 
Eucceeded  in  performing  the  feat,  but  he 
merely  sternly  rebuked  hf^r.  and  took  his 
leave.  He  was  accompanied  by  his  wife, 
disguised  as  his  page,  according  to  some 
versions  of  the  legend: 


LtiiL  WHITE  LADY 


707 


castle  again,  and  that  she  had  latterly 
been  seen  very  often. 

"Yes,    indeed,"    Countess     Ida    ex- 
claimed,  "you  must   take   care,   Baron, 
for   she   haunts    the   very   wing   where 
your  room  is." 

The  hussar  was  just  in  the  frame  of 
mind  to  take  the  matter  seriously,  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  when  he  saw  the  dark, 
ardent  eyes  of  the  Countess,  and  then 
the  merry  blue  eyes  of  her  daughter, 
fixed  on  him,  any  real  fear  of  ghosts  was 
quite  out  of  the  question  with  him.  For 
Baron  T.  feared  nothing  in  this  world, 
but  he  possessed  a  very  lively  imagina- 
tion, which  could  conjure  up  threaten- 
ing forms  from  another  world  so  plainly 
that  sometimes  he  felt  very  uncom- 
fortable at  his  own  fancies.  But  on  the 
present  occasion  the  malicious  appari- 
tion had  no  power  over  him;  the  ladies 
took  care  of  that,  for  both  of  them 
were  beautiful  and  amiable. 

The  Countess  was  a  mature  Venus  of 
thirty-six,  of  middle  height,  with  bright 
eyes,  thick  dark  hair,  beautiful  white 
teeth,  and  with  the  voluptuous  figure 
of  a  true  Viennese,  while  her  daughter, 
Ida,  who  was  seventeen,  had  light  hair, 
the  pert  little  nose  of  the  china  figures 
of  shepherdesses  in  the  dress  of  the  pe- 
riod of  Louis  XIV.,  and  was  short, 
slim,  and  full  of  French  grare.  Be- 
sides them  and  the  Count,  a  son  of 
twelve  and  his  tutor  were  present  at 
supper.  It  struck  the  hussar  as  strange 
that  the  tutor,  who  was  a  strongly-built 
young  man,  with  a  winning  face  and 
those  refined  manners  which  the  great- 
est plebeian  quickly  acquires  when 
brought  into  close  and  constant  con- 
tact with  the  aristocracy,  was  treated 
with  great  consideration  by  all  the  fam- 


ily except  the  Countess,  who  treated  him 
very  haughtily.  She  assumed  a  particu- 
larly imperious  manner  toward  hei 
son's  tutor,  and  she  either  found  fault 
Vv'ith,  or  made  fun  of,  everything  that 
he  did,  while  he  put  up  with  it  all 
with  smiling  humility. 

Before  supper  was  over  their  conver- 
sation again  turned  on  the  ghost,  and 
Baron  T.  asked  whether  they  did  not 
possess  a  picture  of  the  White  Lady. 

"Of  course  we  have  one,"  they  all  re* 
plied  at  once;  whereupon  Baron  T. 
begged  to  be  allowed  to  see  it. 

"I  will  show  it  to  you  to-morrow," 
the  Count  said. 

"No,  papa,  now,  immediately,"  the 
younger  lady  said  mockingly;  "just  be- 
fore the  ghostly  hour,  such  a  thing 
creates  a  much  greater  impression." 

All  who  were  present,  not  excepting 
the  boy  and  his  tutor,  took  a  candle. 
Then  they  walked,  as  if  in  a  torchlight 
procession,  to  the  wing  of  the  house 
where  the  hussar's  room  was.  There 
was  a  life-size  picture  of  the  White 
Lady  hanging  in  a  Gothic  passage  near 
his  room,  among  other  ancestral  por- 
traiis,  and  it  by  no  means  made  a  ter- 
rible impression  on  anyone  who  looked 
at  it,  but  rather  the  contrary.  The 
ghost,  dressed  in  stiff,  gold  brocade  and 
purple  velvet,  and  with  a  hawk  on  her 
wrist,  looked  like  one  of  those  seduc- 
tive Amazons  of  the  fifteenth  century 
who  knew  the  art  of  laying  men  and 
game  at  their  feet  with  equal  skill. 

"Don't  you  think  that  the  White  Lady 
is  very  like  mamma?"  Countess  Ida 
said,  interrupting  the  Baron's  silent 
contemplation  of  the  picture. 

"There  is  no  doubt  of  it,"  the  hus- 
sar replied,  while  the  Countess  smiles 


708 


\V0?vi:3  07  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  the  tutor  turned  red.  They  were 
still  standing  before  the  picture,  when  a 
strong  gust  of  wind  suddenly  extin- 
guished all  the  lights,  and  they  all  ut- 
tered a  simultaneous  cry. 

"The  White  Lady,"  the  little  Count 
whispered,  but  she  did  not  come,  and 
as  it  was  luckily  a  moonlight  night, 
they  soon  recovered  from  their  momen- 
tary shock.  The  family  retired  to  their 
apartments,  while  the  hussar  and  the 
tutor  went  to  their  own  rooms,  which 
were  situated  in  the  wing  of  the  castle 
which  was  haunted  by  the  White  Lady; 
the  officer's  apartment  being  scarcely 
thirty  yards  from  the  portrait,  while  the 
tutor's  was  rather  further  down  the  cor- 
ridor. 

The  hussar  went  to  bed,  and  was  soon 
fast  asleep,  and  though  he  had  rather 
uneasy  dreams  nothing  further  hap- 
pened. But  while  they  were  at  break- 
fast the  next  morning,  the  Count's  body- 
servant  told  them,  with  every  ap- 
pearance of  real  terror,  that  as  he  was 
crossing  the  courtyard  at  midnight,  he 
had  suddenly  heard  a  noise  like  bats  in 
the  open  cloisters,  and  when  he  looked 
he  distinctly  saw  the  White  Lady 
gliding  slowly  through  them.  But  they 
merely  laughed  at  the  poltroon,  and 
though  our  hussar  laughed  also,  he  fully 
made  up  his  mind,  without  saying  a 
word  about  it,  to  keep  a  lookout  for  the 
^host  that  night. 

Again  they  had  supper  alone,  without 
any  company,  had  some  music  and 
pleasant  talk,  and  separated  at  half  past 
eleven.  The  hussar,  however,  only  went 
to  his  room  for  form's  sake;  he  loaded 
his  pistols,  and  when  all  was  quiet  in  the 
castle,   he   crept    down  into  the   court- 


yard and  took  up  his  position  behind 
a  pillar  which  was  quite  hidden  in  the 
shade,  while  the  moon,  which  was  nearly 
at  the  full,  flooded  the  cloisters  with 
its  clear,  pale  ligl:t. 

There  v/cre  no  lights  to  be  seen  in 
the  castle  except  from  two  windows, 
v/hich  were  those  of  the  Countess  s 
apartments,  and  soon  they  were  also 
extinguished.  The  clock  struck  twelve, 
and  the  hussar  could  scarcely  breathe 
from  excitement;  the  next  moment, 
however,  he  heard  the  noise  which  the 
Count's  body-servant  had  compared  to 
that  of  bats,  and  almost  at  the  same 
instant  a  white  figure  glided  slowly 
through  the  open  cloisters  and  passed  so 
close  to  h'm,  that  it  almost  made  his 
blood  curdle.  Then  it  disappeared  ?u 
the  wing  of  the  castle  which  he  and  the 
tutor  occupied. 

The  officer,  who  was  usually  so 
brave,  stood  as  though  he  was  paralyzed 
for  a  few  moments.  But  then  he  took 
heart,  and  feeKng  determined  to  make 
the  nearer  acquaintance  of  the  spectral 
beauty,  he  crept  softly  up  the  broad 
staircase  and  took  up  his  position  in  a 
deep  recess  in  the  cloisters,  where  no- 
body could  see  him. 

He  waited  for  a  long  time;  he  heard 
every  quarter  strike,  and  at  last,  just 
before  the  close  of  the  "witching  hour," 
he  heard  the  same  noise  like  the  rus- 
tling of  bats,  and  then  she  came.  He 
felt  the  flutter  of  her  white  dress,  and 
she  stood  before  him — it  was  indeed 
the  Countess. 

He  presented  his  pistol  at  her  as  he 
challenged  her,  but  she  raised  her  hand 
n>ep-'2cirg:ly. 


MADAME  BAPTISTE 


09 


"Who  are  ycu?"  he  exclaimed.  "If 
vou  are  really  a  ghost,  prove  it,  for  I 
im  going  to  fire  " 

'Tor  heaven's  sake!"  the  White 
Lady  whispered,  and  at  the  same  in- 
stant two  white  arms  were  thrown 
round  him,  and  he  felt  a  full,  warm 
bosom  heaving  against  h's  own. 

After  that  night  the  ghost  appeared 
more  frequently  still.  Not  only  did 
the  White  Lady  make  her  appearance 
every  night  in  the  cloisters,  only  to  dis- 
appear in  the  proximity  of  the  hussar's 
rooms  as  long  as  the  family  remained  at 


the  castle,  but  she  even  followed  them 
to  Vienna. 

Baron  T.,  who  went  to  that  capital  on 
leave  of  absence  during  the  following 
winter,  and  who  was  the  Count's  guest 
at  the  express  wish  of  his  wife,  was 
frequently  told  by  the  footman  that  al- 
though hitherto  she  had  seemed  to  be 
confined  to  the  old  castle  in  Bohemia, 
she  had  shown  herself  now  here,  now 
there,  in  the  mansion  in  Vienna,  in  a 
white  dress  making  a  noise  like  the 
wings  of  a  bat,  and  bearing  a  striking 
resemblance  to  the  beautiful  Countess 


Madame  Baptiste 


When  I  v/ent  into  the  waiting-room 
at  the  station  at  Loubain,  the  first  thing 
I  did  was  to  look  at  the  clock,  and  I 
found  that  I  had  two  hours  and  ten 
minutes  to  wait  for  the  Paris  express. 

I   felt   suddenly   tired,    as   if   I   had 

walked  twenty  miles.     Then  I  looked 

about  me,  as  if  I  could  find  some  means 

of  killing  the  time  on  the  station  walls. 

At  last  I  went  out  again,  and  halted  out- 

l    side  the  gates  of  the  station,  racking  my 

K    brains  to   find  something  to  do.     The 

?■    street,  which  was  a  kind  of  boulevard 

planted  with  acacias,  between  two  rows 

of  houses  of  unequal  shape  and  different 

styles  of  architecture,  houses  such  as 

one  only  sees  in  a  small  town,  ascended 

a  slight  hill,  and  at  the  extreme  end  of 

it  there  were  some  trees,  as  if  it  ended 

in  a  park. 

From  time  to  time  a  cat  crossed  the 
street,  and  jumped  over  the  gutters, 
carefully.     A  cur  sniffed  at  every  tree. 


and  hunted  for  fragments  from  the 
kitchens,  but  I  did  not  see  a  single  hu- 
man being.  I  felt  listless  and  disheart- 
ened. What  could  I  do  with  myself?  I 
was  already  thinking  of  the  inevitable 
and  interminable  visit  to  the  small  cafi 
at  the  railway  station,  where  I  should 
have  to  sit  over  a  glass  of  undrinkable 
beer,  and  an  illegible  newspaper,  when 
I  saw  a  funeral  procession  coming  out 
of  a  side  street  into  the  one  in  which 
I  was,  and  the  sight  of  the  hearse  was 
a  relief  to  me.  It  would,  at  any  rate, 
give  me  something  to  do  for  ten  min- 
utes. 

Suddenly,  however,  my  curiosity  was 
aroused.  The  corpse  was  followed  by 
eight  gentlemen,  one  of  whom  was  weep- 
ing, while  the  others  were  chatting  to- 
gether. But  there  was  no  priest,  and  I 
thought  to  myself:  "This  is  a  non- 
religious  funeral,''  but  then  I  reflected 
that  4  town  like  Loubain  must  contain 


710 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


at  least  a  hundred  freethinkers,  who 
would  have  made  a  point  of  making  a 
manifestation.  What  could  it  be  then? 
The  rapid  pace  of  the  procession  clear- 
ly proved  that  the  body  was  to  be  buried 
without  ceremony,  and,  consequently, 
without  the  intervention  of  religion. 

My  idle  curiosity  framed  the  most 
complicated  suppositions,  and  as  the 
hearse  passed  a  strange  idea  struck  me, 
which  was  tc  follow  it  with  the  eight 
gentlemen.  That  would  take  up  my 
time  for  an  hour,  at  least,  and  I,  ac- 
cordingly, walked  with  the  others,  with 
a  sad  look  on  my  face,  and  on  seeing 
this,  the  two  last  turned  round  in  sur- 
prise, and  then  spoke  to  each  other  in 
a  low  voice. 

No  doubt,  they  were  asking  each 
other  whether  I  belonged  to  the  town, 
and  then  they  consulted  the  two  in  front 
of  them,  who  stared  at  me  in  turn. 
The  close  attention  they  paid  me  an- 
noyed me,  and  to  put  an  end  to  it,  I 
went  up  to  them,  and  after  bowing,  said: 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  gentlemen,  for 
interrupting  your  conversation,  but  see- 
ing a  civil  funeral,  I  have  followed  it, 
although  I  did  not  know  the  deceased 
gentleman  whom  you  are  accompany- 
mg. 

"It  is  a  woman,"  one  of  them  said. 

I  was  much  surprised  at  hearing  this, 
and  asked: 

"But  it  is  a  civil  funeral,  is  it  not?" 

The  other  gentleman,  who  evidently 
wished  to  tel)  me  all  about  it,  then  said: 
"Yes  and  no.  The  clergy  have  refused 
to  allow  us  the  use  of  the  church." 

On  hearing  that,  I  uttered  a  prolonged 
A — hi  of  astonishment.  I  could  not  un- 
derstand it  at  all,  but  my  obliging  neigh- 
bor continueil. 


"It  is  rather  a  long  story.  This  young 
woman  committed  suicide,  and  that  is 
the  reason  why  she  cannot  be  buried 
with  any  religious  ceremony.  The  gentle- 
man who  is  walking  first,  and  who  is 
crying,  is  her  husband." 

I  rephed,  with  some  hesitation: 

'^You  surprise  and  interest  me  very 
much,  Monsieur.  Shall  I  be  indiscreet 
if  I  ask  you  to  tell  me  the  facts  of  the 
case?  If  I  am  troubling  you,  think  that 
I  have  said  nothing  about  the  matter." 

The  gentleman  took  my  arm  fa- 
miliarly. 

"Not  at  all,  not  at  all.  Let  us  stop 
a  little  behind  the  others,  and  I  will 
tell  it  to  you,  although  it  is  a  very  sad 
story.  We  have  plenty  of  time  before 
getting  to  the  cemetery,  whose  trees  you 
see  up  yonder,  for  it  is  a  stiff  pull  up 
this  hill." 

And  he  began: 

"This  young  woman,  Madame  Paul 
Hamot,  was  the  daughter  of  a  wealthy 
merchant  in  the  neighborhood.  Mon- 
sieur Fontanelle.  When  she  was  a  mere 
child  of  eleven,  she  had  a  terrible  adven- 
ture; a  footman  violated  her.  She 
nearly  died,  in  consequence,  and  the 
wretch's  brutality  betrayed  him.  A  ter- 
rible ciiminal  case  v/as  the  result,  and 
as  it  was  proved  that  for  three  months 
the  poor  young  martyr  had  been  the 
victim  of  that  brute's  disgraceful  prac- 
tices, he  was  sentenced  to  penal  servi- 
tude for  life. 

"The  little  girl  grew  up,  stigmatized 
by  her  disgrace,  isolated,  without  any 
companions,  and  grownup  people  would 
scarcely  kiss  her,  for  they  thought  they 
would  soil  tiieir  lip3  if  they  touched 
her  forehead.  She  became  a  sort  of 
monster^  a  phenomenon  to  all  the  town. 


MADAME  BAPTISTE 


711 


People  said  to  each  other  in  a  whisper: 
*You  know  little  Fontanellt,"  and 
everybody  turned  away  in  the  streets 
when  she  passed.  Her  parents  could  not 
even  get  a  nurse  to  take  her  out  for  a 
walk,  and  the  other  servants  held  aloof 
from  her,  as  if  contact  with  her  would 
poison  everybody  who  came  near  her. 

"It  was  pitiable  to  see  the  poor  child 
when  the  brats  played  every  afternoon. 
She  remained  quite  by  herself,  standing 
by  her  maid,  and  locking  at  the  other 
children  amusing  them.selvts.  Some- 
times, yielding  to  an  irresistible  desire 
to  mix  with  tl:e  other  children,  she  ad- 
vanced, timidly,  with  nervous  gestures, 
and  mingled  with  a  group,  with  furtive 
steps,  as  if  conscious  of  her  own  infamy. 
And  immediately  the  mothers,  aunts, 
and  nurses  used  to  come  running  from 
every  seat,  taking  the  children  intrusted 
to  their  care  by  the  hand  and  dragging 
them  brutally  away. 

"Little  Fontanelle  would  remain 
isolated,  wretched,  without  understand- 
ing what  it  meant,  and  then  would  be- 
gin to  cry,  heartbroken  with  grief,  and 
to  run  and  hide  her  head  in  her  nurse's 
lap,  sobbing. 

"As  she  grew  up,  it  was  worse  still. 
They  kept  the  girls  from  her,  as  if  she 
were  stricken  with  the  plague.  Remem- 
ber that  she  had  nothing  to  learn,  noth- 
ing; that  she  no  longer  had  the  right  to 
the  svmbolical  wreath  of  orange-fiowers; 
that  almost  before  she  couH  read,  she 
had  penetrated  that  redoubtable  mys- 
tery which  mothers  scarcely  allow  their 
daughters  to  guess,  trembling  as  they 
enlighten  them  on  the  night  of  their 
marriage. 

"When  she  went  through  the  streets, 
always  accomoanied  by  a  governess — as 


if  her  parents  feared  some  fresh,  terri- 
ble adventure— v.ith  her  eyes  cast  down 
under  the  load  of  that  mysterious  dis- 
grace which  she  felt  was  always  weigh- 
ing upon  her,  the  other  girls,  who  were 
not  nearly  so  innocent  as  people  thought, 
whispered  and  giggled  as  they  looked  at 
her  knowingly,  and  immediately  turned 
their  heads  absently  if  she  happened  to 
look  at  them.  People  scarcely  greeted 
her;  only  a  few  men  bowed  to  her,  and 
the  mothers  pretended  not  to  see  her, 
while  some  young  blackguards  called 
her  "Madame  Baptiste,"  after  the  name 
of  the  footman  who  had  outraged  and 
ruined  her. 

"Nobody  knew  the  secret  torture  of 
her  mind  for  she  hardly  ever  spoke 
and  never  laughed;  her  parents  them- 
selves appeared  uncomfortable  in  her 
presence,  as  if  they  bore  her  a  constant 
grudge  for  some  irreparable  fault. 

"An  honest  man  would  not  willingly 
give  his  hand  to  a  liberated  convict, 
would  he,  even  if  that  convict  were  his 
own  son?  And  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Fontanelle  looked  on  their  daughter  as 
they  would  ha-e  done  on  a  son  who  had 
just  been  released  from  the  hulks.  Sh^ 
was  pretty  and  pale,  tall,  slender,  dis- 
tinguished-looldng,  and  she  would  have 
pleased  me  very  much,  Monsieur,  but 
for  that  unfortunate  affair. 

"Well,  when  a  new  sub-oretect  was 
appointed  here  eighteen  months  ago,  he 
brought  his  private  secretary  with  him. 
He  was  a  queer  sort  of  fellow,  who  had 
lived  in  the  Latin  Quarter,*  it  appears. 
He  saw  Mademoiselle  Fontanelle,  and 
fell  in  love  with  her,  and  when  told  of 


*The     students'      quarter      in     Parlj^ 
where  many  of  them  lead  fast  lives 


712 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


what  occurred,  he  merely  said:  'Bah! 
That  is  just  a  guarantee  for  the  future, 
and  I  would  rather  it  should  have  hap- 
pened before  I  married  her,  than  after- 
ward. I  shall  sleep  tranquilly  with  that 
woman.' 

"He  paid  his  addresses  to  her,  asked 
for  her  hand,  and  married  her,  and  then, 
not  being  deficient  in  boldness,  he  paid 
wedding-calls,*  as  if  nothing  had  hap- 
pened. Some  people  returned  them, 
others  did  not,  but  at  last  the  affair  be- 
gan to  be  forgotten  and  she  took  her 
proper  place  in  society. 

"She  adored  her  husband  as  if  he  had 
been  a  god,  for  you  must  remember  that 
he  had  restored  her  to  honor  and  to  so- 
cial life,  that  he  had  braved  public  opin- 
ion, faced  insults,  and,  in  a  word,  per- 
formed a  courageous  act,  such  as  few 
men  would  accomplish,  and  she  felt  the 
most  exalted  and  unceasing  love  for  him. 
"When  she  became  pregnant,  and  it 
/vas  known,  the  most  particular  people 
and  the  greatest  sticklers  opened  their 
doors  to  her,  as  if  she  had  been  definitely 
purified  by  maternity. 

"It  is  funny,  but  true,  and  thus  every- 
thing was  going  on  as  well  as  possible, 
when,  the  other  day,  occurred  the  feast 
of  the  patron  saint  of  our  town.  The 
prefect,  surrounded  by  his  staff  and  the 
authorities,  presided  at  the  musical  coni- 
petition,  and  when  he  had  finished  his 
SDeech.  the  distribution  of  medals  be- 
gan, which  Paul  Hamot,  his  private  sec- 
retary, handed  to  those  who  were  en- 
titled to  them. 

"As  you  know,  there  are  always  jeal- 
ousies and  rivalries,  which  make  people 


*In  France  and  Germany,  the  newly- 
married  couple  pay  the  wedding-calls, 
which  is  the  reverse  of  our  custom. 


forget  all  propriety.  All  the  ladies  of 
the  town  were  there  on  the  platform, 
and,  in  his  proper  turn,  the  bandmaster 
from  the  village  of  Mourmillon  came 
up.  This  band  was  only  to  receive  a 
second-class  made!,  for  you  cannot  give 
first-class  medals  to  everybody,  can 
you?  But  when  the  private  secretary 
handed  him  his  badge,  the  man  threw 
it  in  his  face  and  exclaimed: 

"  'You  may  keep  your  medal  for 
Baptiste.  You  owe  him  a  first-class  one^ 
also,  just  as  you  do  me.* 

There  were  a  number  of  people 
there  who  began  to  laugh.  The 
common  herd  are  neither  charitable  nor 
refined,  and  every  eye  was  turned  to- 
ward that  poor  lady.  Have  you  evei 
seen  a  woman  going  mad,  Monsieur? 
Well,  we  were  present  at  the  sight !  She 
got  up,  and  fell  back  on  her  chair  three 
times  in  succession,  as  if  she  wished  to 
make  her  escape,  but  saw  that  she  could 
not  make  her  way  through  the  crowd 
Then  another  voice  in  the  crowd  ex- 
claimed : 

"  'Oh !     Oh !    Madame  Baptiste ! ' 

"And  a  great  uproar,  partly  laughter 
and  partly  indignation,  arose.  The  word 
was  repeated  over  and  over  again;  peo' 
pie  stood  on  tiptoe  to  see  the  unhappji 
woman's  face;  husbands  lifted  their 
wives  up  in  their  arms  so  that  they 
might  see  her,  and  people  asked. 

"  'Which  is  she?    The  one  in  blue?' 

"The  boys  crowed  like  cocks  and 
laughter  was  heard  all  over  the  place. 

"She  did  not  move  now  on  her  state 
chair,  just  as  if  she  had  been  put  there 
for  the  crowd  to  look  at.  She  could 
not  move,  nor  dissappear.  nor  hide  her 
face.  Her  eyelids  blinked  quickly,  as  if 
a  vivid  light  were  shining  in  her  f^ce. 


REVENGE 


713 


and  she  panted  like  a  horse  that  is  go- 
ing up  a  steep  hill,  so  that  it  almost 
broke  one's  heart  to  see  it.  Meanwhile, 
however,  Monsieur  Hamot  had  seized 
the  ruffian  by  the  throat,  and  they  were 
rolling  on  the  ground  together,  amid  a 
scene  of  indescribable  confusion,  and  the 
ceremony  was  interrupted. 

"An  hour  later,  as  the  Hamots  were 
returning  home,  the  young  woman,  who 
had  not  uttered  a  word  since  the  insult, 
but  who  was  trembling  as  if  all  her 
nerves  had  been  set  in  motion  by  springs, 
suddenly  sprang  on  the  parapet  of  the 
bridge,  and  threw  herself  into  the  river, 
before  her  husband  could  prevent  it. 
The  water  is  very  deep  under  the  arches, 
and  it  was  two  hours  before  her  body 
was  recovered.  Of  course,  she  was  dead." 
The  narrator  stopped,  and  then  added: 
"It  was,  perhaps,  the  best  thins:  !=he 
could  do  in  her  position.  There  are  some 


things  which  cannot  be  wiped  out,  and 
now  you  understand  why  the  clergy  re- 
fused to  have  her  taken  into  church. 
Ah!  If  it  had  bocn  a  religious  funeral, 
the  whole  town  would  have  been  present, 
but  you  can  understand  that  her  suicide, 
added  to  the  other  affair,  made  fami- 
lies abstain  from  attending  her  funeral. 
And  then,  it  is  not  an  easy  matter,  here, 
to  attend  a  funeral  which  is  performed 
without  religious  rites." 

We  passed  through  the  cemetery 
gates,  and  I  waited,  much  moved  by 
what  I  had  heard,  until  the  coffin  had 
been  lowered  into  the  grave  before  I 
went  up  to  the  p^or  husband,  who  was 
sobbing  violently,  to  press  his  hand  vig- 
orously. He  looked  at  me  in  surprise 
through  his  tears,  and  said: 

*'Thank  you,  Monsieur." 

I  was  not  sorry  that  I  had  followed 
tte  funeral. 


Revenge 


As  they  were  still  speaking  of  Pran- 

zini,  M.  Maloureau,  who  had  been  Attor- 

l    ney-General  under  the  Empire,  said: 

|,        "I  knew  another  case  like  that,  a  very 

!'    curious  affair,  curious  from  many  points, 

as  you  shall  see. 

*T  was  at  that  time  Imperial  attorney 
in  the  province,  and  stood  very  well  at 
Court,  thanks  to  my  father,  who  was 
first  President  at  Paris.  I  had  charge 
of  a  still  celebrated  case,  called  The 
Affair  of  Schoolmaster  Moiron.* 

"M.  Moiron,  a  schoolmaster  in  the 
north  of  France,  bore  an  excellent  repu- 
tation in  all  the  country  thereabout.    He 


was  an  intelligent,  reflective,  very  re- 
ligious man,  and  had  married  in  the  dis- 
trict of  Boislinot,  where  he  practiced 
his  profession.  He  had  had  three  chil- 
dren, who  all  died  in  succession  from 
weak  lungs.  After  the  loss  of  his  own 
little  ones,  he  seemed  to  lavish  upon 
the  urchins  confided  to  his  care  all  the 
tenderness  concealed  in  his  heart.  He 
bought,  with  his  own  pennies,  playthings 
for  his  best  pupils,  the  diligent  and 
good.  He  allowed  them  to  have  play 
dinners,  and  gorged  them  with  dainties 
of  candies  and  cakes.  Everybody  loved 
arid  Draised  this  brave  man,  this  bravo 


714 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANl' 


heart,  and  it  was  like  a  blow  when  five 
of  his  pupils  died  of  the  same  disease 
that  had  carried  off  his  children.  It 
was  believed  that  an  epidemic  prevailed, 
caused  by  the  water  being  made  impure 
from  drought.  They  looked  for  the 
cause,  without  discovering  it,  more  th?n 
they  did  at  the  symptoms,  which  were 
very  strange.  The  children  appeared  to 
be  taken  with  a  languor,  could  eat  noth- 
thing,  complained  of  pains  in  the  stom- 
ach, and  finally  died  in  most  terrible 
agony. 

"An  autopsy  was  made  of  the  last  to 
die,  but  nothing  was  discovered.  The 
entrails  were  sent  to  Paris  and  analyzed, 
but  showed  no  sign  of  Lny  toxic  sub- 
6tance. 

*'For  one  year  no  further  deaths  oc- 
curred; then  two  little  boys,  the  best 
pupils  in  the  class,  favorites  of  father 
Moiron,  expired  in  four  days'  time.  An 
examinaticn  was  ordered,  and  in  each 
body  fragments  of  pounded  glass  were 
found  imbedded  in  the  organs.  They 
concluded  that  the  two  children  had 
eaten  imp-udently  of  something  care- 
lessly prepared.  Sufficient  broken  glass 
remained  in  the  bottom  of  a  bowl  of 
milk  to  have  caused  this  frightful  acci- 
dent, and  the  matter  would  have  rested 
there  had  not "  Moiron's  servant  been 
taken  ill  'n  the  interval.  The  physician 
found  the  same  morbid  signs  that  he 
observed  in  the  preceding  attacks  of  the 
children,  and,  upon  questioning  her, 
finally  obtained  the  confession  that  she 
had  stolen  and  eaten  some  bonbons, 
bought  by  the  master  for  his  pupils. 

"Upon  order  of  the  court,  the  school- 
house  was  searched  and  a  closet  was 
found,  full  of  sweetmeats  and  dainties 
for  the  children      Nearly  ''»^'  the.ce  edi- 


bles contained  fragments  of  glass  or 
broken  needles. 

"Moiron  was  immediately  arrested 
He  was  so  indignant  and  stupefied  at 
the  weight  of  suspicion  upon  him  that 
he  was  nearly  overcome.  Nevertheless, 
the  indications  of  his  guilt  were  so  ap- 
parent that  they  fought  hard  in  my  mind 
against  my  first  conviction,  which  was 
based  upon  his  good  reputation,  his  en- 
tire life  of  truthfulness,  and  the  abso- 
lute absence  of  any  motive  for  such 
a  crime. 

"Why  should  this  good,  simple  religi- 
ous man  kill  children,  and  the  children 
whom  he  seemed  to  love  best?  Why 
should  he  select  those  he  had  feasted 
with  dainties,  for  whom  he  had  spent  in 
playthings  and  bonbons  half  his  stipend? 

"To  admit  this,  it  must  be  concluded 
that  he  was  insane.  But  Moiron  seemed 
so  reasonable,  so  calm,  so  full  of  judg- 
ment and  good  sense!  It  was  impossi- 
ble to  prove  insanity  in  him. 

"Proofs  accumulated,  nevertheless  J 
Bonbons,  cakes,  pates  of  marshmallow, 
and  other  things  seized  at  the  shops 
where  the  schoolmaster  got  his  supplies. 
were  found  to  contain  no  suspected 
fragment. 

"He  pretended  that  some  unknown 
enemy  had  opened  nis  closet  with  a 
false  key  and  placed  the  glass  and  nee- 
dles in  the  eatables.  And  he  implied  a 
story  of  heritage  dependent  on  tht 
death  of  a  child,  sought  out  and  dis- 
covered by  a  peasant,  and  so  worked  up 
as  to  make  the  suspicion  fall  upon  the 
schoolmaster.  This  brute,  he  said,  wai^ 
not  interested  in  the  other  poor  chil- 
dren who  had  to  die  also. 

"This  theory  was  plausible.  The 
m,an  aDoeared  so  sure  of  himself  and  so 


REVENGE 


715 


pitiful,  that  we  should  have  acquitted 
him  without  doubt,  if  two  overwhelm- 
ing discoveries  had  not  been  made  at 
one  blow.  The  first  was  a  snuffbox  full 
of  ground  glass!  It  was  his  own  snuff- 
box, in  a  secret  drawer  of  his  secretary, 
where  he  kept  his  money. 

■'He  explained  this  in  a  manner  not 
acceptable,  by  saying  that  it  wr.s  the 
last  ruse  of  an  unknown  guilty  one. 
But  a  merchant  of  Saint-Marlouf  pre- 
sented himself  at  the  house  of  the  judge, 
telling  him  that  Moiron  had  bought 
needles  of  him  many  times,  the  finest 
needles  he  could  find,  breaking  them  to 
see  whether  they  suited  him. 

"The  merchant  brought  as  witnesses 
a  dozen  persons  who  recognized  Moiron 
at  first  glance.  And  the  inquest  revealed 
the  fact  that  the  schoolmaster  was  at 
Saint-Marlouf  on  tne  days  designated 
by  the  merchant. 

"I  pass  over  the  terrible  depositions 
of  the  children  upon  the  master's  choice 
of  dainties,  and  his  care  in  making  the 
little  ones  eat  in  his  presence  and  des- 
troying all  traces  of  the  feast. 

'Tublic  opinion,  exasperated,  re- 
called capital  punishment,  and  took  on 
a  new  force  from  terror  which  permitted 
no  delays  or  resistance. 

"Moiron  was  condemned  to  death. 
His  appeal  was  rejected.  No  recourse 
remained  to  him  for  pardon.  I  knew 
from  my  father  that  the  Emperor 
would  not  grant  it. 

"One  morning,  as  I  was  at  work  in 
my  office,  the  chaplain  of  the  prison 
was  announced.  He  was  an  old  priest 
who  had  a  great  knowledge  of  men  and 
a  large  acquaintance  among  criminals. 
He  appeared  troubled  and  constrained. 
After  talking  a  few  moments  of  other 


things,    he    said    abruptly,    on    rising: 

"  'If  Moiron  is  decapitated,  Monsieur 
Attorney-General,  you  will  have  allowed 
the  execution  of  an  innocent  man.' 

"Then,  without  bowing,  he  went  on, 
leaving  me  under  the  profound  effect  of 
his  words.  He  had  pronounced  them  in 
a  solemn,  affecting  fashion,  opening  lips, 
closed  and  sealed  by  confession,  in  order 
to  save  a  life. 

"An  hour  later  I  was  on  my  way  to 
Paris,  and  my  father,  at  my  request, 
asked  an  immediate  audience  with  the 
Emperor. 

"I  was  received  the  next  day.  Na- 
poleon III.  was  at  work  in  a  little  room 
when  we  were  introduced.  I  exposed 
the  whole  affair,  even  to  the  visit  of  the 
priest,  and,  in  the  midst  of  the  story, 
the  door  opened  behind  the  chair  of  the 
Emperor,  and  the  Empress,  who  be- 
lieved him  alone,  entered.  His 
Majesty  consulted  her.  When  she  bad 
run  over  the  facts,  she  explaimed: 

"This  man  must  be  pardoned!  He 
must,  because  he  is  innocent.' 

"Why  should  this  sudden  conviction 
of  a  woman  so  pious  throw  into  my 
mind  a  terrible  doubt? 

"Up  to  that  time  I  had  ardently  de> 
sired  a  commutation  of  the  sentence. 
And  now  I  felt  myself  the  puppet,  thf 
dupe  of  a  criminal  ruse,  which  had  em- 
ployed the  priest  and  the  confession  as 
a  means  of  defense. 

"I  showed  some  hesitation  to  their 
Majesties.  The  Emperor  remained  un- 
decided, solicited  on  one  hand  by  his 
natural  goodness,  and  on  the  other  held 
back  by  the  fear  of  allowing  himself  to 
play  a  miserable  part;  but  the  Empress, 
convinced  that  the  priest  had  obeyed 
a  divinh  call,  repeated:     'What  does  it 


716 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


matter?  It  is  better  to  spare  a  guilty 
man  than  to  kill  an  innocent  one.'  Her 
advice  prevailed.  The  penalty  of  death 
was  commuted,  and  that  of  hard  labor 
was  substituted. 

"Some  years  after  I  heard  that 
Moiron,  whose  exemplary  conduct  at 
Toulon  had  been  made  known  again  to 
the  Emperor,  was  employed  as  a  do- 
mestic by  the  director  of  the  peniten- 
tiary. And  then  I  heard  no  word  of  this 
man  for  a  long  time. 

"About  two  years  after  this,  when  I 
was  passing  the  summer  at  the  house  of 
my  cousin,  De  Larielle,  a  young  priest 
came  to  me  one  evening,  as  we  were 
sitting  down  to  dinner,  and  wished  to 
speak  to  me. 

"I  told  them  to  let  him  come  in,  and 
he  begged  me  to  go  with  him  to  a  dying 
man,  who  desired,  before  all  else,  to  see 
me.  This  had  happened  often,  during 
my  long  career  as  judge,  and,  although 
I  had  been  put  aside  by  the  Republic, 
I  was  still  called  upon  from  time  to 
time  in  like  circumstances. 

"I  followed  the  eccler.iastic,  who  made 
me  mount  into  a  little  miserable  lodging, 
under  the  roof  of  a  high  house.  There, 
upon  a  pallet  of  straw,  I  found  a  dying 
man,  seated  with  his  back  against  the 
wall,  in  order  to  breathe.  He  was  a  sort 
of  grimacing  skeleton,  with  deep,  shin- 
ing eyes. 

"When  he  saw  me  he  murmured: 
'You  do  not  know  me?' 

"  'No.' 

"  T  am  Moiron.' 

"I  shivered,  but  said:  'The  school- 
master?' 

"  'Yes.' 

"  'How  is  it  you  are  here?' 

"  'That  would  be  too  long— I  haven't 


time — I  am  going  to  die — They  brought 
me  this  curate — and  as  I  knew  you  were 
here,  I  sent  him  for  you — It  is  to  you 
that  I  wish  to  confess — since  you  saved 
my  life  before — the  other  time — ' 

"He  seized  with  his  dry  hands  the 
straw  of  his  bed,  and  continued,  in  a 
rasping,  bass  voice: 

"  'Here  it  Is — I  owe  you  the  truth — 
to  you,  because  it  is  necessary  to  tell 
it  to  some  one  before  leaving  the  earth. 

"  'It  was  I  who  killed  the  children- 
all — it  was  I — for  vengeance! 

"  'Listen.  I  was  an  honest  man,  very 
honest — very  honest — ^very  pure — ador- 
ing God— the  good  God — the  God  that 
they  teach  us  to  love,  and  not  the  false 
God,  the  executioner,  the  robber,  the 
murderer  w^ho  governs  the  earth —  I 
had  never  done  wrong,  never  committed 
a  villainous  act.  I  was  pure  as  one 
unborn. 

"  'After  I  was  married  I  had  some 
children,  and  I  began  to  love  them  as 
never  father  or  mother  loved  their  own. 
I  lived  only  for  them.  I  was  foolish. 
They  died,  all  three  of  them!  Why? 
Why?  What  had  I  done?  I?  I  had 
a  change  of  heart,  a  furious  change 
Suddenly  I  opened  my  eyes  as  of  one 
awakening;  and  I  learned  that  God  is 
wicked.  Why  had  He  killed  my  chil- 
dren? I  opened  my  eyes  and  I  saw  that 
He  loved  to  kill.  He  loves  only  that. 
Monsieur.  He  exists  only  to  destroy! 
God  is  a  murderer!  Some  death  is  nec- 
essary to  Him  every  day.  He  causes 
them  in  all  fashions,  the  better  to  amuse 
Himself.  He  has  invented  sickness  and 
accident  in  order  to  divert  Himseli 
through  all  the  long  months  and  years. 
And,  when  He  is  weary.  He  has  epidem- 
ics, pests,  the  cholera,  quinsy,  smallpox 


AN  OLD  MAID 


717 


"  *How  do  I  know  all  that  this  mon- 
ster has  imagined?  All  these  evils  are 
not  enough  to  suffice.  From  time  to 
time  He  sends  war,  in  order  to  see 
two  hundred  thousand  soldiers  laid  low, 
bruised  in  blood  and  mire,  with  arms 
and  legs  torn  off,  heads  broken  by  bul- 
lets, Lke  eggs  that  fall  along  the  road. 
*'  'That  is  not  ali.  He  has  made  men 
who  cat  one  another.  And  then,  as  men 
become  better  than  He,  He  has  made 
beasts  to  see  the  men  chase  them, 
slaughter,  and  nourish  themselves  with 
them.  That  is  not  all.  He  has  made 
all  the  little  animals  that  live  for  a  day, 
flies  which  increase  by  myriads  in  an 
hour,  ants,  that  one  crushes,  and  others, 
many,  so  many  that  we  cannot  even 
imagine  them.  And  all  kill  one  another, 
chase  one  another,  devour  one  another, 
murdering  without  ceasing.  And  the 
good  God  looks  on  and  is  amused,  be- 
cause He  sees  all  for  Himself,  the  largest 
as  well  as  the  smallest,  those  which  are 
in  drops  of  water,  as  well  ab  those  in  the 
stars.  He  looks  at  them  all  and  is 
amused !    Ugh !    Beast ! 

"  'So  I,  Monsieur,  I  also  have  killed 

some   children.     I   acted   the   part   for 

flim.    It  was  not.  He  who  had  them.    It 

f    was  not  He,  it  was   I.     And  I  would 

I    have  killed  still  more,  but  you  took  me 

i    awayc    That's  all! 


"  'I  was  going  to  die,  guillotined.  I' 
How  He  would  have  laughed,  the  reptile! 
Then  I  asked  for  a  priest,  and  lied  to 
him.     I  confessed.     I  lied,  and  I  lived 

"  'Now  it  is  finished.  I  can  no  longei 
escape  Him.  But  I  have  no  fear  of 
Him,  Monsieur,  I  understand  Him  too 
well.' 

"It  was  frightful  to  see  this  miser- 
able creature,  hardly  able  to  breathe, 
talking  in  hiccoughs,  opening  an 
enormous  mouth  to  eject  some  words 
scarcely  heard,  pulling  up  the  cloth  of 
his  straw  bed,  and,  under  a  cover  nearly 
black,  moving  his  meager  limbs  as  if 
to  save  himself. 

"Oh!  frightful  being  and  frightful 
remembrance! 

I  asked  him:  *You  hrve  nothing 
mors  to  say?' 

"  'No,  Monsieur.' 

"  'Then,  farewell.' 

"  'Farewell,  sir,  one  day  or  the 
other.' 

"I  turned  toward  the  priest  whose 
somber  silhouette  was  on  the  wall. 

"'You  will  remain,   M.   Abbe?' 

"  *I  will  remain.' 

"Then  the  dying  man  sneered:  'Yes. 
yes,  he  sends  crowc  to  dead  bod'es.' 

"As  for  me,  I  had  seen  enough.  1 
opened  the  door  and  went  away  in 
self-protection." 


An  Old  Matd 


In  Argenteuil  they  called  her  Queen  Perhaps  because  she   was  large    bony, 

Hortense.     No  one  ever  knew  the  rea-  and    imperious.      Perhaps    because    she 

son  why.     Perhaps  because   she  spoke  governed  a  multitude  of  domestic  ani- 

firmlv.    like    an    officer    in    command,  mals,    hens,    dogs,    cats,    canaries,   and 


718 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


parrots, — those  animals  so  dear  to  old 
maids.  But  she  gave  these  familiar  sub- 
jects neither  dainties,  nor  pretty  words, 
nor  those  tender  puerilities  which  seem 
to  slip  from  the  lips  of  a  woman  to 
Lhe  velvety  coat  of  the  cat  she  is  fon- 
dling. She  governed  her  beasts  with 
authority.     She  ruled. 

She  was  an  old  maid,  one  of  those  old 
maids  with  cracked  voice,  and  awkward 
gesture,  whose  soul  seems  hard.  She 
never  allowed  contradiction  from  any 
person,  nor  argument,  nor  would  she 
tolerate  hesitation,  or  indifference,  or 
idleness,  or  fatigue.  No  one  ever  heard 
her  complain,  or  regret  what  was,  or  de- 
sire what  was  not.  ''Each  to  his  part," 
she  said,  with  the  conviction  of  a  fatalist. 
She  never  went  to  church,  cared  nothing 
for  the  priests,  scarcely  believed  in  God, 
and  called  all  religious  things  * 'mourn- 
ing merchandise." 

For  thirty  years  she  had  lived  in  her 
little  house,  with  its  tiny  garden  in 
front,  extending  along  the  street,  never 
modifying  her  garments,  changing  only 
maids,  and  that  mercilessly,  when  they 
became  twenty-one  years  old. 

She  replaced,  without  tears  and  with- 
out regrets,  her  dogs  or  cats  or  birds, 
when  they  died  of  old  age,  or  by  acci- 
dent, and  she  buried  trespassing  ani- 
mals in  a  flower-bed,  heaping  the  earth 
above  them  and  treading  it  down  with 
perfect  indifference. 

She  had  in  the  town  some  acquain- 
tances, the  families  of  employers,  whose 
men  went  to  Paris  every  day.  Some- 
times they  would  invite  her  to  go  to  the 
theater  with  them.  She  inevitably  fell 
asleep  on  these  occasions,  and  they  were 
obliged  to  wake  her  when  it  was  time 
to  go  home.    She  never  allowed  anyone 


to  accompany  her,  having  no  fear  by 
night  or  day.  She  seemed  to  have  no 
love  for  children. 

She  occupied  her  time  with  a  thou- 
sand masculine  cares,  carpentry,  gar- 
dening, cutting  or  sawing  wood,  repair- 
ing her  old  house,  even  doing  mason's 
work  when  it  was  necessary. 

She  had  some  relatives  who  came  to 
see  her  twice  a  year.  Her  two  sisters, 
Madame  Cimme  and  Madame  Colum- 
bel,  were  married,  one  to  a  florist,  the 
other  to  a  small  householder.  Madame 
Cimme  had  no  children;  Madame 
Columbel  had  three.  Henry,  Pauline, 
and  Joseph.  Henry  was  twenty-one, 
Pauline  and  Joseph  were  three,  having 
come  when  one  would  have  thought  the 
mother  past  the  age.  No  tenderness 
united  this  old  maid  to  her  kinsfolk. 

In  the  spring  of  1882,  Queen  Hortense 
became  suddenly  ill.  The  neighbors 
went  for  a  physician,  whom  she  drove 
away.  When  the  priest  presented  him- 
self she  got  out  of  bed,  half  naked,  and 
put  him  out  of  doors.  The  little  maid, 
weeping,  made  gruel  for  her. 

After  three  days  in  bed,  the  situation 
became  so  grave  that  the  carpenter  liv- 
ing next  door,  after  counsel  with  the 
physician  (now  reinstated  with  author- 
ity), took  it  upon  himself  to  summon 
the  two  families. 

They  arrived  by  the  same  train,  about 
ten  o'clock  in  the  morning;  the  Colum- 
bels  having  brought  their  little  Joseph. 

When  they  approached  the  gate,  they 
saw  the  maid  seated  in  a  chair  against 
the  wall,  weeping.  The  dog  lay  asleep 
on  the  mat  before  the  door,  under  a 
broiling  sun;  two  cats,  that  looked  as  if 
dead,  lay  stretched  out  on  the  window- 
sills,  with  eyes  closed  and  paws  and  tails 


AN  OLD  MAID 


n^ 


extended  at  full  length.  A  great  glossy 
hen  was  promenading  before  the  door, 
at  the  head  of  a  flock  of  chickens,  cov- 
ered with  yellow  down,  and  in  a  large 
cage  hung  against  the  wail,  covered  with 
chickweed,  were  several  birds,  singing 
themselves  hoarse  in  the  light  of  this 
hot  spring  morning. 

Two  others,  inseparable,  in  a  Httle 
cage  in  the  form  of  a  cottage,  remained 
quiet,  side  by  side  on  their  porch. 

M.  Cimme,  a  large,  wheezy  person- 
age, who  always  entered  a  room  first, 
putting  aside  men  and  women  when  it 
was  necessary,  remarked  to  the  maid: 
"Eh,  Celeste!     Is  it  so  bad  as  that?" 

The  little  maid  sobbed  through  her 
tears : 

"She  doesn't  know  me  any  more.  The 
doctor  says  it  is  the  end." 

They  all  looked  at  one  another. 

Madame  Cimme  and  Madame  Colum- 
bel  embraced  each  other  instantly,  not 
saying  a  word. 

They  resembled  each  other  much,  al- 
ways wearing  braids  of  hair  and  shawls 
of  red  cashmere,  as  bright  as  hot  coals. 

Cimme  turned  toward  his  brother-in- 
law,  a  pale  man,  yellow  and  thin,  tor- 
mented by  indigestion,  who  limped 
badly,  and  said  to  him  in  a  serious  tone: 

"Gad!    It  was  time!" 

But  no  one  dared  to  go  into  the  room 
of  the  dying  woman  situated  on  the 
ground  floor.  Cimme  himself  stopped 
at  that  step.  Columbel  was  the  first  to 
decide  upon  it;  he  entered,  balancing 
himself  like  the  mast  of  a  ship,  making 
a  noise  on  the  floor  with  the  iron  of  his 
cane. 

The  two  women  ventured  to  follow, 
and  M.  Cimme  brought  up  the  line. 


Little  Joseph  remained  outside,  play- 
ing with  the  dog. 

A  ray  of  sunlight  fell  on  the  bed, 
lighting  up  the  hands  which  moved  ner- 
vously, opening  and  shutting  without 
ceasing.  The  fingers  moved  as  if  a 
thought  animated  them,  as  if  they  would 
signify  something,  indicate  some  idea, 
obey  some  intelligence.  The  rest  of  the 
body  remained  motionless  under  the 
covers.  The  angular  figure  gave  no 
start.     The  eyes  remained  closed. 

The  relatives  arranged  themselves  in  a 
semicircle  and,  without  saying  a  word, 
regarded  the  heaving  breast  and  the 
short  breathing.  The  little  maid  had 
followed  them,  still  shedding  tears. 

Finally,  Cimme  asked:  "What  was 
it  the  doctor  said?" 

The  servant  whispered:  "He  said  we 
should  leave  her  quiet,  that  nothing 
more  could  be  done." 

Suddenly  the  lips  of  the  old  maid 
began  to  move.  She  seemed  to  pro- 
nounce some  silent  words,  concealed  in 
her  dying  brain,  and  her  hands  quick* 
ened  their  singular  movement. 

Then  she  spoke  in  a  little,  thin  voice, 
quite  unlike  her  own,  an  utterance  that 
seemed  to  come  from  far  off,  perhaps 
from  the  bottom  of  that  heart  always 
closed. 

Cimme  walked  upon  tiptoe,  finding 
this  spectacle  painful.  Columbel,  whose 
lame  leg  wearied  him,  sat  down. 

The  two  women  remained  standing. 

Queen  Hortense  muttered  sometliing 
quickly,  which  they  were  unable  to  un- 
derstand. She  pronounced  some  names, 
called  tenderly  some  imaginary  persons: 

"Come  here,  my  little  Philip,  kiss 
your  mother.  You  love  mamma,  don't 
you,   my   child?     You,  Rose,  you  will 


720 


WOr^^S  OF  GU\"  DE  MAUPASSANT 


watch  your  little  sister  while  I  am  out. 
Especially,  don't  leave  her  alone,  do  you 
hear?  And  I  forbid  you  to  touch 
matches." 

She  was  silent  some  seconds;  then,  in 
a  loud  tone,  as  if  she  would  call,  she 
said:  "Henrietta!"  She  waited  a  little 
and  continued:  "Tell  your  father  to 
come  and  speak  to  me  before  going  to 
his  office."  Then  suddenly:  "I  am 
suffering  a  little  to-day,  dear;  promise 
me  you  will  not  return  late;  you  will 
tell  your  chief  that  I  am  ill.  You  know 
it  is  dangerous  to  leave  the  children 
alone  when  I  am  in  bed.  I  am  going  to 
make  you  a  dish  of  rice  and  sugar  for 
dinner.  The  little  ones  like  it  so  much. 
Claire  will  be  the  happy  one!" 

She  began  to  laugh,  a  young  and  noisy 
laugh,  as  she  had  never  laughed  before. 
"Look,  John,"  she  said,  "what  a  droll 
head  he  has.  He  has  smeared  himself 
with  the  sugarplums,  the  dirty  thing! 
Look!  my  dear,  how  funny  he  looks!" 

Columbel,  v;ho  changed  the  position 
of  his  lame  leg  every  moment,  mur- 
mured: "She  is  dreaming  that  she  has 
children  and  a  husband;  the  end  is 
near." 

The  two  sisters  did  not  move,  but 
seemed  surprised  and  stupid. 

The  little  maid  said:  "Will  you  take 
off  your  hats  and  your  shawls,  and  go 
into  the  other  room?" 

They  went  out  without  having  said  a 
word.  And  Columbel  followed  them 
limping,  leaving  the  dying  woman  alone 
again. 

When  they  were  relieved  of  their 
outer  garments,  the  women  seated  them- 
selves. Then  one  of  the  cats  left  the 
window,  stretched  herself,  jumped  into 
the  room,  then  upon  the  knees  of  Ma- 


dame Cimme,  who  began  to  caress  her. 

They  heard  from  the  next  room  the 
voice  of  agony,  living,  without  doubt,  in 
this  last  hour,  the  life  she  had  expected, 
living  her  dreams  at  the  very  moment 
when  all  would  be  finished  for  her. 

Cimme,  in  the  garden,  played  with 
the  lit'le  Joseph  and  the  dog,  amusing 
himself  much,  with  the  gaiety  of  a  great 
man  in  the  country,  without  thought  of 
the  dying  woman. 

But  suddenly  he  entered,  addressing 
the  maid:  "Say,  then,  my  girl,  are  you 
going  to  give  us  some  luncheon?  What 
are  you  going  to  eat,  ladies?" 

They  decided  upon  an  omelet  of  fine 
herbs,  a  piece  of  fillet  with  new  pota- 
toes, a  cheese,  and  a  cup  of  coffee. 

And  as  Madame  Columbel  was  fum- 
bling in  her  pocket  for  her  purse, 
Cimme  stopped  her,  and  turning  to  the 
maid  said,  "You  need  money?"  and 
she  answered:     "Yes,  sir." 

"How  much?" 

"Fifteen  francs." 

"Very  well.  Make  haste,  now,  my 
girl,  because  I  am  getting  hungry." 

Madame  Cimme,  looking  out  at  the 
climbing  flowers  bathed  in  the  sunlight,- 
and  at  two  pigeons  making  love  on  the: 
roof  opposite,  said,  with  a  wounded  air:: 
"It  is  unfortunate  to  have  come  for  so 
sad  an  event.  It  would  be  nice  ini  the- 
country,  to-day." 

Her  sister  sighed  without  response,, 
and  Columbel  murmured,  moved  per-- 
haps  by  the  thought  of  a  walk: 

"My  leg  plagues  me  awfully." 

Little   Joseph   and   the   dog  made   a. 
terrible  noise,  one  shouting  with  joy  and! 
the  other  barking  violently.  They  played 
at     hide-and-seek     around     the     three 


AN  OLD  MAID 


721 


flower-beds,    running    after  each   other 
like  mad. 

The  dying  woman  continued  to  call 
her  children,  chatting  with  each,  im- 
agining that  she  was  dressing  them,  that 
she  caressed  them,  that  she  was  teaching 
them  to  read:  "Come,  Simon,  repeat, 
A,  B,  C,  D.  You  do  not  say  it  well; 
see,  D,  D,  D,  do  you  hear?  Repeat, 
then—'* 

Cimme  declared :  "It  is  curious  what 
she  talks  about  at  this  time." 

Then  said  Madame  Columbel:  "It 
would  be  better,  perhaps,  to  go  in  there.'* 

But  Cimme  dissuaded  her  from  it: 

"Why  go  in,  since  we  a^e  not  able  to 
do  anything  for  her?  Besides  we  are  as 
well  off  here." 

No  one  insisted.  Madame  observ^ed 
the  two  green  birds  called  inseparable. 
She  remarked  pleasantly  upon  this  sin- 
gular fidelity,  and  blamed  men  for  not 
imitating  these  little  creatures.  Cimme 
looked  at  his  wife  inid  laughed,  singing 
with  a  bantering  ai",  "Tra-la-la,  Tra-la- 
la,"  as  if  to  say  he  could  tell  some  things 
about  her  fidelity  to  him. 

Columbel,  taken  with  cramps  in  his 
stomach,  struck  the  floor  with  his  cane. 
The  other  cat  entered,  tail  in  the  air. 
They  did  not  sit  down  at  table  until  one 
o'clock. 

When  he  had  tasted  the  wine,  Colum- 
bel, whom  some  one  had  recommended 
to  drink  only  choice  Bordeaux,  called 
the  servant: 

"Say,  is  there  nothing  better  than 
this  in  the  cellar?" 

"Yes,  sir!  there  is  some  of  the  wine 
that  was  served  to  you  when  you  were 
here  before." 

"Oh,  well,  go  and  bring  three  bottles." 

They  tasted  this  wine,  which  seemed 


excellent.  Not  that  it  proved  to  be  re- 
markable, but  it  had  been  fifteen  years 
in  the  cellar.  Cimme  declared  it  was 
just  the  wine  for  sickness. 

Columbel,  seized  with  a  desire  of 
possessing  some  of  it,  asked  of  the  maid: 
"How  much  is  left  of  it,  my  girl?" 

"Oh,  nearly  all,  sir;  Miss  never  drinks 
any  of  it.    It  is  the  heap  at  the  bottom." 

Then  Columbel  turned  toward  his 
brother-in-law:  "If  you  wish,  Cimme, 
I  will  take  this  wine  instead  of  any- 
thing else;  it  agrees  with  my  stomach 
wonderfully." 

The  hen,  in  her  turn,  had  entered 
with  her  troop  of  chickens;  the  two 
women  amused  themselves  by  throwing 
crumbs  to  them.  Joseph  and  the  dog, 
v/ho  had  eaten  enough,  returned  to  the 
garden. 

Queen  Hortense  spoke  continually, 
but  the  voice  was  lower  now,  so  that 
it  was  no  longer  possible  to  distinguish 
the  words. 

When  they  had  finished  the  coffee, 
they  all  went  in  to  learn  the  condition 
of  the  sick  one.    She  seemed  calm. 

They  went  out  and  seated  themselves 
in  a  circle  in  the  garden,  to  aid  diges- 
tion. 

Presently  the  dog  began  to  run 
around  the  chairs  with  all  speed,  carry- 
ing something  in  his  mouth.  The  child 
ran  after  him  violently.  Both  disap- 
peared into  the  house.  Cimme  fell 
asleep,  with  his  stomach  in  the  sun. 

The  dying  one  began  to  speak  loud 
again.    Then  suddenly  she  shouted. 

The  two  women  and  Columbel  has« 
tened  in  to  see  what  had  happened. 
Cimme  awakened  but  did  not  movCj 
liking  better  things  as  they  were. 

The    dying   woman    was    sitting    upn 


722 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


staring  with  hap^gard  eyes.  Her  dog, 
to  escape  the  pursuit  of  little  Joseph, 
had  jumped  upon  the  bed,  startling  her 
from  the  death  agony.  The  dog  was  in- 
trenched behind  the  pillow,  peeping  at 
his  comrade  with  eyes  glistening,  ready 
to  jump  again  at  the  least  movement. 
He  held  in  his  mouth  one  of  the  slippers 
of  his  mistress,  shorn  of  its  heel  in  the 
hour  he  had  played  with  it. 

The  child,  intimidated  by  the  woman 
rising  so  suddenly  before  him,  remained 
motionless  before  the  bed. 

The  hen,  having  just  entered,  had 
jumped  upon  a  chair,  frightened  by  the 
noise.  She  called  desperately  to  her 
chickens,     wtiich    peeped,     frightened. 


from  under  the  four  legs  of  the  seat. 

Queen  Hortense  cried  out  with  a  pierc- 
ing tone:  "No,  no,  I  do  not  wish  to 
die!  1  am  not  willing!  Who  will  bring 
up  my  children?  Who  will  care  for 
them?  Who  will  love  them?  No,  I 
am  not  willing!     I  am  not — '* 

She  turned  on  her  back.  All  was  over. 

The  dog,  much  excited,  jumped  into 
the  room  and  skipped  about. 

Columbel  ran  to  the  window  and 
called  his  brother-in-law:  "Come  quick- 
ly! come  quickly!  I  believe  she  is 
gone." 

Then  Cimme  got  up  and  resolutely 
went  into  the  room,  muttering:  "It  was 
not  as  long  as  I  should  have  believed." 


Complication 


After  swearing  for  a  long  time  that 
he  would  never  marry.  Jack  Boudillere 
suddenly  changed  his  mind.  It  happened 
one  summer  at  the  seashore,  quite  un- 
expectedly. 

One  morning,  as  he  was  extended  on 
the  sand,  watchnig  the  women  come  out 
of  the  water,  a  little  foot  caught  his  at- 
tention, because  of  its  slimness  and  deli- 
cacy. Raising  his  eyes  higher,  the  entire 
person  seemed  attractive.  Of  this  entire 
person  he  had,  however,  seen  only  the 
ankles  and  the  head,  emerging  from  a 
white  flannel  bathing  suit,  fastened  with 
care.  He  may  be  called  sensuous  and 
impressionable,  but  it  was  by  grace  of 
form  alone  that  he  was  captured.  Af- 
terward, he  was  held  by  the  charm  and 
sweet  spirit  of  the  young  girl,  who  was 
simple  and  good  and  fresh,  like  her 
"heeks  and  her  hps. 


Presented  to  the  family,  he  was 
pleased,  and  straightway  became  love- 
mad.  When  he  saw  Bertha  Lannis  at  a 
distance,  on  the  long  stretch  of  yellow 
sand,  he  trembled  from  head  to  foot. 
Near  her  he  was  dumb,  incapable  of  say- 
ing anything  or  even  of  thinking,  with  a 
kind  of  bubbling  in  his  heart,  a  hum- 
ming in  his  ears,  and  a  frightened  feel- 
ing in  his  mind.    Was  this  love? 

He  did  not  know,  he  understood  noth- 
ing of  it,  but  the  fact  remained  that  he 
was  fully  decided  to  make  this  child 
his  wife. 

Her  parents  hesitated  a  long  time,  de- 
terred by  the  bad  reputation  of  the 
young  man.  He  had  a  mistress,  it  was 
said, — an  old  mistress,  an  old  and  strong 
entanglement,  one  of  those  chains  that 
is  believed  to  be  broken,  but  which  con- 
tinues  to   hold,   nevertheless.     Beyond 


COMPLICATION 


723 


this,  he  had  loved,  for  a  longer  or  shorter 
period,  every  woman  who  had  come 
within  reach  of  his  lips. 

But  he  withdrew  from  the  woman  with 
whom  he  had  lived,  not  even  consent- 
ing to  see  her  again.  A  friend  arranged 
her  pension,  assuring  her  a  subsistence. 
Jack  paid,  but  he  did  not  wish  to  speak 
to  her,  pretending  henceforth  that  he 
did  not  know  her  name.  She  wrote 
letters  which  he  would  not  open.  Each 
week  brought  him  a  new  disguise  in  the 
handwriting  of  the  abandoned  one.  Each 
week  a  greater  anger  developed  in  him 
against  her,  and  he  would  tear  the  en- 
velope in  two,  without  opening  it,  with- 
out reading  a  line,  knowing  beforehand 
the  reproaches  and  complaints  of  the 
contents. 

One  could  scarcely  credit  her  per- 
severance, which  lasted  the  whole  winter 
long,  and  it  wap  not  until  spring  that  her 
demand  was  satisfied. 

The  marriage  took  place  in  Paris  dur- 
ing the  early  part  of  May.  It  was  de- 
cided that  they  should  not  take  the  reg- 
ular wedding  journey.  After  a  little 
ball,  composed  of  a  company  of  young 
cousins  who  would  not  stay  past  eleven 
o'clock,  and  wouM  not  prolong  forever 
the  care  of  the  day  of  ceremony,  the 
young  couple  intended  to  pass  their  first 
night  at  the  family  home  and  to  set  out 
the  next  morning  for  the  seaside,  where 
they  had  met  and  loved. 

The  night  came,  and  they  were  danc- 
ing in  the  great  drawing-room.  The 
newly-married  pair  had  withdrawn  from 
the  rest  into  a  little  Japanese  boudoir 
shut  off  by  silk  hangings,  and  scarcely 
lighted  this  evening  except  by  the  dim 
rays  from  a  colored  lantern  in  the  shape 
of  an  enormous  egg,  which  bung  from 


the  ceiling.  The  long  window  was 
open,  allowing  at  times  a  fresh  breath 
of  air  from  without  to  blow  upon  their 
faces,  for  the  evening  was  soft  and 
warm,  full  of  the  odor  of  springtime. 

They  said  nothing,  but  held  each 
other's  hands,  pressing  them  from  time 
to  time  with  all  their  force.  She  was  a 
little  dismayed  by  this  great  change  in 
her  life,  but  smiling,  emotional,  ready  to 
weep,  often  ready  to  swoon  from  joy, 
believing  the  entire  world  changed  be- 
cause of  what  had  come  to  her,  a  little 
disturbed  without  knowing  the  reason 
why,  and  feeling  all  her  body,  all  her 
soul,  enveloped  in  an  indefinable,  de- 
licious lassitude. 

Her  husband  she  watched  persistently, 
smiling  at  him  with  a  fixed  smile.  He 
wished  to  talk  but  found  nothing  to  say, 
and  remained  quiet,  putting  all  his  ardor 
into  the  pressure  of  the  hand.  From 
time  to  time  he  murmured  "Bertha!" 
and  each  time  she  raised  her  eyes  to  his 
v.ith  a  sweet  and  tender  look.  They 
would  look  at  each  other  a  moment, 
then  his  eyes,  fascinated  by  hers,  would 
fall. 

They  discovered  no  thought  to  ex- 
change. But  they  were  alone,  except  as 
a  dancing  couple  would  sometimes  cast 
a  glance  at  them  in  passing,  a  furtive 
glance,  as  if  it  were  the  discreet  and 
confidential  witness  of  a  mystery. 

A  door  at  the  side  opened,  a  domestic 
entered,  bearing  upon  a  tray  an  urgent 
letter  which  a  messenger  had  brought. 
Jack  trembled  as  he  took  it,  seized  with 
a  vague  and  sudden  fear,  the  mysterious, 
abrupt  fear  of  misfortune. 

He  looked  long  at  the  envelope,  not 
knowing  the  handwriting,  not  daring  to 
open  it.  wishing  not   to   read,   not   to 


724 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


know  the  contents,  desiring  to  put  it  in 
his  pocket  and  to  say  to  himself :  "To- 
morrow, to-morrow,  I  shall  be  far 
away  and  it  will  not  matter!"  But 
upon  the  corner  were  two  words  under- 
lined :  very  urgent,  which  frightened  him. 
"You  will  permit  me,  my  dear,"  said 
he,  and  he  tore  off  the  wrapper.  He 
read  the  letter,  growing  frightfully  pale, 
running  over  it  at  a  glance,  and  then 
seeming  to  spell  it  out. 

When  he  raised  his  head  his  whole 
countenance  was  changed.  He  stam- 
mered: "My  dear  little  one,  a  great 
misfortune  has  happened  to  my  best 
friend.  He  needs  me  immediately,  in  a 
matter  of — of  life  and  death.  Allow  me 
to  go  for  twenty  minutes.  I  will  re- 
turn immediately." 

She,  trembling  and  affrighted,  mur- 
mured: "Go,  my  friend!"  not  yet  be- 
ing enough  of  a  wife  to  dare  to  ask  or 
demand  to  know  anything.  And  he  dis- 
appeared. She  remained  alone,  listen- 
ing to  the  dance  music  in  the  next  room. 

He  had  taken  a  hat,  the  first  he  could 
find,  and  descended  the  staircase  upon 
the  run.  As  soon  as  he  was  mingled 
with  the  people  on  the  street,  he  stopped 
under  a  gaslight  in  a  vestibule  and  re- 
read the  letter.    It  said: 

"Sir:  The  Ravet  girl,  your  old  mis- 
tress, has  given  birth  to  a  child  which  she 
asserts  is  yours.  The  mother  is  dying 
and  implores  you  to  visit  her.  I  take 
the  liberty  of  writing  to  you  to  ask 
whether  you  will  grant  the  last  wish  of 
this  woman,  who  seems  to  be  very  un- 
happy and  worthy  of  pity. 
"Your  servant, 

D.  BONNARD." 

When   he    entered    the    chamber    of 
death,  the  was  already  in  the  last  agony. 


He  would  not  have  known  her.  The  phy- 
sician and  the  two  nurses  were  caring 
for  her,  dragging  across  the  room  some 
buckets  full  of  ice  and  linen. 

Water  covered  the  floor,  two  tapers 
were  burning  on  a  table;  behind  the 
bed,  in  a  little  wicker  cradle,  a  child 
was  crying,  and,  with  each  of  its  cries, 
the  mother  would  try  to  move,  shivering 
under  the  icy  compresses. 

She  was  bleeding,  wounded  to  death, 
killed  by  this  birth.  Her  life  was  slip- 
ping away;  and,  in  spite  of  the  ice,  in 
spite  of  all  care,  the  hemorrhage  con- 
tinued, hastening  her  last  hour. 

She  recognized  Jack,  and  tried  to  raise 
her  hand.  She  was  too  weak  for  that, 
but  the  warm  tears  began  to  glide  down 
her  cheeks. 

He  fell  on  his  knees  beside  the  bed, 
seized  one  of  her  hands  and  kissed  it 
frantically;  then,  little  by  little,  he  ap- 
proached nearer  to  the  wan  face  which 
strained  to  meet  him.  One  of  the  nurses, 
standing  with  a  taper  in  her  hand,  ob- 
served them,  and  the  doctor  looked  at 
them  from  the  remote  corner  of  the 
room. 

With  a  far-off  voice,  breathing  hard, 
she  said:  "I  am  going  to  die,  my  dear; 
promise  me  you  will  remain  till  the  end. 
Oh!  do  not  leave  me  now,  not  at  the 
last  moment!" 

He  kissed  her  brow,  her  hair  with  a 
groan.  "Be  tranquil!"  he  murmured,  "I 
will  stay." 

It  was  some  minutes  before  she  was 
able  to  speak  again,  she  was  so  weak 
and  overcome.  Then  she  continued: 
"It  is  yours,  the  little  one.  I  swear  it 
before  God,  I  swear  it  to  you  upon  my 
soul,  I  swear  it  at  the  moment  of  death. 
I  have  never  loved  any  man  but  you— 


COMPLICATION 


725 


promise  me  not  to  abandon  it — '*  He 
tried  to  take  in  his  arms  the  poor,  weak 
body,  emptied  of  its  life  blood.  He 
stammered,  excited  by  remorse  and 
chagrin:  "I  swear  to  you  I  will  bring 
it  up  and  love  it.  It  shall  never  be 
separated  from  me."  Then  she  held 
Jack  in  an  embrace.  Powerless  to  raise 
her  head,  she  held  up  her  blanched  lips 
in  an  appeal  for  a  kiss.  He  bent  his 
mouth  to  receive  this  poor,  suppliant 
caress. 

Calmed  a  little,  she  murmured  in  a 
low  tone:  "Take  it,  that  I  may  see  that 
you  love  it." 

He  placed  it  gently  on  the  bed  be- 
tween them.  The  little  creature  ceased 
to  cry.  She  whispered:  "Do  not  stirl'* 
And  he  remained  motionless.  There 
he  stayed,  holding  in  his  burning  palms 
a  hand  that  shook  with  the  shiver  of 
death,  as  he  had  held,  an  hour  before, 
another  hand  that  had  trembled  with 
the  shiver  of  love.  From  time  to  time 
he  looked  at  the  hour,  with  a  furtive 
glance  of  the  eye,  watching  the  hand 
as  it  passed  midnight,  then  one  o'clock, 
then  two. 

The  doctor  retired.  The  two  nurses, 
after  roaming  around  for  some  time  with 
light  step,  slept  now  in  their  chairs. 
The  child  slept,  and  the  mother,  whose 
eyes  were  closed,  seemed  to  be  resting 
also. 

Suddenly,  as  the  pale  daylight  began 
cO  filter  through  the  torn  curtains,  she 
extended  her  arms  with  so  startling  and 
violent  a  motion  that  she  almost  threw 
the  child  upon  the  floor.  There  was  a 
rattling  in  her  throat;  then  she  turned 
over  motionless,  dead. 

The  nurses  hastened  to  her  side,  de- 
claring:    "It  is  over." 


He  looked  once  at  this  woman  he  had 
loved,  then  at  the  hand  that  marked 
four  o'clock,  and,  forgetting  his  over- 
coat, fled  in  his  evening  clothes  with 
the  child  in  his  arms. 

After  she  had  been  left  alone,  his 
young  bride  had  waited  calmly  at  first, 
in  the  Japanese  boudoir.  Then,  seeing 
that  he  did  not  return,  she  went  back 
to  the  drawing-room,  indifferent  and 
tranquil  in  appearance,  but  frightfully 
disturbed.  Her  mother,  perceiving  her 
alone,  asked  where  her  husband  was. 
She  replied:  "In  his  room;  he  will  re- 
turn presently." 

At  the  end  of  an  hour,  as  everybody 
asked  about  him,  she  told  of  the  letter, 
of  the  change  in  Jack's  face,  and  her 
fears  of  some  misfortune. 

They  still  waited.  The  guests  had 
gone;  only  the  parents  and  ner  rela- 
tives remained.  At  midnight,  they  put 
the  bride  in  her  bod,  shaking  with  sobs. 
Her  mother  and  two  aunts  were  seated 
on  the  bed  listening  to  her  weeping. 
Her  father  had  gone  to  the  police  head- 
quarters to  make  inquiries.  At  five 
o'clock  a  light  sound  was  heard  in  the 
corridor.  The  door  opened  and  closed 
softly.  Then  suddenly  a  cry,  like  the 
mewing  of  a  cat,  went  through  the 
house,  breaking  the  silence. 

All  the  women  of  the  house  were 
out  with  one  bound,  and  Bertha  was  the 
first  to  spring  forward,  in  spite  of  her 
mother  and  her  aunt,  clothed  only  in 
her   night-robe. 

Jack,  standing  in  the  middle  of  the 
room,  livid,  breathing  hard,  held  the 
child  in  his  arms. 

The  four  v;omen  looked  at  him 
frightened:  but  Bertha  suddenly  became 


y^o 


WORKS  OF  GUY  D£  MAUPASSANT 


rash,  her  heart  wrung  with  anguish,  and 
ran  to  him  saying:  ''What  is  it?  What 
have  you  there?" 

He  had  a  foolish  air,  and  answered 
in  a  husky  voice:  "It  is — it  is — I  have 
here  a  child,  whose  mother  has  just 
died."  And  he  put  into  her  arms  the 
howling  little  marmot. 

Bertha,  without  saying  a  word,  seized 
the  child  and  embraced  it,  straining  it  to 


her  heart.  Then,  turning  toward  her 
husband  with  her  eyes  full  of  tears, 
she  said:  "The  mother  is  dead,  you 
say?"  He  answered:  *'Yes,  just  died — 
in  my  arms — I  had  broken  with  her 
since  last  summer  —  I  knew  nothing 
about  it — only  the  doctor  sent  for  me 
and—" 

Then  Bertha  murmured:     "Well,  we 
will  bring  up  this  little  one." 


Forgiveness 


Sh^  had  been  brought  up  in  one  of 
those  families  Vvrho  live  shut  up  within 
themselves,  entirely  apart  from  the  rest 
of  the  world.  They  pay  no  attention  to 
political  e\'ents,  except  to  chat  about 
them  at  the  table,  and  changes  in 
government  seem  so  far,  so  very  far 
away  that  they  are  spoken  of  only  as 
a  matter  of  history — like  the  death  of 
Louis  XVL,  or  the  advent  of  Napoleon. 

Customs  change,  fashions  succeed 
each  other,  but  changes  are  never 
perceptible  in  this  family,  where  old 
traditions  are  always  followed.  And  if 
some  impossible  story  arises  in  the 
neighborhood,  the  scandal  of  it  dies 
at  the  threshold  of  this  house. 

The  father  and  mother,  alone  in  the 
evening,  sometimes  exchange  a  few 
words  on  such  a  subject,  but  in  an 
undertone,  as  if  the  walls  had  ears. 

With  great  discretion,  the  father  says: 
"Do  you  know  about  this  terrible  affair 
in  the  Rivoil  family?" 

And  the  mother  replies :  "Who  would 
have  believed  it?    It  is  frightful!" 

'2h&  children  doubt  nothing,  but  come 


to  the  age  of  living,  in  their  turn,  wit^ 
a  bandage  over  their  eyes  and  minds, 
without  knowing  that  one  does  not; 
always  think  as  he  speaks,  nor  speaks 
as  he  acts,  without  knowing  that  it  iS 
necessary  to  live  at  war  with  the  wor)d, 
or  at  least,  in  armed  peace,  without 
surmising  that  the  ingenuous  are  fre- 
quently d'^ceived,  the  sincere  triced 
with,  and  the  good  wronged. 

Some  live  until  death  in  this  bl^nd* 
ness  of  probity,  loyalty,  and  honor;  so 
upright  that  nothing  can  open  their 
eyes.  Others,  undeceived,  wi-hout 
knowing  much,  are  weighed  down  with 
despair,  and  die  believing  that  they 
are  the  puppets  of  an  cxcepdonal 
fatality  the  miserable  victims  oi  un- 
lucky circumstances  or  particular!/  bad 
men. 

The  Savignols  arranged  a  marriage 
for  their  daughter  when  she  was 
eighteen.  She  married  a  youn^  man 
from  Paris,  George  Barton,  whose  busi- 
ness was  on  the  Exchange.  He  was  an 
attractive  youth,  with  a  smooth  tongue, 
and    he     observed     all     the     outwai-d 


i-ORGIVENESS 


727 


proprieties  necessary.  But  at  the  bottom, 
of  bis  beart  be  sneered  a  little  at  bis 
guileless  parents-in-law,  calling  tbem, 
among  his  friends,  "My  dear  fossils." 

He  belonged  to  a  good  family,  and 
the  young  girl  was  rich.  He  took  her 
to  live  in  Paris. 

She  became  one  of  the  provincials 
of  Paris,  of  whom  there  are  many.  She 
remained  ignorant  of  the  great  city, 
of  its  elegant  people,  of  its  pleasures 
and  its  customs,  as  she  had  always  been 
ignorant  of  the  perfidy  and  mystery  of 
life. 

Shut  up  in  her  own  household,  she 
scarcely  knew  the  street  she  lived  in, 
and  when  she  ventured  into  another 
quarter,  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  had 
journeyed  far,  into  an  unknown,  strange 
city.     She  would  say  in  the  evening: 

"I  crossed   the  boulevards   to-day." 

Two  or  three  times  a  year,  her  hus- 
band took  her  to  the  theater.  These 
were  feast-days  not  to  be  forgotten, 
which  she  recalled  continually. 

Sometimes  at  table,  three  months  af- 
terward, she  would  suddenly  burst  out 
laughing  and  e:xclaim: 

**Do  you  remember  that  ridiculous 
actor  who  imitated  the  cock's  crowing?'* 

AH  her  interests  were  within  the 
boundaries  of  the  two  allied  families, 
^ho  represented  the  whole  of  humanity 
vO  her.  She  designated  them  by  the 
distinguishing  prefix  "the,"  calling  them 
respectively  "the  Martinets,"  or  "the 
Michelins." 

Her  husband  lived  according  to  his 
fancy,  returning  whenever  he  wished, 
sometimes  at  daybreak,  pretending  busi- 
ness, and  feeling  in  no  way  constrained, 
so  sure  was  he  that  no  suspicion  would 
njffle  this  candid  soul. 


But  one  morning  she  received  an 
anonymous  letter.  She  was  too  mu^h 
astonished  and  dismayed  to  scorn  this 
letter,  whose  author  declared  himself  to 
be  moved  by  interest  in  her  happiness, 
by  hatred  of  all  evil  and  love  of  truth. 
Her  heart  was  too  pure  to  understand 
fully  the   meaning  of  the   accusations. 

But  it  revealed  to  her  that  her  hus- 
band had  had  a  mistress  for  two  years, 
a  young  widow,  Mrs.  Rosset,  at  whose 
house  Le  passed  his  evenings. 

She  knew  neither  how  to  pretend,  nor 
to  spy,  nor  to  plan  any  sort  of  ruse. 
When  he  returned  for  luncheon,  she 
threw  him  the  letter,  sobbing,  and  then 
fled  to  her  room. 

He  had  time  to  comprehend  the  mat* 
ter  and  prepare  his  response  before  he 
rapped  at  his  wife's  door.  She  opened 
it  immediately,  without  looking  at  him. 
He  smiled,  sat  down,  and  drew  her  to 
his  knee.  In  a  sweet  voice,  and  a  little 
jocosely,  he  said: 

"My  dear  little  one,  Mrs.  Rosset  is 
a  friend  of  mine.  I  have  known  her 
for  ten  years  and  like  her  very  much. 
I  may  add  that  I  know  twenty  other 
families  of  whom  I  have  not  spoken  to 
you,  knowing  that  you  care  nothing  for 
the  world  or  for  forming  new  friend- 
ships. But  in  order  to  finish,  once  for 
all,  these  infamous  lies,  I  will  ask  you 
to  dress  yourself,  after  luncheon,  and 
we  will  go  to  pay  a  visit  to  this  young 
lady,  who  will  become  your  friend  at 
once,  I  am  sure."  She  embraced  her 
husband  eagerly;  and,  from  feminine 
curio<=ity,  which  no  sooner  sleeps  than 
wakes  again,  she  did  not  refuse  to  go  to 
see  this  unknown  woman,  of  whom,  in 
spite  ot  all,  she  was  still  suspicious.  She 


728 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


felt  by  instinct  that  a  known  danger  is 
sooner  overcome. 

They  were  ushered  into  a  little  apart- 
ment on  the  fourth  floor  of  a  handsome 
house.  It  was  a  coquettish  little  place, 
full  of  bric-a-brac  ana  ornamented  with 
works  of  art.  After  about  five  minutes' 
waiting,  in  a  drawing-room  where  the 
light  was  dimmed  by  its  generous  win- 
dow draperies  and  portieres,  a  door 
opened  and  a  young  woman  appeared. 
She  was  very  dark,  small,  rather  plump, 
and  looked  astonished,  although  she 
smiled.  George  presented  them.  "My 
wife,  Madame  Julie  Rosset." 

The  young  widow  uttered  a  little  cry 
of  astonishment  and  joy,  and  came  for- 
ward with  both  hands  extended.  She 
had  not  hoped  for  this  happiness,  she 
said,  knowing  that  Madame  Barton  saw 
no  one.  But  she  was  so  happy!  She 
was  so  fond  of  George!  (She  said 
George  quite  naturally,  with  sisterly 
familiarity.)  And  she  had  had  great 
desire  to  know  his  young  wife,  and  to 
love  her,  too. 

At  the  end  of  a  month  these  two 
friends  were  never  apart  from  each 
other.  They  met  every  day,  often  twice 
a  day,  and  nearly  always  dined  together, 
either  at  one  house  or  at  the  other. 
George  scarcely  even  went  out  now,  no 
longer  pretended  delay  on  account  of 
business,  but  said  he  loved  his  own 
chimney  corner. 

Finally,  an  apartment  was  left  vacant 
in  the  house  where  Madame  Rosset  re- 
sided. Madame  Barton  hastened  to  take 
it  in  order  to  be  nearer  her  new  friend. 

During  two  whole  years  there  was  a 
friendship  between  them  without  a 
cloud,  a  friendship  of  heart  and  soul, 
tender,  devoted,  and  delightful.    Bertha 


could  not  speak  without  mentioning 
Julie's  name,  for  to  her  Julie  represented 
perfection.  She  was  happy  with  a  per* 
feet  happiness,  calm  and  secure. 

But  Madame  Rosset  fell  ill.  Bertha 
never  left  her.  She  passed  nights  of 
despair;  her  husband,  too,  was  broken* 
hearted. 

One  morning,  in  going  out  from  his 
visit  the  doctor  took  George  and  his 
wife  aside,  and  announced  that  he  found 
the  condition  of  their  friend  very  grave. 

When  he  had  gone  out,  the  young  peo- 
ple, stricken  down,  looked  at  each  other 
and  then  began  to  weep. 

They  both  watched  that  night  near 
the  bed.  B'^rtha  would  embrace  the  sick 
one  tenderly,  while  George,  standing 
silently  at  the  foot  of  her  couch,  would 
look  at  them  with  dogged  persistence. 
The  next  day  she  was  worse. 

Finally,  toward  evening,  she  declared 
herself  better,  and  persuaded  her  friends 
to  go  home  lo  dinner. 

They  were  sitting  sadly  at  table, 
scarcely  eating  anything,  when  the  maid 
brought  George  an  envelope.  He  opened 
it,  turned  pale,  and  rising,  said  to  his 
wife,  in  a  constrained  way:  "Excuse 
me,  I  must  leave  you  for  a  moment.  I 
will  return  in  ten  minutes.  Please  don't 
go  out."  And  he  ran  into  his  room  for 
his  hat. 

Bertha  waited,  tortured  by  a  new  fear. 
But,  yielding  in  all  things,  she  would  not 
go  up  to  her  friend's  room  again  until 
he  had  returned. 

As  he  did  not  re-appear,  the  thought 
came  to  her  to  look  in  his  room  to  see 
whether  he  had  taken  his  gloves,  which 
would  show  whether  he  had  really  gone 
somewhere. 


FORGIVENESS 


1l<9 


She  saw  them  there,  at  first  glance. 
Near  them  lay  a  rumpled  paper. 

She  recognized  it  immediately;  it 
was  the  one  that  had  called  George 
away. 

And  a  burning  temptation  took  pos- 
session of  her,  the  first  of  her  life,  to 
read — to  know.  Her  conscience  strug- 
gled in  revolt,  but  curiosity  lashed  her 
on  and  grief  directed  her  hand.  She 
seized  the  paper,  opened  it,  recognized 
the  trembling  handwriting  as  that  of 
Julie,  and  read: 

"Come  alone  and  embrace  me,  my  poor 
friend;  I  am  going  to  die." 

She  could  not  understand  it  all  at 
once,  but  stood  stupefied,  struck  especi- 
ally by  the  thought  of  death.  Then,  sud- 
denly, the  familiarity  of  it  seized  upon 
her  mind.  This  came  like  a  great  light, 
illuminating  her  whole  life,  showing  her 
the  infamous  truth,  all  their  treachery, 
all  their  perfidy.  She  saw  now  their 
cunning,  their  sly  looks,  her  good  faith 
played  with,  her  confidence  turned  to 
account.  She  saw  them  looking  into 
each  other's  faces,  under  the  shade  of 
her  lamp  at  evening,  reading  from  the 
same  book,  exchanging  glances  at  the 
end  of  certain  pages. 

And  her  heart,  stirred  with  indigna- 
tion, bruised  with  suffering,  sunk  into 
an  abyss  of  despair  that  had  no  bound- 
aries. 

When  she  heard  steps,  she  fled  and 
shut  herself  in  her  room. 

Her  husband  called  her:  "Come 
quickly,  Madame  Rosset  is  dying!" 

Bertha  appeared  at  her  door  and  said 
with  trembling  lip: 

"Go  alone  to  her;  she  has  no  need  of 
tne 


He  looked  at  her  sheepishly,  careless 
from  anger,  and  repeated: 

"Quick,  quick!     She  is  dying!" 

Bertha  answered:  "You  would  prefer 
it  to  be  I." 

Then  he  understood,  probably,  and 
left  her  to  herself,  going  up  again  to  the 
dying  one. 

There  he  wept  without  fear,  or  shame, 
indifferent  to  the  grief  of  his  wife,  who 
would  no  longer  speak  to  him,  nor  look 
at  him,  but  who  lived  shut  in  with  her 
disgust  and  angry  revolt,  praying  to 
God  morning  and  evening. 

They  lived  together,  nevertheless, 
eating  together  face  to  face,  mute  and 
hopeless. 

After  a  time,  he  tried  to  appease  her 
a  little.  But  she  would  not  forget.  And 
so  the  life  continued,  hard  for  them 
both. 

For  a  whole  year  they  lived  thus, 
strangers  one  to  the  other.  Bertha  al- 
most became  mad. 

Then  one  morning,  having  set  out  at 
dawn,  she  returned  toward  eight  o'clock 
carrying  in  both  hands  an  enormous 
bouquet  of  roses,  of  white  roses,  all 
white. 

She  sent  v;ord  to  her  husband  that 
she  would  hke  to  speak  to  him.  He 
came  in  disturbed,  troubled. 

"Let  us  go  out  together,'*  she  said  to 
him.  "Take  these  flowers,  they  are  too 
heavy  for  me." 

He  took  the  bouquet  and  followed  his 
wife.  A  carriage  awaited  them,  which 
started  as  soon  as  they  were  seated. 

It  stopped  before  the  gate  of  a  ceme- 
tery. Then  Bertha,  her  eyes  full  of 
tears,  said  to  George:  "Take  me  to  hei 
grave." 


730 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


He  trembled,  without  knowing  why, 
but  walked  on  before,  holding  the 
flowers  in  his  arms.  Finally  h^  stopped 
before  a  shaft  of  white  marble  and 
pointed  to  it  without  a  word. 

She  took  the  bouquet  from  him,  and, 
kneeling,  placed  it  at  the  foot  ot  the 


grave.     Then   her  heart  was  raised  in 

suppliant,  silent  prayer. 

Her  husband  stood  behind  her,  weep- 
ing, haunted  by  memories. 

She  arose  and  put  out  her  hands  to  him. 

*'If  you  wish,  we  will  be  friends,"  sh« 
said. 


The  White  Wolf 


This  is  the  story  the  old  Marquis 
d'ArvlUe  toIJ  us  after  a  dinner  i.i  honor 
of  Sami-Hubert,  at  the  house  of  B^ron 
des  Ravels.  They  had  run  down  a  stag 
that  day.  The  Marquis  v;as  the  only 
one  of  the  guests  who  had  not  taken 
part  in  the  chase.    He  never  hunted. 

During  the  whole  of  th2  long  repast, 
they  had  talked  of  scarcely  anything  but 
the  massacre  of  animals.  Even  the 
ladies  interested  themselves  in  the 
sanguinary  and  often  unlikely  stories, 
while  the  orators  mimicked  the  attacks 
and  combats  between  man  and  beast, 
raising  their  arms  and  speaking  in 
thunderous  tones. 

M.  d'Arville  talked  much,  with  a  cer- 
tain poesy,  a  little  flourish,  but  full  of 
effect.  He  must  have  repeated  this 
story  often,  it  ran  so  smoothly,  never 
halting  at  a  choice  of  words  in  which  to 
clothe  an  image. 

"Gentlemen,  I  never  hunt,  nor  did  my 
father,  nor  my  grandfather,  nor  my 
great-great-grandfather.  The  last  named 
was  the  son  of  a  man  who  hunted  more 
than  all  of  you.  He  died  in  1764.  I 
will  tell  you  how.  He  was  named  John, 
and  was  married,  and  became  the  father 
of  the  man  who  was  my  great-great- 
grandfather.   He  lived  with  his  younger 


brother,  Francis  d'Arville,  in  our  castle, 
in  the  midst  of  a  deep  forest  in  Lor- 
raine. 

"Francis  d'Arville  always  remained  a 
boy  through  Lis  love  for  hunting.  They 
both  hunted  from  one  end  of  the  year 
to  the  other  without  cessation  or  weari- 
ness. They  loved  nothing  else,  under-^ 
stood  nothing  else,  talked  only  of  this, 
and  lived  for  this  alone. 

"They  were  possessed  by  this  terri^ 
ble,  inexorabh  passion.  It  consumed 
them,  having  taken  entire  control  of 
them,  leaving  no  place  for  anything  else. 
They  had  agreed  not  to  put  off  the  chase 
for  any  reason  whatsoever.  My  great- 
great-grandfather  was  born  while  his 
father  was  following  a  fcx,  but  John 
d'Arville  did  not  interrupt  his  sport,  and 
swore  that  the  little  beggar  might  have 
v.-aited  until  after  the  death-cry!  His 
brother  Francis  showed  himself  still 
more  hot-headed  than  he.  The  first 
thing  on  rising,  he  would  go  to  see  the 
dogs,  then  the  horses;  then  he  would 
shoot  some  birds  about  the  place,  even 
when  about  to  set  out  hunting  big  game. 

"They  were  called  in  the  country 
Monsieur  the  Marquis  and  Monsieur 
the  Cadet,  noblemen  then  not  acting  as 
do  those  of  our  time,  who  wish  to  estab-/ 


THE  WHITE  WOLF 


731 


lish  in  their  titles  a  descending  scale  of 
rank,  for  the  son  of  a  marquis  is  no 
pore  a  count,  or  the  son  of  a  viscount 
a  baron,  than  the  son  of  a  general  is  a 
colonel  by  birth.  But  the  niggardly  van- 
ity of  the  day  finds  profit  in  this  ar- 
rangement.   To  return  to  my  ancestors: 

*They  were,  it  appears,  immoderately 
large,  bony,  hairy,  violent,  and  vigorous. 
The  younger  one  was  taller  than  the 
elder,  and  had  such  a  voice  that,  accord- 
ing to  a  legend  he  was  very  proud  of, 
all  the  leaves  of  the  forest  moved  when 
he  shouted. 

"And  when  mounted,  ready  for  the 
chase,  it  must  have  been  a  superb  sight 
to  see  these  two  giants  astride  their 
great  horses. 

"Toward  the  middle  of  the  winter  of 
that  year,  1764,  the  cold  was  excessive 
and  the  wolves  became  ferocious. 

"They  even  attaclicd  belated  peasants, 
roamed  around  houses  at  night,  howled 
from  sunset  to  sunrise,  and  ravaged  the 
stables. 

"At  one  time  a  rumor  was  circulated. 
It  was  said  that  a  colossal  wolf,  of  gray- 
ish-white color,  which  had  eaten  two 
children,  devoured  the  arm  of  a  woman, 
strangled  all  the  watchdogs  of  the  coun- 
try, was  now  coming  without  fear  into 
the  house  inclosures  and  smelling  around 
the  doors.  Many  inhabitants  affirmed 
that  they  had  felt  his  breath,  which 
made  the  lights  flicker.  Shortly  a  panic 
ran  through  all  the  province.  No  one 
dared  to  go  out  after  nightfall.  The 
very  shadows  seemed  haunted  by  the 
image  of  this  beast. 

"The  brothers  D'Arville  resolved  to 
nr)d  and  slay  him.  So  they  called  to- 
gether for  a  g"*and  chase  all  the  gentle- 
men of  the  country. 


"It  was  in  vain.  They  had  beaten  the 
forests  and  scoured  the  thickets,  but 
had  seen  nothing  of  him.  They  killed 
wolves,  but  not  that  one.  And  each 
night  after  such  a  chase,  the  beast,  as 
if  to  avenge  himself,  attacked  some 
traveler,  or  devoured  some  cattle,  al- 
ways far  from  the  place  where  they  had 
sought  him. 

"Finally,  one  night  he  found  a  way 
into  the  swine-house  of  the  castle  D'Ar- 
v!ll3  and  ate  two  beauties  of  the  best 
breed. 

"The  two  brothers  were  furious,  in- 
terpreting the  attack  as  one  of  bravado 
on  the  part  of  the  monster — a  direct  in- 
jury, a  defiance.  Therefore,  taking  all 
their  best-trained  hounds,  they  set  out 
to  run  down  the  beast,  v/ith  courage  ex- 
cited by  anger. 

"From  dawn  until  the  sun  descended 
behind  the  great  nut-trees,  they  beat 
about  forests  with  no  result. 

"At  last,  both  of  them,  angry  and  dis- 
heartened, turned  their  horces'  steps  into 
a  by  path  bordered  by  rushwood.  They 
were  marveling  at  the  baffling  power  of 
this  v/olf,  when  suddenly  they  were 
seized  with  a  mysterious  fear. 

"The  elder  said: 

"  This  can  be  no  ordinary  beast. 
One  might  say  he  can  think  like  a  man.* 

"The  younger  replied: 

"  Terhaps  we  should  get  our  cousin, 
the  Bishop,  to  bless  a  bullet  for  him,  or 
ask  a  priest  to  pronounce  some  words 
to  help  us.' 

"Then  they  were  silent. 

"John  continued:  'Look  at  the  sun, 
how  red  it  is.  The  great  wolf  will  do 
mischief  to-night.' 

"He  had  scarcely  finished  speaking 
ryhen  his  horse  reared.     Francis's  horse 


732 


WORKS  OF  GUY  D£  MAUPASSANT 


started  to  run  at  the  same  time.  A  large 
bush  covered  with  dead  leaves  rose  be- 
fore them,  and  a  colossal  beast,  grayish 
white,  sprang  out,  scampering  away 
through  the  wood. 

"Both  gave  a  grunt  of  satisfaction, 
and  bending  to  the  necks  of  their  heavy 
horses,  they  urged  them  on  with  the 
weight  of  their  bodies,  excitiiig  them, 
hastening  with  voice  and  spur,  until 
these  strong  riders  seemed  to  carry  the 
weight  of  their  beasts  between  their 
knees,  carrying  them  by  force  as  if  they 
were  flying. 

"Thus  they  rode,  crashing  through 
forests,  crossing  ravines,  climbing  up  the 
sides  of  steep  gorges,  and  sounding  the 
horn,  at  frequent  intervals,  to  arouse 
the  people  and  the  dogs  of  the  neigh- 
borhood. 

"But  suddenly,  in  the  course  of  this 
breakneck  ride,  my  ancestor  struck  his 
forehead  against  a  large  branch  and 
fractured  h's  skull.  He  fell  tJ  the 
ground  as  if  dead,  while  his  frightened 
horse  disappeared  in  the  surrounding 
thicket. 

"The  younger  D'Arville  stopped  short, 
sprang  to  the  ground,  seized  his  brother 
in  his  arms,  and  saw  that  he  had  lost 
consciousness. 

"He  sat  down  beside  him,  took  his  dis- 
figured head  upon  his  knees,  looking 
earnestly  ai  the  lifeless  face.  Little  by 
little  a  fear  crept  over  him,  a  strange 
fear  that  he  had  never  before  felt,  fear 
of  the  shadows,  of  the  solitude,  of  the 
lonely  woods,  and  also  of  the  chimerical 
wolf,  which  had  now  come  to  be  the 
death  of  his  brother. 

"The  shadows  deepened,  the  branches 
of  the  trees  crackled  in  the  sharp  cold. 
Francis  arose  shivering,  incapable  of  re- 


maining there  longer,  and  already  feel* 
inj  his  strength  fail.  There  was  noth- 
ing to  be  heard,  neither  the  voice  of 
dogs  nor  the  sound  of  a  horn;  all  within 
this  invisible  horizon  was  mute.  And  in 
this  gloomy  silence  and  the  chill  of 
evening  there  was  something  strange 
and  frightful. 

"With  his  powerful  hands  he  seized 
John's  body  and  laid  it  across  the  sad- 
dle to  take  it  home;  then  mounted  gently 
behind  it,  his  mind  troubled  by  horrible, 
supernatural  images,  as  if  he  were  pos- 
sessed. 

"Suddenly,  in  the  midst  of  these  fears, 
a  great  form  passed.  It  was  the  wolf. 
A  violent  fit  of  terror  seized  upon  the 
hunter;  something  cold,  like  a  stream 
cf  ice-water  seemed  to  glide  through 
his  veins,  and  he  made  the  sign  of  the 
cross,  like  a  monk  haunted  with  devils, 
so  dismayed  was  he  by  the  reappear- 
ance of  the  frightful  wanderer.  Then, 
his  eyes  falling  upon  the  inert  body 
before  him,  his  fear  was  quickly  changed 
to  anger,  and  he  trembled  with  inordi- 
nate rage. 

"He  pricked  his  horse  and  darted 
after  him. 

"He  followed  him  through  copses, 
over  ravines,  and  around  great  forest 
trees,  traversing  woods  that  he  no  longer 
recognized,  his  eye  fixed  upcn  a  white 
spot,  which  was  ever  flying  from  him 
as  night  covered  the  earth. 

"His  horse  also  seemed  moved  by  an 
unknown  force.  He  galloped  on  with 
neck  extended,  crashing  over  small  trees 
and  rocks,  with  the  body  of  the  dead 
stretched  across  him  on  the  saddle 
Brambles  caught  in  his  mane;  his  head, 
where  it  had  struck  the  trunks  of  trees. 


THE  WHITE  WOLF 


73i 


was  spattered  with  blood ;  the  marks  of 
the  spurs  were  over  liis  flanks. 

"Suddenly  the  animd  and  its  rider 
came  out  of  the  forest,  rushing  through 
a  valley  as  the  moon  appeared  above  the 
hills.  This  valley  was  stony  and  shut 
in  by  enormous  rocks,  over  which  it  was 
impossible  to  pass;  there  was  no  other 
way  for  the  wolf  but  to  turn  on  his 
steps. 

"Francis  gave  such  a  shout  of  joy  and 
revenge  that  the  echo  of  it  was  like  the 
roll  of  thunder.  He  leaped  from  his 
horse,  knife  in  hand. 

"TI:e  bristling  boast,  with  rounded 
back,  was  awaiting  him;  his  eyes  shin- 
ing like  two  stars.  But  before  joining 
In  battle,  the  strong  hunter,  grasping 
his  brother,  seated  him  upon  a  rock, 
supporting  his  head,  which  was  now 
but  a  mass  of  blood,  with  stones,  and 
cried  aloud  to  him,  as  to  one  deaf: 
*Lock,  John !    Look  here ! ' 

"Then  he  t!:rew  himself  upon  the 
monster.  lie  felt  himself  strong  enough 
to  overthrow  a  mountain,  to  crush  the 
very  rocks  in  his  hands.  Tho  beast 
meant  to  kill  him  by  sinking  his  claws 
in  his  vitals ;  but  the  man  had  seized  him 
by  the  throat,  without  even  making  use 
of  his  weapon,  and  strangled  him  gently, 
waiting  until  his  breath  stopped  and  he 
could  hear  the  death-rattle  at  his  heart. 
And  he  laughed,  with  the  joy  of  dismay, 
clutching  more  and  more  with  a  terrible 
hold,  and  crying  out  in  his  delirium: 


'Look,  John!  Look!*  All  resistance 
ceased.  Th3  body  of  the  wolf  was 
limp.    Ke  was  dead. 

"Then  Francis,  taking  him  in  his  arms, 
threw  him  down  at  the  feet  of  his  elder 
brother,  crying  out  in  expectant  voice: 
'Here,  here,  my  little  John,  here  he  is!' 

"Then  he  placed  upon  the  saddle  the 
two  bodies,  the  one  above  the  other,  and 
started  on  his  way. 

"He  returned  to  the  castle  laughing 
and  weeping,  like  Gargantua  at  the 
birth  of  Pantagrucl,  shouting  in  triumph 
and  stamping  v;ith  delight  in  relating  the 
death  cf  the  boast,  and  moanirg  and 
tearing  at  his  beard  in  calling  the 
name  cf  his  brother. 

"Often,  lalcr,  when  he  recalled  this 
day.  he  would  declare,  with  tears  in  his 
eyes:  *If  only  poor  John  had  seen  me 
strangle  the  beast,  he  would  have  died 
content,  I  am  sure!* 

"The  widow  of  my  ancestor  inspired 
in  her  son  a  horror  of  the  chase,  which 
was  transmittal  from  father  to  son 
down  to  myself." 

Ths  Mar^quis  d'Arville  w^as  silent. 
Some  one  asked:  "Is  the  story  a  legend 
or  not?" 

And  the  narrator  replied: 

"I  swear  to  you  it  is  true  from  be-' 
ginning  to  end." 

Then  a  lady,  in  a  sweet  little  voice 
declared: 

"It  is  beautiful  to  have  passions  lik 
that." 


Tome 


Everybody  for  ten  leagues  round 
knew  Toine,  fat  Toine,  "Toine-my-Fine," 
Antoine  Macheble,  the  landlord  of 
Tournevent. 

He  had  made  famous  this  village, 
buried  in  the  depths  of  the  valley  which 
descended  to  the  sea.  It  was  a  poor 
peasant  hamlet,  composed  of  a  dozen 
Norman  houses  surrounded  by  ditches 
and  encircled  by  trees.  The  houses 
were  huddled  together  in  this  shrub- 
covered  ravine,  behind  the  curve  of  the 
hill,  which  had  caused  the  village  to  be 
called  Tournevent.  As  birds  conceal 
themselves  in  the  furrows  during  a 
storm,  they  seemed  to  have  sought  a 
shelter  in  this  hollow,  a  shelter  against 
the  fierce  salt  winds  of  the  sea,  which 
gnawed  and  burned  like  fire  and  with- 
ered and  destroyed  like  the  blasts  of 
winter. 

The  whole  hamlet  seemed  to  be  the 
property  of  Antoine  Macheble,  who  was 
besides  often  called  Toine,  and  Toine- 
my-Fine,  on  account  of  a  manner  of 
speech  of  which  he  constantly  availed 
himself.  "My  Fine  is  the  best  in 
France,"  he  would  say.  His  fine  was 
his  cognac,  be  it  understood.  For 
twenty  years  he  had  watered  the  coun 
try  with  his  cognac,  and  in  serving  his 
customers  he  was  in  the  habit  of  say- 
ing: "It  warms  the  stomach  and  clears 
the  head;  there  is  nothing  better  for 
your  health,  my  son."  He  called  every- 
body "my  son,"  although  he  had  ne'^'-er 
had  a  son  of  his  own. 

Ah,  yes,  everyone  knew  old  Toine, 
the  biggest  man  in  the  canton,  or  even  in 
the  arrondissement.  His  little  house 
seemed  too  ridiculously  small  to  con- 
tain him,  and  when  he  was  seen  stand- 


ing in  his  doorway,  where  he  spent  the 
greater  part  of  every  day,  one  wondered 
how  he  could  enter  his  dwelling.  But 
he  did  enter  each  time  a  customer  pre- 
sented himself,  for  Toine-my-Fine  was 
invited  by  right  to  levy  a  little  glass  on 
all  who  drank  in  his  hguse. 

His  caje  bore  on  its  sign  the  legend 
"The  Rendezvous  of  Friends,"  and  old 
Toine  was  truly  the  friend  of  all  the 
country  round.  People  came  from  Fe- 
camp and  Montiviliiers  to  see  him  and 
tipple  with  him  and  to  hear  his  stories— 
for  this  great,  good-natured  man  could 
make  a  tombstone  laugh.  He  could 
joke  without  giving  offense,  wink  an  eye 
to  express  what  he  dare  not  utter,  and 
punch  one's  ribs  in  a  fit  of  gaiety,  so  a? 
to  force  a  laugh  in  spite  of  oneself.  And 
then  it  was  a  curiosity  just  to  see  him 
drink.  He  drank  all  that  was  offered 
him  by  everybody,  with  a  joy  in  his 
wicked  eye,  a  joy  which  came  from  a 
double  pleasure :  the  pleasure  of  regaling 
himself  first,  and  the  pleasure  of  heaping 
up  money  at  the  expense  of  his  friends 
afterward.  The  blackguards  of  the 
community  wondered  why  Toine  had  no 
t:hildren,  and  one  day  asked  him  as 
much.  With  a  wicked  wink  he  replied: 
"My  wife  is  not  attractive  enough  for 
such  a  fine  fellow  as  I  am.*' 

The  quarrels  of  Toine  and  his  homely 
wife  were  as  much  enjoyed  by  the  tip- 
plers as  was  their  favorite  cognac,  for 
they  had  squabbled  through  the  whole 
thirty  years  of  their  married  life.  Only 
Toine  was  good-natured  over  it,  while 
his  wife  was  furious.  She  was  a  tall 
peasant  woman  who  walked  with  long 
stilt-*like  strides  and  carried  on  her  thin- 
flat  body  the  head  of  an  ugly  screech 


734 


TOINE 


735 


owl.  She  spent  her  whole  time  in  rear- 
ing poultry  in  the  little  yard  behind  the 
public-house,  and  was  renowned  for  the 
success  with  which  she  fattened  her 
fowls. 

When  any  of  the  great  ladies  of  Fe- 
camp gave  a  feast  to  the  people  of  qual- 
ity, it  was  necessary  to  the  success  of 
the  repast  that  it  should  be  garnished 
with  the  celebrated  fowls  from  mother 
Toine's  poultry-yard. 

But  she  was  born  with  a  vile  temper 
and  had  continued  to  be  dissatisfied  with 
everything.  Angry  with  everybody,  she 
was  particularly  so  with  her  husband. 
She  jeered  at  his  gaiety,  his  popularity, 
his  good  health,  and  his  embonpoint ;  she 
treated  hirn  with  the  utmost  contempt 
because  he  got  his  money  without  work- 
ing for  ]t,  and  because,  as  she  said,  he 
ate  and  drank  as  much  as  ten  ordinary 
men.  She  declared  every  day  that  he 
was  only  fit  to  be  littered  in  the  stable 
with  the  naked  swine,  whom  he  resem- 
bled, and  that  he  was  only  a  mass  of  fat 
that  made  her  sick  at  her  stomach. 
"Wait  a  little,  wait  a  little,"  she  would 
shriek  in  his  face,  "we  shall  soon  see 
what  is  going  to  happen!  This  great 
wind-bag  will  burst  like  a  sack  of  grain  L" 

Toine  laughed  till  he  shook  like  a 
bowl  of  jelly  and,  tapping  his  enormous 
belly,  replied:  "Ah,  my  old  hen,  let 
us  see  you  try  to  make  your  chickens 
as  fat  as  this." 

And  rolling  up  his  sleeve  he  showed 
his  brawny  arm.  "Do  you  net  see  the 
feathers  growing  already?"  he  cried. 
And  the  customers  would  strike  their 
fists  on  the  table  and  fairly  writhe  with 
joy,  and  would  stamp  their  feet  and  spit 
upon  the  floor  in  a  delirium  of  delight. 

The   old  woman  grew  more   furious 


than  evor,  and  shouted  at  the  top  of  hei 

lungs:  "Just  wait  a  bit,  we  shall  see 
what  will  happen.  Your  Toine-my-Fine 
will  burst  like  a  sack  of  grain." 

And  she  rushed  out,  maddened  with 
rage  at  the  laughter  of  the  crowd  of 
drinkers. 

Toine,  in  fact,  was  a  wonder  to  see, 
so  fat  and  red  and  short  of  breath  had 
he  grown  He  was  one  of  those  enor- 
mous creatures  with  whom  Death  seems 
to  amuse  himself  by  tricks,  gaieties,  and 
fatal,  buffooneries,  making  irresistibly 
comic  the  slow  work  of  destruction.  In- 
stead of  showing  himself,  as  toward 
others,  in  white  hairs,  shrunken  limbs, 
wrinkles,  and  general  feebleness  which 
made  one  say  with  a  shiver :  "Heavens, 
how  he  has  changed!"  he  took  pleasure 
in  fattening  Toine;  in  making  a  droll 
monster  of  him,  in  reddening  his  face 
and  giving  him  the  appearance  of  su- 
perhuman health;  and  the  deformities 
v/hich  he  inflicted  on  other  beings  became 
in  Toine's  case  laughable  and  diverting 
instead  of  sinister  and  pitiable. 

"Wait  a  little,  wait  a  little,"  muttered 
mother  Toine,  as  she  scattered  the  grain 
about  her  poultry-yard,  "we  are  going 
to  see  what  will  happen!" 

II. 

It  happened  that  Toine  had  a  seizure, 
and  fell  smitten  with  a  paralytic  stroke. 
They  carried  the  giant  to  the  little 
chamber  partitioned  off  at  the  rear  of  the 
cafe  in  order  that  he  might  hear  what 
was  going  on  on  the  other  side  of  the 
wall,  and  converse  with  his  friends,  for 
his  brain  remained  clear  while  his  enor- 
mous body  was  prone  and  helpless. 
They  hoped  for  a  time  that  his  mighty 
limbs  would  recover  some  of  their  en- 


736 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


orgy,  but  this  hope  disappeared  very 
soon,  and  Toine-my-Fine  was  forced  to 
pass  his  days  and  nights  in  his  bed, 
which  was  made  up  but  once  a  week, 
with  the  help  of  four  friends  who  lifted 
him  by  his  four  limbs  while  his  mat- 
tress was  turned.  He  continued  cheer- 
ful, but  with  a  different  kind  of  gaiety; 
more  timid,  more  humble,  and  with  the 
pathetic  fear  of  a  little  child  in  the 
presence  of  his  wife,  who  scolded  and 
raged  all  the  day  long.  "There  he  lies, 
the  great  glutton,  the  good-for-nothing 
idler,  the  nasty  thing!"  she  cried.  Toine 
replied  nothinr;,  only  winking  his  eye 
behind  the  old  woman's  back,  and  turned 
over  in  the  bed,  the  only  movement  he 
was  able  to  make.  He  called  this 
change  "making  a  move  to  the  north,  or 
a  move  to  the  south."  His  only  enter- 
tainment now  was  to  listen  to  the  con- 
versation in  the  cafe  and  to  join  in  the 
talk  across  the  wall,  and  when  he  rec- 
ognized the  voice  of  a  friend  he  would 
cry:  "Hello,  my  son;  is  it  thou,  Celes- 
tin?" 

And  Celestin  Maloisel  would  reply: 
"It  is  me,  father  Toine.  How  do  you 
gallop  to-day,  my  great  rabbit?" 

"I  cannot  gallop  yet,  Celestin," 
Toine  would  answer,  ''but  I  am  not 
growing  thin,  either.  The  shell  is  good." 
Soon  he  invited  his  intimates  into  his 
chamber  for  company,  because  it  pained 
him  to  see  them  drinking  without  him. 
He  told  them  it  grieved  him  not  to  he 
able  to  take  his  cognac  with  them.  "I 
can  stand  everything  else,"  be  said; 
"but  not  to  drink  with  you  makes  me 
sad,  my  sons." 

Then  the  screech-owPs  head  of  mother 
Toine  would  appear  at  the  window,  and 
she  would  say:    "Look,  look  at  him! 


this  great  hulking  idler,  who  must  be  ioo 
and  washed  and  scoured  like  a  pig!" 
And  when  she  disappeared  a  red- 
plumaged  rooster  sometimes  perched  on 
the  window-sill,  and,  looking  about  with 
his  round  and  curious  eye,  gave  forth 
a  shrill  crow.  And  sometimes  two  or 
three  hens  flew  in  and  scratched  and 
pecked  about  the  floor,  attracted  by  the 
crumbs,  which  fell  from  father  Toine's 
plate. 

The  friends  of  Toine-my-Fine  very 
soon  deserted  the  caje  for  his  chamber, 
and  every  afternoon  they  gossiped 
around  the  bed  of  the  big  man.  Bed- 
ridden as  he  was,  this  rascal  of  a  Toine 
still  amused  them;  he  would  have  made 
the  devil  himself  laugh,  the  jolly  fellow! 
There  were  three  friends  who  cama 
every  day:  Celestin  Maloisel,  a  tall, 
spare  man  with  a  body  twisted  like  the 
trunk  of  an  apple-tree;  Prosper  Horsla* 
ville,  a  little  dried-up  old  man  with  a 
nose  like  a  ferret,  malicious  and  sly  as 
a  fox;  and  Cesaire  Paumelle,  who  never 
uttered  a  word,  but  who  enjoyed  himself 
all  the  same.  These  men  brought  in  a 
board  from  the  yard  which  they  placed 
across  the  bed  and  on  which  they  played 
dominoes  from  two  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon until  six.  But  mother  Toine  soon 
interfered:  she  could  not  endure  that 
her  husband  should  amuse  himself  by 
playing  dominoes  in  his  bed,  and,  each 
time  she  saw  the  play,  she  bounded  into 
the  room  in  a  rage,  overturned  the 
board,  seized  the  dominoes,  and  carried 
them  into  the  cafe,  declaring  that  it  was 
enough  to  feed  this  great  lump  of  tallow 
without  seeing  him  divert  himself  a^  the 
expense  of  hard-wording  people.  Celes- 
tin Maloisel  bent  his  head  before  the 
Btorm,  but  Prosper  Horslaviile  tried  to 


TOINE 


737 


further  excite  the  old  woman,  whose 
rages  amused  him.  Seeing  her  one  day 
more  exasperated  than  usual,  he  said: 
"Hello,  mother  Toine!  Do  you  know 
what  I  would  do  if  I  were  in  your 
place?" 

She  waited  for  an  explanation,  fixing 
her  owl-like  eyes  upon  him.  He  con- 
tinued : 

*'Your  husband,  who  never  leaves  his 
bed,  is  as  hot  as  an  oven.  I  should 
set  him  to  hatching  out  eggs." 

She  remained  stupefied,  thinking  he 
was  jesting,  watching  the  meager  and 
sly  face  of  the  peasant,  who  continued: 

"I  would  put  five  eggs  under  each 
arm  the  same  day  that  I  set  the  yellow 
hen;  they  would  all  hatch  out  at  the 
same  time;  and  when  they  were  out  of 
their  shells,  I  would  put  your  husband's 
chicks  under  the  hen  for  her  to  bring 
up.  That  would  bring  you  some  poul- 
try, mother  Toine." 

The  old  woman  was  amazed.  "Can 
that  be?"  she  asked. 

Prosper  continued:  "Why  can't  it? 
Since  they  put  eggs  in  a  warm  box  to 
hatch,  one  might  as  well  put  them  in  a 
warm  bed." 

She  was  greatly  impressed  with  this 
reasoning,  and  went  out  composed  and 
thoughtful. 

Eight  days  later  she  came  into  Toine's 

i    chamber  with  her   apron   full   of  eggs, 

I     and  said:     "I  have  just  put  the  yellow 

hen  to   set   with   ten   eggs   under  her; 

here  are  ten  for  you !    Be  careful  not  to 

break  them!" 

Toine  was  astonished.  "What  do  you 
mean?"  he  cried. 

"I  mean  that  you  shall  hatch  them, 
good-for-nothing." 

Toine  laughed  at  first,  then  as  she  in- 


sisted he  grew  angry,  he  resisted  and 
obstinately  refused  to  allow  her  to  put 
the  eggs  under  his  great  arms,  that  his 
warmth  might  hatch  them.  But  the 
baffled  old  woman  grew  furious  and  de- 
clared: "You  shall  have  not  a  bite  to 
eat  so  long  as  you  refuse  to  take  them — 
there,  we'll  see  what  will  happen!" 

Toine  was  uneasy,  but  he  said  nothing 
till  he  heard  the  clock  strike  twelve; 
then  he  called  to  his  wife,  who  bawled 
from  the  kitchen:  "There  is  no  dinner 
for  you  to-day,  you  great  idler!" 

He  thought  at  first  she  was  joking, 
but  when  he  found  she  was  in  earnest  he 
begged  and  prayed  and  swore  by  fits; 
turned  himself  to  the  north  and  the 
south,  and,  growing  desperate  under  the 
pangs  of  hunger  and  the  smell  of  the 
viands,  he  pounded  on  the  wall  with  his 
great  fists,  until  at  last  worn  out  and 
almost  famished,  he  allowed  his  wife  to 
introduce  the  eggs  into  his  bed  and  place 
them  under  his  arms.  After  that  he 
had  his  soup. 

When  his  friends  arrived  as  usual, 
they  believed  Toine  to  be  very  ill;  he 
seemed  constrained  and  in  pain. 

Then  they  began  to  play  dominoes  as 
formerly,  but  Toine  appeared  to  take  no 
pleasure  in  the  game,  and  put  forth  his 
hand  so  gingerly  and  with  such  evident 
precaution  that  they  suspected  at  once 
something  was  wrong. 

"Hast  thou  thy  arm  tied?"  demanded 
Horslaville. 

Toine  feebly  responded:  "I  have  a 
feeling  of  heaviness  in  my  shoulder." 

Suddenly  some  one  entered  the  cafe^ 
and  the  players  paused  to  listen.  It  wa? 
the  mayor  and  his  assistant,  who  callea 
for  two  glasses  of  cognac  and  then  bev 
gan  to  talk  of  the  affairs  of  che  country. 


738 


WORKS  OF  GXjT  DE  MAUPASSANT 


As  the>  spoke  in  low  tones,  Toine  tried 
to  press  his  ear  against  the  wall;  and 
forgetting  his  eggs,  he  gave  a  sudden 
lunge  "to  the  north,"  which  made  an 
omelet  of  them  in  short  order.  At  the 
oath  he  uttered,  mother  Toine  came  run- 
ning in,  and  divining  the  disaster  she  un- 
covered him  with  a  jerk.  She  stood  a 
moment  too  enraged  and  breathless  to 
speak,  at  the  sight  of  the  yellow  poultice 
pasted  on  the  flank  of  her  husband. 
Then,  trembling  with  fury,  she  flung 
herself  on  the  paralytic  and  began  to 
pound  him  with  great  force  on  the  body, 
as  though  she  were  pounding  her  dirty 
linen  on  the  banks  of  the  river.  She 
showered  her  blows  upon  him  with  the 
force  and  rapidity  of  a  drummer  beating 
his  drum. 

The  friends  of  Toine  were  choking 
with  laughter,  coughing,  sneezing,  utter- 
ing exclamations,  while  the  frightened 
man  parried  the  attacks  of  his  wife  with 
due  precaution  in  order  not  to  break  the 
five  eggs  he  still  had  on  the  other  side. 

III. 

Toine  was  conquered.  He  was  com- 
pelled to  hatch  eggs.  He  had  to  re- 
nounce the  innocent  pleasure  of  dom- 
inoes, to  give  up  any  effort  to  move  to 
the  north  or  south,  for  his  wife  de- 
prived him  of  all  nourishment  every 
time  he  broke  an  egg.  He  lay  on  his 
back,  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  ceiling", 
his  arms  extended  like  wings,  warming 
against  his  immense  body  the  incipient 
chicks  in  their  white  shells.  He  spoke 
only  in  low  tones  as  if  he  feared  a  noise 
as  much  as  a  movement,  and  he  asked 
often  about  the  yellow  hen  in  the 
poultry-yard,  who  was  engaged  in  the 
iame  task  as  himself.    The  old  woman 


went  from  the  hen  to  her  husband,  and 
from  her  husband  to  the  hen,  possessed 
and  preoccupied  with  the  little  broods 
which  were  maturing  in  the  bed  and  in 
the  nest.  The  country  people,  who  soon 
learned  the  story,  came  in,  curious  and 
serious  to  get  the  news  of  Toine,  They 
entered  on  tiptoe  as  one  enters  a  sick- 
chamber  and  inquired  with  concern: 

''How  goes  it,  Toine?" 

"It  has  to  go,"  he  answered;  "but  it 
is  so  long,  I  am  tired  of  waiting.  I 
get  excited  and  feel  cold  shivers  gallop- 
ing all  over  my  skin." 

One  morning  his  wife  came  in  very 
much  elated  and  exclaimed:  "The  yel- 
low hen  has  hatched  seven  chicks;  there 
were  but  three  bad  eggs!" 

Toine  felt  his  heart  beat.  How  many 
would  he  have? 

"Will  it  be  soon?"  he  asked,  with 
the  anguish  of  a  woman  who  is  about  to 
become  a  mother. 

The  old  woman,  who  was  tortured  by 
the  fear  of  failure,  answered  angrily: 

"It  is  to  be  hoped  so!" 

They  waited. 

The  friends,  seeing  that  Toine's  time 
was  approaching,  became  veiy  uneasy 
themselves.  They  gossiped  about  it  in 
the  house,  and  kept  all  the  neighbors 
informed  of  the  progress  of  affairs. 
Toward  three  o'clock  Toine  grew 
drowsy.  He  slept  now  half  the  time. 
He  was  suddenly  awakened  by  an  un- 
usual tickling  under  his  left  arm.  He 
put  his  hand  carefully  to  the  place  and 
seized  a  little  beast  covered  with  yellow 
down,  which  struggled  between  his 
fingers.  Hi>  emotion  was  so  great  that 
he  cried  o'.?t  and  let  go  the  chick,  which 
ran  across  his  breast.  The  ccfS  was 
full  of  people.     The  customers  rushed 


AN  ENTHUSIAST 


739 


into  the  room  and  circled  around  the 
bed.  while  mother  Toine,  who  had  ar- 
rived at  the  first  sound,  carefully  caught 
the  fledgeling  as  it  nestled  in  her  lus- 
band's  beard.  No  one  uttered  a  word. 
It  was  a  warm  April  day;  one  could 
hear  through  the  open  window  the 
clucking  of  the  yellow  hen  calling  to 
her  new  born.  Toine,  who  perspired 
with  emotion  and  agony,  murmured:  "I 
feel  another  one  under  my  left  arm." 

His  wife  plunged  her  great,  gaunt 
hand  under  the  bedclothes  and  drew 
forth  a  second  chick  with  all  the  precau- 
tions of  a  midwife. 

The  neighbors  wished  to  see  it  and 
passed  it  from  hand  to  hand,  regarding 
it  with  awe  as  though  it  were  a  phenom- 
enon. For  the  space  of  twenty  min- 
utes no  more  were  hatched,  then  four 
chicks  came  out  of  their  shells  at  the 
same  time.  This  caused  a  great  excite- 
ment among  the  watchers. 

Toine  smiled,  happy  at  his  success, 
and  began  to  feel  proud  of  this  singular 
paternity.  Such  a  sight  had  never  been 
seen  before.  This  was  a  droll  man,  truly ! 
"That  makes  six,"  cried  Toine.  "Sacre 
bleu,  what  a  christening  there  will  be!" 
and  a  great  laugh  rang  out  from  the 
public.  Other  people  now  crowded  into 
the  cafe  and  filled  the  doorway,  with 
outstretched  necks  and  curious  eyes. 


"How  many  has  he?"  they  inquired. 

"There  are  six." 

Mother  Toine  ran  with  the  new 
fledgelings  to  the  hen,  who,  clucking 
distractedly,  erected  her  feathers  and 
spread  wide  her  wings  to  shelter  her 
increasing  flock  of  little  ones. 

"Here  comes  another  one!"  cried 
Toine.  He  was  mistaken — there  were 
three  of  them.  This  was  a  triumph! 
The  last  one  chipped  its  shell  at  seven 
o'clock  in  the  evening.  All  Toine's  eggs 
were  good!  He  was  delivered,  and  de- 
lirious with  joy,  he  seized  and  kissed  the 
frail  little  creature  on  the  back.  He 
could  have  smothered  it  with  caresses. 
He  wished  to  keep  this  little  one  in  his 
bed  until  the  next  day,  moved  by  the 
tenderness  of  a  mother  for  this  being  to 
whom  he  had  given  life;  but  the  old 
woman  carried  it  away,  as  she  had  done 
the  others,  without  listening  to  the  sup- 
plications of  her  husband. 

The  friends  of  Toine  went  home  de- 
lighted, conversing  of  the  event  by  the 
way. 

Horslaville  remained  after  the  others 
had  gone,  and  approaching  the  ear  of 
Toine  whispered:  "You  will  invite  me 
to  the  first  fricassee,  will  you  not?" 

At  the  idea  of  a  fricassee,  the  visage 
of  Toine  brightened  and  he  answered: 

"Certainly  I  will  inyite  thee,  my  son." 


An  Enthusiast 


We  ^vere  just  passing  through  Gisors, 
when  1  was  awakened  by  hearing  a  train- 
man call  the  name  of  the  town.  I  was 
falling  off  to  sleep  again  when  a  fright- 


ful jolt  threw  me  across  to  a  larg^  lady 
opposite  me. 

A  wheel  had  broken  on  the  locomo- 
tive,  which  was  now  iying  across  the 


740 


WORKS  Oi''  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


track.  The  tender  and  baggage-car  were 
ilso  derailed  and  were  lodged  by  the 
side  of  the  great,  dying  machine,  which 
moaned  and  groaned  and  sputtered  and 
puffed,  like  a  fallen  horse  in  the  street, 
whose  breast  heaves  and  nostrils  smoke, 
wheezing  and  shivering  in  its  whole 
body,  yet  incapable  of  any  effort 
toward  getting  up  and  continuing  on  the 
way. 

Our  engine  proved  to  be  neither  dead 
nor  wounded;  there  was  only  some  de- 
rangement, but  the  train  could  not  go  on, 
and  we  stood  looking  at  the  maimed 
iron  beast  that  could  no  longer  draw 
MS,  but  lay,  barring  the  track.  It  would 
be  necessary,  without  doubt,  to  have  a 
relief  train  sent  out  from  Paris. 

It  was  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and 
I  decided  immediately  to  go  back  to 
Gisors  for  breakfast.  In  walking  along 
upon  the  track,  I  said  to  myself: 
''Gisors,  Gisors,  I  certainly  know  some 
one  here.  Who  is  it?  Gisors?  Let  me 
see.  I  have  some  friend  in  this  town.'' 
The  name  immediately  sprang  into  my 
mind:    "Albert  Marambot.'* 

He  was  an  old  comrade  in  college, 
whom  I  had  not  seen  for  a  dozen  years 
or  so,  and  who  was  a  practitioner  of  the 
medical  profession  at  Gisors.  Often  he 
had  written  inviting  me  to  visit  him;  I 
had  always  promised  to  go  but  had 
never  gone.  Now  I  would  certainly  take 
advantage  of  the  opportunity. 

I  asked  the  first  passer-by  if  he  knew 
where  Dr.  Marambot  lived?  He  replied 
without  hesitation,  with  the  drawling 
accent  of  the  Norman:  f 

"Dauphine  Street." 

Soon  I  found  on  the  door  of  the  house 
indicated  a  larpe  copper  plate  on  which 
was  engraved  the  name  of  my  old  com- 


rade. I  rang;  the  servant  who  opened 
the  door,  a  girl  with  yellow  hair  and 
slow  motion,  kept  repeating  in  a  stupid 
fashion:  "He's  gone  out,  he's  gone 
out." 

I  heard  a  sound  of  forks  and  glasses 
inside,  and  called  out:  "Hey,  there*. 
Marambot!"  A  door  opened  and  a 
large,  well-favored  man  appeared,  look- 
ing disturbed,  and  holding  a  napkin  in 
his  hand. 

I  never  should  have  known  him.  One 
would  say  he  was  forty-five,  at  least, 
and  in  a  second  his  whole  provincial  life 
appeared  before  me,  dulling,  stupefying, 
and  aging  him.  In  a  single  bound  of 
thought,  more  rapid  than  the  gesture  of 
extending  my  hand  to  him,  I  knew  his 
whole  existence,  his  manner  of  life,  his 
bent  of  mind,  and  his  theories  of  living. 
I  suspected  the  long  repasts  which  had 
rounded  his  body,  the  little  naps  after 
dinner,  in  the  torpor  of  a  heavy  diges- 
tion sprinkled  with  brandy,  and  the 
vague  contemplation  of  the  sick,  with 
thoughts  of  roast  fowl  waiting  before 
the  fire.  His  conversation  on  cooking, 
cider,  brandy,  and  wine,  upon  certain 
dishes  and  well-made  sauces  appropriate 
for  them,  revealed  to  me  nothing  more 
than  I  perceived  in  the  red  puffiness  of 
his  cheeks,  the  heaviness  of  his  lips, 
and  the  dullness  of  his  eyes. 

I  said  to  him:  "You  do  not  know 
me.    I  am  Raoul  Aubertin." 

He  opened  his  arms  and  almost  stifled 
me.    His  first  word  was: 

"You  certainly  haven't  breakfasted?'* 

"No." 

"What  luck!  I  am  just  sittinj^  down 
at  the  table,  ana  i  nave  an  excellent 
trout." 

Five  minutes  later,  I  was  seated  at 


AN  ENTHUSIAST 


741 


the  table  opposite  him.  I  said  to  him: 
"You  are  still  a  bachelor?" 

"Surely!"  he  answered. 

"And  you  manage  to  amuse  yourself 
here.?" 

"I  never  find  it  tedious;  1  am  too 
much  occupied.  I  have  my  patients  and 
my  friends,  eat  well,  sleep  well,  and 
love  to  laugh  and  to  hunt.  That  is  the 
way  it  goes." 

"Then  Kfe  does  not  get  monotonous 
in  this  little  town?" 

"No,  my  dear  fellow,  not  when  one  is 
busy.  A  little  town,  when  you  come  to 
sum  it  up,  is  like  a  large  one.  Events 
and  pleasures  are  less  varied,  but  they 
take  on  more  importance.  Relatives  and 
friends  are  less  numerous,  but  we  meet 
them  oftener.  When  we  know  every 
window  in  sight,  each  one  interests  us, 
and  we  are  more  curious  about  them 
than  we  should  be  about  a  whole  street 
in  Paris.  It  is  very  amusing,  a  little 
town,  you  know,  very  amusing,  very 
amusing.  Now,  this  Gisors,  I  have  it 
on  the  end  of  my  fingers  from  its  origin 
up  to  to-day.  You  have  no  idea  how 
comical  its  history  it." 

"You  are  a  native  of  Gisors?" 

"I?  No,  I  come  from  Gournay,  its 
neighbor  and  rival.  Gournay  is  to 
Gisors  what  Lucullus  was  to  Cicero. 
Here,  all  is  for  glory;  they  are  called 
L  *the  proud  people  of  Gisors.*  At  Gour- 
;  nay,  all  is  for  the  stomach;  they  are 
spoken  of  as  'the  eaters  of  Gournay.'  It 
is  very  funny,  this  country  is." 

I  noticed  that  I  was  eating  something 
truly  exquisite,  some  fish  roe  enveloped 
in  a  case  of  jelly,  the  viand  aromatic 
with  herbs,  and  the  jelly  delicately  sea- 
soned. 

Smacking  my  lips,  for  the.  sake  of 


flattering  Marambot,  I  said:     "This  k 
good!" 

He  smiled.  "Two  things  are  necessary 
for  this,"  said  he,  "and  difiicult  to  ob- 
tain, good  jelly  and  good  eggs.  Oh! 
good  eggs,  how  rare  they  are!  with  the 
yellow  of  a  reddish  tinge,  and  well  fla- 
vored! I  myself  have  a  preference  for 
two  things,  eggs  and  poultry.  I  keep 
i^y  egg-layers  in  a  special  way.  I  have 
my  own  ideas.  In  the  egg,  as  in  the 
flesh  of  the  chicken,  or  of  mutton,  or 
beef,  we  find,  and  ought  to  taste,  the 
substance,  the  quintessence  of  the  nour- 
ishment of  the  animal.  How  much  bet- 
ter one  can  eat  if  he  pays  attention  to 
these  things." 

I  laughed.  "You  are  an  epicure, 
then?" 

"Surely!  It  is  only  imbeciles  who  are 
not  epicures.  One  is  an  epicure  as  he 
is  artistic,  as  he  is  well-informed,  as 
he  is  poetical.  Taste  is  a  delicate  or- 
gan, as  respectable  and  as  capable  of 
being  perfected  as  the  eye  or  the  ear. 
To  lack  taste  is  to  be  deprived  of  an 
exquisite  faculty,  —  that  of  discerning 
the  quahty  of  food,  as  one  discerns 
the  qualities  of  a  book  or  a  work  of  art ; 
it  is  to  be  deprived  of  an  essential  sense, 
of  an  attribute  of  human  superiority; 
it  is  to  belong  to  one  of  the  innumerable 
classes  of  the  infirm,  or  disgraced,  or 
simpletons  that  compose  cur  race;  it  is 
to  have  the  mouth  of  a  beast,  and,  in  a 
word,  the  mind  of  a  beast.  A  man  who 
cannot  distinguish  between  a  crayfisn 
and  a  lobster,  a  herring  and  this  admir- 
able fish  that  carries  in  it  all  the  savors 
and  aromas  of  the  sea,  between  a  mack- 
erel and  a  white-fish,  a  winter  pear  and 
a  Duchesse,  is  capable  of  confounding 
Balzac  with  Eugene  Sue,  a  symphony  of 


74Z 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Beethoven  with  a  military  march  by  the 
leader  of  a  regiment  band,  and  the 
Apollo  Belvedere  with  the  statue  of 
General  Dlanmont!" 

''Who  is  this  General  Blanmont?"  I 
asked. 

"Ah !  it  is  true,  you  do  not  know  him ! 
That  shov/s,  indeed,  that  you  do  not 
know  GIsors!  My  dear  friend,  I  said  a 
moment  a^o,  that  we  call  the  people  of 
this  town  'the  proud  people  of  Gisors/ 
Never  v;as  epithet  more  merited.  But 
— we  will  breakfast  first,  and  then  I 
shall  tell  you  about  our  town,  and  take 
you  around  to  visit  it." 

He  ceased  speaking  from,  time  to  time 
to  drink  slov;ly  a  little  glass  of  wine 
which  he  looked  at  tenderly  before  set- 
ting on  the  table.  With  napkin  fast- 
ened about  his  neck,  with  cheek-bones 
reddening,  and  v/hiskers  blossoming 
about  his  mouth  as  if  worked,  he  was 
amusing  to  look  at. 

He  made  me  eat  to  suffocation.  Then, 
when  I  wished  to  go  back  to  the  rail- 
way station,  he  seized  me  in  his  arms 
and  drew  me  away  in  another  street. 
The  town,  of  a  pretty,  provincial  char- 
acter, was  overlooked  by  its  fortress, 
the  most  curious  monument  of  military 
architecture  of  the  eighth  century  that 
there  is  in  France.  The  rear  of  the 
fortress  overlooked,  in  its  turn,  a  lonj, 
green  valley,  where  the  heavy  cows  of 
Normandy  browsed  and  chewed  their 
cuds  in  the  pastures. 

The  doctor  said  to  me:  "Gisors, 
town  of  four  thousand  inhabitants,  on 
the  borders  of  the  Eure,  was  mentioned 
in  the  'Commentaries'  of  Caesar:  Caesaris 
ostium,  then,  Csesartium,  Caesortium, 
Gisortium,  Gisors.  I  could  take  you 
to  the  encampment  of  the  Roman  army. 


of  which  there  are  traces  quite  visibly 

st::i." 

I  laughed  and  replied:  "My  deal 
friend,  it  seems  to  me  that  you  are 
threatened  with  a  special  malady  that 
you  ought  to  study — you,  a  medical  man 
— something  that  might  be  called  the 
spirit  of  rivalry." 

He  stopped  short.  "The  spirit  of  ri-* 
valry,  my  friend,"  said  he,  "is  nothing 
else  than  natural  patriotism.  I  love  my 
house,  my  town,  and  my  province 
throughout  its  whole  extent,  because  I 
find  there  tke  cu:,toms  of  my  village; 
but,  if  I  love  the  frontier,  if  I  defend 
it,  if  I  am  angry  when  the  stranger  sets 
his  foot  there,  it  is  because  I  already 
feel  my  own  house  menaced;  because 
the  frontier,  which  I  do  not  know,  is  the 
road  to  my  province.  Thus  I  am  a  Nor- 
man, a  true  Norman;  and  in  spite  of 
my  rancor  against  Germany  and  my  de- 
sire for  vengeance,  I  do  not  detest  it, 
I  do  not  hate  it  by  instinct  as  I  hate 
the  English,  the  veritable  enemy,  the 
hereditary  enemy,  tht  natural  enemy  of 
the  Norman,  because  the  English  have 
passed  over  the  soil  settled  by  my  an- 
cestors, and  pillaged  and  ravaged  it 
twenty  times,  and  the  aversion  to  this 
perfidious  people  has  been  transmitted 
to  me  with  life  itself,  from  my  father^ 
Wait,  here  is  the  statue  of  the  general." 

"What  general?" 

"General  Blanmont.  We  thought  we 
ought  to  have  a  statue.  We  are  not 
'the  proud  people  of  Gisors'  for  nothing! 
Then,  we  discovered  General  Blanmont. 
Just  look  through  the  glass  door  in  this 
library." 

I  turned  toward  the  front  of  a  book- 
case where  a  small  collection  of  volumes, 
yellow,  red,  and  blue,  met  my  eye.    Id 


AN  ENTHUSIAST 


743 


reading  the  titles,  a  desire  to  laugh 
seized  me;  they  were:  ''Gisors,  Its 
Origin  and  Future,  By  M.  X Mem- 
ber 01  Many  Learned  Societies";  "His- 
tory   of    Gisors,    By    Abbe ";    "Gi- 

sors,  from  Caesar  to  Our  Time,  by  Dr. 

C.  D. ";  "The  Glories  of  Gisors,  by 

an  Inquirer." 

"My  dear  boy,"  began  Marambot, 
*'not  a  year  passes,  not  one  year,  you  un- 
derstand, without  at  least  one  new  his- 
tory of  Gisors  appearing.  We  have 
twenty-three  of  them." 

"And  who  are  the  celebrities  of  Gi- 
sors?" I  asked. 

"Oh!  I  cannot  tell  you  all  of  them; 
I  shall  only  tell  you  the  principal  ones: 
First,  we  have  General  Blanmont,  then 
Baron  Davillier,  the  celebrated  ceramist 
who  explored  Spain  and  the  Balearic 
Islands,  and  revealed  to  collectors  some 
admirable  Spanish-Arabian  porcelains. 
In  letters,  we  have  a  journalist  of  great 
merit,  now  dead,  Charles  Brainne,  and 
among  the  living,  the  very  eminent  di- 
rector of  the  'Rouen  Gazetteer,'  Charles 
Lapierre,  and  many  more,  still  many 
more." 

We  were  going  along  rapidly  through 
a  steep  street  beaten  upon  by  a  June 
sun  so  hot  that  it  had  driven  the  in- 
habitants within  doors.  Suddenly,  at  the 
other  end  of  this  road,  a  man  appeared 
,  — a  drunken  man,  reeling.  He  came  on, 
t  with  head  down,  arms  hanging  at  his 
gides,  and  tottering  limbs,  at  a  jerky 
gait  of  six  or  eight  rapid  steps,  followed 
by  a  rest.  Then  an  energetic  bound 
would  take  him  to  the  middle  of  the 
street,  wnere  he  would  stop  short  and 
balance  himself  upon  his  feet,  hesitating 
between  a  fall  and  a  new  attack  of  en- 
ergy.   Then  he  would  repeat  the  opera- 


tion in  another  direction.  Finally  he  ran 
against  a  house,  where  he  seemed  to 
stick  fast,  as  if  he  would  enter  it  through 
the  wall.  Then  he  turned  and  looked 
before  him,  his  mouth  open,  his  eyes 
blinking  in  the  sun;  and  with  a  wrench 
of  his  back,  he  detached  himself  from 
the  wall  and  started  again. 

A  little  yellow  dog,  a  famished  cur, 
followed  him  barking,  stopping  when  he 
stopped  and  starting  when  he  started. 

"Wait,"  said  Marambot,  "there  is  one 
of  Madame  Huisson's  rose-winners." 

I  was  much  astonished,  and  replied: 
"Madame  Huisson's  rose-winners — what 
do  you  r/van?" 

The  doctor  laughed.  "Oh!  It  is  a 
way  we  have  here  of  calling  a  man  a 
drunkard.  It  comes  from  an  old  story 
now  passed  into  legend,  which  was  true 
nevertheless,  in  all  points." 

"Is  it  amusing,  this  story?" 

"Very  amusing." 

"Then  tell  it,  will  you?'* 

"Very  willingly.  There  was  once  in 
this  town  an  old  lady,  very  virtuous  her- 
self and  the  protector  of  virtue,  who 
v/as  called  Madame  Huisson.  And  you 
must  know  I  am  telling  you  true  names 
and  not  fictitious  ones.  Madame  Huis- 
son occupied  herself  with  good  works, 
helping  the  poor  and  encouraging  those 
that  merited  it.  She  was  little,  walking 
v/ith  quick,  short  steps,  and  wore  a 
black  silk  wig.  She  was  very  polite 
and  ceremonious,  on  excellent  terms 
with  the  good  God,  as  represented  by 
Abbe  Malou,  and  she  had  a  profound, 
inborn  horror  of  the  vice  the  Church 
calls  luxury.  Pregnancies  before  mar- 
riage made  her  lose  her  temper,  exas- 
perating her  to  the  point  of  making  hex; 
beside  herself. 


744 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASbAN'i 


•'It  was  the  epoch  when  they  were 
crowning  virtue  with  roses  in  the  suburbs 
of  Paris,  and  the  idea  came  to  Madame 
Huisson  to  have  the  same  kind  of  fes- 
tival in  Gisors.  She  discussed  it  with 
Abbe  Malou,  who  immediately  made 
out  a  list  of  candidates  for  her. 

"But  Madame  Huisson  had  in  her 
service  as  maid  an  old  woman  named 
Frances,  as  strict  as  her  mistress.  When 
the  priest  had  gone,  the  mistress  called 
her  servant  and  said  to  her:  Trances, 
here  are  the  names  of  some  girls  that 
the  curate  proposes  for  the  prize  of 
virtue;  make  it  your  business  to  find  out 
what  people  think  of  them  around  here.' 

"And  Frances  began  to  go  about  the 
country.  She  culled  all  the  deceptions, 
stories,  suspicions,  and  tattle,  and,  for 
fear  of  forgetting  some  of  the  details, 
she  wrote  them  down  with  her  expenses 
in  her  kitchen-book,  and  every  morning 
she  took  the  book  to  Madame  Huisson 
who  read  it  carefully,  after  adjusting 
her  spectacles  over  her  thin  nose: 

"  'Bread,  four  sous.  Milk,  two  sous. 
Butter,  eight  sous. 

*'  'Malvlna  Lcvesque  v/ent  v/ild  last 
year  v.ith  Matthew  Pollu.  One  leg  of 
mutton,  twenty-live  sous.     Sail,  one  sou. 

**  'Rosalie  Valincl  v.as  met  in  the  wood 
with  Caesar  Pienoir,  zt  dusk,  by  Mrs. 
Onesime,  ironer,  the  twentieth  of  July. 
Radishes,  one  sou.  Vinegar,  tv/o  sous. 
Sorrel,  two  sous.  Josephine  Durdent, 
that  nobody  had  believed  had  any  fault, 
is  found  to  have  a  correspondence  with 
the  son  of  Oportun,  who  is  in  service  at 
Rouen,  and  who  sent  her  a  bonnet  by 
the   diligence   for   a   present.' 

"Not  a  girl  escaped  intact  in  this 
scrupulous  inquisition.  Frances  asked 
questions  of  everybody, — the  neighbors, 
the  traders,  the  schoolmaster,  the  sis- 


ter: of  the  school, — and  summed  up  the 
reports. 

"As  there  is  not  a  girl  in  the  universe 
upon  whom  comments  have  not  been 
passed,  at  one  time  or  another,  not  a 
single  young  woman  beyond  slander  was 
found  in  the  whole  countryside. 

"Now,  Madame  Huisson  wished  her 
rose-winner  to  be  like  Caesar's  wife, 
above  suspicion,  and  she  stood  amazed, 
desolate,  and  in  despair  before  the 
kitchen-book  of  her  maidservant. 

"They  enlarged  the  circle  of  inquiry 
even  to  the  neighboring  villages,  but 
found  no  favorable  result.  The  mayor 
was  consulted.  All  his  protegees  were 
judged  unsatisfactory.  Those  of  Dr. 
Barbesol  had  no  greater  success,  in 
spite  of  the  precision  of  scientific  guar- 
anties. 

"One  morning  Frances  came  in  from 
one  of  her  tours,  and  said  to  her  mis- 
tress . 

"  'It  seems,  Madame,  that  if  you  wish 
to  crown  somebody,  there  is  nobody  but 
Isidore  in  all  the  vicinity  that  is  worthv 
of  it.' 

Madame  Huisson  remained  quiet  and 
thoughtful. 

"She  knew  Isidore  well,  the  son  of 
Virginia,  the  fruit-seller.  His  proverbial 
chastity  had  been  the  delight  of  Gisors 
for  many  years,  serving  as  a  pleasant 
theme  of  conversation  and  amusement 
for  the  girls,  who  made  themselves  very 
merry  at  his  expense.  Over  twenty-ono 
in  age,  large,  awkward,  slow,  and  timid, 
he  helped  his  mother  at  her  trade,  pass- 
ing his  days  in  picking  over  fruits  and 
vegetables,  seated  on  a  chair  before  the 
door. 

"He  had  an  abnormal  fear  of  petti- 
coats that  caused  him  to  lower  his  eyes 


AN  ENTHUSIAST 


745 


9vhen  a  fair  customer  looked  at  him  and 
smiled;  and  this  timidity,  being  well 
known,  rendered  him  the  sport  of  all  the 
wags  of  the  place.  Bold  words,  impure 
allusions,  expressions  of  doubtful  mean- 
ing, made  him  blush  so  quickly  that  Dr. 
Barbesol  nicknamed  him  the  thermo- 
meter of  modesty.  Did  he  know  any- 
thing or  did  he  no'.?  his  rogues  of  neigh- 
bors would  ask  one  another.  Was  it  sim- 
ply a  presentiment  of  unknown  mys- 
teries, or  honest  indignation  for  vile 
relations  intended  for  love  alone,  which 
seemed  to  move  so  strongly  the  son  of 
Virginia,  the  fruit-seller?  The  imps  oi 
the  neighborhood  would  run  up  before 
his  shop  and  throw  pieces  of  filth  in  his 
face,  just  to  see  him  lower  his  eyes.  The 
girls  amused  themselves  passing  and  re- 
passing his  door,  calKng  out  bswitchingly 
to  him,  until  ^e  would  fo  into  the  house. 
Some  of  the  boldest  would  provoke  him 
openly,  for  the  sake  of  laughing  at  him, 
asking  him  to  meet  them,  and  proposing 
abomJnable  things. 

"And  so  Madame  Huisson  kept  think- 
ing. 

"Certainly,  Isidore  was  a  case  of  ex- 
ceptional virtue,  notorious  and  unassail- 
able. No  one,  even  the  most  sceptical, 
the  most  incredulous,  could  or  would 
have  dared  to  have  a  suspicion  that 
Isidore  was  guilty  of  the  slightest  infi ac- 
tion of  the  moral  law.  No  one  had  ever 
seen  him  in  a  caf6,  or  met  him  in  the 
streets  in  the  evenin<j.  He  went  to  bed 
at  eight  o'clock  and  arose  at  four.  He 
was  perfection;  a  pearl. 

H^    "Nevertheless,  Madame  Huisson  hesi- 
'tated.     The  idea  of  substituting  a  mas- 
culine rose-winner  for  a  feminine  trou- 
bled her,  disturbing  her  not  a  little,  and 
she  resolved  to  consult  Abbe  Malou. 


"The  abbe  replied:  'What  do  you 
wish  to  recompense,  Madame?  It  is 
virtue,  is  it  not,  and  nothing  but  vir- 
tue? What  matters  it,  then,  whether 
it  be  male  or  female?  Virtue  is  eternal; 
it  has  neiLher  country  nor  sex;  it  is  sim* 
ply  virtue!' 

"Thus  encouraged,  Madame  Huisson 
v;ent  to  find  the  mayor.  He  approve(i 
of  it  at  once.  'Let  us  make  it  a  beautifu' 
ceremony,*  said  he;  *and  in  one  yi^ar,  if 
we  find  a  young  woman  as  worthy  as 
Isidore,  we  will  then  crown  her.  In  this 
way  we  shall  set  a  beautiful  example  to 
Nantes.  Let  us  not  b^  exclu-sive,  but 
welcome  merit  v/hcrevcr  we  find  it.' 

"Isidore,  engaged  for  the  occasion, 
blushed  very  red,  but  seemed  content. 
The  ceremony  was  fixed  for  the  fifteenth 
of  August,  the  feast-day  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  aild  also  that  of  the  Emperor 
Napoleon. 

"The  municipalily  decided  to  give  a 
grand  demonstration  in  honor  of  this 
£olemnity  and  ordered  as  a  stage  for 
the  crowners  an  enlargement  of  the 
charming  ramparts  of  the  old  fortress, 
Y/hich  I  shall  soon  take  ycu  to  see. 

"By  a  natural  revolution  of  public 
spirit,  Isidore's  virtue,  scoffed  at  until 
that  day,  had  suddenly  become  respecta- 
ble, since  it  would  brin^j  him  five  hun' 
dred  francs,  besides  a  little  expense^ 
book,  which  was  a  mountain  of  consider- 
ation and  glory  to  spare.  The  girls  now 
regretted  their  frivolity,  their  laughter, 
and  their  freedom  of  manner;  and  Isi- 
dore, although  as  modest  and  timid  as 
ever,  had  taken  on  a  little  air  of  satis- 
faction which  bespoke  an   inward  joy. 

"On  the  eve  of  the  fifteenth  of  August, 
the  whole  of  Dauphine  Street  was  hung 
with  draperies.     Aht  I  have  forgotten 


746 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


to  tell  you  from  what  event  the  street 
received    its    name.      It   appears    that, 
years  ago,  the  princess — some  princess, 
I  don't  know  her  name — had  been  de- 
tained so  long  by  the  authorities  in  some 
public  demonstration,  that,  in  the  midst 
of  a  triumphal  m.arch  across  the  town, 
she  stopped  the  procession  before  one 
of   the  houses   of   this   street   and  ex- 
claimed:     'Oh!    what   a  pretty  house! 
How  i  wish  I  might  visit  it !    To  whom 
does   it   belong?'     They  gave   her   the 
name  of  the  owner,  who  was  sought  out 
and  led,  proud  but  confused,  before  the 
princess.     She  got  out  of  her  carriage, 
entered    the   house,    inspected  it    from 
top  to  bottom,  even  remaining  in  one 
particular    room     for    some     minutes. 
When  she  had  gone,  the  people,  flattered 
by  the  honor  received  by  a  citizen  of 
Gisors,  cried:     'Long  live  the  Princess!' 
But  a  little  song  was  composed  by  a 
joker,  and   the  street  received  a  royal 
name,  because  of  the  lines,  which  ran 
thus: 

"  'The  Princess,  in  a  hurry, 

Without  priest,  as  she  ought  to, 
Had,  with  a  little  water, 
Baptized  it.' 

"But  to  return  to  Isidore.  They 
threw  flowers  all  along  the  course  of  the 
procession,  as  they  do  for  processions 
on  the  church  feast-days.  The  Na- 
tional Guard  was  on  foot  under  orders 
from  its  chief.  Commander  Desbarres, 
an  old  soldier  of  the  Grand  Army,  who 
displayed  with  pride  the  cross  of  honor 
given  to  him  by  Napoleon  himself,  for 
the  beard  of  a  Cossack  culled  with  a 
single  blow  of  the  saber  by  the  com- 
mander from  the  chin  of  its  owner  in 
the  retreat  from  Russia. 


^  "The  company  he  commanded,  be 
sides  being  a  corps  composed  of  th 
4lite,  celebrated  in  all  the  province,  wa 
the  company  of  Gisors  grenadiers,  wh 
were  in  demand  at  every  celebration  o 
note  within  a  radius  of  fifteen  or  twent 
miles.  They  tell  how  King  Louis 
Philippe,  passing  in  review  the  militi 
of  Eure,  once  stopped  in  astonishmen 
before  the  Gisors  company  and  ex 
claimed :  'Oh !  who  are  these  handsom( 
grenadiers?' 

"  'From  Gisors,'  replied  the  general. 

"  'I  can  scarcely  believe  it,'  murmurec 
the  king. 

"Now,  Commander  Desbarres  cam( 
with  these  men,  music  at  the  head,  t( 
take  Isidore  from  his  mother's  shop 
After  a  little  air  had  been  played  un- 
der his  windows,  the  rose-winner  him- 
self appeared  on  the  threshold.  He  was 
clothed  in  white  duck  from  head  to  foot 
and  wore  on  his  head  a  straw  cap  which 
had  on  it,  like  a  cockade,  a  bouquet  oi 
orange-flowers. 

"This  question  of  costume  had  much 
disturbed  Madame  Huisson,  who  hesi- 
tated a  long  time  between  the  black 
coat  of  the  first  communicant  and  the 
complete  suit  of  white.  But  Frances, 
her  counselor,  decided  in  favor  of  the 
white,  as  it  would  tend  to  give  the  rose- 
winner  the  air  of  a  great  poet. 

"Behind  him  appeared  his  protector, 
his  god-mother,  Madame  Huisson, 
triumphant.  She  took  his  arm  upon  go- 
ing out,  and  the  mayor  walked  at  the 
other  side  of  the  hero.  The  drums  beat. 
Commander  Desbarres  shouted:  'Pre- 
sent arms!'  And  the  procession  started 
on  its  march  to  the  church,  amid  a  large 
concourse  of  people  assembled  from  ali 
the  neighboring  towns  and  villages. 


AN  ENTHUSIAST 


7^7 


"After  a  short  mass  and  a  touching 
address  by  Abbe  Malou,  they  repaired 
to  the  coronation  grounds,  where  the 
banquet  was  served  under  a  tent.  Be- 
fore sitting  down  at  the  table,  the  mayor 
had  a  word  to  say.  Here  is  his  dis- 
course verbatim.  I  learned  it  by  heart 
because  it  was  so  beautiful : 

"'Young  man,  a  good  woman,  loved 
by  the  poor  and  respected  by  the  rich, 
Madame  Huisson,  whom  the  entire  coun- 
try thanks  here  through  my  voice,  had 
the  thought,  the  happy,  beneficen<: 
thought,  of  founding  in  this  town  a  prize 
of  virtue,  which  would  be  a  precious 
encouragem-nt  offered  to  the  inhabitants 
of  this  beautiful  country. 

"'You,  young  man,  are  the  first  one 
crowned  in  the  dynasty  of  chastity,  and 
of  this  wise  woman.  Your  name  will 
remain  at  the  head  of  this  list  of  the 
deserving  ones;  and  it  will  be  necessary 
that  your  li Te,  30U  understand,  your  whole 
life  shall  be  in  accord  with  this  begin- 
ning. To-day,  face  to  face  with  this 
noble  woman  who  recompenses  your  vir- 
tuous conduct,  face  to  face  with  these 
soldier-citizens  who  have  taken  up  arms 
in  your  honor,  and  with  these  sym- 
pathetic people,  reunited  to  cheer  you,  or 
rather  to  cheer  in  your  virtue,  may  you 
contract  the  solemn  engagement  toward 
this  town,  toward  all  of  us  to  set,  until 
the  day  of  your  death,  the  excellent 
example  of  your  youth.  Do  not  forget, 
young  man,  that  you  are  the  first  grain 
sown  in  the  field  of  hope;  give  us  the 
fruits  that  we  expect  from  you." 

"The  mayor  took  three  steps,  opened 
his  arms,  and  pressed  the  sobbing  Isi- 
dore to  his  heart. 

"The  rose-winner  was  sobbing,  but 
without  knowing  why,  from  a  confusion 
of  emotion,  pride  and  a  tenderness, 
vague  and  joyous. 

Then  the  mayor  put  in  his  hand  a  silk 
purse  which  rung  with  gold,  five  hundred 


francs  in  gold!  And  in  the  other  hand 
he  put  the  Httle  expense-book.  Then,  in 
a  solemn  voice,  he  pronounced  these 
words;  'Homage,  Glory,  and  Riches,  to 
Virtue!' 

"Commander      Desbarres      shouted: 
'Bravo!'     The  grenadiers   followed   his 
example,    and    the    people    applauded. 
Madame  Huisson  was  drying  her  eyes. 
"Then  they  took  their  places  around 
the  table  where  the  banquet  was  served. 
It  was  magnificent  and  prolonged.    Dish 
followed  dish ;  yellow  cider  and  red  wine 
fraternized   in   neighboring  glasses   and 
mingled  in  the  same  stomachs.    The  rat- 
tle of  dishes  and  of  voices  and  the  mu- 
sic, which  played  softly,  made  a  continu- 
ous, profound  rumble  that  lost  itself  in 
the  clear  sky  where  the  swallows  were 
flying.    Madame  Huisson  readjusted  her 
black  silk  wig  from  time  to  time,  as  it 
became  tipped  over  one  ear  in  her  chat 
with  Abbe  Malou.    The  mayor,  excited, 
talked   politics   with   Commander  Des- 
barres, and  Isidore  ate,  Isidore  drank,  as 
he  never  had  eaten   or   drunk  before! 
He  took  and  retook  of  everything,  per- 
ceiving for  the  first  time  that  it  was 
sweet  to  feel  himself  filled  with  good 
things,  which  first  gave  pleasure  to  his 
palate.     He  had  adroitly  loosened  the 
buckle  of  his  trousers,  which  bound  him 
under   the  pressure  of  growing  corpu- 
lence, and  silent,  a  little  disturbed  by 
the  knowledge  that  a  drop  of  wine  had 
fallen  on  his  white  coat,  he  ceased  to 
eat  in  order  to   carry  his  glass  to  his 
mouth  and  keep  it  there  as  long  as  possi- 
ble, that  he  might  taste  the  wine  slowly. 
"The  hour  of  the  toasts  struck.    They 
v/ere  numerous  and  well  applauded.   The 
evening   came;    they  had   been   at   the 
table    since    midday.      Already    vapors 


748 


7vORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


sof^  and  milky-white  were  floating  in 
the  valley,  clothing  lightly  with  the 
shadow  of  night  the  brooks  and  the 
fields;  the  sun  touched  the  horizon;  the 
cows  bellowed  from  afar  in  the  brown 
haze  of  the  pastures.  The  feast  was 
ended.  They  were  going  back  to  Gisors. 
The  procession,  broken  now,  was  march- 
mg  helter-skelter.  Madame  Huisson  had 
taken  Isidore's  arm  and  was  giving  him 
numerous  injunctions,  hurried  but  ex- 
cellent. 

"They  arrived  at  the  door  of  the 
fruit-seller,  and  the  rose-winner  was  left 
at  his  mother's  house.  She  had  not  yet 
returned.  Invited  by  her  family  to  cele- 
brate the  triumph  of  her  son,  she  had 
taken  luncheon  with  her  sister,  after 
following  the  procession  as  far  as  the 
banquet  tent.  So  Isidore  was  alone  in 
the  shop,  which  was  almost  dark. 

"He  sec  ted  himself  upon  a  chair, 
agitated  by  wine  and  by  pride,  and 
looked  about  h'm.  Carrots,  cabbages, 
and  onions  diffused  through  the  closed 
room  the  strong  odor  of  vegetables,  min- 
gling their  rude  garden  aroma  with  a 
sweet,  penetrating  fragrance,  the  fresh 
and  light  perfume  escaping  from  a  bas- 
ket of  peaches. 

"The  rose-winner  took  a  peach  and 
ate  it,  although  he  was  already  as  round 
as  a  pumpkin.  Then,  suddenly  excited 
with  joy,  he  began  to  dance,  and  some- 
thing rattled  in  his  coat.  He  was  sur- 
prised, thrust  his  hand  in  his  pocket  and 
brought  out  the  purse  with  the  fire  hun- 
dred franco  which  he  had  forgotten  in 
his  drunkenness.  Five  hundred  francs! 
What  a  fortune!  He  turned  the  money 
out  upon  the  counter  and  dropped  it 
slowly  through  his  fingers,  so  as  to  see 
them  all  at  the  same  time.    There  were 


twenty-five  of  them,  twenty-five  round 
pieces  of  gold!  All  gold!  They  shone 
upon  the  wood  in  the  thick  shadows, 
and  he  counted  them  and  recounted 
them,  placing  his  finger  upon  each  one, 
murmuring:  *One,  two,  three,  four,  five, 
— one  hundred;  six,  seven,  eight,  nine, 
ten, — two  hundred.*  Then  he  put  them 
in  his  purse  again  and  concealed  it  in 
his  pocket. 

"Who  can  know  and  who  can  say 
what  sort  of  combat  took  place  in  the 
soul  of  this  rose-winner  between  the  evil 
and  the  good,  the  tumultuous  attack  of 
Satan,  his  snares  and  deceits,  the  tempta- 
tions that  he  threw  into  this  timid, 
virgin  heart?  What  suggestions,  what 
images,  what  covetous  desires  had  the 
Rogue  of  all  rogues  invented  for  moss- 
ing and  ruining  this  chosen  soul?  He 
seized  his  cap,  chosen  by  Madame  Huis- 
son, his  cap  which  still  bore  the  bouquet 
of  orange-flowers,  and,  going  out  by  the 
street  back  of  the  house,  he  disappeared 
into  the  night. 
****** 

"Virginia,  the  fruit-seller,  having  been 
told  that  her  son  had  returned,  came 
back  almost  immediately  and  found  the 
house  empty.  She  waited  without  be- 
ing astonished  at  first;  then,  at  the  end 
of  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  she  be^an  to 
inquire.  Th6r  neighbors  in  Dauphine 
Street  had  seen  Isido-e  enter  the  house 
end  had  not  seen  him  go  out  again. 
Then  they  searched  for  him,  but  could 
not  find  him.  The  fruit-seller,  much 
disturbed,  ran  to  the  mayor.  The  mayor 
knew  nothing  about  the  youth,  except 
that  he  had  left  him  at  his  mother's 
door.  Madame  Huisson  left  her  bed, 
when  she  heard  that  her  protege  had  dis- 
appeared.   She  immediately  put  on  hei 


AN  ENTHUSIAST 


749 


wig,  and  went  to  Virginia's  house.  Vir- 
ginia, who  had  a  soul  easily  moved, 
wept  tears  among  her  cabbages,  carrots 
and  onions. 

"They  feared  some  accident.  What? 
Commander  Desbarres  called  out  the 
mounted  police,  who  made  a  tour  around 
the  whole  town;  he  found,  on  the  road 
from  Pontoise,  the  litlle  bouquet  of  oi- 
ange-flowers.  It  was  placed  upon  a  tabb 
around  which  the  authorities  sat  in  de- 
liberation. The  rose-winner  had  been 
the  victim  of  some  stratagem  on  account 
of  jealousy;  but  how?  What  means  had 
they  employed  to  carry  off  this  innocent 
one,  and  to  what  end? 

"Weary  of  searching  without  finding, 
the  authorities  retired.  Virginia,  alone, 
watched  in  her  tears. 

"The  next  evening,  when  the  diligence 
from  Paris  was  passing  through  the  vil- 
lage on  its  return,  the  people  of  Gisorr 
learned  wilh  surprise  that  their  rose- 
winner  had  stopped  the  coach  two  hun- 
dred meters  from  their  town,  had 
mounted,  paid  for  his  place  with  a  louis 
of  the  money  they  had  given  him,  and 
that  he  had  alighted  calmly  in  the  heart 
of  the  great  city. 

"Th2  excitement  in  the  country  was 
considerable.  Letters  were  exchanged 
between  the  mayor  and  the  chief  of  po- 
lice at  Paris,  but  they  led  to  no  dis- 
covery. Day  followed  day,  until  a  week 
had  passed. 

"Then  one  morning  Dr.  Barbesol,  go- 
ing out  at  an  early  hour,  saw  a  man  sit- 
ting in  a  doorway,  clothed  in  grimy 
white,  sleeping  with  his  head  against 
the  wall.  He  approached  him  and  rec- 
ognized Isidore.  Trying  to  awaken  him, 
he  found  it  impossible.  The  ex-rose- 
winncr  slept  wath  a  sleep  so  profound. 


unconquerable,  and  unusual,  that  the 
doctor,  much  surprised,  sought  aid  in 
carrying  the  young  man  to  Boncheval's 
pharmacy.  When  they  lifted  him,  a 
bottle,  apparently  empty,  was  lying  un- 
der him,  and,  Slaving  smelled  of  it,  the 
doctor  declared  it  had  contained  brandy. 
It  was  an  indication  that  served  their 
purpose.  They  understood.  Isidore  was 
drunk ;  had  been  drunk  and  besotted  for 
c.'ght  days,  and  was  too  disgusting  to 
be  touciied  by  a  ragpicker.  His  beauti- 
ful costume  of  white  duck  had  become 
a  grimy  rag,  yellow,  greasy,  muddy, 
slashed,  and  wholly  debased;  and  his 
person  exhaled  all  sorts  of  nauseating 
odors  from  the  brook  of  vice. 

"He  v/as  washed,  preached  to,  shut 
up,  and  for  four  days  did  not  go  out.  He 
seemed  honest  and  repentant.  They 
had  not  found  upon  him  either  the  purse 
v/ith  the  five  hundred  francs,  or  the  ex- 
pense-book, or  his  gold  watch,  a  sacred 
inheritance  from  his  father,  the  fruiterer. 

"On  the  fifth  day,  he  risked  himseli 
in  Dauphine  Street.  Curious  looks  fol- 
lowed him,  and  he  went  along  by  the 
houses  with  lowered  head  and  shifty 
eyes.  They  lost  sight  of  him  on  the  way 
from  the  town  throuj;;h  the  valley.  But 
two  hours  later  he  re.jppeared,  giggling, 
and  hitting  himself  against  walls.  He 
was  drunk  again,  hopelessly  drunk. 

"Nothing  could  cure  him.  Driven  out 
by  his  mother,  he  became  a  driver  of 
coal  wagons  for  the  business  house  of 
Pougrisel,  which  ex*"ts  to-day.  His  rep- 
utation as  a  drunkard  became  so  great, 
and  extended  so  far,  that  even  at  Evreux 
they  spoke  of  the  rose-winner  of  Ma- 
dame Huisson,  and  the  legends  of  the 
country  have  preserved  this  nickname 

"A  good  deed  is  never  lest  ** 


750 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


i»  ^  4(  *  4:  * 

Dr.  Marambot  rubbed  his  hands  in 
finishing  his  history. 

"Did  you  know  this  rose-winner  your- 
self?"   I  inquired. 

"Yes,"  said  he,  "I  had  the  honor  of 
shutting  his  eyes." 

"How  did  he  die?" 

"In  a  crisis  of  delirium  tremens,  na- 
turally." 

We  had  come  to  the  old  fortress, 
heaped  with  ruined  walls  overlooking 
the  tower  of  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury, 
and  the  tower  called  the  Prisoner.  Mar- 
ambot told  me  the  history  of  this  pris- 
oner, who,  with  the  end  of  a  nail,  cov- 
ered the  walls  of  his  dungeon  with  sculp- 
ture, following  the  movements  of  the 
sun  across  the  narrow  sHt  in  a  mur- 
derer's cell. 

Then  I  learned  that  Clotaire  II.  had 
given  Gisors  to  his  cousin  Saint  Romaiii, 
Bishop  of  Rouen;  that  Gisors  ceased  to 
be  the  capital  of  Vexin  after  the  treaty 
of  St.  Clair  on  the  Epte;  that  the  town 
is  the  first  strategic  point  of  that  part 
of  Fiance;  and  that  it  has.  been,  on  ac- 
count of  this  advantage,  taken  and  re- 
taken an  infinite  number  of  times. 
Upon  the  order  of  William  the  Red,  the 
celebrated  engineer,  Robert  de  Bellesme, 
constructed  there  a  powerful  fortress, 
attacked  later  by  Louis  the  Great,  then 


by  the  Norman  barons;  it  was  defended 
by  Robert  de  Candos,  ceded  finally  by 
Louis  the  Great  to  Goeffrey  Plantagenet, 
and  was  retaken  from  the  English,  fol- 
lowing the  treaty  of  the  Templars.  It 
was  disputed  between  Philip  Augustus 
and  Richard  the  Lion-Hearted ;  burned 
by  Edward  III.  of  England,  who  could 
not  take  the  castle;  rebuilt  by  the  Eng- 
lish again  in  1419;  surrendered  later  to 
Charles  VII.  by  Richard  de  Marbury; 
taken  by  the  Duke  of  Calabre,  occupied 
by  the  League,  inhabited  by  Henry  IV., 
etc. 

And  Marambot,  convinced,  almost  elo- 
quent, repeated:  "What  scoundrels 
those  English  are!  And  what  drinkers, 
my  dear  friend,  and  all  rose-winners,  are 
those  hypocrites,  every  one  of  them!" 

After  that  there  was  a  silence,  and  he 
held  out  his  arms  to  the  thin  little  river 
that  glistened  through  the  level  fields. 
Then  he  said: 

"You  know  that  Henry  Monnier  was 
one  of  the  most  assiduous  of  fishermen 
on  the  banks  of  the  Epte?" 

"No,  I  did  not  know  it." 

"And  Bouffe,  my  dear  fellow,  Bouffe 
was  here  as  painter  and  glazier." 

"Oh!  come,  now!'' 

"Yes,  truly.  How  can  you  be  so 
ignorant  of  these  things?" 


The  Traveler's  Story 


We  went  up  on  the  bridge  again  after 
dinner.  The  Mediterranean  before  us 
had  not  a  ripple  on  its  whole  surface,  in 
which  a  great,  calm  moon  was  reflected. 
The  huge  steamer  sped  along,  throwing 


to  the  heavens  sown  with  stars  a 
great  serpent  of  black  smoke.  And  be- 
hind us  the  whitened  water,  agitated  by 
the  rapid  passing  of  the  heavy  ship, 
seemed   to   be   in  torture,   beaten  into 


THE  TRAVELER'S  STORY 


75* 


froth  by  the  screw,  and  changed  from 
its  smooth  splendor  where  it  lay  quiet 
under  the  rays  of  the  brilliant  moon. 

We  were  there,  several  of  us,  silent, 
admiring,  our  eyes  turned  toward  Africa, 
whither  we  were  bound.  The  com- 
mander, smoking  a  cigar  as  he  stood 
among  us,  suddenly  took  up  the  conver- 
sation of  the  dinner-table: 

"Yes,  I  did  have  some  fears  that  day. 
Mv  ship  had  been  six  hours  with  that 
rocking  in  the  hold,  beaten  by  the  sea. 
Happily,  we  were  picked  up  toward  eve- 
ning, by  an  English  collier  that  had 
spied  us." 

Then  a  great  man  of  burly  figure  and 
grave  aspect,  one  of  those  men  who  seem 
to  have  come  from  some  unknown  and 
distant  country,  from  the  midst  of  in- 
cessant dangers,  whose  tranquil  eye,  in 
its  profundity,  appears  to  hold  in  some 
way  the  foreign  landscapes  he  has  seen, 
— one  of  those  men  who  give  the  im- 
pression of  possessing  great  courage, 
spoke  for  the  first  time: 

"You  say,  commander,  that  you  were 
afraid.  I  cannot  believe  that.  You 
deceive  yourself  in  the  word,  and  in  the 
sensation  you  experienced.  An  energetic 
man  is  never  afraid  in  the  face  of  press- 
i  ing  danger.  He  is  moved,  excited,  anxi- 
i.ous,  but  fear  is  another  thing." 

The    commander,    laughing,    replied: 
'Nonsense!     I  tell  you  frankly  that  I 
rwas  afraid." 

Then  the  man  with  the  bronze  tint 
said  in  a  slow  manner: 

"Allow  me  to  explain  myself!  Fear 
(and  the  hardiest  men  can  experience 
i  fear)  is  something  frightful,  an  atrocious 
sensation,  like  the  decomposition  of  the 
soul,  a  frightful  spasm  of  thought  and 
of  the  heart,  of  which  the  mere  remem- 


brance sends  a  shiver  of  agony  through 
the  frame.  But  this  is  not  felt  when  one 
is  brave,  nor  before  an  attack,  nor  be- 
fore inevitable  death,  nor  before  any  of 
all  the  known  forms  of  peril;  it  is  felt 
in  abnormal  circumstances,  under  certain 
mysterious  influences,  in  the  face  of 
vague  dangers.  True  fear  is  something 
like  a  reminiscence  of  fantastic  terrors 
of  other  times.  A  man  who  believes 
in  spirits,  and  who  imagines  that  he 
sees  a  specter  in  the  night,  should  under- 
stand fear  in  all  its  horror. 

"As  for  me,  I  have  understood  what 
fear  is,  in  broad  day.  It  was  about  ten 
years  ago.  I  also  felt  it  again  last  win- 
ter, one  night  in  December. 

"Yet  I  have  taken  many  chances,  had 
many  adventures  that  seemed  mortal. 
I  have  often  fought.  I  have  been  left 
for  dead  by  robbers.  I  have  been  con- 
demned as  an  insurgent,  in  America; 
doomed  to  be  hanged,  and  thrown  into 
the  sea  from  the  bridge  of  a  ship  in 
China.  Each  time  I  believed  myself 
lost,  but  undertook  to  make  the  best  of 
it  immediately,  without  grief  or  even 
regret. 

"But  fear — that  is  something  else. 

"I  had  a  presentiment  in  Africa — al- 
though presentiment  in  a  daughter  of  the 
north — the  sun  dissipates  it  like  a  fog. 
Notice  that  well,  gentlemen.  Among  the 
Orientals,  life  counts  for  nothing.  They 
are  always  .resigned  to  meet  death. 
Nights  are  clear  and  free  from  the  dis- 
quieting shadows  which  haunt  the  brains 
of  the  people  of  cold  countries.  In  the 
Orient  they  understand  panic,  but  they 
are  ignorant  of  fear. 

"Well !  Here  is  what  happened  to  me 
on  African  soil: 

"I  had  crossed  the  great  dunes  in  the 


752 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


south  of  Ouargla.  That  is  one  of  the 
strangest  countries  in  the  world.  You 
are  familiar  with  level  sand,  the  true 
sand  of  the  interminable  shore  of  the 
sea.  Well,  figure  to  yourselves  the 
ocean  itself  sand,  and  in  the  midst  of  a 
hurricane;  imagine  a  silent  tempest  of 
motionless  waves  in  yellow  dust.  They 
are  as  high  as  mountains,  these  unequal 
waves,  differing  from  each  other,  and 
raised  suddenly,  like  unchained  billows, 
but  greater  still,  and  streaked  like  water 
waves.  Upon  this  furious  sea,  mute, 
immovable,  the  sun  of  the  south  turns 
its  implacable  and  direct  flame,  devour- 
ing it.  It  is  necessary  to  climb  these 
waves  of  golden  ashes,  to  redescend,  to 
climb  again,  to  climb  incessantly,  with- 
out repose  and  without  shade.  Horses 
puff,  sinking  to  their  knees,  and  slipping 
in,  they  go  down  the  other  side  of  these 
surprising  little  hills. 

"We  were  two  friends,  followed  by 
eight  spahis  and  four  camels  with  their 
drivers.  We  could  no  longer  speak,  as 
we  were  suffocated  with  heat  and  fatigue 
and  parched  with  thirst,  like  this  burn- 
ing desert.  Suddenly  one  of  our  men 
uttered  a  kind  of  cry.  All  stopped,  and 
we  remained  motionless,  surprised  by  an 
inexplicable  phenomenon,  known  only  to 
travelers  in  these  lost  countrits. 

"Somewhere,  near  us,  in  an  indeter- 
minate direction,  a  drum  ?;as  beating, 
the  mysterious  drum  of  the  dunes.  It 
was  heard  distinctly,  at  first  vibrating 
loudly,  then  more  feebly,  stopping,  then 
taking  up  its  fantastic  rolling  again. 

"The  Arabs,  much  frightened,  looked 
at  one  another,  and  one  said  in  his  own 
language:    'Death  is  upon  us.' 

"Just  then,  suddenly,  my  companion, 
my  friend,  almost  my  brother,  fell  on  his 


head  from  his  horse,  overcome  with  sun- 
stroke. And  for  the  next  two  hours,  dur- 
ing which  I  tried  in  vain  to  save  him, 
that  unseizable  drum  filled  my  ears  with 
its  monotonous  noise,  intermittent  and 
incomprehensible. 

"I  felt  slipping  into  my  bones  a  fear, 
true  fear,  hideous  fear,  in  the  face  of 
my  dead  friend,  well-beloved,  in  this 
hole,  burning  up  in  the  sun,  between 
four  mountains  of  sand,  where  an  un- 
known echo  brought  to  us  the  rapid 
beating  of  a  drum,  two  hundred  miles 
from  any  French  village. 

"That  day,  I  understood  what  it  was 
to  have  fear;  and  I  understood  it  still 
better  on  one  other  occasion." 

The  commander  interrupted  the 
speaker:  "Pardon,  sir,  but  this  drum? 
What  was  it?" 

The  traveler  answered:  "That  I  do 
not  know.  No  one  knew.  The  officers^ 
often  surprised  by  this  singular  noise, 
attributed  it  generally  to  a  great  echo, 
multiplied,  swelled  immeasurably  by  the 
little  valleys  of  the  dunes,  caused  by 
particles  of  sand  being  carried  in  the 
wind  and  hurled  against  a  bunch  of  dried 
herbs;  because  they  always  noticed  that 
the  phenomenon  was  produced  in  the 
neighborhood  of  plants  dried  in  the  sun, 
and  hard  as  parchment.  This  drum,  * 
then,  was  a  kind  of  mirage  of  sound.  ■ 
That  is  all.     But  I  learned  that  later. 

"Now  I  come  to  my  second  emotion. 

"This  came  to  me  last  winter,  in  a 
forest  in  the  northeast  of  France.  The 
night  fell  two  hours  earlier  than  ajsual, 
the  sky  was  so  cloudy.  I  had  for  a 
guide  a  peasant,  who  walked  at  my  sidf 
through  a  little  road,  under  an  arch  oi 
pines,  through  wbJch  the  unchained  wind 
howled  dismally.     Between  the  hilltops 


THE  TRAVELER'S  STORY 


753 


i  could  see  clouds  scurrying  away  in 
line,  lost  clouds,  which  seemed  to  be 
fleeing  before  some  fright.  Sometimes, 
under  a  powerful  whirlwind,  the  whole 
forest  bowed  in  the  same  breath  with  a 
groan  of  suffering.  And  the  cold  took 
me  by  force,  in  spite  of  my  rapid  walk 
and  heavy  clothing. 

"We  were  going  to  take  supper  and 
sleep  at  the  house  of  a  forest  guide 
whose  house  was  not  far  from  the  place 
where  we  were.  I  was  going  there  to 
hunt. 

"My  guide  would  sometimes  raise  his 
eyes  and  mutter:  'Bad  weather!'  Then 
he  spoke  of  the  people  to  whose  house 
we  were  going.  The  father  had  killed 
a  poacher,  two  years  before,  and  since 
then  he  had  seemed  somber,  as  if 
haunted  by  a  memory.  His  two  sons 
were  married  and  lived  with  him. 

'The    shadows    were    profound.      I 
could  see  nothing  before  me,  nor  about 
me;  and  the  branches  of  the  trees,  clash- 
ing against  each  other,  filled  the  night 
with  confusion.     Finally  I  perceived  a 
light,  and  soon  my  companion  knocked 
on  a  door.     The  sharp  cries  of  women 
responded.     Then  the  voice  of  a  man, 
a    strangled    voice,    asked:      'Who    is 
L    there?'    My  guide  gave  our  names.    We 
I     entered.     It  was  a  picture  never  to  be 
.     forgotten. 

"An  old  man  with  white  hair  and  a 

Mad  expression  of  the  eye,  awaited  us 

I     in   the  middle   of   the   kitchen   with  a 

1     loaded  gun  in  his  hand,  while  two  great 

I     fellows,   armed   with  hatchets,  guarded 

I     the  door.     I  distinguished  in  the  dark 

corner  two  women  on  their  knees,  their 

faces  turned  against  the  wall. 

"They  explained  it.    The  old  man  put 
'    up  his  gun  and  ordered  them  to  prepare 


my  room;  then,  as  the  women  did  not 
budge,  he  said  brusquely: 

"  'You  see,  sir,  I  killed  a  man  here, 
two  years  ago  to-night.  LaaC  year  he 
came  back  to  me.  I  am  expecting  him 
this  evening.' 

"Then  he  added,  in  a  cone  that  made 
me  laugh. 

"  'So,  we  are  not  q'.'ite  easy.* 

"I  reassured  him  as  best  I  could, 
happy  to  have  come  just  at  this  time 
to  assist  at  the  spectacle  of  this  super- 
stitious terror.  I  told  stories,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  calming  them  all  somewhat. 

"Near  the  entrance  was  an  old  dog 
whiskered  and  nearly  blind,  one  of  those 
dogs    that    resemble    people    we   know, 
asleep,  with  h*s  nose  in  his  paws. 

"Outside,  the  raging  tempest  was  beat- 
ing against  the  little  house,  and  through 
a  small  hole,  a  kind  of  Judas-place,  near 
the  door,  I  suddenly  saw,  by  a  sharp 
flash  of  lightning,  a  clump  of  great  trees 
over-turned  by  the  wind. 

"In  spite  of  my  efforts,  I  felt  sure 
that  a  profound  terror  held  these  peo- 
ple, and  each  time  that  I  ceased  to  speak, 
all  ears  seemed  to  be  listening  to  some- 
thing in  the  distance.  Weary  of  trying 
to  dispel  these  imbecile  fears,  I  asked 
permission  to  go  to  bed.  when  the  old 
guard  suddenly  made  a  bound  from  his 
chair,  seized  his  gun  again,  and  stuttered, 
in  a  far-away  voice: 

"'Here  he  is!  Here  he  is!  Vm 
waiting  for  him!' 

"Tbe  two  women  fell  upon  their 
knees  in  their  corners,  concealing  their 
faces,  and  the  sons  took  up  their  hatch- 
ets. I  was  trying  to  appease  them  again 
when  the  sleeping  dog  awoke  suddenly, 
and,  raising  his  head,  stretching  his 
neck,  and  looking  toward  the  fire  with 


754 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


eyes  almost  closed,  began  to  utter  the 
most  lugubrious  howls,  of  the  sort  that 
gave  a  start  to  travelers  in  the  country 
at  night.  All  eyes  were  turned  toward 
him;  he  remained  motionless,  resting 
upon  his  paws,  as  if  haunted  by  a 
vision. 

"He  was  howling  at  something  in- 
visible, unknown,  frightful,  no  doubt,  be- 
cause his  hair  TAas  bristling.  The  guide, 
now  livid,  cried  out : 

"  'He  feels  him!  He  feels  him!  He 
i?vas  there  when  I  killed  him!* 

"And  the  two  excited  women  began 
to  howl  with  the  dog. 

"In  spite  of  myself  a  great  shiver  ran 
down  between  my  shoulders.  The  sight 
of  the  t",rrified  animal  m  that  place,  at 
that  hour,  in  the  midst  of  those  be- 
nighted people,  was  frightful. 

"For  an  hour,  the  dog  howled  with- 
out ceasing;  his  wails  sounded  as  if  he 
were  in  agony  from  a  dream.  And  fear, 
ungovernable  fear,  entered  my  being. 
Fear  of  what?  Did  I  know  what?  It 
was  fear,  and  that  was  all. 

"We  remained  motionless,  livid,  in 
expectation  of  some  frightful  event, 
with  listening  ear  and  beating  heart, 
starting  at  the  least  noise.  And  the  dog 
began  to  go  about  the  room,  touching  the 
walls,  and  growling.  That  beast  nearly 
made  as  mad! 

"The  peasant  who  had  brought  me 
threw  himself  upon  the  animal,  in  a  kind 
of  paroxysm  of  furious  terror,  and  open- 
ing the  door,  with  a  little  push  threw 
it  outside. 

"He  was  then  silent,  and  all  of  us  re- 
mained plunged  in  a  silence  more  terri- 
fying still.  Suddenly  we  all  started  with 
surprise.     A  form  glittered  on  the  wall, 


the  outside  wall  toward  the  forest;  then 
it  passed  against  the  door,  which  it 
seemed  to  touch  with  hesitating  hand; 
then  we  heard  nothing  for  two  minutes, 
which  almost  drove  us  out  of  our  senses; 
then  it  returned,  always  rubbin^r  against 
the  wall;  and  it  scratched  lightly,  as  a 
child  does  with  his  nail;  then  suddenly 
a  head  appeared  against  the  glass,  a 
white  head,  with  luminous  eyes  like 
those  of  a  deer.  And  there  came  from 
his  mouth  an  indistinct  sound,  a  plain- 
tive murmur. 

"Then  a  fearful  noise  resounded 
through  the  kitchen.  The  old  guide  had 
shot.  And  immediately  the  sons  hur- 
ried to  block  up  the  door,  putting  against 
it  the  great  table  and  bringing  the  side- 
table  to  its  assistance. 

"And  I  swear  to  you  that  from  the 
fracas  of  that  gunshot,  which  I  had  not 
expected,  I  had  such  an  a-^ony  of  heart 
and  soul  and  body  that  I  felt  myself 
swooning,  ready  to  die  of  fear. 

"We  remained  there  until  light,  in- 
capable of  moving,  not  saying  a  word, 
stiff  with  indescribable  fright. 

"They  did  not  dare  take  down  the 
barricade  until,  through  a  crevice  in  the 
door,  they  saw  a  ray  of  daylight. 

"At  the  foot  of  the  wall,  opposite  the 
door,  the  old  dog  lay,  his  mouth  pierced 
with  a  ball. 

"He  had  gone  out  of  the  yard,  cross- 
ing through  a  hole  under  the  fence." 

The  man  with  the  bronzed  visage  wai 
silent;  but  he  added  soon: 

"That  night  I  ran  into  no  danger;  but 
I  would  rather  encounter  all  the  hourr 
that  have  brought  me  the  greatest  peril 
than  that  one  minute  of  the  shooting 
at  the  shaggy  head  of  the  old  dog." 


\/'OLUME  vn 


I 


A  Jolly  Fellow 


They  called  him  Saint  Anthony,  be- 
cause his  name  was  Anthony,  and  also, 
perhaps  because  he  was  a  joyous  good 
lover,  fond  of  joking,  powerful  at  eating 
and  drinking,  and  had  a  vigorous  hand 
with  servants,  although  he  was  more 
than  sixty  years  old.  He  was  a  tall  peas- 
ant of  the  country  of  Caux,  of  high  color, 
great  in  chest  and  girth,  and  was  perched 
upon  long  legs  that  seemed  too  thin 
for  the  weight  of  his  body 

A  widower,  he  lived  alone  with  his 
maid  and  his  two  menservants  on  his 
farm,  which  he  directed  in  sly,  jovial 
fashion,  careful  of  his  interests,  attend- 
ing to  business  affairs,  the  breeding  of 
the  cattle,  and  the  cultivation  of  the 
land.  His  two  sons  and  three  daugh- 
ters, married  to  advantage,  lived  in  the 
neighborhood,  and  came,  once  a  month, 
to  dine  with  their  father.  His  vigor  was 
known  in  all  the  country  about;  people 
said,  as  if  it  were  a  proverb:  *'He  is 
as  strong  as  Saint  Anthony." 

When  the  Prussian  invasion  occurred, 
Saint  Anthony,  at  the  inn,  promised  to 
eat  an  army,  for,  like  a  true  Norman, 
he  was  a  romancer,  and  a  little  of  a 
coward  and  a  blusterer.  He  brought  his 
heavy  fist  down  on  the  wooden  table, 
making  it  jump,  while  the  cups  and 
glasses  danced,  and  he  cried  out,  with 
red  face  and  cunning  eye,  in  the  false 
anger  of  the  jovial  fellow :  "In  Heaven's 
name !  Will  it  be  necessary  to  eat  some 
of  them?"  He  counted  on  the  Prus- 
sians not  coming  any  farther  than  Tan- 
neville;  but  when  he  learned  that  they 
were  at  Rautot,  he  would  not  go  out  of 
his  house,  and  he  watched  without  ceas- 
ing through  the  little  window   of  his 


kitchen,  expecting  every  moment  to  S(5C 

the  glint  of  bayonets. 

One  morning,  as  he  was  eating  soup 
with  his  servants,  the  door  opened  and 
the  mayor  of  the  commune,  Mastei 
Chicot,  appeared,  followed  by  a  soldier, 
wearing  on  his  head  a  black  cap  set  ofi 
with  a  point  of  copper.  Saint  Anthony 
arose  with  a  bound ;  everybody  looked  at 
him,  expecting  to  see  him  cut  the  Prus- 
sian in  pieces;  but  he  contented  himself 
with  shaking  hands  with  the  mayor,  who 
said  to  Lim:  ''Here's  one  of  'em  foi 
you  to  take  care  of,  Saint  Anthony. 
They  came  in  the  night. .  I  haven't  been 
surly  with  them,  seeing  they  talk  of 
shooting  and  burning  if  the  least  thing 
happens.  You  are  warned.  Give  him 
something  to  eat.  He  seems  a  good 
lad.  I  am  going  to  the  other  houses  to 
seek  quarters  for  the  rest  of  them. 
There  is  enough  for  everybody."  And 
he  went  out. 

Father  Anthony  looked  at  his  Prus- 
sian and  grew  pale.  He  was  a  great 
boy,  fat  and  white,  with  blue  eyes  and 
blond  hair,  bearded  up  to  the  cheek- 
bones, and  he  seemed  stupid  and  timid, 
like  a  good  child.  The  Norman  rogue 
comprehended  him  immediately,  as  he 
thought,  and,  reassured,  made  him  a  sign 
to  sit  down.  Then  he  asked :  "Will  you 
have  some  soup?" 

The  stranger  did  not  understand.  An- 
thony then  made  an  audacious  move, 
and,  pushing  a  full  plate  under  the  nose 
of  his  unexpected  guest,  he  said: 
There,  eat  that,  you  big  pig!" 

The  soldier  responded :  "/a,"  and  be- 
gan to  eat  ravenously,  while  the  farmer, 
triumphant,  feeling  his  power  recognized, 
winked  his  eye   at   his   servants,   who 


756 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


made  strange  faces  and  had  a  great  de- 
sire to  laugh  but  were  restrained  by 
fear. 

When  the  Prussian  had  cleared  his 
plate,  Saint  Anthony  served  him  another, 
the  contents  of  which  disappeared  like 
the  first,  but  he  recoiled  before  the 
third  helping,  which  the  farmer  tried  by 
force  to  make  him  eat,  repeating: 
"Come,  now,  put  that  inside  of  you. 
You  shall  grow  fat,  or  I'll  know  the  rea- 
son why,  my  pig!'' 

And  the  soldier,  comprehending  noth- 
ing except  ti.:^t  he  was  urged  to  eat  all 
he  wanted,  laught.:!  with  a  contented  air, 
making  a  sign  that  he  was  full. 

Then  Saint  Anthony,  suddenly  be- 
coming familiar,  tappec^  him  on  the 
front,  saying:  "He  has  enough  in  his 
paunch,  has  my  pig!"  Bat  upon  this 
he  doubled  himself  with  laughter,  grow- 
ing red  enough  for  an  attack  of  apo- 
plexy, and  was  unable  to  speak  for  a 
moment.  An  idea  had  seized  him  which 
suffocated  Lim  with  laughter:  "That's 
it !  That's  it !"  he  cried,  "Saint  Anthony 
and  his  pig!  I  am  Saint  Anthony  and 
this  is  my  pig!"  And  the  three  ser- 
vants laughed  loudly  in  their  turn. 

The  old  man  was  so  pleased  with  his 
jest  that  he  ordered  the  maid  to  bring 
some  brandy,  of  the  ten-year-old  brand, 
with  which  he  regaled  everybody.  They 
drank  with  the  Prussian,  who  smacked 
his  lips  as  a  bit  of  delicate  flattery,  in 
order  to  indicate  that  he  found  it  de- 
licious. And  Saint  Anthony  cried  out 
in  his  face:  "Yes!  This  is  something 
fine!  You  don't  find  anything  like  it  at 
home,  my  pig!" 

After  this,  father  Anthony  never  went 
out  without  his  Prussian.  Pie  had  found 
his  opportunity.      0    was  vengeance  to 


him,  the  vengeance  of  a  great  rogue. 
And  all  the  people  of  the  countryside, 
who  were  trembling  with  fear,  laughed 
until  in  torture,  behind  the  backs  of 
their  conquerors,  at  the  farce  of  Saint 
Anthony  and  his  pig.  Indeed,  as  a  joke, 
they  thought  it  had  not  its  equal.  He 
had  only  to  say  a  few  things  like  this; 
"Go  along,  pig!  Go!"  in  order  to  pro- 
voke convulsions  of  merriment. 

He  would  go  among  his  neighbors 
every  afternoon  with  his  German,  their 
arms  around  each  other,  and  would  pre- 
sent him  with  a  gay  air,  tapping  him  on 
the  shoulder  and  saying:  "See!  Here 
is  my  pig!  Look  at  him  and  tell  me  if 
you  think  he  is  getting  fat,  this  here 
animal!" 

And  the  peasants  fairly  bubbled  with 
laughter — he  was  such  a  wag,  this  rogue 
of  an  Anthony! 

"I'll  sell  him  to  you,  Caesar,"  he  would 
say,  "for  three  pistoles." 

"I  take  him,  Anthony,  and  invite  you 
to  come  and  have  some  of  the  pudding." 

"Me,"  said  Anthony,  "what  I  want  is 
some  of  the  feet." 

"Punch  his  body  and  see  how  fat  he 
is!"  said  Caesar. 

And  everybody  would  wink  slyly,  not 
laughing  too  much,  however,  for  fear 
the  Prussian  might  surmise  finally  that 
they  were  mocking  him.  Anthony  alone, 
growing  bolder  every  day,  would  pinch 
the  calves  of  his  legs,  crying  out: 
"Nothing  but  fat!"  or  strike  him  on  the 
back  and  shout:  "There's  some  good 
bacon!"  Then  the  old  man,  capable  of 
lifting  an  anvil,  would  seize  him  in  his 
arms  and  raise  him  up  in  the  air,  de- 
claring: "He  weighs  six  hundred  and 
not  a  bit  of  waste!" 

He  got  into  the  habit  of  offeriw    M 


A  JOLLY  FELLOW 


rs» 


pig  something  to  eat  wherever  they 
went.  It  was  the  great  pleasure,  the 
great  diversion  of  every  day.  ''Give 
him  whatever  you  like,"  he  would  say, 
"he  will  swallow  it."  And  when  they 
would  inquire  if  the  man  wished  some 
bread  and  butter,  potatoes,  cold  mutton, 
or  venison,  Anthony  would  say  to  him: 
**Here  you  are  now,  it's  your  choice  1" 
The  soldier,  stupid  and  gentle,  ate  for 
pohteness,  enchanted  with  so  much  at- 
tention; he  would  make  himself  sick 
rather  than  refuse;  and  he  was  growing 
fat  truly,  too  stout  for  his  uniform, 
which  fairly  delighted  Saint  Anthony, 
who  kept  telling  him:  "You  know,  my 
pig,  it's  pretty  soon  going  to  be  neces- 
sary for  you  to  have  a  new  cage." 

They  became  apparently  the  best 
friends  in  the  world.  And  v;hen  the  old 
man  went  on  business  into  the  surround- 
ing country,  the  Prussian  accompanied 
him  of  his  own  accord,  for  the  sole 
pleasure  of  being  with  him. 

The  weather  was  very  rigorous;  it 
had  frozen  hard;  the  terrible  winter  of 
1870  seemed  to  throw  all  plagues  to- 
gether upon  France. 

Father  Anthony,  who  looked  out  for 
things  ahead  and  took  advantage  of 
opportunities,  foreseeing  that  he  would 
need  manure  for  his  spring  work,  bought 
some  of  a  neighbor  who  found  himself 
in  straits;  he  arranged  to  go  each  eve- 
ning with  his  cart  and  bring  it  home,  a 
load  at  a  time.  And  so,  toward  evening 
of  each  day,  he  was  to  be  seen  on  the 
way  to  Haules's  farm,  half  a  mile  dis- 
tant, always  accompanied  by  his  pig.  And 
everybody  ran  along  with  them,  as  they 
go  on  Sunday  to  a  grand  mass,  for  each 
day  was  a  feast-day  for  feeding  the 
animal. 


But  the  time  came  when  the  soldier 
began  to  be  suspicious.  And,  when  they 
laughed  too  much  he  rolled  his  eyes  as 
if  disturbed,  and  sometimes  they  sent 
forth  a  spark  of  anger. 

One  evening,  when  he  had  eaten  to 
the  extent  of  his  capacity,  he  refused  to 
swallow  another  morsel,  and  undertook 
to  start  up  and  go  away.  But  Saint 
Anthony  stopped  him  with  a  blow  on  the 
wrist  and,  placing  his  two  hands  on  the 
Prussian's  shoulders,  he  sat  him  down 
again  so  hard  that  the  chair  cracked 
under  him. 

A  perfect  tempest  of  gaiety  followed; 
and  Anthony,  radiant,  picked  up  his  pig, 
rubbing  the  wounded  spot,  with  the  sem- 
blance of  healing  it.  Then  he  declared: 
"Since  you  won't  eat,  you  shall  drink, 
by  jiminy!"  And  somebody  went  to 
the  alehouse  for  brandy. 

The  soldier  rolled  his  eyes  in  wicked 
fashion;  but  he  drank,  nevertheless,  as 
much  as  they  wished;  and  Saint  An- 
thony held  his  head ;  to  the  great  amuse- 
ment of  his  assistants. 

The  Norman,  red  as  a  tomato,  with 
fiery  eye,  filled  the  glasses,  drinking  and 
guying  him  with:  "To  your  sweet- 
heart!" And  the  Prussian,  without  a 
word,  encompassed  glass  after  glass  of 
these  bumpers  o.'  cognac. 

It  was  a  struggle,  a  battle,  a  defense  I 
In  Heaven's  name!  who  could  drink  the 
most?  They  could  take  no  more,  either 
of  them,  when  the  bottle  was  drained, 
but  neither  was  conquered.  They  were 
neck  and  neck,  and  that  was  all.  It 
would  be  necessary  to  start  over  thj 
next  day. 

They  went  out  stumbling,  and  started 
homeward  beside  the  cart  filled  with 
manure,     which     two     horses     dragged 


758 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUFASSA... 


slowly  along.  The  snow  began  to  fall, 
and  the  night,  without  a  moon,  seemed 
to  shed  a  sad  light  over  this  death  of 
the  plains.  The  cold  took  hold  of  the 
two  men,  increasing  their  drunkenness, 
and  Saint  Anthony,  discontented  at  not 
having  triumphed,  amused  himself  with 
pushing  his  pig  by  the  shoulder,  trying 
to  make  him  fall  over  into  the  ditch. 
The  man  evaded  the  attacks  by  retreat; 
and  each  time  he  would  mutter  some 
German  words  in  an  irritated  tone,  which 
made  the  farmer  laugli  heartily.  Finally, 
the  Prussian  became  angry;  and  just  at 
the  moment  when  Anthony  gave  him 
another  push,  he  responded  with  a  ter- 
rible blow  of  the  fist  which  made  the 
old  colossus  totter. 

Then,  inflamed  with  brandy,  the  old 
fellow  seized  the  man  by  the  arms  and 
shook  him  for  some  seconds,  as  if  he 
bad  been  a  child,  and  then  threw  him 
with  all  his  might  to  the  other  side  of 
the  road.  Content  with  his  execution, 
he  folded  his  arms  and  laughed  in  good 
earnest. 

But  the  soldier  got  up  quickly,  bare- 
headed, his  cap  having  rolled  off,  and, 
drawing  his  sword,  made  a  plunge  for 
father  Anthony.  When  the  farmer  saw 
this  he  seized  his  great  fork  of  yellow 
holly,  strong  and  supple  as  a  beef 
tendon. 

The  Prussian  came  on  with  his  head 
lowered,  weapon  in  front  of  him,  sure  of 
killing  his  foe.  But  the  old  man,  grasp- 
ing with  firm  hand  the  blade  whose 
point  was  aimed  to  pierce  his  body, 
turned  it  aside,  and  struck  his  enemy 
such  a  sharp  blow  upon  the  temple,  with 
the  point  of  the  fork,  that  he  fell  at 
his  feet.  Then  the  peasant  looked  at 
liis  fallen  foe  frightened,  stupefied  with 


astonishment,  seeing  the  body  shaken 
v/ith  spasms  at  first,  arid  then  lying 
motionless  upon  its  face.  He  stooped, 
turned  him  over  and  looked  at  him  a 
long  time.  The  mans  eyes  were  closed, 
and  a  little  stream  of  blood  was  running 
from  a  hole  in  the  forehead.  In  spitf 
of  the  darkness,  father  Anthony  could 
distinguish  the  brown  spot  of  blood  on 
the  snow. 

He  remained  there,  bewildered,  v/hile 
his  cart  went  on  at  the  horses'  regular 
step.  What  was  to  be  done?  He  would 
shoot  him!  Then  the  Prussians  would 
burn  his  place  and  work  ruin  throughout 
the  country!  But  what  should  he  do? 
What  should  he  do?  How  conceal  the 
body,  conceal  the  death,  deceive  the 
Prussians?  He  could  hear  voices  in  the 
distance,  in  the  silence  of  the  snow- 
storm. Then  he  became  excited,  and, 
seizing  the  cap,  he  put  it  on  the  man's 
head  again ;  and,  taking  him  by  the  back, 
he  raised  him  up.  ran,  overtook  his 
team,  and  threw  the  body  on  the  ma- 
nure. Once  at  home,  he  could  think 
what  to  do. 

He  went  along  with  short  steps,  rack- 
ing his  b-ain  but  unable  to  decide  any- 
thing. He  understood  the  matter  and 
felt  sure  that  he  was  lost.  Finally  he 
came  to  his  house.  A  bright  light  shone 
through  a  dormer  window;  his  servant 
was  not  yet  asleep.  Then  he  made  his 
wagon  back  quickly  to  the  edge  of  a 
hole  in  the  field.  He  thought  by  over- 
turning the  load  the  body  would  fall 
underneath,  in  the  ditch;  and  he  tipped 
the  cart  over.  As  he  had  thought,  the 
man  was  buried  under  the  manure.  An- 
thony evened  off  the  heap  with  his  fork, 
and  stuck  it  in  the  ground  at  the  side. 
He  called  his  manservant,  ordered  hiirti 


k 


A  JOLLY  FELLOW 


759 


o   put   the  horses   in   the   stable,   and 
K'ent  to  his  chamber. 

He  went  to  bed,  reflecting  continually 
upon  what  he  had  done,  but  no  helpful 
idea  came  to  him,  and  his  fear  increased 
when  he  was  quiet  in  bed.  The  Prus- 
sians would  shoot  him!  The  sweat  of 
fear  started  out  upon  him;  his  teeth 
chattered;  he  got  up,  shivering  so  that 
he  could  scarcely  hold  his  clothes  to 
get  into  them.  He  went  down  into  the 
kitchen,  took  a  bottle  of  liquor  from 
the  sideboard,  and  went  back  to  his 
chamber.  He  drank  two  large  glasses 
of  liquor  in  succession,  adding  a  new 
drunkenness  to  the  old  one,  without 
calming  the  agony  of  his  soul.  He  felt 
that  he  had  made  a  pretty  mess  of  it 
this  time! 

He  walked  the  floor  to  and  fro,  seek- 
ing a  ruse  or  explanation  for  his  wick- 
edhess.  And  from  time  to  time  he  would 
rinse  his  mouth  with  a  draught  of  the 
ten-year-old  cognac  to  put  some  heart 
into  his  body.  But  he  could  think  of 
nothmg,  nothing.  Toward  midnight,  his 
watchdog,  a  kind  of  half  wolf,  which  he 
called  "Devour,"  began  the  howl  of 
death.  Father  Anthony  trembled  to  the 
marrow.  And  each  time  that  the  beast 
began  his  long,  mournful  wail  again,  a 
shiver  of  fear  would  run  along  the  skin 
of  the  old  man. 

He  had  fallen  upon  a  chair,  with 
'Weak  knees;  he  was  besotted,  unable  to 
do  more,  expecting  that  Devour  would 
continue  his  wailing,  and  his  nerves  were 

;  played  upon  by  every  form  of  fear  that 
could  set  them  vibrating.  The  clock 
downstairs   struck   five.     The  dog  was 

■  still  howling,  and  the  farmer  was  be- 
coming mad.    He  got  up  and  started  to 

.  unchain  the  animal,  so  that  he  might  no 


longer  listen  to  it.  He  went  downstairs, 
opened  the  door,  and  went  out  into  the 
night. 

The  snow  was  falling  still.  All  was 
white.  The  farm  buildings  were  great, 
black  spots.  As  he  approached  the  ken- 
nel, the  dog  pulled  on  his  chain.  He 
loosed  him.  Then,  Devour  made  a 
bound,  stopped  short,  with  hair  bristling, 
paws  trembling,  smelling  the  air,  his 
nose  turned  toward  the  manure  heap 

Saint  Anthony  trembled  from  head  to 
foot,  muttering:  "What's  the  matter 
v;ith  you,  dirty  beast?"  And  he  ad- 
vanced some  steps,  casting  a  penetrating 
eye  through  the  uncertain  shadows,  the 
undefined  shadows  of  the  courtyard. 
Then  he  saw  the  form  of  a  man  seated 
on  his  manure-heap! 

He  looked  at  the  figure,  and  gasped 
with  horror,  motionless.  But  suddenly 
he  perceived  near  him  the  handle  of  his 
fork  stuck  in  the  earth.  He  pulled  it 
from  the  soil,  and,  in  one  of  those  trans- 
ports of  fear  which  make  cowardly  men 
more  bold,  he  rushed  on  with  it,  to  see 
who  the  man  was. 

It  was  he,  the  Prussian,  soiled  fron 
his  bed  Oi  manure,  the  warmth  of  which 
had  revived  him  and  partly  brought  him 
back  to  his  senses.  He  had  seated  him- 
self mechanically,  and  was  resting  there 
upon  the  snow  which  1  ad  powdered  him 
well,  over  the  filth  and  blood,  still  be- 
sotted by  drunkenness,  stunned  by  the 
blow,  and  exhausted  from  his  wounds. 

He  perceived  Anthony  and,  too  much 
stupefied  to  understand  anything,  he 
made  a  movement  as  if  to  rise.  The 
old  man,  as  soon  as  he  recognized  him, 
fumed  like  a  wild  beast.  He  sputtered: 
"Ah!  pig!  pig!  you  are  not  dead!  you 
have  come  to  denounce  me  right  away — 


760 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Wait — ^wait!"  And  throwing  himself 
upon  the  German,  he  raised  his  four- 
pointed  fork  like  a  lance  and  brought  it 
down,  with  all  the  force  of  his  two  arms, 
in  the  man's  breast,  even  to  the  handle. 
The  soldier  turned  over  on  his  back  with 
a  long  death-sigh,  while  the  old  farmer 
drew  the  weapon  from  the  wound  and 
replunged  it  in  the  body,  blow  upon 
blow,  striking  like  a  madman,  stamping 
with  his  feet  upon  the  head  and  the  rest 
of  the  body,  which  was  still  palpitacmg, 
and  from  which  the  blood  spouted  in 
great  jets. 

Then  he  stopped,  overcome  with  the 
violence  of  his  effort,  breathing  the  air 
in  great  draughts,  appeased  by  the  ac- 
complishment of  his  deed. 

As  the  cocks  began  to  crow  in  the 
poultry-yard,  and  the  day  was  dawning, 
he  set  himself  to  work  to  bury  the  man. 
He  dug  into  the  manure-heap,  until  he 
came  to  earth,  then  dug  still  deeper, 
working  in  a  disorderly  fashion,  with 
furious  force  in  his  arms  and  his  whole 
body.  When  the  trench  was  long  enough, 
he  rolled  the  dead  body  into  it  with  the 
fork,  replaced  the  earth,  kicking  it  about 


until  it  was  level,  put  the  manure  ovei 
it  again,  and  smiled  to  see  the  snov 
thicken  and  complete  his  work,  wholly 
covering  all  traces  with  its  white  veil. 

Then  he  stuck  his  fork  into  the  ma- 
nure and  returned  to  the  house.  His 
bottle  was  still  half  full  upon  the  table. 
He  emptied  it  with  a  gulp,  threw  him- 
self upon  the  bed,  and  slept  profoundly. 

He  awoke  Sobered,  his  mind  calm  and 
active,  capable  of  judging  the  case  and 
foreseeing  results.  At  the  end  of  an 
hour,  he  was  scouring  the  country  ask- 
ing everybody  the  whereabouts  of  the 
soldier.  He  went  to  the  officers,  to  find 
out,  he  said,  why  they  had  taken  his 
man  away. 

As  the  Prussians  knew  nothing  of  the 
peculiar  situation  between  the  two  men, 
they  were  not  suspicious;  and  Anthony 
even  directed  the  search,  affirming  thai 
the  Prussian  had  gone  running  after 
some  petticoat  nearly  every  evening. 

An  old  refugee  policeman,  w^ho  kept 
an  inn  in  a  neighboring  village,  and 
who  had  a  pretty  daughter,  was  arrested 
on  suspicion  of  being  the  murderer,  and 
was  shot 


A  Lively  Friend 


They  had  been  constantly  in  each 
other's  society  for  a  whole  winter  in 
Paris.  After  having  lost  sight  of  each 
other,  as  generally  happens  in  such 
cases,  after  leaving  college,  the  two 
friends  met  again  one  night,  long  years 
after,  already  old  and  white-haired,  the 
one  a  bachelor,  the  other  married. 

M.   de   Meroul   lived   six  months  in 


Paris  and  six  months  in  his  little  chatead 
at  Tourbeville.  Having  married  the 
daughter  of  a  gentleman  in  the  district, 
he  had  lived  a  peaceful,  happy  life  with 
the  indolence  of  a  man  who  has  nothing 
to  do.  With  a  calm  temperament  and  a 
sedate  mind,  without  any  intellectual 
audacity  or  tendency  toward  revolu- 
tionary   independence    of    thought,    hf 


A  LIVELY  FRIEND 


765 


passed  his  time  in  mildly  regretting  the 
past,  in  deploring  the  morals  and  the 
institutions  of  to-day,  and  in  repeating 
every  moment  to  his  wife,  who  raised 
her  eyes  to  heaven,  and  sometimes  her 
hands  also,  in  token  of  energetic  assent: 

"Under  what  a  government  do  we 
live,  great  God!" 

Madame  de  Meroul  mentally  re- 
sembled her  husband,  just  as  if  they  had 
been  brother  and  sister.  She  knew  by 
tradition  that  one  ought,  first  of  all,  to 
reverence  the  Pope  and  the  King! 

And  she  loved  them  and  respected 
them  from  the  bottom  of  her  heart, 
without  knowing  them,  with  a  poetic  ex- 
altation, with  a  hereditary  devotion,  with 
all  the  sensibility  of  a  well-born  woman. 
She  was  kindly  in  every  feeling  of  her 
soul.  She  had  no  child,  and  was  in- 
cessantly regretting  it. 

When  M.  de  Meroul  came  across  his 
old  school-fellow  Joseph  Mouradour  at 
a  ball,  he  experienced  from  this  meeting 
a  profound  and  genuine  delight,  for  they 
Lad  been  very  fond  of  one  another  in 
their  youth. 

After  exclamations  of  astonishment 
over  the  changes  caused  by  age  in  tlieir 
bodies  and  their  faces,  they  had  asked 
one  another  a  number  of  questions  as  to 
their  respective  careers. 

Joseph  Mouradour,  a  native  of  the 
.south  of  France,  had  become  a  coun- 
cillor-general in  his  own  neighborhood. 
Frank  in  his  manners,  he  spoke  briskly 
and  without  any  circumspection,  telling 
all  his  thoughts  with  sheer  indifference 
"I  to  prudential  considerations.  He  was  a 
Republican,  of  that  race  of  good-natured 
Republicans  who  make  their  own  ease 
the  Uw  of  their  existence,  and  who  carry 


freedom    of    speech    to    the    verge    of 
brutality. 

He  called  at  his  friend's  address  in 
Paris,  and  was  immediately  a  favorite, 
on  account  of  his  easy  cordiality,  in 
spite  of  his  advanced  opinions.  Madame 
de  Meroul  exclaimed: 

"What  a  pity!  such  a  charming  man!** 
M.  de  Meroul  said  to  his  friend,  in  a 
sincere  and  confidential  tone:  *'You 
cannot  imagine  what  a  wrong  you  do  to 
our  country."  He  was  attached  to  his 
friend  nevertheless,  for  no  bonds  are 
more  solid  than  those  of  childhood  re- 
newed in  later  life.  Joseph  Mouradour 
chaffed  the  husband  and  wife,  called 
them  "my  loving  turtles,"  and  occasion- 
ally gave  vent  to  loud  declarations 
against  people  who  were  behind  the  age, 
against  all  sorts  of  prejudices  and  tradi- 
tions. 

"When  he  thus  directed  the  flood  of  hij 
democratic  eloquence,  the  married  pair 
feeling  ill  at  ease,  kept  silent  through  i 
sense  of  propriety  and  good-breeding; 
then  the  husband  tried  to  <-urn  off  the 
conversation  in  order  to  avoid  any  fric- 
tion. Joseph  Mourado'ir  did  not  want 
to  know  anyone  unless  he  was  free  to 
say  what  he  liked. 

Summer  came  round.  The  Merouls 
knew  no  greater  pleasure  than  to  receive 
their  old  friends  in  their  country  house 
at  Tourbeville.  It  was  an  intimate  and 
healthy  pleasure,  the  pleasure  uf  homely 
gentlefolk  who  had  spent  most  of  their 
lives  in  the  country.  They  used  to  go 
to  the  nearest  railway  station  to  meet 
some  of  their  guests,  and  drove  them  to 
the  house  in  their  carriage,  watching  for 
compliments  on  their  district,  on  the 
rapid  vegetation,  on  the  condition  of  the 
roads  in  the  dena^tment.  on  the  cleanli- 


762 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ness  of  the  peasant's  houses,  on  the  big- 
ness of  the  cattle  they  saw  in  the  fields. 
on  everything  that  met  the  eye  as  far 
AS  t.he  edge  of  the  horizon. 

They  liked  to  have  it  noticed  that 
their  horses  trotted  in  a  wonderful  man- 
ner for  an  animal  employed  a  part  of 
the  year  in  field-work;  and  they  awaited 
with  anxety  the  newcomer's  opinion  on 
their  family  estate,  sensitive  to  the 
slightest  word,  grateful  for  the  slightest 
gracious  attention. 

Joseph  Mouradour  was  invited,  aad  he 
announced  his  arrival.  The  wife  and 
the  husband  came  to  meet  the  train, 
delighted  to  have  the  opportunity  of  do- 
ing the  honors  of  their  house. 

As  soon  as  he  perceived  them,  Joseph 
Mouradour  jumped  out  of  his  carriage 
with  a  vivacity  which  increased  their 
satisfaction.  He  grasped  their  hands 
warmly,  congratulated  them,  and  intoxi- 
cated them  with  compliments. 

He  was  quite  charming  in  his  manner 
as  they  drove  along  the  road  to  the 
house;  he  expressed  astonishment  at  the 
'height  of  the  trees,  the  excellence  of 
the  crops,  and  the  quickness  of  the 
horse. 

When  he  placed  his  foot  on  the  steps 
in  front  of  the  chateau,  M.  de  Meroul 
said  to  him  with  a  certain  friendly 
solemnity: 

"Now  you  are  at  home." 

Joseph  Mouradour  answered : 
"Thanks,  old  fellow;  I  counted  on  that. 
For  my  part,  besides,  I  never  put  my- 
self out  with  my  friends.  That's  the 
only  hospitality  I  understand." 

Then  he  went  up  to  his  own  room, 
where  he  put  on  the  costume  of  a 
peasant,  as  he  was  pleased  to  describe 
it.  and  he  came  down  again  not  very 


long  after,  attired  in  blue  linen,  v^itb 
yellow  boots,  in  the  careless  rig-out  of  a 
Parisian  out  for  a  holiday.  He  seemed, 
too,  to  have  become  more  common, 
more  jolly,  more  famihar,  having  as 
sumed  along  with  his  would-be  rustic 
garb  a  free  and  easy  swagger  which  he 
thought  suited  the  style  of  dress.  His 
new  apparel  somewhat  shocked  M. 
and  Madame  de  Meroul,  who  even  at 
home  on  their  estate  always  remained 
serious  and  respectable,  as  the  particle 
"de"  before  their  name  exacted  a 
certain  amount  of  ceremonial  even 
with  their  intimate  friends. 

After  lunch  they  went  to  visit  the 
farms;  and  the  Parisian  stupefied  the 
respectable  peasant  by  talking  to  them 
as  if  he  were  a  comrade  of  theirs. 

In  the  evening,  the  cure  dined  at  the 
house —  a  fat  old  priest,  wearing  his  Sun- 
day suit,  who  had  been  specially  asked 
that  day  in  order  to  meet  the  new- 
comer. 

When  Joseph  saw  him  he  made  a 
grimace,  then  he  stared  at  the  priest  in 
astonishment  as  if  he  belonged  to  some 
peculiar  race  of  beings,  the  like  of  which 
he  had  never  seen  before  at  such  close 
quarters.  He  told  a  few  stories  allow- 
able enough  with  a  friend  after  dinner, 
but  apparently  somewhat  out  of  place 
in  the  presence  of  an  ecclesiastic.  H*? 
did  not  say,  "Monsieur  I'Abbe,"  but 
merely  "Monsieur";  and  he  embarrassed 
the  priest  with  philosophical  views  as 
to  the  various  superstitions  that  pre- 
vailed on  the  surface  of  the  globe. 

He  remarked: 

"Your  God,  Monsieur,  is  one  of  those 
persons  whom  we  must  respect,  but  als: 
one  of  those  who  must  be  discussed. 
Mine  is   called   Reason;   he  has   froir 


I 


A  LIVELY  FRIEND 


763 


time  immemorial  been  the  enemy  of 
yours." 

The  Merouls,  greatly  put  out,  at- 
tempted to  divert  his  thoughts.  The 
cure  left  very  early. 

Then  the  husband  gently  remarked: 

"You  went  a  little  too  far  with  that 
priest." 

But  Joseph  immediately  replied: 

"That's  a  very  good  joke,  too!  Am  I 
to  bother  my  brains  about  a  devil- 
dodger?  At  any  rate,  do  me  the  favor 
of  not  ever  again  having  such  an  old 
fogy  to  dinner.  Confound  his  impu- 
dence!" 

"But,  my  friend,  remember  his  sacred 
character." 

Joseph  Mouradour  interrupted  him: 

"Yes,  I  know.  We  must  treat  them 
like  girls  who  get  roses  for  being  well 
behaved!  That's  all  right,  my  boy! 
When  these  people  respect  my  convic- 
tions, I  will  respect  theirs!" 

This  was  all  that  happened  that  day. 

Next  morning  Madame  Je  Meroul,  on 
entering  her  drawing-room,  saw  lying 
on  the  table  three  newspapers  which 
made  her  draw  back  in  horror,  **Le 
Voltaire,"  '*La  Republique  Frangaise," 
and  "La  Justice." 

Presently  Joseph  Mouradour,  still  in 
his  blue  blouse,  appeared  on  the 
threshold,  reading  "L'lntransi^eant"  at- 
tentively.   He   exclaimed: 

"Here  is  a  splendid  article  by  Roche- 
fort.    That  fellow  is  marvelous." 

He  read  the  article  in  a  loud  voice, 
laying  so  much  stress  on  its  most  strik- 
ing passages  that  he  did  not  notice  the 
entrance  ot  his  friend. 

M.  de  Meroul  had  a  paper  in  each 
hand:  "Le  Gaulois"  for  himself  and 
**Le  Clarion"  for  his  wife 


The  ardent  prose  of  the  master-writex 
who  overthrew  the  empire,  violently  de- 
claimed, recited  in  the  accent  of  the 
south,  rang  through  the  peaceful  draw- 
ing-room, shook  the  old  curtains  with 
their  rigid  folds,  seemed  to  splash  the 
walls,  the  large  upholstered  chairs,  the 
solemn  furniture  fixed  in  the  same  posi- 
tion for  the  past  century,  with  a  hail 
of  words,  rebounding,  impudent,  ironi- 
cal, and  crushmg. 

The  husband  and  the  wife,  the  one 
standing,  the  other  seated,  listened  in  a 
state  of  stupor,  so  scandalized  that  they 
no  longer  even  ventured  to  make  a  ges- 
ture. Mouradour  flung  out  the  conclud- 
ing passage  in  the  article  as  one  sets  off 
a  stream  of  fireworks;  then  in  an  em- 
phatic tone  he  remarked: 

"Thats  a  stinger,  eh?" 

But  suddenly  he  perceived  the  two 
prints  belonging  to  his  friend,  and  he 
seemed  himself  for  a  moment  overcome 
with  astonishment.  Then  he  came 
across  to  his  host  with  great  strides,  de- 
manding in  an  angry  tone: 

"What  do  you  want  to  do  with  these 
papers?" 

M.  de  Meroul  replied  in  a  hesitating 
voice: 

"Why,  these — these  are  my — my 
newspapers." 

"Your  newspapers!  Look  here,  now,, 
you  are  only  laughing  at  me!  You  will 
do  me  the  favor  to  read  mine,  to  stir 
you  up  with  a  few  new  ideas,  and,  as 
for  yours — this  is  what  I  do  with 
them—" 

And  before  his  host,  filled  with  confu- 
sion, could  prevent  him,  he  seized  the 
two  newspapers  and  flung  them  out 
through  the  window.  Then  he  gravely 
placed   "La   Justice"   in  the  hands   of 


J64 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Madame  de  Meroul  and  "Le  Voltaire" 
in  those  of  her  husband,  himself  sinking 
into  an  armchair  to  finish  "L'lntransi- 
geant." 

The  husband  and  the  wife,  through 
feelings  of  delicacy,  made  a  show  of 
reading  a  little,  then  they  handed  back 
the  Republican  newspapers  which  they 
touched  with  their  finger-tips  as  if  they 
liad  been  poisoned. 

Then  Mouradour  burst  out  laughing 
and  said: 

"A  week  of  this  sort  of  nourishment, 
end  I'll  have  you  converted  to  my  ideas." 

At  the  end  of  a  week,  in  fact,  he 
ruled  the  house.  He  had  shut  the  door 
on  the  cure,  whom  Madame  de  Meroul 
went  to  see  in  secret.  He  gave  orders 
that  neither  the  "Gaulois"  nor  the 
"Clarion"  were  to  be  admitted  into  the 
house,  which  a  manserveant  went  to  get 
in  a  mysterious  fashion  at  the  post-office, 
and  which,  on  his  entrance,  were  hidden 
away  under  the  sofa  cushions.  He  regu- 
lated everything  just  as  he  liked,  always 
charming,  always  good-natured,  a  jovial 
nnd  all-powerful  tyrant. 


Other  friends  were  about  to  come  ol 
a  visit,  religious  people  with  Legitimist 
opinions.  The  master  and  mistress  of 
the  chateau  considered  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  let  them  meet  their  lively 
guest,  and  not  knowing  what  to  do,  an- 
nounced to  Joseph  Mouradour  one 
evening  that  they  were  obliged  to  go 
away  from  home  for  a  few  days  about  a 
little  matter  of  business,  and  they  begged 
of  him  to  remain  in  the  house  alone. 

He  showed  no  trace  of  emotion,  and 
replied : 

"Very  well:  tis  all  the  same  to  me; 
I'll  wait  here  for  you  as  long  as  you  like. 
What  I  say  is  this — there  need  be  no 
ceremony  between  friends.  You're  quite 
right  to  look  after  your  own  affairs — 
why  the  devil  shouldn't  you?  I'll  not 
take  offense  at  your  doing  that,  quite 
the  contrary.  It  only  makes  me  feel 
quite  at  my  ease  with  you.  Go,  my 
friends — I'll  wait   for  you." 

M,  and  Madame  de  Meroul  started 
next  morning. 

He  is  waiting  for  them. 


The  Blind  Man 


How  is  it  that  the  sunlight  gives  us 
such  joy?  Why  does  this  radiance  when 
it  falls  on  the  earth  fill  us  so  much 
with  the  delight  of  living?  The  sky  is 
all  blue,  the  fields  are  all  green,  the 
houses  all  white;  and  our  ravished  eyes 
drink  in  those  bright  colors  which  bring 
itnirthfulness  to  our  souls.  And  then 
there  springs  up  in  our  hearts  a  desire 
to  dance,  a  desire  to  run,  a  desire  to 


sing,  a  happy  lightness  of  thought,  a 
sort  of  enlarged  tenderness;  we  feel  a 
longing  to  embrace  the  sun. 

The  blind,  as  they  5it  in  the  door- 
ways, impassive  in  their  eternal  dark- 
ness remain  as  calm  as  ever  in  the 
midst  of  this  fresh  gaiety,  and,  not  com- 
prehending what  is  taking  place  around 
them,  they  continue  every  moment  t6 
stop  their  dogs  from  gambolinfif. 


I 


THE  BLIND  MAN 


765 


When,  at  the  close  of  the  day,  they 
are  returning  home  on  the  arm  of  a 
young  brother  or  a  little  sister,  if  the 
child  says:  "It  was  a  very  fine  day!" 
the  other  answers;  "I  could  notice  that 
'twas  fine.    Lulu  wouldn't  keep  quiet." 

I  have  known  one  of  these  men  whose 
life  was  one  of  the  most  cruel  martyr- 
doms that  could  possibly  be  conceived. 

He  was  a  peasant,  the  son  of  a  Nor- 
man farmer.  As  long  as  his  father  and 
mother  lived,  he  was  more  or  less  taken 
care  of;  he  suffered  little  save  from  his 
horrible  infirmity ;  but  as  soon  as  the  old 
people  were  gone,  a  life  of  atrocious 
misery  commenced  for  him.  A  depend- 
ent on  a  sister  of  his,  everybody  in  the 
farmhouse  treated  him  as  a  beggar  who 
is  eating  the  bread  of  others.  At  every 
meal  the  very  food  he  swallowed  was 
made  a  subject  of  reproach  against  him; 
he  was  called  a  drone,  a  clown;  and  al- 
though his  brother-in-law  had  taken  pos- 
session of  his  portion  of  the  inheritance, 
the  soup  was  given  to  him  grudgingly — 
just  enough  to  save  him  from  dying. 

His  face  was  very  pale  and  his  tv/o 
big  white  eyes  were  like  wafers.  He 
remained  unmoved  in  spite  of  the  in- 
sults inflicted  upon  him,  so  shut  up  in 
himself  that  one  could  not  tell  whether 
he  felt  them  at  all. 


stirred  till  night.  He  made  no  gesture, 
no  movement;  only  his  eyelids,  quiver- 
ing from  some  nervous  affection,  fell 
down  sometimes  over  his  white  sight- 
less orbs.  Had  he  any  intellect,  any 
thinking  faculty,  any  consciousness  of 
his  own  existence?  Nobody  cared  to 
inquire  as  to  whether  he  had  or  no. 

For  some  years  things  went  on  in  this 
fashion.  But  his  incapacity  for  doing 
anything  as  well  as  his  impassiveness 
eventually  exasperated  his  relatives,  and 
he  became  a  laughing-stock,  a  sort  of 
martyred  buffoon,  a  prey  given  over  to 
native  ferocity,  to  the  savage  gaiety  of 
the  brutes  who  surrounded  him. 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  all  the  cruel 
practical  jokes  inspired  by  his  blind- 
ness. And,  in  order  to  have  some  fun 
in  return  for  feeding  him,  they  now  con- 
verted his  meals  into  hours  of  pleasure 
for  the  neighbors  and  of  punishment 
for  the  helpless  creature  himself. 

Ths  peasants  from  the  nearest  houses 
came  to  this  entertainment ;  it  was  talked 
about  from  door  to  door,  and  every 
day  the  kitchen  of  the  farmhouse  was 
full  of  people.  For  instance,  they  put  on 
the  table  in  front  of  his  plate,  when  he 
was  beginning  to  take  the  soup,  a  cat  or 
a  dog.  The  animal  instinctively  scented 
out  the  man's  infirmity,  and,  softly  ap- 


Moreover,  he  had  never  known  any  preaching,  commenced  eating  noiselessly, 

^'tenderness,     his     mother    had    always  lapping  up  the  soup  daintily;  and  when 

treated     him     very     unkindly,     caring  a    rather   loud    licking   of   the   tongue 

scarcely  at  all  for  him;  for  in  country  awakened  the  poor  fellow's  attention,  it 

places  the  useless  are  obnoxious,  and  the  would  prudently  scamper  away  to  avoid 

peasants  would  be  glad,  like  hens,  to  the  blow  of  the  spoon  directed  at  it  bv 


kill  the  infirm  of  their  species. 

As  soon  as  the  soup  had  been  gulped 
down,  he  went  to  the  door  in  summer 
time  and  sat  down,  to  the  chimney-cor- 
ner in  winter  time,  and,  after  that,  never 


the  blind  man  at  random! 

Then  the  spectators,  huddled  against 
the  walls,  burst  out  lau::h:n^,  nudged 
each  other,  and  stamped  their  feet  on 
the  floor.    And  he,  without  evpr  uttering 


766 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  Ma^FASSANT 


a  word,  would  continue  eating  with  the 
aid  of  his  right  hand,  while  stretching 
out  his  left  to  protect  and  defend  his 
plate. 

At  another  time  they  made  him  chew 
corks,  bits  of  wood,  leaves,  or  even  filth, 
which  he  was  unable  to  distinguish. 

After  th's,  they  got  tired  even  of  these 
practical  jokes;  and  the  brother-in-law, 
mad  at  having  to  support  him  always, 
struck  him,  cuffed  him  incessantly, 
laughing  at  the  useless  efforts  of  the 
other  to  ward  off  or  return  the  blows. 
Then  came  a  new  pleasure — the  pleasure 
of  smacking  his  face.  And  the  plow- 
men, the  servant-girls,  and  even  every 
passing  vagabond  were  every  moment 
giving  him  cuffs,  which  caused  his  eye- 
lashes to  twitch  spasmodically.  He  did 
not  know  where  to  hide  himself  and  re- 
mained with  his  arms  always  held  out  to 
guard  against  people  coming  too  close  to 
him. 

At  last  he  was  forced  to  beg. 

He  was  placed  somewhere  on  the  high- 
road on  market-days,  and,  as  soon  as  he 
heard  the  sound  of  footsteps  or  the  roll- 
ing of  a  vehicle,  he  reached  out  his  hat, 
stammering: 

"Charity,  if  you  please!" 

But  the  peasant  is  not  lavish,  and, 
for  whole  weeks,  he  did  not  bring  back 
a  sou. 

Then  he  became  the  victim  of  furious, 
pitiless  hatred.    And  this  is  how  he  died. 

One  winter,  the  ground  was  covered 
with  snow,  and  it  froze  horribly.  Now 
his  brother-in-law  led  him  one  morning 
at  this  season  a  great  distance  along  the 
highroad  in  order  that  he  might  solicit 
alms.  The  blind  man  was  left  there  all 
day,  and,  when  night  came  on,  the 
!)rother-in-law   told   the  DeoDle  of  his 


house  that  he  could  find  no  trace  of  the 
mendicant.    Then  he  added: 

"Pooh!  best  not  bother  about  him! 
He  was  cold,  and  got  some  one  to  take 
him  away.  Never  fear!  he's  not  lost. 
He'll  turn  up  soon  enough  to-morrow  to 
eat  the  soup." 

Next  day  he  did  not  come  bat-R. 

After  long  hours  of  waiting,  stiffened 
with  the  cold,  feeling  that  he  was  dying, 
the  blind  man  began  to  walk.  Being 
unable  to  find  his  way  along  the  road, 
owing  to  its  thick  coating  of  ice,  he 
went  on  at  random,  falling  into  dikes, 
getting  up  again,  without  uttering  a 
sound,  his  sole  object  being  to  find 
some  house  where  he  could  take  shelter. 

But  by  degrees  the  descending  snow 
made  a  numbness  steal  over  him,  and  his 
feeble  limbs  being  incapable  of  tarrying 
him  farther,  he  had  to  sit  down  in  the 
middle  of  an  open  field.  He  did  not  get 
up  again. 

The  white  flakes  which  kept  continu- 
ally falling  buried  him,  so  that  his  body, 
quite  stiff  and  stark,  disappeared  under 
the  incessant  accumulation  of  their 
rapidly  thickening  mass;  and  nothing 
any  longer  indicated  the  place  where 
the  corpse  was  lying. 

His  relatives  made  pretense  of  in- 
quiring about  him  and  searching  for 
him  for  about  a  week.  They  even  made 
a  show  of  weeping. 

The  winter  was  severe,  and  the  thaw 
did  not  set  in  quickly.  Now,  one  Sun- 
day, on  their  way  to  mass,  the  farmers 
noticed  a  great  flight  of  crows,  who  were 
whirling  endlessly  above  the  open  field, 
and  then,  liKe  a  shower  of  black  rain, 
descended  in  a  heap  at  the  same  spot, 
ever  going  and  coming- 


THE  IMrclITE  SEX 


767 


The  following  week  these  gloomy  birds 
ivere  still  there.  There  was  a  crowd  of 
them  up  in  the  air,  as  if  they  had  gath- 
ered from  all  corners  of  the  horizon; 
and  they  swooped  down  with  a  great 
cawing  into  the  shining  snow,  which  they 
filled  curiously  with  patches  of  black, 
and  in  which  they  kept  rummaging  ob- 
stinately. A  youpg  fellow  went  to  see 
what  they  were  doing,  and  discovered 


the  body  of  the  blind  man,  already  half 
devoured,  mangled.  His  wan  eyes  had 
disappeared,  pecked  out  by  the  long 
voracious  beaks. 

And  I  can  never  feel  the  glad  radiance 
of  sunlit  days  without  sadly  remember- 
ing and  gloomily  pondering  over  the 
fate  of  the  beggar  so  deprived  of  joy  in 
life  that  his  horrible  death  w?s  a  relief 
for  all  those  who  had  known  him. 


The  Impolite  Sex 


Madame  de  X.  to  Madame  de  L. 

Etretat,  Friday. 

My  Dear  Aunt, — I  am  going  to  pay 
you  a  visit  without  making  much  fuss 
about  it.  I  shall  be  at  Les  Fresnes  on 
the  second  of  September,  the  day  before 
the  hunting  season  opens ;  I  do  not  want 
to  miss  it,  so  that  I  may  tease  these 
gentlemen.  You  are  very  obli^i'inc, 
Aunt,  and  I  would  like  you  to  allow 
them  to  dine  with  you,  as  you  usually 
do  when  there  are  no  strange  guests, 
>vithout  dressing  or  shaving  for  the  occa- 
sion, on  the  ground  that  they  are 
fatigued. 

They  are  delighted,  of  course,  when  I 
am  not  present.  But  I  shall  be  there, 
and  I  shall  hold  a  review,  like  a  general, 
at  the  dinner-hour;  and,  if  I  find  a 
single  one  of  them  at  all  careless  in 
dress,  no  matter  how  little,  I  mean  to 
send  him  down  to  the  kitchen  to  the 
servant-maids. 

The  men  of  to-day  have  so  little  con- 
sideration for  others  and  so  little  good 
manners  that  one  must  be  always  severe 
wifh  them.    We  live  indeed  in  an  age 


of  vulgarity.  When  they  quarrel  with 
one  another,  /hey  attache  one  another 
with  insults  worthy  of  street  porters, 
and,  in  our  presence,  they  do  not  con- 
duct themselves  even  as  well  as  our 
servants.  It  is  at  the  seaside  that  you 
see  this  most  clearly  They  are  to  be 
found  there  in  battalion,  and  you  can 
judge  them  in  the  lump.  Oh,  what 
coarse  beings  they  are! 

Just  imagine,  in  a  train,  one  of  them, 
a  gentleman  who  looked  well  as  I 
thought,  at  first  sight,  thanks  to  his 
tailor,  w?,s  dainty  enough  to  take  off  his 
boots  in  order  to  put  on  a  pair  of  old 
shoes!  Another,  an  old  man,  who  was 
probably  some  wealthy  upstart  (these 
are  the  most  ill-bred),  while  sitting  op- 
posite to  me,  had  the  delicacy  to  place 
hi5  two  feet  on  the  seat  quite  close  to 
me.    This  is  a  positive  fact. 

At  the  watering-places,  tnere  is  an  un- 
restrained outpouring  of  unmannerliness. 
I  mast  here  make  one  admission — that 
my  indignation  is  perhaps  due  to  the 
fact  that  I  am  not  accustomed  to  asso- 
ciate as  a  rule  with  the  sort  of  people 
one  comes  across  here,  for  I  should  he 


768 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


less  shocked  by  their  manners  if  I  had 
the  opportunity  of  observing  them 
oftener.  In  the  inquiry-office  of  the 
hotel  I  was  nearly  thrown  down  by  a^ 
young  man,  who  snatched  the  key  over 
my  head.  Another  knocked  against  me 
so  violently  without  begging  my  pardon 
or  lifting  his  hat,  coming  away  from  a 
ball  at  the  Casino,  that  he  gave  me  a 
pain  in  the  chest.  It  is  the  same  way 
with  all  of  them.  Watch  them  address- 
ing ladies  on  the  terrace:  they  scarcely 
ever  bow.  They  merely  raise  their  hands 
to  their  headgear.  But  indeed,  as  they 
are  all  more  or  less  bald,  it  is  the  best 
plan. 

But  what  exasperates  and  disgusts  me 
especially  is  the  liberty  they  take  of 
talking  publicly,  without  any  precaution 
whatsoever,  about  the  most  revolting 
adventures.  When  two  men  are  together, 
they  relate  to  each  other,  in  the  broadest 
language  and  with  the  most  abominable 
comments,  really  horrible  stories,  with- 
out caring  in  the  shghtest  degree 
whether  a  woman's  ear  is  within  reach 
of  their  voices.  Yesterday,  on  the  beach, 
I  was  forced  to  go  away  from  the  place 
where  I  sat  in  order  not  to  be  any 
longer  the  involuntary  confidant  of  an 
obscene  anecdote,  told  in  such  immodest 
language  that  I  felt  as  much  humiliated 
as  I  was  indignant  at  having  heard  it. 
Would  not  the  most  elementary  good- 
breeding  have  taught  them  to  speak  in  a 
lower  tone  about  such  matters  when  we 
are  near  at  hand?  Etretat  is,  moreover, 
the  country  of  gossip  and  scandal. 
From  five  to  seven  o'clock  you  can  see 
people  wandering  about  in  quest  of 
nasty  stories  about  others,  which  they 
retail  from  group  to  group.  As  you 
remarked  to  me,  my  dear  Aunt,  tittle- 


tattle  is  the  mark  of  petty  individuals 
and  petty  minds.  It  is  also  the  consola- 
tion of  women  who  are  no  longer  loved 
or  sought  after.  It  is  enough  for  me  to 
observe  the  women  who  are  fondest  of 
gossiping  to  be  persuaded  that  yoa  are 
quite  right. 

The  other  day  I  was  present  at  a 
musical  evening  at  the  Casino,  given  by 
a  remarkable  artist,  Madame  Masson, 
who  sings  in  a  truly  delightful  manner. 
I  took  the  opportunity  of  applauding 
the  admirable  Coquelin,  as  well  as  two 
charming    boarders    of    the   Vaudeville, 

M and  Meillet.    I  was  able,  on  the 

occasion,  to  see  all  the  bathers  collected 
together  this  year  on  the  beach.  There 
were  not  many  persons  of  distinction 
among  them. 

One  day  I  went  to  lunch  at  Yport.  I 
noticed  a  tall  man  with  a  beard  who  was 
coming  out  of  a  large  house  like  a  castle 
It  was  the  painter,  Jean  Paul  Laurens 
He  is  not  satisfied  apparently  with  im- 
prisoning the  subjects  of  his  pictures; 
he  insists  on  imprisoning  himself. 

Then  I  found  myself  seated  on  the 
shingle  close  to  a  man  still  young,  of 
gentle  and  refined  appearance,  who  was 
reading  some  verses.  But  he  read  them 
W'.th  such  concentration,  with  such  pas- 
sion, I  may  say,  that  he  did  not  even 
raise  his  eyes  toward  me.  I  was  some- 
what astonished,  and  I  asked  the  con- 
ductor of  the  baths,  without  appearing 
to  be  much  concerned,  the  name  of  this 
gentleman.  I  laughed  inwardly  a  little 
at  this  reader  of  rhymes :  he  seemed  be- 
hind the  age,  for  a  man.  This  person,  I 
thought,  must  be  a  simpleton.  Vveil, 
Aunt,  I  am  now  infatuated  about  this 
stranger.  Just  fancy,  his  name  is  Sully 
Prudhomme!     C  turned  round  to  look  at 


THE  IMPOLITE  SEX 


769 


him  at  my  ease,  just  where  I  sat.  His 
face  possesses  the  two  qualities  of 
calmness  and  elegance.  As  somebody 
came  to  look  for  him,  I  was  able  to 
hear  his  voice,  which  is  sweet  and  almost 
timid.  He  would  certainly  not  tell  ob- 
scene stories  aloud  in  public,  or  knock 
against  ladies  without  apologizing.  He 
is  sure  tu  be  a  man  of  refinement,  but 
his  refinement  is  of  an  almost  morbid, 
vibrating  character.  I  will  try  this  win- 
ter to  get  an  introduction  to  him. 

I  have  no  more  news  to  tell  you,  my 
dear  Aunt,  and  I  m.ust  interrupt  this 
letter  in  haste,  as  the  post-hour  is  near. 
I  kiss  your  hands  and  your  cheeks. 

Your  devoted  niece, 

Berthe  de  X. 

P.S. — I  should  add,  however,  by  way 
of  justification  of  French  politeness,  that 
our  fellow-countrymen  are,  when  trav- 
eling, models  of  good  manners  in  com- 
parison with  the  abominable  English,  who 
seem  to  have  been  brought  up  by  stable- 
boys,  so  much  do  they  take  care  not  to 
incommode  themselves  in  any  way,  while 
they  always  incommode  their  neighbors. 

Madame  de  L.  to  Madame  de  X. 

Les  Fresnes,  Saturday. 
My  Dear  Child, — Many  of  the 
things  you  have  said  to  me  are  very 
reasonable,  but  that  does  not  prevent 
you  from  being  wrong.  Like  you,  I 
used  formerly  to  feel  very  indignant  at 
the  impoliteness  of  men,  who,  as  I  sup- 
posed, constantly  treated  me  with  neg- 
lect; but  as  I  grew  older  and  reflected 
on  everything,  putting  aside  coquetry 
and  observing  things  without  taking  any 
part  in  them  myself,  I  perceived  this 
much — that  if  men  are  not  always  po- 


lite, women  are  always  indescribably 
rude. 

We  imagine  that  we  should  be  per- 
mitted to  do  anything,  my  darling,  and 
at  the  same  time  we  consider  that  we 
have  a  right  to  the  utmost  respect,  and 
in  the  most  flagrant  manner  we  commit 
actions  devoid  of  that  elementary  good- 
breeding  of  which  you  speak  with 
passion. 

I  find,  on  the  contrary,  that  men  have, 
for  us,  much  consideration,  as  compared 
with  our  bearing  toward  them.  Besides, 
darling,  men  must  needs  be,  and  are, 
what  we  make  them.  In  a  state  of 
society  where  women  are  all  true  gentle- 
women all  men  would  become  gentlemen. 

Mark  my  words;  just  observe  and 
reflect. 

Look  at  two  women  meeting  in  the 
street.  What  an  attitude  each  assumes 
toward  the  other!  What  disparaging 
looks!  What  contempt  they  throw  into 
each  glance!  How  they  toss  their  heads 
while  they  inspect  each  other  to  find 
something  to  condemn!  And,  if  the 
footpath  is  narrow,  do  you  think  one 
woman  will  make  room  for  another,  or 
will  beg  pardon  as  she  sweeps  by? 
When  two  men  jostle  each  other  by  acci- 
dent in  some  narrow  lane,  each  of  them 
bows  and  at  the  same  time  gets  out  of 
the  other's  way,  while  we  women  press 
against  each  other,  stomach  to  stomach, 
face  to  face,  insolently  staring  each 
other  out  of  countenance. 

Look  at  two  women  who  are  acquain- 
tances meeting  on  a  staircase  before  the 
drawing-room  door  of  a  friend  of  theirs 
to  whom  one  has  just  paid  a  visit,  and 
to  whom  the  other  is  about  to  pay  a 
visit.    They  begin  to  talk  to  each  other. 


770 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  block  up  the  passage.  If  anyone 
happens  to  be  coming  up  behind  them, 
man  or  woman,  do  you  imagine  that 
they  will  put  themselves  half  an  inch 
ou^  of  their  way?    Never!  never! 

I  was  waiting  myself,  with  my  watch 
in  my  hands,  one  day  last  winter,  at  a 
certain  drawing-room  door.  Behind  me 
two  gentlemen  were  also  waiting  with- 
out showing  any  readiness  to  lose  their 
temper,  like  me.  The  reason  was  that 
they  had  long  grown  accustomed  to  our 
unconscionable  insolence. 

The  other  day,  before  leaving  Paiis, 
I  went  to  dine  with  no  less  a  person 
than  your  husband  in  the  Champs- 
Elysees,  in  order  to  enjoy  the  open  air. 
Every  table  was  occupied.  The  waiter 
asked  us  not  to  go,  and  there  would  soon 
be  a  vacant  table. 

At  that  moment,  I  noticed  an  elderly 
lady  of  noble  figure,  who,  having  paid 
the  amount  of  her  check,  seemed  on 
the  point  of  going  away.  She  saw  me, 
scanned  me  from  head  to  foot,  and  did 
not  budge.  For  more  than  a  full  quar- 
ter of  an  hour  she  sat  there,  immovable, 
putting  on  her  gloves,  and  calmly  staring 
at  those  who  were  waiting  like  myself. 
Now,  two  young  men  who  were  just 
finishing  their  dinner,  having  seen  me  in 
their  turn,  quickly  summoned  the  waiter 
in  order  to  pay  whatever  they  owed,  and 
at  once  offered  me  their  seats,  even  in- 
sisting on  standing  while  waiting  for 
their  change.  And,  bear  in  mind,  my 
fair  niece,  that  I  am  no  longer  pretty, 
like  you,  but  old  and  white-haired. 

It  is  we  (do  you  see?)  who  should  be 
taught  politeness ;  and  the  task  would  be 
such  a  difficult  one  that  Hercules  him- 
self would  not  be  equal  to  it.  You 
speak  to  me  about  Etretat.  and  about 


the  people  who  indulge  in  "tittle-tattle*' 
along  the  beach  of  that  delightful  water- 
ing-place. It  is  a  spot  now  lost  to  me,  a 
thing  of  the  past,  but  I  found  much 
amusement  there  in  days  gone  by. 

There  were  only  a  few  of  us,  people 
in  good  society,  really  good  society,  and 
a  few  artists,  and  we  all  fraternized. 
We  paid  little  attention  to  gossip  in 
those  days. 

Well,  as  we  had  no  insipid  Casino, 
where  people  only  gather  for  show, 
where  they  talk  in  whispers,  where  they 
dance  stupidly,  where  they  succeed  in 
thoroughly  boring  one  another,  we 
sought  some  other  way  of  passing  our 
evenings  pleasantly.  Now,  just  guess 
what  came  into  the  head  of  one  of  our 
husbandry?  Nothing  else  than  to  go 
and  dance  each  night  in  one  of  the 
farmhouses  in  the  neighborhood 

We  started  out  in  a  group  with  a 
street-organ,  generally  played  by  Le 
Poittevin,  the  painter,  with  a  cotton 
nightcap  on  his  head.  Two  men  carried 
lanterns.  We  followed  in  procession, 
laughing  and  chattering  like  a  pack  oi 
fools. 

We  woke  up  the  farmer  and  his  ser> 
vant-maids  and  laboring  men.  We  got 
them  to  make  onion-soup  (horror),  and 
we  danced  under  the  apple-trees,  to  the 
sound  of  the  barrel-organ.  The  cocks 
waking  up  began  to  crow  in  the  darkness 
of  the  outhouses ;  the  horses  began  pran- 
cing on  the  straw  of  their  stables.  The 
cool  air  of  the  country  caressed  our 
cheeks  with  the  smell  of  grass  and  of 
new-mown  hay. 

How  long  ago  it  is!  How  long  ago 
it  is.    It  is  thirty  years  since  then ! 

I  do  not  want  you,  my  darling,  to 


THE  CORSICAN  BANDIT 


r7v 


come  for  the  opening  of  the  hunting 
season.  Why  spoil  the  pleasure  of  our 
friends  by  inflicting  on  them  fashionable 
toilettes  after  a  day  of  vigorous  exer- 


cise in  the  country?    This  is  the  ^ay, 

child,  that  men  are  spoiled.    I  embrace 

you. 

Your  old  aunt,  Genevieve  de  L. 


The  Corskan  Bandit 


The  road,  with  a  gentle  winding, 
reached  the  middle  of  the  forest.  The 
huge  pine-trees  spread  above  our  heads 
a  mournful-looking  vault,  and  gave 
forth  a  kind  of  long,  sad  wail,  while  at 
either  side  their  straight,  slender  trunks 
formed,  as  it  were,  an  army  of  organ- 
pipes,  from  which  seemed  to  issue  the 
low,  monotonous  music  of  the  wind 
through  the  tree-tops. 

After  three  hours'  walking  there  was 
an  opening  in  this  row  of  tangled 
branches.  Here  and  there  an  enormous 
pine-parasol,  separated  from  the  others, 
opening  like  an  immense  umbrella,  dis- 
played its  dome  of  dark  green;  then,  all 
of  a  sudden,  we  gained  the  boundary  of 
the  forest,  some  hundreds  of  meter?  be- 
low the  defile  which  leads  into  the  wild 
valley  of  Niolo. 

On  the  two  projecting  heights  which 
commanded  a  view  of  this  pass,  some 
old  trees,  grotesquely  twisted,  seemed 
to  have  mounted  with  painful  efforts, 
like  scouts  who  had  started  in  advance 
of  the  multitude  heaped  together  in  the 
rear.  When  we  turned  round  we  saw 
the  entire  forest  stretched  beneath  our 
feet,  like  a  gigantic  basin  of  verdure, 
whose  edges,  which  seemed  to  reach  the 
sky,  were  composed  of  bare  racks  shut- 
ting in  on  every  side. 

We  resumed  our  walk,  and,  ten  min- 


utes later,  we  found  ourselves  in  th*j 
defile. 

Then  I  beheld  an  astonishing  land- 
scape. Beyond  another  forest,  a  valley^ 
but  a  valley  such  as  I  had  never  seen 
before,  a  solitude  of  stone  ten  leagues 
long,  hollowed  out  between  two  high 
mountains,  without  a  field  or  a  tree  to 
be  seen.  This  was  the  Niolo  valley, 
the  fatherland  of  Corsican  liberty,  the 
inaccessible  citadel,  from  which  the  in- 
vaders had  never  been  able  to  drive  out 
the  mountaineers. 

My  companion  said  to  me:  "It  is 
here,  that  all  our  bandits  have  takes 
refuge." 

Ere  long  we  were  at  the  further  end 
of  this  chasm,  so  wild,  so  inconceivably 
beautiful. 

Not  a  blade  of  grass,  not  a  plant — 
nothing  but  granite.  As  far  as  our  eyes 
could  reach  we  saw  in  front  of  us  a 
desert  of  glittering  stone,  heated  like  an 
oven  by  a  burning  sun  which  seemed  to 
hang  for  that  very  purpose  right  above 
the  gorge.  When  we  raised  our  eyes 
toward  the  crests  we  stood  dazzled  and 
stupefied  by  what  we  saw.  They  looked 
red  and  notched  like  festoons  of  coral, 
for  all  the  summits  are  made  of  por- 
phyry; and  the  sky  overhead  seemed 
violet,  lilac,  discolored  by  the  vicinity 
of    these    strange    mountains.      Lower 


772 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


down  the  granite  was  of  scintillating 
gray,  and  under  our  feet  it  seemed 
rasped,  pounded;  we  were  walking  over 
shining  powder.  At  our  right,  along  a 
long  and  irregular  course,  a  tumultuous 
torrent  ran  with  a  continuous  roar.  And 
we  staggered  along  under  this  heat,  in 
this  light,  in  this  burning,  arid,  desolate 
valley  cut  by  this  ravine  of  turbulent 
water  which  seemed  to  be  ever  hurrying 
onward,  without  being  able  to  fertihze 
these  rocks,  lost  in  this  furnace  which 
greedily  drank  it  up  without  being  pene- 
trated or  refreshed  by  it. 

But  suddenly  there  was  visible  at  our 
right  a  little  wooden  cross  sunk  in  a 
little  heap  of  stones.  A  man  had  been 
killed  there;  and  I  said  to  my  com- 
panion : 

"Tell  me  about  your  bandits.'* 

He  replied: 

"I  knew  the  most  celebrated  of  them, 
the  terrible  St.  Lucia.  I  will  tell  you  his 
history. 

*'His  father  was  killed  in  a  quarrel  by 
a  young  man  of  the  same  district,  it  is 
said;  and  St.  Lucia  was  left  alone  with 
his  sister.  He  was  a  weak  and  timid 
youth,  small,  often  ill,  without  any 
energy.  He  did  not  proclaim  the  ven- 
detta against  the  assassin  of  his  father. 
All  his  relatives  came  to  see  him,  and 
implored  of  him  to  take  vengeance;  he 
remained  deaf  to  their  menaces  and  their 
supplications. 

"Then,  following  the  old  Corsican 
custom,  his  sister,  in  her  indignation, 
carried  away  his  black  clothes,  in  order 
that  he  might  not  wear  mourning  for  a 
dead  man  who  had  not  been  avenged. 
He  was  insensible  to  even  this  outrage, 
and  rather  than  take  down  from  the  rack 
his  father's  gun,  which  was  still  loaded, 


he  shut  himself  up,  not  daring  to  brave 
the  looks  of  the  young  men.  of  the 
district. 

"He  seemed  to  have  even  forgotten 
the  crime,  and  he  lived  with  his  sister 
in  the  obscurity  of  their  dwelling. 

"But,  one  day,  the  man  who  was  sus- 
pected of  having  committed  the  murder 
was  about  to  get  married.  St.  Lucia  did 
not  appear  to  be  moved  by  this  news; 
but,  no  doubt  out  of  sheer  bravado,  the 
bridegroom,  on  his  way  to  the  church, 
passed  before  the  two  orphans'  house. 

"The  brother  and  the  sister,  at  their 
window,  were  eating  little  fried  cakes 
when  the  young  man  saw  the  bridal 
procession  moving  past  the  house.  Sud- 
denly he  began  to  tremble,  rose  up  with- 
out uttering  a  word,  made  the  sign  of 
the  cross,  took  the  gun  which  was  hang- 
ing over  the  fireplace,  and  went  out. 

"When  he  spoke  of  this  latei  on,  he 
said:  'I  don't  know  whrit  was  the  mat- 
ter with  me;  it  was  like  fire  in  my 
blood;  I  felt  that  I  should  do  it,  that  in 
spite  of  everything,  I  could  not  resist, 
I  concealed  the  gun  in  a  cave  on  the 
road  to  Corte.* 

"An  hour  later,  he  came  back,  with 
nothing  in  his  hand,  and  with  his  habit- 
ual sad  air  of  weariness.  His  sister  be- 
lieved that  there  was  nothing  further  in 
his  thoughts. 

"But  when  night  fell  he  disappeared. 

"His  enemy  had,  the  same  evening,  to 
repair  to  Corte  on  foot,  accompanied  by 
his  two  bridesmen. 

"He  was  pursuing  his  way,  singing  as 
he  went,  when  St.  Lucia  stood  before 
him,  and  looking  straight  in  the  mur- 
derer's face,  exclaimed:  'Now  is  the 
time!'  and  shot  him  point-blank  in  the 
chest. 


I 


THE  DUEL 


773 


"One  of  tbe  bridesmen  fled;  the  other 
Stared  at  the  young  man,  saying: 
^  "  'What  have  you  done,  St.  Lucia?* 

*Then  he  was  going  to  hasten  to 
Corte  for  help,  but  St.  Lucia  said  in  a 
stem  tone: 

"  'If  you  move  another  step,  I'll  shoot 
you  through  the  legs.' 

"The  other,  aware  that  till  now  he 
had  always  appeared  timid,  said  to  him: 
*you  would  not  dare  to  do  it!'  and  he 
was  hurrying  off  when  he  fell,  instane- 
ously,  his  thigh  shattered  by  a  bullet. 

"And  St.  Lucia,  coming  over  to  where 
'  he  lay,  said: 

*'  'I  am  going  to  lock  at  your  wound; 
if  it  is  not  serious,  I'll  leave  you  there; 
if  it  is  mortal,  111  finish  you  off.' 

"He  inspected  the  wound,  considered 
it  mortal,  and  slowly  re-loading  his  gun, 
told  the  wounded  man  to  say  a  prayer, 
and  shot  him  through  the  head. 

"Next  day  he  was  in  the  mountains. 

"And  do  you  know  what  this  St.  Lucia 
did  after  this? 

"All  his  family  were  arrested  by  the 
gendarmes.  His  uncle,  the  cure,  who 
was  suspected  of  having  incited  him  to 
this  deed  of  vengeance,  was  himself  put 
into  prison,  and  accused  by  the  dead 


man's  relatives.  But  he  escaped,  took  a 
gun  in  his  turn,  and  went  to  join  his 
nephew  in  the  cave. 

"Next,  St.  Lucia  killed,  one  after  the 
other,  his  uncle's  accusers,  and  tore  out 
their  eyes  to  teach  the  others  never  to 
state  what  they  had  seen  with  their  eyes. 

"He  killed  all  the  relatives,  all  the 
connections  of  his  enemy's  family.  He 
massacred  during  his  life  fourteen  gen- 
darmes, burnp;;"  dv.wn  the  houses  of  his 
adversaries,  and  was  up  to  the  day  a^ 
his  d:;ath  the  mOLl:  terrible  of  the  bap- 
dits,  whose  memory  we  have  preserved  *" 

^r  'r  I*  'I*  T*  "f* 

The  sun  disappeared  behind  Monte 
Cinto  and  the  tall  shadow  of  the  granite 
mountain  w^nt  to  sleep  on  the  granita 
of  the  valley.  We  quickened  our  pace 
in  order  to  reach  before  night  the  little 
village  of  Albertaccio,  nothing  better 
than  a  heap  of  stones  welded  beside  the 
stone  flanks  of  a  wild  gorge.  And  * 
said  as  I  thought  of  the  bandit: 

"What  a  terrible  custom  your  ven- 
detta  is!" 

My  companion  answered  with  an  air 
of  resignation: 

"What  would  you  have?  A  man  must 
do  his  duty!" 


Tbe  Duel 


In  society,  they  called  him  "The 
handsome  Signoles."  He  called  himself 
Viscount  Gontram  Joseph  de  Signoles. 

An  orphan  and  master  of-  a  sufficient 
fortune,  he  cut  something  of  a  figure,  as 
the  saying  is.  He  had  an  attractive 
form,    enough    readiness    of    speech   to 


make  some  attempt  at  wit,  a  certain 
natural  grace  of  manner,  an  air  of  no- 
bility and  pride,  and  a  mustache  which 
was  both  formidable  and  pleasant  to  the 
eye — a  thing  that  pleases  the  ladies. 

He  was  in  demand  in  drawing-rooms, 
sought  for  by  waltzers.  and  he  inspired 


774 


"vVORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPA^SSAN'T 


in  men  that  smiling  enmity  which  one 
has  for  people  of  energetic  physique. 
He  was  suspected  of  some  love  affairs 
which  showed  him  capable  of  much  dis- 
cretion, for  a  young  man.  He  lived 
!iappily,  tranquil,  in  a  state  of  moral 
well-being  most  complete.  It  was  well 
Vnown  that  he  was  good  at  handling  a 
sword,  and  still  better  with  a  pistol. 

"if  I  were  to  fight,"  he  said,  "I 
should  choose  a  pistol.  With  that 
weapon,  I  am  sure  of  killing  my  man." 

Now,  one  evening,  having  escorted 
two  young  women,  friends  of  his,  to  the 
...heater,  being  also  accompanied  by  their 
husbc.nds,  he  offered  them,  after  the 
play,  an  ice  at  Tortoni's.  They  had 
been  there  about  ten  minutes,  when  he 
perceived  that  a  gentleman,  seated  at  a 
neighboring  table,  gazed  persistently  at 
one  of  the  ladies  of  his  party.  She 
seemed  troubled  and  disturbed,  lowering 
her  eyes.  Finally,  she  said  to  her  hus- 
Dand : 

"That  man  is  staring  me  out  of 
countenance.  I  do  not  know  him;  do 
you?" 

The  husband,  who  had  seen  nothing, 
raised  his  eyes  but  declared: 

"No,  not  at  all." 

The  young  woman  replied,  half  laugh- 
ing, half  angry:  "It  is  very  annoying; 
that  individdal  is  spoiling  my  ice." 

The  husband  shrugged  his  shoulders, 
replymg : 

"Pshaw!  Pay  no  attention  to  him. 
If  we  were  to  notice  all  the  insolent 
people  we  meet,  ther^*  would  be  no  end 
to  it." 

But  the  Viscount  arose  brusquely.  He 
could  not  allow  this  unknown  man  to 
spoil  an  ice  he  had  offered.  It  was  to 
him  that  the  injury  was  addressed,  as  it 


was  through  him  and  for  him  that  his 
friends  had  entered  this  caje.  The  affair, 
then,  concerned  him  only.  He  advanced 
toward  the  man  and  said  to  him: 

"You  have,  sir,  a  manner  of  looking 
at  these  ladies  that  is  not  to  be  toler- 
ated. I  beg  to  ask  you  to  cease  this 
attention." 

The  other  replied:  "So  you  command 
me  to  keep  the  peace,  do  you?" 

With  set  teeth,  the  Viscount  an- 
swered: "Take  care,  sir,  or  you  will 
force  me  to  forget  myself!'' 

The  gentleman  replied  with  a  single 
word,  an  obscene  word  which  resounded 
from  one  end  of  the  cafe  to  the  other, 
and  made  each  guest  start  v/ith  a  sud- 
den movement  as  if  they  were  all  on 
springs.  Those  that  were  in  front  turned 
around;  all  the  others  raised  their 
heads;  three  waiters  turned  about  on 
their  heels  as  if  on  pivots;  the  two 
hdies  at  the  counter  bounded  forward, 
then  entirely  turned  their  backs  upon 
the  scene,  as  if  they  ::ad  been  two  au- 
tomatons obeying  the  same  manipula- 
tion. 

There  was  a  great  silence  Then, 
suddenly,  a  sharp  noise  rent  the  air. 
The  Viscount  had  struck  his  adversary. 
Everybody  got  up  to  interpose.  Cards 
were  exchanged. 

After  the  Viscount  had  returned 
home,  h3  walked  up  and  down  his  room 
at  a  lively  pace  for  some  minutes.  He 
was  too  much  agitated  to  reflect  upon 
anything.  One  idea  only  hovered  over 
his  mind:  "a  duel";  and  yet  this  idea 
awoke  in  him  as  yet,  no  emotion  what- 
ever. He  had  done  what  he  ought  to 
do;  ho  had  shown  himself  what  he 
ought  to  be.     People  would  talk  of  itf 


THE  DUEL 


.•;5 


approve  of  it,  and  congratulate  him. 
He  said  aloud,  in  a  high  voice,  as  one 
speaks  when  he  is  much  troubled  in 
thought : 

"What  a  beast  that  man  is.** 
Then  he  sat  down  and  began  to  re- 
flect. He  would  have  to  find  some 
seconds  in  the  morning.  Whom  should 
he  choose?  He  thought  over  the  people 
of  his  acquaintance  who  were  the  most 
celebrated  and  in  the  best  positions.  H2 
took  finally,  Marquis  de  la  Tour-Noirc 
and  Colonel  Bourdin,  a  great  lord  and  a 
soldier  who  was  very  strong.  Their 
names  would  carry  in  the  journals.  He 
perceived  that  he  was  thirsty  and  he 
drank,  one  after  the  other,  three  glasses 
of  water;  then  he  b2gan  to  walk  again. 
He  felt  himself  full  of  energy.  By 
showing  himself  hot-brained,  resolute  in 
all  things,  by  exacting  rigorous,  dan- 
gerous conditions,  and  by  claiming  a 
serious  duel,  a  very  serious  one,  his  ad- 
versary would  doubtless  withdraw  and 
make  some  excuses. 

He  took  up  the  card  which  he  had 
drawn  from  his  pocket  and  thrown  upon 
the  table  and  re-read  it  as  he  bad  in  the 
caji,  by  a  glance  of  the  eye,  and  again 
in  the  cab,  on  returning  home,  by  the 
light  of  a  gas  jst:  "George  Lamil,  51 
Moncey  street."    That  was  all. 

He  examined  these  assembled  letters 

which  appeared  so  mysterious  to  him, 

his  senses  all  confused.  George  Lamil? 

Who  was  this  man?    What  had  he  done? 

Why  had  he  looked  at  that  woman  in 

such  a  way?    Was  it  not  revolting  that 

'  a  stranger,  an  unknown  should  come  to 

trouble  his  life  thus,  at  a  blow,  because 

he  had  been  pleased  to  fix  his  insolent 

'  gaze  upon  a  woman?    And  the  Viscount 

'  repeated  again,  in  a  loud  voice: 


"What  a  brute.'^ 

Then  he  remained  motionless,  stand- 
ing, thinking,  his  look  ever  fixed  upon 
the  card.  A  certain  anger  against  this 
piece  of  paper  was  awakened  in  him,  a 
hateful  anger  which  was  mingled  with  a 
strange  sentiment  of  malice.  It  was 
stupid,  this  whole  story!  He  took  a 
penknife  which  lay  open  at  his  hand, 
and  pricked  the  card  through  the  middle 
of  the  printed  name,  as  if  he  were 
using  a  poignard  upon  some  one. 

So  he  must  fight!  Should  he  choose 
the  sword  or  pistol,  for  he  considered 
himself  the  insulted  one.  With  the 
sword  he  risked  less;  but  with  the 
pistol,  there  was  a  chance  of  his  ad- 
versary withdrawing.  It  is  rarely  that 
a  duel  with  the  sword  is  mortal,  a  re- 
ciprocal prudence  hindering  the  com- 
batants from  keeping  near  enough  to 
each  other  for  the  point  to  strike  very 
deep;  with  the  pistol  he  risked  his  lif? 
very  seriously;  but  he  could  also  meet 
the  affair  with  all  the  honors  of  the 
situation  and  without  arriving  at  a  meet- 
ing.   He  said  aloud: 

"It  is  necessary  to  be  firm.  He  will 
be  afraid." 

The  sound  of  his  own  voice  made  him 
tremble  and  he  began  to  look  about  him. 
He  felt  very  nervous.  He  drank  still 
another  glass  of  water,  then  commenced 
to  undress,  preparatory  to  retiring. 

When  he  was  ready,  he  put  out  his 
light  and  closed  his  eyes.  Then  he 
thought : 

"I  have  all  day  to-morrow  to  busy 
myself  with  my  affairs.  I  must  sleep 
first,  in  order  to  be  calm." 

He  was  very  warm  under  the  clothes, 
but  he  could  not  succeed  in  falling 
asleep      He  turned  and  turned  again, 


776 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


remained  for  five  minutes  upon  his  back, 
then  placed  himself  upon  his  left  side, 
then  rolled  over  to  the  right. 

He  was  still  thirsty.  He  got  up  and 
drank.  Then  a  kind  of  disquiet  seized 
him: 

"Can  it  be  that  I  am  afraid?"  said  he. 

Why  should  his  heart  begin  to  beat  so 
foolishly  at  each  of  the  customary  noises 
about  his  room? — when  the  clock  was 
going  to  strike  and  the  spring  made  that 
little  grinding  noise  as  it  raised  itself  to 
make  the  turn?  And  he  found  it  was 
necessary  for  him  to  open  his  mouth  in 
order  to  breathe  fcr  «^ome  seconds  fol- 
lowing this  start,  so  great  was  his  feel- 
ing of  oppression.  He  began  to  reason 
with  himself  upon  the  possibilities  of  the 
thing: 

"What  have  I  to  fear?" 

No,  certainly,  he  should  not  fear, 
since  he  was  resolved  to  follow  it  out 
to  the  end  and  since  he  had  fully  made 
up  his  mind  to  fight  without  a  qualm. 
But  he  felt  himself  so  profoundly 
troubled  that  he  asked  hims  if : 

"Can  it  be  that  I  am  afraid  in  spite 
of  myself?" 

And  this  doubt  invaded  him,  this  dis- 
quiet, this  fear;  if  a  force  more  power- 
ful than  his  will,  dominating,  irresistible, 
should  conquer  him,  what  would  happen 
to  him?  Yes,  what  would  happen? 
Certainly  he  could  walk  upon  the  earth, 
if  he  wished  to  go  there.  But  if  he 
should  tremble?  And  if  he  should  lose 
consciousness?  Ar.d  he  thought  of  his 
situation,  oi  his  reputation,  of  his  name. 

And  a  singular  desire  took  possession 
'>f  him  to  get  up  and  look  at  himself 
in  the  glass.  He  relighted  his  candle. 
When  he  perceived  his  face  reflected  in 
the   polished   glass,    he    scarcely   knew 


himself,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  he 
had  never  seen  himself  before.  His 
eyes  appeared  enormous;  he  was  pale, 
certainly;  he  was  pale,  very  pale. 

He  remained  standing  there  before 
the  mirror.  He  put  out  his  tongue  as 
if  to  examine  the  state  of  his  health, 
and  suddenly  this  thought  entered  his 
brain  after  the  fashion  of  a  bullet : 

"After  to-morrow  at  this  time,  I  shall 
perhaps  be  dead." 

And  his  heart  began  to  beat  furiously. 

"After  to-morrow  at  this  time,  I  shall 
perhaps  be  dead.  This  person  opposite 
me,  this  being  I  have  so  often  seen  in 
this  glass,  will  be  no  more.  How  can 
it  be!  I  am  here,  I  see  myself,  I  feel 
that  I  am  alive,  and  in  twenty-four 
hours  I  shall  be  stretched  upon  that 
bed,  dead,  my  eyes  closed,  cold,  inani- 
mate, departed." 

He  turned  around  to  the  bed  and  dis- 
tinctly saw  himself  stretched  on  his 
back  in  the  same  clothes  he  had  worn 
on  going  out.  In  his  face  were  the 
lines  of  death,  and  a  rigidity  in  the 
hands  that  would  never  stir  again. 

Then  a  fear  of  his  bed  came  over  him, 
and  in  order  to  see  it  no  more  he  passed 
into  his  smoking-room.  Mechanically 
he  took  a  cigar,  lighted  it,  and  began  to 
walk  about.  He  was  cold.  He  went 
toward  the  bell  to  waken  h:s  valet;  but 
he  stopped  with  his  hand  on  the  cord: 

"This  man  would  perceive  at  once  that 
I  am  afraid." 

He  did  not  ring,  but  made  a  fire. 
His  hands  trembled  a  little  from  a  ner- 
vous shiver  when  they  came  in  contact 
with  any  object.  His  mind  wandered; 
his  thoughts  from  trouble  became  fright- 
ened, hasty,  and  sorrowful;  an  intoxi- 
cation seemed  to  invade  his  mind  as  if 


THE  DUEL 


777 


'    be  were  drunk.     And  without   ceasing 

■  he  asked: 

"What  am  I  going  to  do?     What  is 
going  to  become  of  me?" 

His     whole     body     was     vibrating, 

■  traversed  by  a  jerking  and  a  trembling; 
he  got  up  and  approached  the  window, 
opening  the  curtains. 

The  day  had  dawned,  a  summer  day. 
-    A  rose-colored  sky  made  the  city  rosy 

on  roof  and  wall.  A  great  fall  of  spread 
'    out  light,  like  a  caress  from  the  rising 

sun,  enveloped  the  waking  world;  and, 

■  with  this  light,  a  gay,  rapid,  brutal  hope 

■  invaded  the  heart  of  the  Viscount!  He 
was  a  fool  to  allow  himself  to  be  thus 

■  cast  down  by  fear,  even  before  anything 
'    was  decided,  before  his  witnesses  had 

seen  those  of  this  George  Lamil,  before 
he  yet  knew  whether  he  were  going  to 
fight  a  duel. 
He  made  his  toilette,  dressed  himself, 
•    and  walked  out  with  firm  step. 

He  repeated   constantly,  in  walking: 
"It  will  be  necessary  for  me  to  be 
energetic,  very  energetic.    I  must  prove 
that  I  am  not  afraid." 
i       His  witnesses,  the  Marquis  and  the 
;    Colonel,  placed   themselves  at  his  dis- 
posal and,   after  having   shaken  hands 
with   him    energetically,    discussed    the 
'    conditions.    The  Colonel  asked: 

"Do  you  wish  it  to  be  a  serious  duel?" 
The     Viscount     responded:       "Very 
serious." 

The  Marquis  continued:     "Will  you 
use  a  pistol?" 

,        "Yes." 

"We  leave  you  free  to  regulate  the 
rest." 

'  The  Viscount  enunciated,  in  a  dry, 
jerky  voice: 


"Twenty  steps  at  the  order,  and  on 
raising  the  arm  mstead  of  lowering  it 
Exchange  of  bullets  until  one  is  griev- 
ously wounded." 

The  Colonel  declared,  in  a  satisfied 
tone : 

"These  are  excellent  conditions.  You 
shoot  well,  all  the  chances  are  in  your 
favor." 

They  separated.  The  Viscount  re- 
turned home  to  wait  for  them.  His 
agitation,  appeased  for  a  moment,  grew 
now  from  minute  to  minute.  He  felt 
along  his  arms,  his  legs,  and  in  his 
breast  a  kind  of  trembling,  of  continued 
vibration;  he  could  not  keep  still,  either 
sitting  or  standing.  There  was  no  longer 
an  appearance  of  saliva  in  his  mouth, 
and  each  instant  he  made  a  noisy  move- 
ment with  his  tongue,  as  if  to  unglue  it 
from  the  roof  of  his  mouth. 

He  wished  to  breakfast  but  he  could 
not  eat.  Then  the  idea  came  to  him  of 
drinking  to  give  himself  courage  and  he 
brought  out  a  small  bottle  of  lum,  which 
he  swallowed  in  six  glasses,  one  afte/ 
the  other. 

A  heat,  like  that  of  a  burning  fire 
invaded  him,  followed  almost  immedi- 
ately by  a  numbness  of  the  $oul.  He 
thought : 

"I  have  found  the  remedy  Now  ail 
goes  well." 

But  at  the  end  of  an  hour,  he  had 
emptied  the  bottle  and  his  state  of  agi- 
tation became  intolerable.  He  felt  a 
foolish  impulse  to  roll  on  the  ground.  r,o 
cry  out  and  bite.    Then  night  fell. 

A  stroke  of  the  bell  gave  him  such  ?• 
shock  that  he  had  not  sufficient  strength 
left  to  rise  and  receive  his  witnesses. 
He  dared  not  even  speak  to  them  to 
say    "Good    evening,"    to    pronounce    a 


77S 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


single  word,  for  fear  that  they  would 
discover  a  change  in  his  voice. 

The  Colonel  announced: 

"All  is  arranged  according  to  the  con- 
ditions that  you  have  fixed  upon.  Your 
adversary  claimed  the  privileges  of  the 
offended,  but  he  soon  yielded  and  ac- 
cepted all.  His  witnesses  are  two  mili- 
tary men." 

I  he  Viscount  pronounced  the  word: 

'Thanks." 

The  Marquis  continued: 

"Excuse  us  if  we  only  come  in  and  go 
out,  for  we  have  still  a  thousand  things 
to  occupy  our  attention.  A  good  doctor 
will  be  necessary,  since  the  combat  is 
only  to  cease  after  a  severe  wound,  and 
you  know  that  bullets  are  no  trifles. 
Then,  a  place  must  be  found,  in  some 
proximity  to  a  house,  where  we  may 
carry  the  wounded,  if  necessary,  etc., 
etc.;  finally  we  have  but  two  or  three 
hours  for  it." 

The  Viscount,  for  the  second  time, 
articulated: 

"Thanks." 

The  Colonel  asked: 

"How  is  it  with  you?    Are  you  calm?" 

"Yes,  very  calm,  thank  you." 

The  two  men  then  retired. 

When  he  again  found  himself  alone, 
it  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  mad.  His 
domestic  having  lighted  the  lamps,  he 
seated  himself  before  his  table  to  write 
some  letters.  After  having  traced,  at 
the  top  of  a  page:  "This  is  my  testa- 
ment— "  he  arose  with  a  shake  and  put 
it  away  from  him,  feeling  himself  in- 
capable of  forming  two  ideas,  or  of  suffi- 
cient resolution  to  decide  what  was  to 
be  Honp 


So  he  was  going  to  fight  a  duel! 
There  was  no  way  to  avoid  it.  How 
could  he  ever  go  through  it?  He  wished 
to  fight,  It  was  his  intention  and  firm 
resolution  so  to  do;  and  yet,  he  felt, 
that  in  spite  of  all  his  effort  of  mind 
and  all  the  tension  of  his  will,  he  would 
not  be  able  to  preserve  even  the  neces- 
sary force  to  go  to  the  place  of  meeting. 
He  tried  to  imagine  the  combat,  his  own 
attitude,  and  the  position  of  his  ad- 
versary. 

From  time  to  time,  his  teeth  chat- 
tered in  his  mouth  with  a  little  hard 
noise.  He  tried  to  read,  and  took  down 
the  Chateauvillard  code  of  dueling. 
Then  he  asked  himself: 

"Has  my  opponent  frequently  fought? 
Is  he  known?  Is  he  classed?  flow 
am  I  to  know?" 

He  remembered  Baron  de  Vaux's  book  ■ 
up  experts  with  the  pistol,  and  he  ran 
through  it  from  one  end  to  the  other. 
George  Lamil  was  not  mentioned. 
Nevertheless,  if  this  roan  v/ere  not  an 
expert,  he  would  not  so  readily  have 
accepted  this  dangerous  weapon  and 
these  mortal  conditions. 

He  opened,  in  passing,  a  box  of  Gas- 
tinne  Renettes  which  stood  on  a  'ittle 
stand,  took  out  one  of  the  pistols,  held 
it  in  a  position  to  fire,  and  raised  his 
arm.  But  he  trembled  from  head  to 
foot  and  the  gun  worked  upon  all  his 
senses. 

Then  he  said:  "It  is  impossible.  I 
cannot  fight  in  this  condition." 

He  looked  at  the  end  of  the  banel, 
at  that  little  black,  deep  hole  that  spits 
out  death,  he  thought  of  the  dishonor, 
of  the  whisperings  in  his  circle,  of  the 
laughs  in  the  drawing-rooms,  of  the 
scorn  of  the  ladies,  of  the  allusions  oi 


THE  LOVE  OF  LONG  AGO 


tn 


the  jounials,  of  all  the  insults  that 
cowards  would  throw  at  him. 

He  continued  to  examine  the  weapon, 
and,  raising  the  cock,  he  suddenly  saw  a 
priming  glittering  underneath  like  a 
little  red  fiame.  The  pistol  was  loaded 
then,  through  a  chance  forgetfulness. 
And  he  found  in  this  discovery  a  con- 
fused, inexplicable  joy. 

If  in  the  presence  of  the  other  man  he 
did  not  have  that  calm,  noble  bearing 
that  he  should  have,  he  would  be  lost 
forever.  Ha  would  be  spotted,  branded 
with  the  sign  of  infamy,  hunted  from 
file  world!     And  this  calm,  heroic  b?2r- 


ing  he  would  not  have,  he  knew  it,  he 
felt  it.  However,  he  was  brave,  since 
he  did  wish  to  hglit!  He  was  brave^ 
since.  .  .  .  The  thought  that  budded 
never  took  form,  even  in  his  own  mind; 
for,  opening  his  mouih  wide  he  brus- 
quely thrust  the  barrel  of  his  pistol  into 
his  throat,  and  pulled  the  trigger.  .  .  . 

When  his  valet,  hearing  the  report, 
hastened  to  him,  he  found  him  dead 
upon  his  back.  A  jet  of  blood  had 
splashed  upon  the  white  paper  on  the 
table  and  made  a  great  red  spot  upon 
these  four  words : 

'This  is  my  testament.'' 


The  Love  cf  Long  Ago 


The  old-fashioned  chateau  was  built 
on  a  wooded  height.  Tall  trees  sur- 
rounded it  with  dark  greenery;  and  the 
vast  park  extended  its  vistas  here  over 
a  deep  forest  and  there  over  an  open 
plain.  Some  little  distance  from  the 
front  of  the  mansion  stood  a  huge  stone 
basin  in  which  marble  nymphs  were 
bathing.  Other  basins  arranged  in  order 
succeeded  each  ether  down  as  far  as 
the  foot  of  the  slope,  and  a  hidden 
fountain  sent  cascades  dancing  from  one 
to  the  other. 

From  the  manor-house,  which  pre- 
served the  grace  of  a  superannuated 
coquette,  down  to  the  grottos  incrusted 
with  shellwork,  v/here  slumbered  the 
loves  of  a  bygone  age,  everything  in  this 
antique  demesne  had  retained  the  phys- 
iognomy of  former  days.  Everything 
seemed  to  speak  still  of  ancient  customs, 
of  the  manners  of  long  ago,  of  faded 


gallantries,  and  of  the  elegant  trivial- 
iiies  so  dear  to  our  grandmothers. 

In  a  parlor  in  the  style  of  Louis  XV. 
the  w^alls  of  which  were  covered  wilL 
shepherds  courting  shepherdesses,  beau 
tiful  ladies  in  hoop  petticoats,  and  gai 
lant    gentlemen    in    wigs,    a    very    old 
woman,  who   seemed  dead   as   soon  ai< 
she  ceased  to  move,  was  almost  lying 
down   in  a   large   easy-chair  while  hei 
thin,  mummy-like  hands  hung  down,  one 
at  each  side  of  her. 

Her  eyes  were  gazing  languidly  toward 
the  distant  horizon  as  if  they  sought 
to  follow  the  park  visions  of  her  youth. 
Through  the  open  window  every  now 
and  then  came  a  breath  of  air  laden 
with  the  scent  of  grass  and  the  perfume 
of  flowers.  It  made  her  white  locks 
flutter  around  her  wrinkled  forehead  and 
old  memories  sweep  through  her  brain 

Beside  her  on  a   tapestried  stool,  a 


780 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


young  girl,  with  long,  fair  hair  hang- 
ing in  plaits  over  her  neck,  was  em- 
broidering an  altar-cloth.  There  was 
a  pensive  expression  in  her  eyes,  and  it 
was  easy  to  see  that,  while  her  agile 
fingers  worked,  her  brain  was  busy  with 
thoughts. 

But  the  old  lady  suddenly  turned  her 
head. 

''Benhe,"  she  said,  "read  something 
out  of  the  newspapers  for  me,  so  that 
I  may  still  know  sometimes  what  is 
happening  in  the  world." 

The  young  girl  took  up  the  newspaper, 
and  cast  a  rapid  glance  over  it. 

"There  is  a  g/eat  deal  about  politics, 
grandmamma;  am  I  to  pass  it  by?" 

"Yes,  yes,  darling.  Are  there  no  ac- 
counts of  love  at  fairs?  Is  gallantry, 
then,  dead  in  France  that  they  no 
longer  talk  about  abductions  or  ad- 
ventures as  they  did  forrrierly?" 

The  girl  made  a  long  search  through 
the  columns  of  the  newspaper. 

"Here  is  one,"  she  said.  'Tt  is  en- 
titled, 'A  Love-Drama.' " 

The  old  woman  smiled  through  her 
wrinkles.  "Read  that  for  me,"  she 
said. 

And  Berthe  commenced.  It  was  a 
case  of  vitriol-throwing.  A  wife,  in  order 
to  avenge  herself  on  her  husband's  mis- 
tress, had  burned'  her  face  and  eyes 
She  had  left  the  Assize-Court  acquitted, 
declared  to  be  innocent,  amid  the  ap- 
plause of  the  crowd. 

The  grandmother  moved  about  ex- 
citedly in  her  chair,  and  exclaimed: 

"This  is  horrible — ^why,  it  is  perfectly 
horrible!  See  whether  you  can  find 
anything  else  to  read  for  me,  darling." 

Berthe  again  made  a  search;  and 
f^irther  down  in  the  reports  of  criminal 


cases  at  which  her  attention  was  stiD 
directed     She  read: 

"  'Gloomy  Drama. — A  shopgirl,  no 
longer  young,  allowed  herself  to  j^ield 
to  the  embraces  of  a  young  man. 
Then,  to  avenge  herself  on  her  lover, 
whose  heart  proved  fickle,  she  shot 
him  with  a  revolver.  The  unhappy 
man  is  maimed  for  life.  The  jury  con- 
sisted of  men  of  mora',  character,  and 
took  the  part  of  the  murderess — re- 
garding her  as  the  victim  of  illicit 
love.     They  honorably  acquitted  her.'  " 

This  time,  the  old  grandmother  ap- 
peared quite  shocked,  and,  in  a  trem- 
bling voice,  said: 

"Why,  you  are  mad,  then,  nowa- 
days. You  are  mad!  The  good  God 
has  given  you  love,  the  only  allurement 
in  life.  Man  has  added  to  this  gal- 
lantry, the  only  distraction  of  our  dull 
hours,  and  here  are  you  mixing  up  with 
vitriol  and  revolvers,  as  if  one  were  to 
put  mud  into  a  flagon  of  Spanish  wine.*' 

Berthe  did  not  seem  to  understand  her 
grandmother's  indignation. 

"But,  grandmamma,  this  woman 
avenged  herself.  Remember,  she  was 
married,  and  her  husband  deceived  her." 

The  grandmother  gave  a  start. 

"What  ideas  have  they  been  putting 
into  the  heads  of  you  young  girls  of  to- 
day?" 

Berthe  replied: 

"But  marriage  is  sacred,  grandmam- 
ma." 

The  grandmother's  heart,  which  had 
its  birth  in  the  great  age  of  gallantry, 
gave  a  sudden  leap. 

"It  is  love  that  is  sacred,"  she  said. 
"Listen,  child,  to  an  old  woman  who 
has  seen  three  generations  and  who  has 
had  a  long,  long  experience  of  men  anc^ 


THE  LOVE  OF  LONG  AGO 


781 


women.    Marriage  and  love  have  noth- 
ing in  common.    We  marry  to  found  a 
family,   and   we    cannot    dispense   with 
marriage.     If  society  is   a  chain,  each 
family  is  a  link  in  that  chain.    In  order 
to  weld  those  links,  we  always  seek  for 
metals   of   the   same   kind.     When  we 
marry,  we  must  bring  together  suitable 
conditions;  we  must  combine  fortunes, 
unite  similar  races,  and  aim  at  the  com- 
mon interests,  which  are  riches  and  chil- 
dren.    We  marry  only  once,  my  child, 
because  the  world  requires  us  to  do  so, 
but  we  may  love  twenty  times  in  one 
lifetime   because   nature   has   made   us 
able  to  do  this.     Marriage,  you  see,  is 
law,  and  love  is  an  instinct,  which  im- 
pels us  sometimes  along  a  straight  and 
sometimes  along  a  crooked  path.     The 
world  has  made  laws  to  combat  our  in- 
stincts— it  was  necessary  to  make  them ; 
but   our  instincts   are  always   stronger, 
and  we  ought  not  to  resist  them  too 
much,  because   they   come   from   God, 
while  the  laws  only  come  from  men.    If 
we  did  not  perfume  life  with  love,  as 
much  love  as  possible,   darling,  as  we 
put  sugar  into  drugs  for  children,  no- 
bodv  would  care  to  take  it  just  as  it 
is." 

Berthe  opened  her  eyes  widely  in  as- 
tonishment.    She  murmured: 

"Oh!  grandmamma,  we  can  only  love 
once." 

The  grandmother  raised  her  trembling 
•  hands   toward  Heaven,   as   if  again   to 
invoke  the  defunct  god  of  gallantries. 
She  exclaimed  indignantly: 

"You  have  become  a  race  of  serfs, 

a  race   of  common  people.     Since  the 

'  Revolution,  it  is  impossible  any  longer 

'  to    recognize    society.      You    have    at- 


tached big  words  to  every  action,  and 
wearisome  duties  to  every  corner  of 
existence;  you  believe  in  equality  and 
eternal  passion.  People  have  written 
verses  telling  you  that  people  have  died 
of  love.  In  my  time,  verses  v/ere  writ- 
ten to  teach  men  to  love  every  woman 
And  we! — ^when  v,^e  liked  a  gentleman, 
my  child,  we  sent  him  a  page.  And  when 
a  fresh  caprice  came  into  our  hearts,  we 
were  not  slow  in  getting  rid  of  the  last 
lover — unless  we  kept  both  of  them." 

The  old  woman  smiled  with  a  keen 
smile,  and  a  gleam  of  roguery  twinkled 
in  her  gray  eye,  the  sprightly,  sceptical 
roguery  of  those  people  who  did  not  be- 
lieve that  they  were  made  of  the  same 
clay  as  the  others,  and  who  lived  a^ 
rulers  for  whom  common  restrictionb 
were  not  made. 

The  young  girl,  turning  very  pale, 
faltered  out: 

"So  then,  women  have  no  honor." 
The  grandmother  ceased  to  smile,  li 
she  had  kept  in  her  soul  some  of  Vol- 
taire's irony,  she  had  also  a  little  of 
Rousseau's  glowing  philosophy:  "No 
honor!  because  we  loved,  and  dared  to 
say  so,  and  even  boasted  of  it?  But, 
my  child,  if  one  of  us,  among  the  great- 
est ladies  in  France,  were  to  live  with- 
out a  lover,  she  would  have  the  entirr 
court  laughing  at  her.  Those  who  wished 
to  live  differently  had  only  to  enter  a 
convent.  And  you  imagine  perhaps  that 
your  husbands  will  love  you  alone  all 
their  lives.  As  if,  indeed,  this  could  bs 
the  case.  I  tell  you  that  marriage  is  a 
thing  necessary  in  order  that  society 
should  exist,  but  it  is  not  in  the  nature 
of  our  race,  do  you  understand?  There 
is  only  one  good  thing  in  life,  and  that 
is  love.     And  how  you  misunderstand 


782 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


It!  how  you  spoil  it!  You  treat  it  as 
something  solemn,  like  a  sacrament,  or 
something  to  be  bought,  like  a  dress." 

The  young  girl  caught  the  old  wo- 
man's tremblmg  hands  in  her  own. 

"Hold  your  tongue,  I  beg  of  you, 
grandmamma!" 

And,  on  her  knees,  with  tears  in  her 
eyes,  she  prayed  to  Heaven  to  bestow  on 
her  a  great  passion,  one  eternal  passion 


alone,  in  accordance  with  the  dream  o! 
modern  poets,  while  her  grandmother,, 
kissing  her  on  the  forehead,  still  pene- 
trated by  that  charming,  healthy  logic 
by  which  philosophers  of  gallantry- 
sprinkled  salt  upon  the  life  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  murmured: 

"Take  care,  my  poor  darling!  If  you 
believe  in  such  follies  as  this,  you  will 
be  very  unhappy." 


The  Farmers  Wife 


One  day  Baron  Rene  du  Treilles  said 
10  me: 

"Will  you  come  and  open  the  hunt- 
ing season  with  me  Li  my  farmhouse  at 
Marin vilie?  By  doing  so,  my  dear  fel- 
low, you  win  give  me  the  greatest 
pleasure.  Besides,  I  am  all  alone.  This 
will  be  a  hard  hunting-bout,  to  start 
with,  and  the  house  where  I  sleep  is  so 
primitive  that  I  can  only  bring  my  most 
intimate  friends  there." 

I  accepted  his  invitation.  So  on  Sat- 
urday we  started  by  the  railway-line 
running  irito  Normandy,  and  alighted  at 
the  station  of  Alvimare.  Baron  Rene, 
pointing  out  to  me  a  country  jaunting- 
car  drawn  by  a  restive  horse,  driven  by 
a  big  peasant  with  white  hair,  said  to 
me: 

*''Here  is  our  equipage,  my  dear  boy." 

The  mail  extended  his  hand  to  his 
landlord,  and  the  Baron  pressed  it 
v,'armly,  asking: 

"Well,  Maitre  Lebrument,  how  are 
.•you?" 

"Always  the  same,  M'sieu  1'  Baron." 

"We  jumped  .Wto  this  hencoop  sus- 


pended and  shaken  on  two  immense 
wheels.  The  young  horse,  after  a  vio» 
lent  sv;erve,  started  into  a  gailop,  fling- 
ing us  into  the  air  like  balls.  Every 
fall  backward  on  to  the  wooden  bench 
gave  me  the  most  dreadful  pain. 

The  peasant  kept  repeating  in  his 
calm,  monotonous  voice: 

"There,  there!  it's  all  right,  all  right, 
Moutard,  all  right!" 

But  Moutard  scarcely  heard  and  kept 
scampering  along  like  a  goat. 

Our  two  dogs  behind  us,  in  the  empty 
part  of  the  hencoop,  stood  erect  and 
sniffed  the  air  of  the  plains  as  if  they 
could  smell  the  game. 

The  Baron  gazed  into  the  distance, 
with  a  sad  eye.  The  vast  Norman  land- 
scape, undulating  and  melancholy  as 
an  immense  English  park,  with  farm- 
yards surrounded  Dy  two  or  four  rows 
of  trees  and  full  of  dwarfed  apple-trees 
which  rendered  the  houses  invisible, 
gave  a  vista,  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see, 
of  old  forest-trees,  tufts  of  wood  and 
hedgerows,  which  artistic  gardeners  pro- 


THE  FARMER'S  WIFE 


783 


vide  for  when  they  are  tracing  the  lines 
of  princely  estates. 

And  Rene  de  Treilles  suddenly  ex- 
claimed : 

"I  love  this  soil;  I  have  my  very 
roots  in  it." 

A  pure  Norman,  tall  and  strong,  with 
the  more  or  less  projecting  paunch  of 
the  old  race  of  adventurers  who  went  to 
found  kingdoms  on  the  shores  of  every 
ocean,  he  was  about  fifty  years  of  age, 
ten  years  less  perhaps  than  the  farmer 
who  was  driving  us.  The  latter  was 
a  lean  peasant,  all  skin  and  bone,  one 
of  those  men  who  live  a  hundred  years. 
After  two  hours*  traveling  over  stony 
roads,  across  that  green  and  monotonous 
plain,  the  vehicle  entered  one  of  those 
fruit-gardens  which  adorn  the  fronts  of 
farmhouses,  and  drew  up  before  an  old 
structure  falling  into  decay,  where  an 
old  maid-servant  stood  waiting  at  the 
side  of  a  young  fellow  who  seized  the 
horse's  bridle. 

We    entered    the    farmhouse.      The 
smoky  kitchen  was  high  and  spacious. 
The   copper  utensils   and   the   earthen- 
ware glistened   under  the   reflection  of 
[    the  big  fire.     A  cat  lay  asleep  under 
I    the  table.    Within,  you  inhaled  the  odor 
I    of  milk,  of  apples,  of  smoke,  that  in- 
■    describable  smell  peculiar  to  old  houses 
where  peasants  have  lived — the  odor  of 
the  soil,  of  the  walls,  of  furniture,  of 
.    stale  soup,  of  washing,  and  of  the  old 
;    inhabitants,  the   smell   of   animals  and 
,   human  beings  intermingled,  of  things  and 
of  persons,  the   odor   of  time   and  of 
things  that  have  passed  away. 

1  went  out  to  have  a  look  at  the  farm- 
yard.    It   was  big,   full  of   old  apple- 
trees  dwarfed   and  crooked,  and  laden 
:    with  fruit  which  fell  on  the  grass  around 


them.  In  this  farmyard  the  smell  of 
apples  was  as  strong  as  that  of  the 
orange-trees  which  blossom  on  the  banks 
of  southern  rivers. 

Four  rows  of  beeches  surrounded  this 
inclosure.  They  were  so  tall  that  they 
seemed  to  touch  the  clouds,  at  this  hour 
of  nightfall,  and  their  summits,  through 
which  the  night  winds  passed,  shook  and 
sang  a  sad,  interminable  song. 

I  re-entered  the  house.  The  Baron 
was  warming  his  feet  at  the  fire  and 
was  listening  to  the  farmer's  talk  about 
country  matters.  He  talked  about  mar. 
riages,  births,  and  deaths,  then  about 
the  fall  in  the  price  of  com  and  the 
the  latest  news  about  the  selling  value 
of  cattle.  The  "Veularde"  (as  he  called 
a  cow  that  had  been  bought  at  the 
fair  of  Veules)  had  calved  in  the  middle 
of  June.  The  cider  had  not  been  first- 
class  last  year.  The  apricot-apples  were 
almost  disappearing  from  the  country. 

Then  we  had  dinner.  It  was  a  good 
rustic  meal,  simple  and  abundant,  long 
and  tranquil.  And  while  we  were  din- 
ing, I  noticed  the  special  kind  of  friendly 
familiarity  between  the  Baron  and  the 
peasant  which  had  struck  me  from  the 
start. 

Without,  the  beeches  continued  sob- 
bing in  the  nightwind,  and  our  two  dogs 
shut  up  in  a  shed  were  whining  and 
howling  in  uncanny  fashion.  The  fire 
was  dying  out  in  the  big  grate.  The 
maid-servant  had  gone  to  bed.  Maitre 
Lebrument  said  in  his  turn: 

"If  you  don't  mind,  M'sieu  V  Baron, 
I'm  going  to  bed.  I  am  not  used  to 
staying  up  late." 

The  Baron  extended  his  hand  toward 
him  and  said:     "Go,  my  friend."  in  so 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


784 

cordial  a  tone  that  I  said,  as  soon  as 
the  man  had  disappeared : 

"He  is  devoted  to  you,  this  farmer?" 

"Better   than  that,  my  dear  fellow! 

It  is  a  drama,  an  old  drama,  simple  and 

very  sad,  that  attaches  him  to  me.  Here 

is  the  story: 

"You  know  my  father  was  a  colonel  in 
a  cavalry  regiment.  His  orderly  was 
this  young  fellow,  now  an  old  man,  the 
son  of  a  farmer.  Then,  when  my  father 
retired  from  the  army,  he  took  this  re- 
tired soldier,  then  about  forty,  as  his 
servant.  I  was  at  that  time  about 
thirty.  We  lived  then  in  our  old  chateau 
of  Valrenne  near  Caudebec-in-Caux. 

"At  this  period,  my  mother's  chamber- 
maid was  one  of  the  prettiest  girls  you 
could     see,     fair-haired,     slender,     and 
sprightly  in  manner,   a   genuine   speci- 
men of  the  fascinating  Abigail,  such  as 
we  scarcely  ever  find  nowadays.     To- 
day these  creatures  spring  up  into  hus- 
sies before  their  time.     Paris,  with  the 
aid  of  the  railways,  attracts  them,  calls 
them,  takes  hold  of  them  as  soon  as 
they   are   bursting    into   womanhood — 
these  little  wenches,  who,  in  old  times, 
remained  simple  maid-servants.    Every 
man  passing  by,  as  long  ago  recruiting 
sergeants    did   with    conscripts,    entices 
and  debauches   them— foolish  lassies- 
till  now  we  have  only  the  scum  of  the 
female  sex  for  servant-maids,  all  that 
is  dull,  nasty,  common,  and  ill-formed, 
too  ugly  even  for  gallantry. 

"Well,  this  girl  was  charming,  and  I 
often  gave  her  a  kiss  in  dark  comers — 
nothing  more,  I  swear  to  you !  She  was 
virtuous,  besides;  and  I  had  some  re- 
spect for  my  mother's  house,  which  is 
more  than  can  be  said  of  the  blackguards 
of  the  Dresent  day. 


"Now  it  happened  that  my  father's 
man-servant,  the  ex-soldier,  the  old 
farmer  you  have  just  seen,  fell  in  love 
with  this  girl,  but  in  an  unusual  sort  of 
way.  The  first  thing  we  noticed  was 
that  his  memory  was  affected;  he  did 
not  pay  attention  to  anything. 

"My  father  was  incessantly  saying: 
*Look  here,  Jean!  What's  the  matter 
with  you?    Are  you  unwell?' 

'"No,  no,  M'sieu  1'  Baron.  There's 
nothing  the  matter  with  me.' 

"Jean  got  thin.  Then,  when  serv- 
ing at  table,  he  broke  glasses  and  let 
plates  fall.  We  thought  he  must  have 
been  attacked  by  some  nervous  malady, 
and  we  sent  for  the  doctor,  who  thought 
he  could  detect  symptoms  of  spinal 
disease.  Then  my  father,  full  of  anx- 
iety about  his  faithful  man-servant, 
decided  to  place  him  in  a  private  hos- 
pital. When  the  poor  fellow  heard  of 
my  father's  intentions,  he  made  a  clean 
breast  of  it. 

"  'M'sieu  r  Baron—' 
"  'Well,  my  boy?' 

"'You  see,  the  thing  I  want  is  not 
physic' 

"'Ha!  what  is  it,  then?' 
"  'It's  marriage!' 

"My  father  turned  round  and  stared 
at  him  in  astonishment. 

'"What's  that  you  say— eh?' 
"  'It's  marriage.' 

"'Marriage?  So  then,  you  donkey, 
you're  in  love.' 

"  'That's  how  it  is,  M'sieu  1'  Baron.' 
"And  my  father  began  to  laugh  in 
such   an   immoderate   fashion   that  my 
mother  called  through  the  wall  of  the 
next  room: 

"'What  in  the  name  of  goodness  i« 
the  matter  with  you,  Gontran?' 


THE  FARMER'S  WIFE 


7$> 


"My  father  replied: 

"  'Come  here,  Catherine/ 

"And  when  she  came  in,  he  told,  with 
tears  in  his  eyes  from  sheer  laughter, 
that  his  idiot  of  a  servant-man  was  love- 
sick. 

"But  my  mother,  instead  of  laughing, 
was  deeply  affected. 

"  'Who  is  it  that  you  have  fallen  in 
love  with,  my  poor  fellow?'  she  asked. 

"He  answered,  without  hesitation: 

"  'With  Louise,  Madame  la  Baronne.* 

"My  mother  said,  with  the  utmost 
gravity:  *We  must  try  to  arrange  the 
matter  the  best  way  we  can.' 

"So  Louise  was  sent  for,  and  ques- 
tioned by  my  mother.  She  said  in  reply 
that  she  knew  all  about  Jean's  liking  for 
her,  that  in  fact  Jean  had  spoken  to  her 
about  it  several  times,  but  that  she  did 
not  want  him.    She  refused  to  say  why. 

"And  two  months  elapsed  during 
which  my  father  and  mother  never 
ceased  to  urge  this  girl  to  marry  Jean. 
As  she  declared  she  was  not  in  love  with 
any  other  man,  she  could  not  give  any 
serious  reason  for  her  refusal.  My 
father,  at  last,  overcome  her  resistance 
by  means  of  a  big  present  of  money, 
and  started  the  pair  of  them  on  a  farm 
on  the  estate — this  very  farm.  At  the 
end  of  three  years,  I  learned  that  Louise 
had  died  of  consumption.  But  my 
father  and  my  mother  died,  too,  in  their 
turn,  and  it  was  two  years  more  before  I 
found  myself  face  to  face  with  Jean. 

"At  last,  one  autumn  day,  about  the 
end  of  October,  the  idea  came  into  my 
head  to  go  hunting  on  this  part  of  my 
estate,  which  my  tenant  had  told  me 
was  full  of  game. 

"So,  one  evening,  one  wet  evening,  I 
arrived  at  this  house.     I  was  shocked 


to  find  the  old  soldier  who  had  been  my 
father's  servant  perfectly  white-haired, 
though  he  was  not  more  than  forty-five 
or  forty-six  years  of  ago.  I  made  him 
dine  with  me,  at  the  very  table  where 
we're  now  sitting.  It  was  raining  hard. 
We  could  hear  the  rain  battering  at  the 
roof,  the  walls,  and  the  windows,  flow- 
ing in  a  perfect  deluge  into  the  farm- 
yard; and  my  dog  was  howling  in  the 
shed  where  the  other  dogs  are  howling 
to-night. 

"All  of  a  sudden,  when  the  servant- 
maid  had  gone  to  bed,  the  man  said  ir 
a  timid  voice: 

"  'M'sieu  r  Baron.' 
"  'What  is  it,  my  dear  Jean?' 
"  'I  have  something  to  tell  you.' 
"  'Tell  it,  my  dear  Jean.' 
*  You  remember  Louise,  my  wife?' 
"  'Certainly,  I  do  remember  her.' 
"  'Well,   she  left  me  a  message  for 
you.' 

"  'What  was  it?' 

"  'A — a — well,  it  was  what  you  might 
call  a  confession.' 
"'Ha!  And  what  was  it  about?' 
"'It  was — it  was — ^I'd  rather,  all  the 
same,  tell  you  nothing  about  it — ^but 
I  must — ^I  must.  Well,  it's  this — it 
wasn't  consumption  she  died  of  at  all. 
It  was  grief — well,  that's  the  long  and 
the  short  of  it.  As  soon  as  she  came  to 
live  here,  after  we  were  married,  she 
grew  thin;  she  changed  so  that  you 
wouldn't  know  her  at  the  end  of  six 
months — ^no,  you  wouldn't  know  her, 
M'sieu  r  Baron.  It  was  all  just  as 
before  I  married  her,  but  it  was  dif- 
ferent, too,  quite  another  sort  of  thing. 
"  'I  sent  for  the  doctor.  He  said 
it  was  her  liver  that  was  affected — ^he 
said  it  was  what  he  called  a  "hepatic" 


786 


W0RK6  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


coiuplaint — ^I  don't  know  these  big 
words  M'sieu  V  Baron.  Then  I 
bought  medicine  for  her,  heaps  on  heaps 
Cf  bottles,  that  cost  about  three  hundred 
francs.  But  she'd  take  none  of  them; 
she  wouldn't  have  them;  she  said:  "It's 
no  use,  my  poor  Jean ;  it  wouldn't  do  me 
any  good."  I  saw  well  that  she  had 
some  hidden  trouble;  and  then  I  found 
her  one  time  crying  and  I  didn't  know 
what  to  do — no,  I  didn't  know  what  to 
do.  I  bought  caps  and  dresses  and  hair- 
oil  and  earings  for  her.  No  good!  And 
I  saw  that  she  was  going  to  die.  And 
so  one  night  in  the  end  of  November, 
one  snowy  night,  after  remaining  the 
whole  day  without  stirring  out  of  the 
bed,  she  told  me  to  send  for  the  cure. 
So  I  went  for  him.  As  soon  as  he  had 
come,  she  saw  him.  Then,  she  asked 
him  to  let  me  come  into  the  room  and 
she  said  to  me:  "Jean,  I'm  going  to 
make  a  confession  to  you.  I  owe  it  to 
you,  Jean.  I  have  never  been  false  to 
you,  never! — never,  before  or  after  you 
married  me.  M'sieu  le  Cure  is  there, 
and  can  tell  it  is  so,  and  he  knows  my 
soul.  Well,  listen,  Jean.  If  I  am 
dying,  it  is  because  I  was  not  able  to 
console  myself  for  leaving  the  chateau — 
because — I  was  too — too  fond  of  the 
3roung  Baron,  Monsieur  Rene — too  fond 
of  him,  mind  you,  Jean, — there  was  no 
harm  in  it!  This  is  the  thing  that's 
killing  me.  When  I  could  see  him  no 
more,  1  felt  that  I  should  die.  If  I 
could  only  have  seen  him,  I  might  have 
lived;  only  seen  him,  nothing  more.  I 
wish  ycu'd  tell  it  to  him  some  day,  by- 
and-by,  when  I  am  no  longer  here. 
You  will  tell  him — swear  you  will,  Jean 
—swear  it  in  the  presence  of  M'sieu  le 
Cu^'e'    It  will  console  me  to  know  that 


he  will  know  it  one  day — th,(  this  was 
the  cause  of  my  death!    Swe-ar  it!" 

"  'Well,  I  gave  her  my  promise, 
M'sieu  r  Baron!  and,  on  the  fafth  of 
an  honest  man,  I  have  kept  my  word.' 

"And  then  he  ceased  speaking,  his 
eyes  filling  with  tears. 

^  4^  *  *  *  * 

"Upon  my  soul,  my  dear  boy,  you 
can't  form  any  idea  of  the  emotion  that 
filled  me  when  I  heard  this  poor  devil, 
whose  wife  I  had  caused  the  death  of 
without  knowing  it,  telling  me  this  story 
on  that  wet  night  in  this  very  kitchen. 

"I  exclaimed:  "Ah!  my  poor  Jean! 
my  poor  Jean!* 

"He  murmured:  "Well,  that's  all, 
M'sieu  r  Baron.  I  could  do  nothing, 
one  way  or  another — ^and  now  its  all 
over!" 

"I  caught  his  hand  across  the  table, 
and  I  began  to  cry, 

"He  asked:  'Will  you  come  and  see 
her  grave?'  I  nodded  by  way  of  assent, 
for  I  couldn't  speak.  He  rose  up,  lighted 
a  lantern,  and  we  walked  through  the 
blinding  rain  which,  in  the  light  of  the 
lamp,  looked  like  falling  arrows. 

"He  opened  a  gate,  and  I  saw  some 
crosses  of  blackwood. 

"Suddenly,  he  said:  There  it  is,  in 
front  of  a  marble  slab,'  and  he  flashed 
the  lantern  close  to  it  so  that  I  could 
read  the  inscription: 

**  *To   Louise- HoRTENSE   Marinet, 
Wife  of  Jean-Frangois  Lebrument, 

farmer. 
She  was  a    faithful  Wife!      God 

rest  her  Soul!' 

"We  fell  on  our  knees  in  the  damp 
grass,  he  and  I,  with  the  lantern  be- 


BESIDE  n.  DEAD  MAN 


;87 


tween  us,  and  I  saw  the  rain  beating  on 
the  white  marble  slab.     And  I  thought 
of  the  heart  of  her  sleeping  there  in  her 
grave.    Ah!  poor  heart!  poor  heart! 
0  Til  lii  ^  *  ^ 


"Since  then,  I  have  been  coming  here 
every  year.  And  I  don't  know  why, 
but  I  feel  as  if  I  were  guilty  of  some 
crime  in  the  presence  of  this  man  who 
always  shows  that  he  forgives  me!" 


Bes/de  a  Dead  Man 


He  was  slowly  dying,  as  consumptives 
die.  I  saw  him  sitting  down  every  day 
at  two  o'clock  under  the  windows  of 
the  hotel,  facing  the  tranquil  sea,  on  an 
open-air  bench.  He  remained  for  some 
time  without  moving,  in  the  heat  of  the 
sun,  gazing  mournfully  at  the  Mediter- 
ranean. Every  now  and  then  he  cast 
a  glance  at  the  lofty  mountain  with 
vaporous  summits  which  shuts  in  Men- 
tone;  then,  with  a  very  slow  movement, 
he  crossed  his  long  legs,  so  thin  that 
they  seemed  two  bones,  around  which 
fluttered  the  cloth  of  his  trousers,  and 
opened  a  book,  which  was  always  the 
same.  And  then  he  did  not  stir  any 
more,  but  read  on,  read  on  with  his 
eye  and  with  his  mind;  all  his  poor  ex- 
piring body  seemed  to  read,  all  his  soul 
plunged,  lost  itself,  disappeared,  in  this 
book,  up  to  the  hour  when  the  cool  air 
made  him  cough  a  httle.  Then  he  got 
up  and  re-entered  the  hotel. 

He  was  a  tall  German,  with  a  fair 
beard,  who  breakfasted  and  dined  in  his 
own  room,  and  spoke  to  nobody. 

A  vague  curiosity  attracted  me  to  him. 
One  day  I  sat  down  by  his  side,  hav- 
ing taken  up  a  book,  too,  to  keep  up 
appearances,  a  volume  of  Musset's 
pcems. 

And  T  began  to  run  through  "RoLW 


Suddenly,  my  neighbor  said  to  me,  in 
good  French. 

"Do  you  know  German,  Monsieur?"^ 

"Not  at  all,  Monsieur." 

"I  am  sorry  for  that.  Since  chance 
has  thrown  us  side  by  side,  I  could  have 
lent  you,  I  could  have  shown  you,  an 
inestimable  thing — this  book  which  I 
hold  in  my  hand.'* 

"What  is,  pray?" 

"It  is  a  copy  of  my  master,  Schopen- 
hauer, annotated  with  his  own  hand. 
All  the  margins,  as  you  may  see,  are 
covered  with  his  handwriting." 

I  took  the  book  from  him  reverently, 
and  I  gazed  at  those  forms  incompre- 
hensible to  me,  but  which  revealed  the 
immortal  thoughts  of  the  greatest  shat- 
terer  of  dreams  who  had  ever  dwelt  on 
earth. 

And  Musset's  verses  arose  in  my 
memory: 

**Hast  thou  found  out,  Voltaire,  that  it  is 
bliss  to  die, 
Or    docs    thy   hideous    smile   over   thy 
bleached  bones  fly?" 

And  involuntarily  I  compared  the 
childish  sarcasm,  the  religious  sarcasm, 
of  Voltaire  with  the  irresistible  irony  of 
the  German  philosopher  whose  influence 
is  henceforth  ineffaceable. 


788 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSAN  i 


Let  us  protest  and  let  us  be  angry, 
let  us  be  indignant  or  let  us  be  en- 
thusiastic. Schopenhauer  has  marked 
humanity  with  the  seal  of  his  disdain 
and  of  his  disenchantment.  A  disa- 
bused pleasure-seeker,  he  overthrew  be- 
b'efs,  hopes,  poetic  ideals,  and  chimeras, 
destroyed  the  aspirations,  ravaged  the 
confidence  of  souls,  killed  love,  dragged 
down  the  chivalrous  worship  of  women, 
crushed  the  illusions  of  hearts,  and  ac- 
complished the  most  gigantic  task  ever 
attempted  by  scepticism.  He  passed 
over  everything  with  his  mocking  spirit, 
and  left  everything  empty.  And  even 
to-day  those  who  execrate  him  seem  to 
carry  portions  of  his  thought,  in  spite 
of  themselves,  in  their  own  souls. 

"So,  then,  you  were  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  Schopenhauer?"  I  said 
to  the  German. 

He  smiled  sadly. 

"Up  to  the  time  of  his  death,  Mon- 
sieur.'* 

And  he  spoke  to  me  about  the  phi- 
losopher and  told  me  about  the  almost 
supernatural  impression  which  this 
strange  being  made  on  all  who  came 
near  him. 

He  gave  me  an  account  of  the  inter- 
view of  the  old  iconoclast  with  a  French 
politician,  a  doctrinaire  Republican,  who 
wanted  to  get  a  glimpse  of  this  man, 
and  found  him  in  a  noisy  tavern,  seated 
in  the  midst  of  his  disciples,  dry, 
wrinkled,  laughing  with  an  unforget- 
table laugh,  eating  and  tearing  ideas  and 
beliefs  with  a  singlj  word,  as  a  dog 
tears  with  one  bite  of  his  teeth  the 
tissues  with  which  he  plays. 

He  repeated  for  me  the  comment  of 
this  Frenchman  as  he  went  away, 
scared  and  terrified:     "I  thought  that 


I  had  spent   an  hour  with  the  devil.* 

Then  he  added: 

"He  had,  indeed.  Monsieur,  a  fright* 
ful  smile,  which  terrified  us  even  after 
his  death.  I  can  tell  you  an  anecdote 
about  it  not  generally  known,  if  it  has 
any  interest  for  you.'* 

And  he  began,  in  a  tired  voice,  in* 
terrupted  by  frequent  fits  of  coughing: 

"Schopenhauer  had  just  died,  and  if. 
was  arranged  that  we  should  watch,  in 
turn,  two  by  two,  till  morning. 

"He  was  lying  in  a  large  apartment, 
very  simple,  vast,  and  gloomy.  Two 
wax-candles  were  burning  on  the  bed- 
side stand. 

"It  was  midnight  when  I  took  up  my 
task  of  watching  along  with  one  of  our 
comrades.  The  two  friends  whom  we 
replaced  had  left  the  apartment,  ana 
we  came  and  sat  down  at  the  foot  of 
the  bed. 

"The  face  was  not  changed.  It  was 
laughing.  That  pucker  which  we  knew 
so  well  lingered  still  around  the  corners 
of  the  lips,  and  it  seemed  to  us  that  he 
was  about  to  open  his  eyes,  to  move, 
and  to  speak.  His  thought,  or  rather 
his  thoughts,  enveloped  us.  We  felt 
ourselves  more  than  ever  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  his  genius,  absorbed,  possessed 
by  him.  His  domination  seemed  to  us 
even  more  sovereign  now  that  he  was 
dead.  A  sense  of  mystery  was  blended 
with  the  power  of  this  incomparable 
spirit. 

"The  bodies  of  these  men  disappear, 
but  they  remain  themselves;  and  in 
the  night  which  follows  the  stoppage 
of  their  heart's  beating,  I  assure  yoU; 
Monsieur,  they  are  terrifying. 

"And  in  hushed  tones  we  talked  about 
him,  recalling  to  mind  certain  sayings, 


BESIDE  A  DEAD  MAN 


78^ 


certain  formulas  of  Iiis,  those  startling 
maxims  which  are  like  jets  of  flame 
flung,  by  means  of  some  words,  into 
the  darkness  of  the  Unknown  Life. 

"  'It  seems  to  me  that  he  is  going 
to  speak/  said  my  comrade.  And  we 
stared  with  uneasiness  bordering  on  fear 
at  the  motionless  face  with  its  eternal 
laugh.  Gradually,  we  began  to  feel  ill 
at  ease,  oppressed;  on  the  point  of  faint- 
ing.   I  faltered: 

"  *I  don  t  know  what  is  the  matter 
with  me,  but,  I  assure  you  I  am  not 
well.' 

"And  at  that  moment  we  noticed  that 
there  was  an  unpleasant  odor  from  the 
corpse. 

"Then,  my  comrade  suggested  that  we 
should  go  into  the  adjoining  room,  and 
leave  the  door  open;  and  I  assented  to 
this  proposal. 

"I  took  one  of  the  w^ax-candles  which 
burned  on  the  bedside  stand,  and  I 
left  the  second  behind.  Then  we  went 
and  sat  down  at  the  other  end  of  the  ad- 
joining apartment,  so  as  to  be  able  to 
see  from  where  we  were  the  bed  and 
the  corpse  clearly  revealed  by  the  light. 

"But  he  still  held  possession  of  us. 
One  would  have  said  that  his  immaterial 
essence,  liberated,  free,  all-powerful, 
and  dominating,  was  flitting  around  us. 
And  sometimes,  too,  the  dreadful  smell 
of  the  decomposing  body  came  toward 
us  and  penetrated  us,  sickening  and  in- 
definable. 

"Suddenly  a  shiver  passed  through 
our  bones :  a  sound,  a  slight  sound,  came 
from  the  death-chamber.  Immediately 
v/e  fixed  our  glances  on  him,  and  we 
saw,  yes,  Monsieur,  we  saw  distinctly, 
both  of  us,  something  white  flying  over 


the  bed,  falling  on  the  carpet,  and  van- 
ishing under  the  armchair. 

"We  were  on  our  feet  before  we  had 
time  to  think  of  anything,  distracted  by 
stupefying  terror,  ready  to  run  away. 
Then  we  stared  at  each  other.  We  were 
horribly  pale.  Our  hearts  throbbed  so 
fiercely  that  our  clothes  swelled  over 
our  chests.    I  was  the  first  to  speak. 

"  Tou  saw?' 

"  'Yes,  I  saw.* 

"  'Can  it  be  that  he  is  not  dead?' 

"  'Why  not,  when  the  body  is  putre- 
fying?' 

*'  'What  are  we  to  do?' 

"My  companion  said  in  a  hesitating 
tone: 

"  'We  must  go  and  look.* 

"I  took  our  wax-candle  and  I 
entered  first,  searching  with  my  eye 
through  all  the  large  apartment  with 
its  dark  corners.  There  was  not  the 
least  movement  now,  and  I  approached 
the  bed.  But  I  stood  transfixed  with 
stupor  and  fright:  Schopenhauer  was 
no  longer  laughing !  He  was  grinning  in 
a  horrible  fashion,  with  his  lips  pressed 
together  and  deep  hollows  in  his  cheeks. 
I  stammered  out: 

"'He  is  not  dead!' 

"But  the  terrible  odor  rose  up  to  my 
nose  and  stifled  me.  And  I  no  longer 
moved,  but  kept  staring  fixedly  at  him, 
scared  as  if  in  the  presence  of  an  ap- 
partition.  Then  my  companion,  having 
seized  the  other  wax-candle,  bent  for- 
ward. Then,  he  touched  my  arm  with- 
out utterirg  a  word.  I  followed  his 
glance,  and  I  saw  on  the  floor,  under 
the  armchair  by  the  side  of  the  be4  all 


790 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSAN'i 


white  on  the  dark  carpet,  open  as  if  to 
bite,  Schop>enhauer's  set  of  artificial 
teeth. 

"The  work  of  decomposition,  loosen- 
ing the  jaws,  had  made  it  jump  out  of 
the  mouth. 


"I  was  really  frightened  that  day, 
Monsieur." 

And  as  the  sun  was  sinking  towar^ 
the  glittering  sea,  the  consumpti^'e 
German  rose  from  his  seat,  gave  me  a 
parting  bow,  and  retired  into  the  hotel 


A  Queer  Night  in  Paris 


Mattre  Saval,  notary  at  Vernon,  was 
passionately  fond  of  music.  Still  yoang, 
though  already  bald,  alv/ays  carefully 
shaved,  a  liitle  corpulent,  as  was  fit- 
ting, wearing  a  gold  pince-nez  ins'.ead  of 
old-fashioned  spectacles,  active,  gallant, 
and  joyous,  he  passed  in  Vernon  for  an 
artist.  He  thrummed  on  the  piano  and 
played  on  the  violin,  and  guve  musical 
evenings  where  interpretations  were 
given  of  new  operas. 

He  had  even  what  i?.  called  a  bit  of 
a  voice;  nothing  but  a  bit,  a  very  little 
bit  of  a  voice;  but  he  managed  it  with 
so  much  taste  thut  cries  of  "Bravo  1'* 
■'Exquisite!"  "Sr.rprising!"  "Adorablel'^ 
.Issued  from  every  throat  as  soon  as  he 
had  murmured  the  last  note. 

He  was  a  subscriber  to  a  music  pub- 
lisher ill  Paris,  who  sent  all  new  pieces 
to  him.  From  t  me  to  time  to  the 
liigh  society  of  the  town  he  sent  little 
notes  something  in  this  style: 

"Your  are  invited  to  be  present  on 
Monday  evening  at  the  house  of  M. 
Saval,  notary,  Vernon,  at  the  first  pro- 
duction of  'Sais.'  " 

A  few  officers,  gifted  with  good 
voices  formed  the  chorus.  Two  or 
three  of  the  vinedressers*  families  also 
sang.     The   notary    filled   the  part  of 


leader  of  the  orchestra  with  so  much 
skiJl  that  the  band-master  of  the  190th 
regiment  of  the  line  said  one  day,  at  the 
Cafe  de  I'Europe: 

"Oh!  M.  Saval  is  a  master.  It  is  a 
great  pity  that  he  did  not  adopt  the 
career  of  an  artist." 

When  his  name  was  mentioned  in  a 
drawing-room,  there  was  always  found 
somebody  to  declare:  "He  is  not  an 
amateur;  he  is  an  artist,  a  genuine  ar- 
tist." And  two  or  three  persons  would 
repeat,  in  a  tone  of  profound  convic* 
tion :  "Oh !  yes,  a  genuine  artist,"  laying 
particular  stress  on  the  word  "genuine." 

Every  time  that  a  new  work  was  in- 
terpreted at  a  big  Parisian  theater,  M. 
Saval  paid  a  visit  to  the  capital.  Last 
year,  according  to  his  custom,  he  went 
to  bear  "Henry  VIII."  He  then  took 
the  express  which  arrives  in  Paris  at 
4:30  P.  M.,  intending  to  return  by  tho 
12:35  A.  IvI.  train  so  as  not  to  have  to 
sleep  at  a  hotel.  He  had  put  on  eve- 
ning dress,  a  black  coat  and  white  tie, 
which  he  concealed  under  his  overcoat 
with  the  collar  turned  up. 

As  soon  as  he  had  planted  his  foot 
on  the  Rve  d'Amsterdam,  he  felt  in 
quite  a  jovial  mood,  and  said  to  himself: 

"Decidedly  the  air  of  Paris  does  not 


A  QUEER  NIGHT  IN  PARIS 


7^1 


resemble  any  other  air.  It  has  in  it 
something  indescribably  stimulating,  ex- 
citing, intoxicating,  which  fills  you  with 
a  strange  longing  to  gambol  and  to  do 
many  other  things.  As  soon  as  I  ar- 
rive here,  it  seems  to  me,  all  of  a  sudden, 
that  I  have  taken  a  bottle  of  champagne. 
What  a  life  one  can  lead  in  this  city  in 
the  midst  of  artists!  Happy  are  the 
elect,  the  great  men  who  enjoy  re- 
nown in  such  a  city!  What  an  exis- 
tence is  theirs!" 

And  he  made  plans;  he  would  have 
liked  to  know  some  of  those  celebrated 
men,  to  talk  about  them  in  Vernon, 
and  to  spend  an  evening  with  them  from 
time  to  time  in  Paris. 

But  suddenly  an  idea  struck  him.  He 
had  heard  allusions  to  little  cafes  in 
the  outer  boulevards  at  which  well- 
known  painters,  men  of  letters,  and 
even  musicians  gathered,  and  he  pro- 
ceeded to  go  toward  Montmartre  at  a 
slow  pace. 

He  had  two  hours  before  him.  He 
wanted  to  have  a  look  round.  He 
passed  in  front  of  taverns  frequented 
by  belated  Bohemians,  gazing  at  the 
different  faces,  seeking  to  discover  the 
artists.  Finally,  he  came  to  the  sign  of 
*The  Dead  Rat,"  and,  allured  by  the 
name,  he  entered. 

Five  or  six  women  with  their  el- 
bows resting  on  the  marble  tables,  were 
talking  in  low  tones  about  their  love 
affairs,  the  quarrels  of  Lucie  with  Hor- 
tense,  and  the  scoundrelism  of  Octave. 
They  were  no  longer  young,  but  were 
fat  or  thin,  tired  out,  used  up.  You 
could  see  that  they  were  almost  bald; 
and   they   drank   bocks  like  men. 

M.  Saval  sat  down  at  some  distance 


from  them,  and  waited,  for  the  hour 
for  taking  absinthe  was  at  hand. 

A  tall  young  man  soon  came  in  and 
took  a  seat  beside  him.  The  landlady 
called  him  "M.  Romantin."  The  notary 
quivered.  Was  this  the  Romantin  who 
had  taken  a  medal  at  the  labt  Salon? 

The  young  man  made  a  sign  to  the 
waiter: 

"You  will  bring  up  my  dinner  at  once, 
and  then  carry  to  my  new  studio,  15, 
Boulevard  de  Clichy,  thirty  bottles  of 
beer  and  the  ham  I  ordered  this  morn- 
ing. We  are  going  to  have  a  house- 
•Warming." 

M.  Saval  immediately  ordered  dinner. 
Then  he  took  off  his  overcoat,  so  that 
his  dress  coat  and  his  white  tie  could  be 
seen.  His  neighbor  did  not  seem  to 
notice  him.  M.  Saval  glanced  sideways 
at  him,  burning  with  the  desire  to  speak 
to  him. 

Two  young  men  entered,  in  red  vel- 
vet, and  peaked  beards  in  the  fashion 
of  Henry  III.  They  sat  down  opposite 
Romantin. 

The  first  of  the  pair  said: 

'Tt  is  for  this  evening?'* 

Romantin  pressed  his  hand. 

"I  believe  you,  old  chap,  and  every- 
one will  be  there.  I  have  Bonnat, 
Guillemet,  Gervex,  Beraud,  Hebert, 
Duez,  Clairin,  and  Jean-Paul  Laurens. 
It  will  be  a  glorious  blowout!  And 
women,  too!  Wait  till  you  see!  Every 
actress  without  exception — of  course  I 
mean,  you  know  all  those  who  have 
nothing  to  do  this  evening." 

The  landlord  of  the  establishment 
came  across. 

"Do  you  often  have  this  housewai^n^ 
ing?" 

The  painter  replied. 


792 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"Certainly- -every  three  months,  each 
quarter." 

M.  Saval  could  not  restrain  himself 
any  longer,  and  in  a  hesitating  voice 
said: 

"I  beg  your  pardon  for  intruding  on 
you,  Monsieur,  but  I  heard  your  name 
pronounced,  and  I  would  be  very  glad 
to  know  if  you  really  are  M.  Romantin 
whose  work  in  the  last  Salon  I  have  so 
much  admired." 

The  painter  answered: 

"I  am  the  person,  Monsieur.** 

The  notary  then  paid  the  artist  a 
very  well-turned  compliment,  show- 
ing that  he  was  a  man  of  culture.  The 
painter,  gratified,  thanked  him  politely 
in  reply.  Then  they  chatted.  Romantin 
returned  to  the  subject  of  his  house- 
warming  going  into  details  as  to  the 
magnificence  of  the  forthcoming  enter- 
tainment. 

M.  Saval  questioned  him  as  to  all 
the  men  he  was  going  to  receive,  adding : 

*Tt  would  be  an  extraordinary  piece 
of  good  fortune  for  a  stranger,  to  meet 
at  one  time,  so  many  celebrities  as- 
sembled in  the  studio  of  an  artist  of 
your  rank." 

Romantin,  overcome,  answered:  "If 
it  would  b3  agreeable  to  you,  come." 

M.  Saval  accepted  the  invitation 
with  enthusiasm,  reflecting: 

"I'll  always  have  time  enough  to 
see  'Henry  VHI.' " 

Both  of  them  had  finished  their  meal. 
The  notary  insisted  on  paying  the  two 
bills,  wishing  to  repay  his  neighbor's 
civilities.  He  also  paid  for  the  drinks 
of  the  young  fellows  in  red  velvet;  then 
he  left  the  establishment  with  the 
painter. 

They  stopped  in  front  of  a  very  long 


house,  by  no  means  high,  the  first  story 
of  which  had  the  appearance  of  an  in- 
terminable conservatory.  Six  studios 
stood  in  a  row  with  their  fronts  facing 
the  boulevards. 

Romantin  was  the  first  to  enter.  As 
tending  the   stairs,  he  opened  a  door, 
and  lighted  a  match  and  then  a  candle. 

They  found  themselves  in  an  im- 
mense apartment,  the  furniture  of  which 
consisted  of  three  chairs,  two  easels, 
and  a  few  sketches  lying  on  the  floor 
along  the  walls.  M.  Saval  remained 
standing  at  the  door  in  a  stupefied  state 
of  mind. 

The  painter  remarked: 

"Here  you  are!  WeVe  got  to  the 
spot;  but  everything  has  yet  to  be 
done." 

Then,  examining  the  high,  bare  apart- 
ment, whose  ceiling  was  veiled  in  shad* 
ows,  he  said: 

"We  might  make  a  great  deal  out  of 
this  studio." 

He  walked  around  it,  surveying  it 
with  tbo  utmost  attention,  then  went 
on: 

"I  have  a  mistress  who  might  easily 
give  us  a  helping  hand.  Women  are  in- 
comparable for  hanging  drapery.  But  I 
sent  her  to  the  country  to-day  in  order 
to  get  her  off  my  hands  this  evening. 
It  is  not  that  she  bores  me,  but  she  is 
too  much  lacking  in  the  ways  of  good 
society.  It  would  be  embarrassing  to 
my  guests." 

He  reflected  for  a  few  seconds,  and 
then  added: 

"She  is  a  good  girl,  but  not  easy  to 
deal  with.  If  she  knew  that  I  was 
holding  a  reception,  she  would  tear  out 
my  eyes." 


A  QUEER  NIGHT  IN  PARIS 


793 


M.  Saval  had  not  even  moved;  he 
did  not  understand. 

The  artist  came  over  to  him. 

"Since  I  have  invited  you,  you  are 
going  to  give  me  some  help." 

The  notary  said  emphatically: 

"Make  any  use  of  me  you  please.  I 
am  at  your  disposal. 

Romantin  took  off  his  jacket. 

"Well,  citizen,  to  work!  We  are 
first  going  to  clean  up." 

He  went  to  the  back  of  the  easel,  on 
which  there  was  a  canvas  representing 
a  cat,  and  seized  a  very  worn-out  broom. 

"I  say!  Just  brush  up  while  I  look 
after  the  lighting." 

M.  Saval  took  the  broom,  inspected 
it,  and  then  began  to  swc'p  the  floor 
\^ery  awkwardly,  raising  a  whirlwind  of 
dust. 

Romantin,  disgusted,  stopped  him: 
"Deuce  take  it!  you  don't  know  how 
to  sweep  the  floor!  Look  at  me!" 

And  he  began  to  roll  before  him  a 
heap  of  grayish  sweepings,  as  if  he  had 
done  nothing  else  all  his  life.  Then 
he  gave  back  the  broom  to  the  notary, 
who  imitated  him. 

In  five  minutes,  such  a  cloud  of 
dust  filled  the  studio  that  Romantin 
asked : 

"Where  are  you?  I  can't  see  you  any 
longer." 

M.  Saval,  who  was  coughing,  came 
nearer  to  him.    The  painter  said  to  him: 

"How  are  you  going  to  manage  to 
get  up  a  chandelier." 

The  other  stunned,  asked: 

nVhat  chandelier?" 

"Why,  a  chandelier  to  light — ^a 
chandelier   with   wax-candles." 

The  notary  did  not  understand. 

He  answered;     "I  don't  know." 


The   painter  began   to   jump  about 
cracking  his  fingers. 

"Well,  Monseigneur,  I  have  found 
out  a  way." 

Then  he  went  more  calmly: 

"Have  you  got  five  francs  about 
you?" 

M.  Saval  replied: 

"Why,  yes." 

The  artist  said: 

"Well!  you'll  go  and  buy  for  me  five 
francs'  worth  of  wax-candles  while  I  go 
and  see  the  cooper." 

And  he  pushed  the  notary  in  his  eve- 
ning coat  into  the  street.  At  the  end 
of  five  minutes,  they  had  returned, 
one  of  them  with  the  wax-candles,  and 
the  other  with  the  hoop  of  a  cask.  Then 
Romantin  plunged  his  hand  into  a  cup- 
board, and  drew  forth  twenty  empty 
bottles,  which  he  fixed  in  the  form  ol 
a  crown  around  the  hoop.  He  then  came 
down,  and  went  to  borrow  a  ladder  from 
the  doorkeeper,  after  having  explained 
that  he  obtained  the  favors  of  the  old 
woman  by  painting  the  portrait  of  her 
cat  exhibited  on  the  easel. 

When  he  mounted  the  ladder,  he 
said  to  M.  Saval: 

"Are  you  active?" 

The  other,  without  understanding 
answered : 

"Why,  yes.'* 

"Well,  you  just  climb  up  there,  and 
fasten  this  chandelier  for  me  to  the 
ring  of  the  ceiling.  Then  you  must  put 
a  wax-candle  in  each  bottle,  and  light 
it.  I  tell  you  I  have  a  genius  for  light- 
ing up.  But  off  with  your  coat,  damn 
it!  you  are  just  like  a  Jeames." 

The  door  was  opened  violently.  A 
woman  appeared,  with  her  eyes  flash- 
ing, and  remained  standing  on  the  thres- 


794 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


hold.  Romantin  gazed  at  her  with  a 
look  of  terror.  She  waited  some  sec- 
onds, crossed  her  arms  over  her  breast, 
and  then  in  a  shill,  vibrating,  ex- 
asperated voice  said: 

"Ha !  you  villain,  is  this  the  way  you 
leave  me?' 

Romantin  made  no  reply.  She  went 
on: 

"Ha!  you  scoundrel!  You  are  again 
doing  the  swel\  while  you  pack  me  off 
to  the  country.  You'll  soon  see  the 
way  I'll  settle  your  jollification.  Yes, 
I'm  going  to  receive  your  friends." 

She  grew  warmer: 

"I'm  going  to  slap  their  faces  with 
the  bottles  and  the  wax-candles." 

Romantin  uttered  one  soft  word: 

"Mathilde." 

But  she  did  not  pay  any  attention 
to  him;  she  went  on: 

"Wait  a  little,  my  fine  fellow!  wait 
u  little!" 

Romantin  went  over  to  her,  and 
tried  to  take  her  by  the  hands: 

"Mathilde." 

But  she  was  now  fairly  under  way; 
and  on  she  went,  emptying  the  vials  of 
her  wrath  with  strong  words  and  re- 
proaches. They  flowed  out  of  her 
mouth,  like  a  stream  sweeping  a  heap 
of  filth  along  with  it.  The  words  hurled 
out  seemed  struggling  for  exit.  She 
stuttered,  stammered,  yelled,  suddenly 
recovering  her  voice  to  cast  forth  an 
insult  or  a  curse. 

He  seized  her  hands  without  her  hav- 
ing even  noticed  it.  She  did  not  seem 
to  see  anything,  so  much  occupied  was 
she  in  holding  for*^h  and  relieving  her 
heart.  And  suddenly  she  began  to  weep. 
The  tears  flowed  from  her  eyes  with- 
out making  her  stem  the  tide  of  her 


complaints.  But  her  words  had  takeh 
a  howling,  shrieking  tone;  they  were  a 
continuous  cry  interrupted  by  sobbings. 
She  commenced  afresh  twice  or  three 
times,  till  she  stopped  as  if  something 
were  choking  her,  and  at  last  she  ceased 
with  a  regular  flood  of  tears. 

Then  he  clasped  her  in  his  arms  and 
kissed  her  hair,  himself  affected. 

"Mathilde,  my  little  Mathilde,  listen. 
You  must  be  reasonable.  You  know,  if 
I  give  a  supper  party  to  my  friends,  it 
is  to  thank  these  gentlemen  for  the 
medal  I  got  at  the  Salon.  I  cannot  re- 
ceive women.  You  ought  to  understand 
that.  It  is  not  the  same  with  artists 
as  with  other  people." 

She  stammered  in  the  midst  of  hex 
tears : 

"Why  didn't  you  tell  me  this?" 

He  replied: 

"It  was  in  order  not  to  annoy  you, 
not  to  give  you  pain.  Listen,  I  m  going 
to  see  you  home.  You  will  be  very 
sensible,  very  nice;  you  will  remain 
quietly  waiting  for  me  in  bed,  and  I'll 
come  back  as  soon  as  it's  over." 

She  murmured: 

"Yes,  but  you  will  not  begin  over 
again?" 

"No,  I  swear  to  you!" 

He  turned  toward  M.  Saval,  who  had 
at  last  hooked  on  the  chandelier: 

"My  dear  friend,  I  am  coming  back 
in  five  minutes.  If  anyone  arrives  in 
my  absence,  do  the  honors  for  me, 
will  you  not?" 

And  he  carried  off  Mathilde,  who 
kept  drying  her  eyes  with  her  handker- 
chief as  she  went  along. 

Left  to  himself,  M.  Savai  succeeded 
in   putting   everything   around   him   in 


A  QUEER  NIGHT  IN  PARlb 


795 


order.    Then  he  lighted  the  wax-candles 
and  waited. 

He  waited  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour, 
half  an  hour,  an  hour.  Romantin  did 
not  return.  Then,  suddenly,  there  was 
a  dreadful  noise  on  the  stairs,  a  song 
shouted  out  in  chorus  by  twenty  mouths 
and  a  regular  march  like  that  of  a 
Prussian  regiment.  The  whole  house 
was  shaken  by  the  steady  tramp  of  feet. 
The  door  flew  open,  and  a  motly  throng 
appeared — men  and  women  in  a  row, 
holding  one  another  arm  in  arm,  in 
pairs,  and  kicking  their  heels  on  the 
floor,  in  proper  time — advancing  into 
the  .«;tudio  like  a  snake  uncoiling  itself. 
They  howled: 

"Come,  let  us  all  be  merry, 
Pretty  maids  and  soldiers  gay!'* 

M.  Saval,  thunderstruck,  remained 
standing  in  evening  dress  under  the 
chandelier.  The  procession  of  revellers 
caught  oight  of  him,  and  uttered  a 
shout : 

*'A  Jeames!     A  Jeames!'* 

And  they  began  whirling  round  him, 
surrounding  him  with  a  circle  of  vocif- 
eration. Then  they  took  each  other  by 
the  hand  and  went  dancing  about  madly. 

He  attempted  to  explain : 

"Messieurs  —  Messieurs  —  Mesdames 

But  they  did  not  listen  to  him.  They 
whirled  about,  they  jumped,  they 
brawled. 

At  last  the  dancing  ceased.  M.  Saval 
uttered  the  word: 

"Messieurs — " 

A  tall  young  fellow,  fair-haired  and 
bearded  to  the  nose,  interrupted  him: 

"What's  your  name,  my  friend?" 

The  notary,  quite  scared,  sedd: 


•1  am  M:  Saval." 

A  voice  exclaimed: 

"You  mean  Baptiste.** 

A  woman  said: 

"Let  the  poor  waiter  alone!  You'll 
end  by  making  him  get  angry.  He's 
paid  to  attend  on  us,  and  not  to  be 
laughed  at  by  us." 

Then,  M.  Saval  noticed  that  each 
guest  had  brought  his  own  provisions. 
One  held  a  bottle  of  wine,  another  a 
pie.  This  one  had  a  loaf  of  bread,  that 
one  a  ham. 

The  tall,  fair,  young  fellow  placed  in 
his  hands  an  enormous  sausage,  and 
gave  him  orders: 

"Go  and  settle  up  the  sideboard  in 
the  comer  over  there.  You  are  to  put 
the  bottles  at  the  left  and  the  provi- 
sions at  the  right." 

Saval,  getting  quite  distracted,  cx» 
claimed : 

"But,  Messieurs,  I  am  a  notary!'* 

There  was  a  moment's  silence  and 
then  a  wild  outburst  of  laughter.  One 
suspicious  gentleman  asked: 

"How  are  you  here?'* 

He  explained,  telling  about  his  proj- 
ect of  going  to  the  opera,  his  departure 
from  Vernon,  his  arrival  in  Paris,  and 
the  way  in  which  he  had  spent  the 
evening. 

They  sat  around  him  to  listen  to 
him;  they  greeted  him  with  words  of 
applause,  and  called  him  Scheherazade. 

Romantin  did  not  come  back.  Other 
guests  arrived.  M.  Saval  was  presented 
to  them  so  that  he  might  begin  his 
stor>'  over  again.  He  declined;  they 
forced  him  to  relate  it.  They  fixed  him 
on  one  of  three  chairs  between  two 
women  who  kept  constantly  filling  his 
glass.   He  drank;  he  laughed;  he  talked: 


V96 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUi  ASSANT 


he  sang,  too.  He  tried  to  waltz  with 
his  chair,  and  fell  on  the  floor. 

From  that  moment,  he  forgot  every- 
thing. It  seemed  to  him,  however,  that 
they  undressed  him,  put  him  to  bed, 
and  that  his  stomach  got  sick. 

When  he  awoke,  it  was  broad  day- 
light, and  he  lay  stretched  with  his 
feet  against  a  cupboard,  in  a  strange 
bed. 

An  old  woman  with  a  broom  in  her 
hand  was  glaring  angrily  at  him..  At  last, 
she  said: 

"Clear  out,  you  blackguard!  Clear 
out!  What  right  has  anyone  to  get 
drunk  like  this?" 

He  sat  up  in  his  bed,  feeling  very 
ill  at  ease.    He  asked: 

"Where  am  I?" 

"Where  are  you,  you  dirty  scamp? 
You  are  drunk.  Take  your  rotten  car- 
cass out  of  here  as  quick  as  you  can, — 
and  lose  no  time  about  it!'' 

He  wanted  to  get  up.    He  found  that 


he  was  naked  in  the  bed.  His  clothes 
had  disappeared.     He  blurted  out: 

"Madame,  I—" 

Then  he  remembered.  What  was  he 
to  do?     He  asked: 

"Did  Monsieur  komantin  come 
back?" 

The  doorkeeper  shouted: 

"Will  you  take  your  dirty  carcass  out 
of  this  so  that  he  at  any  rate  may  not 
catch  you  here?" 

M.  Saval  said,  in  a  state  of  con- 
fusion : 

"I  haven't  got  my  clothes;  they  havt 
been  taken  away  from  me." 

He  had  to  wait,  to  explain  his  situa- 
tion, give  notice  to  his  friends,  and 
borrow  some  money  to  buy  clothes.  He 
did  not  leave  Paris  till  evening. 

And,  when  people  talk  about  music 
to  him  in  his  beautiful  drawing-room  in 
Vernon,  he  declares  with  an  air  of  au- 
thority that  painting  is  a  very  inferior 
art. 


A  Duel 


The  war  was  over.  The  Germans  oc- 
cupied France.  The  country  was  pant- 
ing like  a  wrestler  lying  under  the  knee 
of  his  successful  opponent. 

The  first  trains  from  Paris,  after  the 
city's  long  agony  of  famine  and  despair, 
were  making  their  way  to  the  new  fron- 
tiers, slowly  passing  through  the  coun- 
try districts  and  the  villages.  The  pas- 
sengers gazed  through  the  windows  at 
the  ravaged  fields  and  burned  hamlets. 
Prussian  soldiers,  in  their  black  hamlets 
with  brass  spikes,  were  smoking  their 


pipes  on  horseback  or  sitting  on  chairs 
in  front  of  the  houses  which  were  still 
left  standing.  Others  were  working  or 
talking  just  as  if  they  were  members  of 
the  families.  As  you  passed  through 
the  different  towns,  you  saw  entire  regi- 
ments drilling  in  the  squares,  and,  in 
spite  of  the  rumble  of  the  carriage- 
wheels,  you  could,  every  moment,  hear 
the  hoarse  words  of  command. 

M.  Dubuis,  who  during  the  entire 
siege  had  served  as  one  of  the  National 
Guard  in  Paris,  was  going  to  join  his 


A  DUEL 


797 


wife  and  daughter,  whom  he  had  pru- 
dently sent  away  to  Switzerland  before 
the  invasion. 

Famine  and  hardship  had  not  di- 
minished the  big  paunch  so  characteristic 
of  the  rich,  peace-loving  merchant.  He 
had  gone  through  the  terrible  events  of 
the  past  year  with  sorrov;ful  resignation 
and  bitter  complaints  at  the  savagery  of 
men.  Now  that  he  was  journeying  to 
the  frontier  at  the  close  of  the  war,  he 
saw  the  Prussians  for  the  first  time,  al- 
though he  had  done  duty  at  the  ram- 
parts, and  staunchly  mounted  guard  on 
cold  nights. 

He  stared  with  mingled  fear  and  anger 
at  those  bearded  armed  men  installed 
all  over  French  soil  as  if  in  their  own 
homes,  and  he  felt  in  his  soul  a  kind  of 
fever  of  impotent  patriotism  even  while 
he  yielded  to  that  other  instinct  of  dis- 
cretion and  self-preservation  which  never 
leaves  us.  In  the  same  compartment, 
two  Englishmen,  who  had  come  to  the 
country  as  sight-seers,  were  gazing 
around  with  looks  of  stolid  curiosity. 
They  were  both  stout  also,  and  kept 
chattering  in  their  own  language,  some- 
times referring  to  their  guidebook,  and 
reading  in  loud  tones  the  names  of  the 
places  indicated. 

Suddenly,  the  train  stopped  at  a  little 
village  station,  and  a  Prussian  officer 
jumped  up  with  a  great  clatter  of  his 
saber  on  the  double  footboard  of  the 
railway-carriage.  He  was  tall,  wore  a 
tight-fitting  uniform,  and  his  face  had 
a  very  shaggy  aspect.  His  red  hair 
seemed  to  be  on  fire  and  his  long  mus- 
tache and  beard,  of  a  paler  color,  was 
stuck  out  on  both  sides  of  his  face, 
which  it  seemed  to  cut  in  two. 

The  Englishmen  at  once  began  star- 


ing at  him  with  smiles  of  newly-awak- 
ened interest,  while  M.  Dubuis  made  a 
show  of  readiiig  a  newspaper.  He  sat 
crouched  in  a  corner,  like  a  thief  in  the 
presence  of  a  gendarme. 

The  train  started  again.  The  English- 
men went  on  chatting,  and  looking  out 
for  the  exact  scene  of  different  battles; 
and,  all  of  a  sudden,  as  one  of  them 
stretched  out  his  arm  toward  the  hori- 
zon to  indicate  a  village,  the  Prussian 
officer  remarked  in  French,  extending 
his  long  legs  and  lolling  backward: 

"We  killed  a  dozen  Frenchmen  in  that 
village,  and  took  more  than  a  hundred 
prisoners." 

The  Englishmen,  quite  interested,  im- 
mediately asked: 

"Ha!  and  what  is  the  name  of  this 
village?" 

The  Prussian  replied: 

"Pharsbourg." 

He  added:  "We  caught  these  French 
blackguards  by  the  ears." 

And  he  glanced  toward  M.  Dubuis, 
laughing  into  his  mustache  in  an  in- 
sulting fashion. 

The  train  rolled  on,  always  passing 
through  hamlets  occupied  by  the  vic- 
torious army.  German  soldiers  could  be 
seen  along  the  roads,  on  the  edges  oV 
fields,  standing  in  front  of  gates,  or 
chatting  outside  cafes.  They  covered 
the  soil  like  African  locusts. 

The  officer  said,  with  a  wave  of  his 
hand: 

"If  I  were  in  command,  I'd  take 
Paris,  bum  everything,  and  kill  every- 
body.    No  more  France!" 

The  Englishmen,  through  politeness 
replied  simply: 

"Ah!  yes." 

He  went  on. 


708 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"In  twenty  years,  all  Europe,  all  cf  it, 
will  belong  to  us.  Prussia  is  more  than 
a  match  for  ail  of  them," 

The  Englishmen,  getting  uneasy,  said 
nothing  in  answer  to  this.  Their  faces, 
tvhich  had  become  impassive,  seemed 
made  of  wax  behind  their  long  whiskers. 
Then  the  Prussian  ofQcer  began  to 
laugh.  And  then,  lolling  back,  he  be- 
gan to  sneer.  He  sneered  at  the  down- 
fall of  France,  insulted  the  prostrate 
enemy;  he  sneered  at  Austria  which  had 
been  recently  conquered;  he  sneered  at 
the  furious  but  fruitless  defense  of  the 
departments;  he  sneered  at  the  Garde 
Mobile  and  at  the  useless  artillery.  He 
announced  that  Bismarck  was  going  to 
build  a  city  of  iron  with  the  captured 
cannons.  And  suddenly  he  pushed  his 
boots  against  the  thigh  of  M.  Dubuis, 
who  turned  his  eyes  away,  reddening  to 
the  roots  of  his  hair. 

The  Englishmen  seemed  to  have  as- 
sumed an  air  of  complete  indifference, 
AG  ii  they  hai  found  themselves  all  at 
once  shut  up  in  their  own  island,  far 
tiom  the  din  of  the  world. 

The  officer  took  out  his  pipe,  and 
'ooking  fixedly  at  the  Frenchman,  said: 

'Ycu  haven't  got  any  tobacco — ^have 
.•o»i?" 

M.  Dnbuis  replied: 

*'No,  Monsieur." 

The  German  said: 

"You  might  go  and  buy  some  fox* 
me  when  the  train  stops  next." 

And  he  began  laughing  afresh,  as  he 
added: 

"I'll  let  you  have  the  price  of  a 
drink." 

The  train  whistled  and  slackened  its 
oace.    They  had  reached  a  station  which 


had  been  burned  down  and  here  there 
was  a  regular  stop. 

The  German  opened  the  carriage 
door,  and,  catcning  M.  Dubuis  by  the 
arm,  said: 

"Go,  and  do  what  I  told  you — quick, 
quick!" 

A  Prussian  detachment  occupied  the 
station.  Other  soldiers  were  looking  on 
from  behind  wooden  gratings.  The  en- 
gine was  already  getting  up  steam  in 
crder  to  start  off  again.  Then  M. 
Dubuis  hurriedly  jumped  on  ihe  plat- 
form, and,  in  spice  cf  the  warnings  of 
the  station-master,  dashed  into  the  ad- 
joining compartment. 
*  *  *  if  *  ^ 

He  was  alone!  He  tore  open  his 
waistcoat,  so  rapidly  did  his  heart  beat, 
and,  panting  for  breath,  he  wiped  the 
perspiration  off  his  forehead. 

The  train  drew  up  at  another  station. 
And  suddenly  the  officer  appeared  at 
the  carriage  door,  and  jumped  in,  fol- 
lowed close  behind  by  the  two  English- 
men, who  were  impelled  by  curiosity. 
The  German  sat  facing  the  Frenchman, 
and,  laughing  still,  said: 

"You  did  not  want  to  do  what  I  asked 
you." 

M.  Dubuis  replied:    "No,  Monsieur." 

The  train  had  just  left  the  station, 
w'hen  the  officer  said: 

"111  cut  off  your  mustache  to  fill  my 
pipe  with."  And  he  put  out  his  hand 
toward  the  Frenchman's  face. 

The  Englishmen  kept  staring  in  the 
same  impassive  fashion  with  fixed 
glances.  Already  the  German  had 
caught  hold  of  the  mustache  and  was 
tugging  at  it,  when  M.  Dubuis,  with  a 
back-stroke  of  his  hand  threw  back  the 
officer's  arm,  and  seizing  him  by  thf 


A  DUEL 


790 


vollar,  flung  liim  down  on  the  seat. 
Then,  excited  to  a  p^tch  of  fury,  with 
his  temples  swollen  and  his  eyes  glaring 
he  kept  throttling  the  officer  with  one 
hand  while  with  the  other  clenched,  he 
began  to  strike  him  violent  blows  in  the 
face.  The  Prussian  struggled,  tried  to 
draw  his  saber,  and  to  get  a  grip,  while 
lying  back,  of  his  adversary.  But  M. 
Dubuis  crushed  him  with  the  enormous 
weight  of  his  stomach,  and  kept  hit- 
ting him  without  taking  breath  or  know- 
ing where  his  blows  fell.  Blood  flowed 
down  the  face  of  the  German,  who, 
choking  and  with  a  rattling  in  his  throat, 
spat  forth  his  broken  teeth,  and  vainly 
strove  to  shake  off  this  infuriated  man 
who  was  killing  him. 

The  Englishmen  had  got  on  their  feet 
and  came  closer  to  see  better.  They 
remained  standing,  full  of  mirth  and 
curiosity,  ready  to  bet  for  or  against 
each  of  the  combatants. 

And  suddenly  M.  Dubuis,  exhausted 
by  his  violent  efforts,  went  and  resumed 
his  seat  without  uttering  a  word. 

The  Prussian  did  not  attack  him,  for 
the  savage  assault  had  scared  and  ter- 
rified the  officer.  When  he  was  able  to 
breathe  freely,  he  said: 

"Unless  you  give  me  satisfaction  with 
pistols,  I  will  kill  you." 

M.  Dubuis  replied: 

"Whenever  you  like.  I'm  quite  ready." 

The  German  said: 

"Here  is  the  town  of  Strasbourg.  I'll 
get  two  officers  to  be  my  seconds,  and 
there  will  be  time  before  the  train  leaves 
the  station.'* 

M.  Dubuis,  who  was  puffing  as  much 
as  the  engine,  said  to  the  Englishmen: 

"Will  you  be  my  seconds?"  They 
both   answered   together! 


"Oh!  yes." 

And  the  train  stopped. 

In  a  minute,  the  Prussian  had  found 
two  comrades  who  carried  pistols,  and 
they  made  their  way  toward  the  ram- 
parts. 

The  Englishmen  were  continually 
looking  at  their  watches,  shuffling  their 
feet,  and  hurrying  on  with  the  prepara- 
tions, uneasy  lest  they  should  be  too 
late  for  the  train. 

M.  Dubuis  had  never  fired  a  pistol 
in  his  life.  They  made  him  stand  twenty 
paces  away  from  his  enemy.  He  was 
asked : 

"Are  you  ready?" 

While  he  was  answering  "Yes,  Mon- 
sieur," he  noticed  that  one  of  the  Eng- 
lishmen had  opened  his  umbrella  in 
order  to  keep  off  the  rays  of  the  sun. 

A  voice  gave  the  word  of  command. 

"Fire!" 

M.  Dubuis  fired  at  random  without 
minding  what  he  was  doing,  and  he  was 
amazed  to  see  the  Prussian  staggering 
in  front  of  him,  lifting  up  his  arms,  and 
immediately  afterwa-d,  falling  straight 
on  his  face.  He  had  hilled  the  officer. 

One  of  the  Englishmen  ejaculated 
"Ah!"  quivering  v/ith  delight,  satisfied 
curiosity,  and  joyous  impatience.  The 
other,  who  still  kept  his  watch  in  his 
hand,  hurried  him  in  double-quick  time 
toward  the  station,  his  fellow-country- 
man counting  their  steps,  with  his  arms 
pressed  close  to  his  sides:  "One!  two! 
one!  two!" 

And  all  three  marching  abreast  they 
rapidly  made  their  way  to  the  station 
like  three  grotesque  figures  in  a  comic 
newspaper. 

The  train  was*  on  the  point  of  start- 
ing.    They  sprang  into   their  carriaf 


soo 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Then  the  Englishmen,  taking  off  their 
traveling-caps,  waved  them  three  times 
over  their  heads,  exclaiming: 
'TOp!  hip!  hip!  hurrah!" 


Then  gravely,  one  after  the  other, 
they  stretched  out  their  right  hands  to 
M.  Dubuis,  and  then  went  back  and  sat 
in  their  own  comer. 


T/6^  Umbrella 


Mme.  Oreille  was  a  very  economical 
woman;  she  thoroughly  knew  the  value 
of  a  half-penny,  and  possessed  a  whole 
storehouse  of  strict  principles  with  re- 
gard to  the  multiplication  cf  money,  so 
that  her  cook  found  the  greatest  diffi- 
culty in  making  what  the  servants  call 
their  "market-penny,"  while  her  husband 
was  hardly  allowed  any  pocket-money  at 
all.  They  were,  however,  very  com- 
fortably off,  and  had  no  children.  It 
really  pained  Mme.  Oreille  to  see  any 
money  spent;  it  was  like  tearing  at  her 
heartstrings  when  she  had  to  take  any  of 
those  nice  crownpieces  out  of  her 
pocket;  and  whenever  she  had  to  spend 
anything,  no  matter  how  necessary  it 
was,  she  slept  badly  the  next  night. 

Oreille  was  continually  saying  to  his 
wife: 

"You  really  might  be  more  liberal,  as 
we  have  no  children  and  never  spend  our 
income." 

"You  don't  know  what  may  happen,** 
she  used  to  reply.  "It  is  better  to  have 
too  much  than  too  little." 

She  was  a  little  woman  of  about  forty, 
very  active,  rather  hasty,  wrinkled,  very 
leat  and  tidy,  and  with  a  very  short 
lemper.  Her  husband  very  often  used 
to  complain  of  all  the  privations  she 
made  him  endure;  some  of  them  were 


particularly    painful    to    him,    as   they 
touched  his  vanity. 

He  was  one  of  the  upper  clerks  in 
the  War  Office,  and  only  stayed  there 
in  obedience  to  his  wife's  wish,  so  as  to 
increase  their  income,  which  they  did  not 
nearly  spend. 

For  two  years  he  had  always  come 
to  the  office  with  th^  same  old  patched 
umbrella,  to  the  great  amusement  of  hij* 
fellow-clerks.  At  last  he  got  tired  of 
their  jokes,  and  insisted  upon  his  wife 
buying  him  a  new  one.  She  bought  one 
for  eight  francs  and  a-half,  one  of  those 
cheap  things  which  large  houses  sell  as 
an  advertisement.  When  the  others  ij 
the  office  saw  the  article,  which  was  be- 
ing sold  in  Paris  by  the  thousand,  they 
began  their  jokes  again,  and  Oreille  had 
a  dreadful  time  of  it  with  them.  They 
even  made  a  song  about  it,  which  he 
heard  from  morning  till  night  all  over 
the  immense  building. 

Oreille  was  very  angry,  and  peremp- 
torily told  his  wife  to  get  him  a  new 
one,  a  good  silk  one,  for  twenty  francs, 
and  to  bring  him  the  bill,  so  that  he 
might  see  that  it  was  all  right. 

She  bought  him  one  for  eighteen 
francs,  and  said,  getting  red  with  anger 
as  she  gave  it  to  her  husband: 

"This  will  last  you  for  five  years  at 
least." 


THE  UMBRELLA 


80) 


Oreille  felt  quite  triumphant,  and  ob- 
tained a  small  ovation  at  the  office  with 
his  new  acquisition.  When  he  went 
home  in  the  evening,  his  wife  said  to 
him,  looking  at  the  umbrella  uneasily: 

*'You  should  not  leave  it  fastened  up 
with  the  elastic;  it  will  very  likely  cut 
the  silk.  You  must  take  care  of  it,  for 
I  shall  not  buy  you  a  new  one  in  a 
hurry." 

She  took  it,  unfastened  it,  and  then 
remained  dumfounded  with  astonish- 
ment and  rage.  In  the  middle  of  the 
silk  there  was  a  hole  as  big  as  a  six- 
penny-piece, as  if  made  with  the  end  of 
a  cigar. 

"What  is  that?"  she  screamed. 

Her  husband  replied  quietly,  without 
looking  at  it : 

"What  is  it?     What  do  you  mean?" 

She  was  choking  with  rage  and  could 
hardly  get  out  a  word. 

"You — you — ^have  burned — ^your  um- 
brella !  Why — you  must  be — mad !  Do 
you  wish  to  ruin  us  outright?" 

He  turned  round  hastily,  as  if  fright- 
ened. 

"WTiat  are  you  talking  about?" 

"I  say  that  you  have  burned  your  um- 
brella.   Just  look  here — " 

And  rushing  at  him,  as  if  she  were 
going  to  beat  him,  she  violently  thrust 
the  little  circular  burned  hole  under  his 
nose. 

He  was  so  utterly  struck  dumb  at 
the  sight  of  it  that  he  could  only  stam- 
mer out: 

"What— what  is  it?  How  should  I 
know?  I  have  done  nothing,  I  will 
swear.  I  don't  know  what  is  the  matter 
with  the  umbrella." 

"You  have  been  playing  tricks  with 
it  at  the  office;  you  have  been  playing 


the  fool  and  opening  it,  to  show  it  off!" 
she  screamed. 

"I  only  opened  it  once,  to  let  them 
see  what  a  nice  one  it  was,  that  is  all,  I 
declare." 

But  she  shook  with  rage,  and  got  up 
one  of  those  conjugal  scenes  which  make 
a  peaceable  man  dread  the  domestic 
hearth  more  than  a  battlefield  where 
bullets  are  raining. 

She  mended  it  with  a  piece  of  silk  cut 
out  of  the  old  umbrella,  v/hich  was  of 
a  different  color,  and  the  next  day  Oreille 
went  off  very  humbly  with  the  mended 
article  in  his  hand.  He  put  it  into  a 
cupboard,  and  thought  no  more  of  it 
than  of  some  unpleasant  recollection. 

But  he  had  scarcely  got  home  that 
evening  when  his  wife  took  the  um- 
brella from  him,  opened  it,  and  nearly 
had  a  fit  when  she  saw  what  had  befallen 
it,  for  the  disaster  was  now  irreparable. 
It  was  covered  with  small  holes  which, 
evidently,  proceeded  from  burns,  just 
as  if  some  one  had  emptied  the  ashes 
from  a  lighted  pipe  on  to  it.  It  was  done 
for  utterly,  irreparably. 

She  looked  at  it  without  a  word,  in 
too  great  a  passion  to  be  able  to  say 
anything.  He  also,  when  he  saw  the 
damage,  remained  almost  dumb,  in  a 
state  of  frightened  consternation. 

They  looker!  at  each  other;  then  he 
looked  on  to  the  floor.  The  next  mo- 
ment she  threw  the  useless  article  at 
his  head,  screaming-  out  i"  ^  transport 
of  the  most  violent  rage,  for  she  had 
now  recovered  her  voice: 

"Oh!  you  brute!  you  brute!  You  dl<3 
it  on  purpose,  but  I  will  pay  you  out 
for  h.    You  shall  not  have  another." 

And  then  the  scene  began  again. 
After  the  storm  had  raged  for  an  hour. 


S02 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUrASbANT 


he,  at  last,  was  enabled  to  explain  him- 
self. He  declared  that  he  could  not 
understand  it  at  all,  and  that  it  could 
only  proceed  from  malice  or  from  venge- 
ance. 

A  ring  at  the  bell  saved  him;  it  was 
a  friend  whom  they  were  expecting  to 
dinner. 

Mme.  Oreille  submitted  the  case  to 
him.  As  for  buying  a  new  umbrella, 
that  was  out  of  the  question;  her  hus- 
band should  not  have  another.  The 
friend  very  sensibly  said  that  in  that 
case  his  clothes  would  be  spoiled,  and 
they  were  certainly  worth  more  than  the 
umbrella.  But  the  little  woman,  who 
was  still  in  a  rage,  replied: 

"Very  well,  then,  when  it  rains  he  may 
have  the  kitchen  umbrella,  for  I  will 
not  give  him  a  new  silk  one." 

Oreille  utterly  rebelled  at  such  an  idea. 

"All  right,"  he  said;  "then  I  shall  re- 
sign my  post.  I  am  not  going  to  the 
office  with  the  kitchen  umbrella." 

The  friend  interposed: 

"Have  this  one  recovered;  it  will  not 
cost  much." 

But  Mme.  Oreille,  being  in  the  tem- 
per that  she  was,  said: 

"It  will  cost  at  least  eight  francs  to 
recover  it.  Eight  and  eighteen  are 
twenty-six.  Just  fancy,  twenty-six  francs 
for  an  umbrella!    It  is  utter  madness!" 

The  friend,  who  was  only  a  poor  man 
of  the  middle  classes,  had  an  inspira- 
tion: 

"Make  your  fire  insurance  pay  for  it. 
Tlie  companies  pay  for  all  articles  that 
are  burned,  as  long  as  the  damage  has 
been  done  in  your  own  house." 

On  hearing  ".his  advice  the  little 
^oman  calmed  dov-^i   immediately,  and 


then,  after  a  moment's  reflection,  she 
said  to  her  husband: 

"To-morrow,  before  going  to  your 
office,  you  will  go  to  the  Matemelle  In- 
surance Company,  show  them  the  state 
your  umbrella  is  in,  and  make  them  pay 
for  the  damage." 

M.  Oreille  fairly  jumped,  he  was  so 
startled  at  the  proposal. 

"I  would  not  do  it  for  my  life!  It  is 
eighteen  francs  lost,  that  is  all.  It  will 
not  ruin  us." 

The  next  morning  he  took  a  walking- 
stick  when  he  went  out,  for  luckily,  it 
was  a  fine  day. 

Left  at  home  alone,  Mme.  Oreille 
could  not  get  over  the  loss  of  her 
eighteen  francs  by  any  means.  She  had 
put  the  umbrella  on  the  dining-room 
table,  and  she  looked  at  it  without  being 
able  to  come  to  any  determination. 

Every  moment  she  thought  of  the  in- 
surance company,  but  she  did  not  dara 
to  encounter  the  quizzical  looks  of  the 
gentlemen  who  might  receive  her,  for 
she  was  very  timid  before  people,  and 
grew  red  at  a  mere  nothing,  feeling  em- 
barrassed when  she  had  to  speak  to 
strangers. 

But  regret  at  the  loss  of  the  eighteen 
francs  pained  her  as  if  she  had  been 
wounded.  She  tried  not  to  think  of  it 
any  more,  and  yet  every  moment  the 
recollection  of  the  loss  struck  her  pain- 
fully. What  was  she  to  do,  however? 
Time  went  on,  and  she  could  not  decide; 
out  suddenly,  like  all  cowards,  she  made 
up  her  mind. 

"I  will  go,  and  we  will  see  what  will 
happen." 

Put  first  of  all  she  was  obliged  to  pre- 
pare the  umbrella  so  that  the  disaster 
might  be  complete,  and  the  reason  of  it 


THE  UMBRELLA 


803 


quite  evident.  She  took  a  match  from 
the  mantelpiece,  and  between  the  ribs 
she  burned  a  hole  as  big  as  the  palm  of 
her  hand.  Then  she  rolled  it  up  care- 
fully, fastened  it  with  the  elastic  band, 
put  on  her  bonnet  and  shawl,  and  went 
quickly  toward  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  where 
the  insurance  office  was. 

But  the  nearer  she  got  the  slower  she 
walked.  What  was  she  going  to  say, 
and  what  reply  would  she  get? 

She  looked  at  the  numbers  of  the 
houses;  there  were  still  twenty-eight. 
That  was  all  right,  she  had  time  to 
consider,  and  she  walked  slower  and 
slower.  Suddenly  she  saw  a  door  on 
which  was  a  large  brass  plate  with  "La 
Matemelle  Insurance  Office"  engraved 
on  it.  Already!  She  waited  for  a 
moment,  for  she  felt  nervous  and  almost 
ashamed;  then  she  went  past,  came  back, 
went  past  again,  and  came  back  again. 

At  last  she  said  to  herself: 

"I  must  go  in,  however,  so  I  may  as 
well  do  it  now  as  later." 

She  could  not  help  noticing,  how^ever, 
how  her  heart  beat  as  she  entered.  She 
went  into  an  enormous  room  with  grated 
wicket  openings  all  round,  and  a  man  be- 
hind each  of  them,  and  as  a  gentleman, 
carrying  a  number  of  papers,  passed  her, 
she  stopped  him  and  said,  timidly: 

"I  beg  your  pardon.  Monsieur,  but 
can  you  tell  me  where  I  must  apply 
for  payment  for  anything  that  has  been 
accidentally  burned?" 

He  replied  in  a  sonorous  voice: 

"The  first  door  on  the  left;  that  is 
the  department  you  want." 

This   frightened  her  still  more,   and 

she  felt  inclined  to  run  away,  to  make 

'  AC  claim,  to  sacrifice  her  eighteen  francs. 

I  But  the  idea  of  that  sum  revived  her 


courage,  and  she  went  upstairs,  out  of 
breath,  stopping  at  almost  every  other 
step. 

She  knocked  at  a  door  which  she  saw 
on  the  first  landing,  and  a  clear  voice 
said,  in  answer: 

"Come  in!" 

She  obeyed  mechanically,  and  found 
herself  in  a  large  room  where  three 
solemn  gentlemen,  each  with  a  decora- 
tion in  his  buttonhole,  were  standing 
talking. 

One  of  them  asked  her:  "What  do 
you  want,  Madame?" 

She  could  hardly  get  out  her  words, 
but  stammered:  "I  have  come — I 
have  come  on  account  of  an  accident, 
something — " 

He  very  politely  pointed  out  a  seat 
to  her. 

"If  you  will  kindly  sit  down  I  will 
attend  tq  you  in  a  moment." 

And,  returning  to  the  other  two,  he 
went  on  with  the  conversation. 

"The  company,  gentlemen,  does  not 
consider  thai  it  is  under  any  obligation 
to  you  for  more  than  four  hundred 
thousand  francs,  and  we  can  pay  no  at- 
tention to  your  claim  to  the  further  sum 
of  a  hundred  thousand,  which  you  wish 
to  make  us  pay.  Besides  that,  the 
surveyor's  valuation — " 

One  of  the  others   interrupted  him: 

"T^at  is  quite  enough,  Monsieur; 
the  law  courts  will  decide  between  us, 
and  we  have  nothing  further  to  do  than 
to  take  our  leave."  And  they  went 
out  after  mutual  ceremonious  bows. 

Oh !  if  she  could  only  have  gone  away 
with  them,  how  gladly  she  would  have 
done  it;  she  would  have  n,j[  zTray  and 
given  up  everything.     But   it  was  too 


804 


WORKS  ( )F  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANl 


late,  for  the  gentleman  came  I  ack,  and 
said,  bowing: 

"What  can  I  do  for  you,  Madame?" 

She  could  scarcely  speak,  but  at  last 
she  managed  to  say: 

"I  have  come — for  this.'* 

The  manager  looked  at  the  object 
which  she  held  out  to  him  in  mute  aston- 
ishment. With  trembling  fingers  she 
tried  to  undo  the  elastic,  and  succeeded, 
after  several  attempts,  and  hastily 
opened  the  damaged  remains  of  the 
umbrella. 

"It  looks  to  me  to  be  in  a  very  bad 
state  of  health,"  he  said,  compassion- 
ately. 

"It  cost  me  twenty  francs,"  she  said, 
with  some  hesitation. 

He  seemed  astonished.  "Really!  As 
much  as  that?"' 

"Yes,  it  was  a  capital  article,  and  I 
wanted  you  to  see  the  state  it  is  in.'* 

"Very  well,  I  see;  very  well.  But  I 
really  do  not  understand  what  it  can 
have  to  do  with  me." 

She  began  to  feel  uncomfortable; 
perhaps  this  company  did  not  pay  for 
such  small  articles,  and  she  said: 

"But— it  is  burned." 

He  could  not  deny  it. 

"I  see  that  very  well,'*  he  replied. 

She  remained  open-mouthed,  not 
knowing  what  to  say  next;  then  sudden- 
ly forgetting  that  she  bad  left  out  the 
main  thing,  she  said  hastily: 

"I  am  Mme.  Oreille;  we  are  assured 
■In  La  Maternelle,  and  I  have  come  to 
claim  the  value  of  this  damage.  I 
only  wanted  you  to  have  it  recovered," 
she  added  quickly,  fearing  a  positive 
refusal. 

The  manager  was  rather  embarrassed, 
and  said* 


"But,  really,  Madame,  we  do  not  sell 
umbrellas;  we  cannot  undertake  such 
kinds  of  repairs." 

The  little  woman  felt  her  courage  re- 
viving; she  was  not  going  to  give  up 
without  a  struggle;  she  was  not  even 
afraid  now,  so  she  said: 

"I  only  want  you  to  pay  me  the  cost 
of  repairing  it;  I  can  quite  well  get  it 
done  myself." 

The  gentleman  seemed  rather  con- 
fused. 

"Really,  Madame,  it  is  such  a  very 
small  matter!  We  are  never  asked  to 
give  compensation  for  such  trivial 
losses.  You  must  allow  that  we  cannot 
make  good  pocket-handkerchiefs,  gloves, 
brooms,  slipper"^,  all  the  small  articles 
which  are  every  day  exposed  to  the 
chances  of  being  burned." 

She  got  red,  and  felt  inclined  to  fly 
into  a  rage. 

"But,  Monsieur,  last  December  one 
of  our  chimneys  caught  fire,  and  caused 
at  least  five  hundred  francs'  damage.  M. 
Oreille  made  no  claim  on  the  company, 
and  so  it  is  only  just  that  it  should  pay 
for  my  umbrella  now." 

The  manager,  guessing  that  she  was 
telHng  a  lie,  said,  with  a  smile: 

"You  must  acknowledge,  Madame, 
that  it  is  very  surprising  that  M.  Oreille 
should  have  asked  no  com.pensation  for 
damages  amounting  to  five  hundred 
francs,  and  should  now  claim  five  or 
six  francs  for  mending  an  umbrella." 

She  was  not  the  least  put  out,  and 
replied : 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  Monsieur,  the 
five  hundred  francs  affected  M.  Oreille's 
pocket,  whereas  this  damage,  amount- 
ing to  eighteen  francs,  concerns  Mme. 


THE  UMBRELLA 


805 


Oreille's  pocket  only,  which  is  a  totally 
different  matter." 

As  he  saw  that  he  had  no  chance  of 
getting  rid  of  her,  and  that  he  would 
only  be  wasting  his  time,  he  said,  re- 
signedly : 

"Will  you  kindly  tell  me  how  the  dam- 
age was  done?" 

She  felt  that  she  had  won  the  victory, 
ind  said: 

"This  is  how  it  happened,  Monsieur: 
In  our  hall  there  is  a  bronze  stick-  and 
umbrella-stand,  and  the  other  day, 
when  I  came  in,  I  put  my  umbrella  into 
it.  I  must  tell  you  that  just  above 
there  is  a  shelf  for  the  candlesticks  and 
matches.  I  put  out  my  hand,  took  three 
or  four  matches,  and  struck  one,  but  it 
missed  fire,  so  I  struck  other,  which 
ignited,  but  went  out  immediately,  and 
a  third  did  the  same." 

The  manager  interrupted  her,  to 
make  a  joke. 

"I  suppose  they  were  Government 
matches,  then?" 

She  did  not  understand  him,  and 
went  on: 

"Very  likely.  At  any  rate,  the  fourth 
caught  fire,  and  I  lit  my  candle,  and 
went  into  my  room  to  go  to  bed;  but 
in  quarter-of-an-hour  I  fancied  that  I 
smelled  something  burning,  and  I  have 
always  been  terribly  afraid  of  fire.  If 
ever  we  have  an  accident  it  will  not  be 
my  fault,  I  assure  you.  I  am  terribly 
nerv^ous  since  our  chimney  was  on  fire, 
as  I  told  you;  so  I  got  up,  and  hunted 
about  everywhere,  sniffing  like  a  dog 
After  game,  and  at  last  I  noticed  that 
my  umbrella  was  burning.  Most  likely 
1  a  match  had  fallen  between  the  folds 


and  burned  it.  You  can  see  how  it  has 
damaged  it." 

The  manager  had  taken  his  cue,  and 
asked  her: 

"What  do  you  estimate  the  damage 
at?" 

She  did  not  know  what  to  say,  as  she 
was  not  certain  what  amount  to  put  on 
it,  but  at  last  she  replied: 

"Perhaps  you  had  better  get  it  done 
yourself.     I  will  leave  it  to  you." 

He,  however,  naturally  refused. 

"No,  Madame,  I  cannot  do  that.  Tell 
me  the  amount  of  your  claim,  that  is 
all  I  want  to  know." 

"Well!— I  think  that—  Look  here, 
Monsieur,  I  do  not  want  to  make  any 
money  out  of  you,  so  I  will  tell  you 
what  we  will  do.  I  will  take  my  um- 
brella to  the  maker,  who  will  recover 
it  in  good,  durable  silk,  and  I  will 
bring  the  bill  to  you.  Will  that  suit 
you,  Monsieur?" 

"Perfectly,  Madame;  we  will  settle 
it  on  that  basis.  Here  is  a  note  for  the 
cashier,  who  will  repay  you  whatever 
it  costs  you." 

He  gave  Mme.  Oreille  a  slip  of  pa- 
per. She  took  it,  got  up,  and  went  out, 
thanking  him,  for  she  was  in  a  hurry  to 
escape  lest  he  should  change  his  mind. 

She  went  briskly  through  the  streets, 
looking  out  for  a  really  good  umbrella- 
maker,  and  when  she  found  a  shop 
which  appeared  to  be  a  first-class  one, 
she  went  in,  and  said,  confidently: 

"I  want  this  umbrella  recovered  in 
silk,  good  silk.  Use  the  very  best  and 
strongest  you  have;  I  don't  mind  what 
it  costs." 


The  Question  of  Latin 


This  question  of  Latin,  with  which 
ve  were  so  much  bothered  some  time 
since,  recalls  to  my  mind  a  story — a 
story  of  my  youth. 

I  v/as  fmishing  my  studies  with  a 
teacher,  in  a  big  central  town,  at  the 
Institution  Roblneau,  celebrated  through 
the  entire  province  owing  to  the  spe- 
cial attention  paid  there  to  Latin  studies. 

For  the  past  ten  years,  the  Institu- 
tion Robineau  beat  at  every  competitive 
examination  the  Imperial  "lycee"  of 
the  town,  and  all  the  colleges  of  the 
Subprefecture;  and  these  constant  suc- 
cesses were  due,  they  said,  to  an  usher, 
a  simple  usher,  M.  Piquedent,  or  rather 
Pere  Piquedent. 

He  was  one  of  those  middle-aged  men, 
quite  gray,  whose  real  age  it  is  im- 
possible to  know,  and  whose  history  we 
can  guess  at  first  glance.  Having  en- 
tered as  an  usher  at  twenty  into  the 
first  institution  that  presented  itself  so 
that  he  could  proceed  to  take  out  his 
degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws,  he  found 
himself  so  much  enmeshed  in  this  sin- 
ister life  that  he  remained  as  usher  all 
his  life.  But  his  love  for  Latin  did 
not  leave  him,  but  harassed  him  like 
an  unhealthy  passion.  He  continued 
to  read  the  poets,  the  prose-writers,  the 
historians,  to  interpret  them,  to  study 
their  meaning,  to  comment  on  them  with 
a  perseverance  bordering  on  madness. 

One  day,  the  idea  came  into  his  head 
to  force  all  the  students  of  his  class 
to  answer  him  in  Latin  only;  and  he 
persisted  in  this  resolution  until  at  last 
they  were  capable  of  sustaining  an  en- 
tire conversation  with  him  just  as  they 
would  in  their  mother-tongue.  He  lis- 
tened to  them,  as  a  leader  of  an  orches- 


tra listens  to  his  musicians  rehearsing, 
and,  striking  his  desk  every  moment 
with  his  ruler,  he  exclaimed: 

"Monsieur  Lefrere,  Monsieur  Lefrere, 
you  are  committing  a  solecism!  You 
are  not  recalling  the  rule  to  m.ind. 

''Monsieur  Plantel,  your  turn  of 
phrase  is  altogether  French  and  in  no 
way  Latin.  You  must  understand  the 
genius  of  a  language.  Look  here,  listen 
to  me." 

Now  it  came  to  pass  that  the  pupils 
of  the  Institution  Robineau  carried  off, 
at  the  end  of  the  year,  all  the  prizes  for 
composition,  translation,  and  Latin  con- 
versation. 

Next  year,  the  principal,  a  little  man, 
as  cunning  as  an  ape,  and  with  the  same 
grinning  and  grotesque  physique,  got 
printed  on  his  programmes,  on  his  ad- 
vertisements, and  painted  on  the  door 
of  his  institution: 

"Latin  Studies  a  Specialty.  Five  first 
prizes  carried  off  in  the  five  classes  of 
the  lycee. 

"Two  prizes  of  honor  at  the  genera' 
Competitive  Examinations  with  all  the 
lycees  and  colleges  of  France." 

For  ten  years  the  Institution  Robin- 
eau triumphed  in  the  same  fashion. 
Now,  my  father,  allured  by  these  suc- 
cesses, sent  my  as  a  day-pupil  to 
Robineau's — or,  as  we  called  it,  Robin-  . 
etto  or  Robinettino — and  made  me  take 
special  private  lessons  from  Pere 
Piquedent  at  the  rate  of  five  francs  per 
hour,  out  of  which  the  usher  got  two 
francs  and  the  principal  three  trancs. 
I  was  at  the  time  in  my  eighteenth  year, 
and  was  in  the  philosophy  class. 

These  private  lessons  were  given  in 
a  little  room  looking  out  on  the  street 


306 


THE  QUESTION  OF  LATIN 


807 


It.  so  happened  that  Pere  Piquedent,  in- 
stead of  talking  Latin  to  me,  as  he  did 
when  teaching  publicly  in  the  Institu- 
tion, kept  telling  about  his  troubles  in 
French.  Without  relations,  without 
friends,  the  poor  man  conceived  an  at- 
tachment for  me,  and  poured  out  into 
my  heart  his  own  misery. 

He  had  never  for  the  last  ten  or  fif- 
teen years  chatted  confidentially  with 
anyone. 

"I  am  like  an  oak  in  a  desert,"  he 
said — "sicut  quercus  in  solitudhie" 

The  other  ushers  disgusted  him.  He 
knew  nobody  in  the  town  since  he  had 
no  liberty  for  the  purpose  of  making 
acquaintances. 

"Not  even  the  nights,  my  friend,  and 
that  is  the  hardest  thing  on  me.  The 
dream  of  my  life  is  to  have  a  room  of 
my  own  with  furniture,  my  own  books, 
little  things  that  belonged  to  myself 
and  which  others  could  not  touch.  And 
I  have  nothing  of  my  own,  nothing  ex- 
cept my  shirt  and  my  frock-coat,  noth- 
ing, not  even  my  mattress  and  my  pillow ! 
I  have  not  four  walls  to  shut  myself 
up  in,  except  when  I  come  to  give  a 
lesson  in  this  room.  Do  you  see  what 
this  means — a  man  forced  to  spend  his 
life  without  ever  having  the  right,  with- 
out ever  finding  the  time  to  shut  him- 
self up  all  alone,  no  matter  where,  to 
think,  to  reflect,  to  work,  to  dream? 
Ah!  my  dear  boy,  a  key,  the  key  of  a 
door  which  one  can  open — this  is  hap- 
piness, mark  you,  the  only  happiness! 

"Here,  all  day  long,  the  study  with 

all  those  dirty  brats  jumping  about  in 

:  it,  and  during  the  night  the  dormitory 

»  with  the  same  dirty  brats  snoring.    And 

I  have  to  sleep  in  the  public  bed  at 

the  end  of  two  rows  of  beds  occupied  by 


these  brats  whom  I  must  look  after.  I 
can  never  be  alone,  never!  If  I  go 
out,  I  find  the  street  full  of  people,  and, 
v.'hen  I  am  tired  of  walking,  I  go  into 
some  caje  crowded  with  smokers  and 
billiard  players.  I  teli  you  that  it  is  a 
regular  prison." 

I  asked  him: 

"Why  did  you  not  take  up  some  other 
line,   Monsieur  Piquedent?" 

He  exclaimed: 

"What,  my  little  friend?  I  am  not  a 
bootmaker  or  a  joiner  or  a  hatter  or  a 
baker  or  a  hairdresser  I  only  know 
Latin,  and  I  have  not  the  diploma  which 
would  enable  me  to  sell  my  knowledge  at 
a  high  price.  If  I  were  a  doctor,  I 
would  sell  for  a  hundred  francs,  what 
I  now  sell  for  a  hundred  sous;  and  I 
would  supply  it  probably  of  an  inferior 
quality,  fcr  my  academic  rank  would  be 
enough  to  sustain  my  reputation." 

Sometimes,  he  would  say  to  me: 

"I  have  no  rest  in  life  except  in  the 
hours  spent  with  you.  Don't  be  afraid! 
you'll  lose  nothing  by  that.  I'll  make 
it  up  to  you  in  the  study  by  teaching 
you  to  speak  twice  as  much  Latin  as 
the  others." 

One  day,  I  grew  bolder  and  offered 
him  a  cigarette.  He  stared  at  me  with 
astonishment  at  first,  then  he  gave  a 
glance  toward  the  door: 

"If  anyone  were  to  come  in,  my  dear 
boy!" 

"Well,  let  us  smoke  at  the  window,*' 
said  I. 

And  we  went  and  leaned  with  our  el- 
bows on  the  window-sill  facing  the 
street,  keeping  our  hands  over  the  little 
rolls  of  tobacco  wrapped  up  in  tissue- 
paper  so  that  they  concealed  them  from 
view  like  a  shell.     Just  opposite  to  US 


SOS 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


was  a  laundry.  Four  women  in  white 
bodices  were  passing  over  the  linen 
spread  out  before  them  the  heavy  and 
hot  irons,  letting  a  damp  fume  escape 
from  them. 

Suddenly,  another,  a  fifth  carrying 
on.  her  arm  a  large  basket  ^vhich  mad2 
her  back  stoop,  came  out  to  bring  the 
customers  their  shirts  and  chemises, 
their  handkerchiefs  and  their  sheets. 
She  stepped  on  the  threshold  as  if  she 
were  already  fatigued;  then,  she  raised 
her  eyes,  smiled  when  she  saw  us  smok- 
ing, flung  at  us,  with  her  left  hand, 
which  v;as  free,  the  sly  kiss  characteris- 
tic of  a  free-and-easy  workingwoman ; 
and  she  went  away  at  a  slow  pace  drag- 
ging her  shoes  after  her. 

She  was  a  damsel  of  about  twenty, 
small,  rather  thin,  pale,  rather  pretty, 
with  the  manners  of  a  street-wench,  and 
eyes  laughing  under  her-illcombed  fair 
hair. 

Pere  Piquedent,  affected,  began  mur- 
muring : 

*'What  an  occupation  for  a  woman. 
Really  a  trade  only  fit  for  a  horse." 

And  he  spoke  with  emotion  about  the 
misery  of  the  people.  He  had  a  heart 
which  sv;ellcd  with  lofty  democratic 
sentiment,  and  he  referred  to  the  fatigu- 
ing pursuits  of  the  working  class  with 
phrases  borrowed  from  Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau  and  with  sobs  in  his  throat. 

Next  day,  as  we  wer  cresting  our  el- 
bows at  the  same  wind  -w,  the  same 
workwoman  perceived  us,  and  cried  out 
to  us : 

"Good  day,  my  scholars!"  in  a  com- 
ical  sort  of  tone,  while  she  made  a  con- 
temptuous gesture  with  her  hands. 

I  flung  her  a  cigarette,  which  she  im- 
mediately began  to  smoke.    And  the  four 


other  ironers  rushed  out  to  the  door  with 
outstretched  hands  to  get  cigarettes 
also. 

And,  each  day,  a  friendly  relationship 
was  being  formed  between  the  working- 
women  of  the  pavement  and  the  idlers 
of  the  boarding-school. 

Pere  Piquedent  was  really  a  comic 
sight  to  look  at.  He  trembled  at  being 
noticed,  for  he  might  have  lost  his  place; 
and  he  made  timid  and  ridiculous  ges- 
tures, quite  a  theatrical  display  of 
amorousness,  to  which  the  women  re- 
sponded with  a  regular  fusillade  of 
hisses. 

A  perfidious  idea  sprang  up  in  my 
head.  One  day,  en  entering  our  room,  I 
said  to  the  old  usher  in  a  low  tone: 

"You  would  not  believe  it,  Monsieur 
Piquedent,  I  met  the  little  washer- 
v;oman!  You  know  the  one — the  wo- 
man who  had  the  basket — and  I  spoke 
to  her!" 

He  asked,  rather  excited  by  the  tone 
I  had  taken: 

''What  did  she  say  to  you?" 

"She  said  to  me — goodness  gracious! 
— she  said  she  thought  you  were  very 
nice.  The  fact  of  the  matter  is,  I  be- 
lieve— that  she  is  a  little  in  love  with 
you."  I  saw  that  he  was  growing  pale. 
He  exclaim^ed: 

"She  is  laughing  at  me,  of  course. 
These  things  don't  happen  at  my  age." 

I  said  gravely: 

"How  is  that?    You  are  very  nice." 

As  I  felt  that  my  trick  had  produced 
its  effect  on  him,  I  did  not  press  the 
matter. 

But  every  day  I  pretended  that  I  had 
met  the  little  laundress  and  that  I  had 
spoken  to  her  about  him,  so  that  in  tbf 


THE  QUESTION   OF  LATIN 


SOQ 


end  he  believed  me,  and  sent  her  ardent 
and  earnest  kisses. 

Now,  it  happened  that,  one  morning, 
on  my  way  to  the  boarding-school,  I 
really  came  across  her.  I  accosted  her 
without  hesitation,  as  if  I  had  known 
her  for  the  last  ten  years. 

"Good  day,  Mademoiselle.  Are  you 
quite  well?" 

"Very  well,  Monsieur,  thank  you." 

"Will  you  have  a  cigarette?" 

"Oh!  not  in  the  street." 

"You  can  smoke  it  at  home." 

"In  that  case,  I  will." 

"Let  me  tell  you,  Mademoiselle, 
there's  something  you  don't  know." 

"What  is  that,  Monsieur?" 

"The  old  gentleman — my  old  profes- 
sor, I  mean — " 

"Pere  Piquedent." 

"Yes,  Pere  Piquedent.  So  you  know 
his  name?' 

"Faith,  I  do!    What  of  that?" 

"Well,  he  is  in  love  with  you!" 

She  burst  out  laughing  like  a  crazy 
woman  and  exclaimed: 

"This  is  only  humbug!" 

"Oh!  no,  'tis  no  humbug!  He  keeps 
talking  of  you  all  the  time  he  is  giving 
lessons.    I  bet  that  he'll  marry  you!" 

She  ceased  laughing.  The  idea  of 
marriage  makes  every  girl  serious.  Then, 
she  repeated,  with  an  incredulous  air: 

"This  is  humbug!" 

"I  swear  to  you  'tis  true." 

She  picked  up  her  basket  which  she 
had  laid  down  at  her  feet. 

"Well,  we'll  see,"  she  said.  And  she 
went  away. 

Presently,  when  I  had  reached  the 
boarding-school,  I  took  Pere  Piquedent 
aside,  and  said: 


"You  must  write  to  her:  she  is  mad 
about  you." 

And  he  wrote  a  long  letter  of  a  soft 
and  affectionate  character  full  of  phrases 
and  circumlocutions,  metaphors  and 
similes,  philosophy  and  academic  gal- 
lantry; and  I  took  on  myself  the  re- 
sponsibility of  delivering  it  to  the  young 
woman. 

She  read  it  with  gravity,  with  emo* 
tion;  then,  she  murmured: 

"How  well  he  writes!  It  is  easy  to 
see  he  has  got  education !  Does  he  really 
mean  to  marry  me?" 

I  replied  intrepidly:  "Faith,  he  has 
lost  his  head  about  you!" 

"Then  he  must  invite  me  to  dinner  od 
Sunday  at  the  He  des  Fleurs." 

I  promised  that  she  would  be  invited. 

Pere  Piquedent  was  much  touched  by 
everything  I  told  him  about  her. 

1  added: 

"She  loves  you,  Monsieur  Piquedent, 
and  I  believe  her  to  be  a  decent  girl. 
It  is  not  right  to  seduce  her  and  then 
abandon  her." 

He  replied  in  a  firm  tone: 

"I  hope  I,  too,  am  a  decent  man,  my 
friend." 

I  confess  I  had  at  the  time  no  plan. 
I  was  playing  a  practical  joke,  a  school- 
boy's practical  joke,  nothing  more.  I 
had  been  aware  of  the  simplicity  of  the 
old  usher,  his  innocence,  and  his  weak- 
ness. I  amused  myself  without  asking 
myself  how  it  would  turn  out.  I  was 
eighteen,  and  had  been  for  a  long  time 
looked  upon  at  the  lycee  as  a  knowing 
practical  joker. 

So,  it  was  agreed  that  Pere  Piquedent 
and  I  should  set  out  in  a  hackney-coach 
for  the  ferry  of  Queue  de  Vache,  thai 
we  should  there  pick  up  Angele,  and 


SIO 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


that  I  should  get  them  to  come  into  my 
boat,  for  at  this  time  I  was  fond  of 
boating.    I  would  then  bring  them  to  the 

He  des  Fleurs,  where  the  three  of  us 
would  dine.  I  had  made  it  my  business 
to  be  present,  in  order  the  better  to  en- 
joy my  triumph,  and  the  usher,  consent- 
ing to  my  arrangement,  proved  clearly, 
in  fact,  that  he  had  lost  his  head  by  thus 
risking  his  post. 

When  we  arrived  at  the  ferry  where 
my  boat  had  been  moored  since  morn- 
Lig,  I  saw  in  the  grass,  or  rather  above 
the  tall  weeds  of  the  bank,  an  encmous 
red  parasol,  resembling  a  monstrous  wild 
poppy.  Under  the  parasol  waited  the  lit- 
tle laundress  in  her  Sunday  clothes.  I 
was  surprised.  She  was  really  nice- 
looking,  thouc:h  pale,  and  graceful, 
though  with  a  suburban  gracefulness. 

Pere  Piquedent  raised  his  hat  and 
bowed.  She  put  out  her  hand  toward 
him  and  they  stared  at  one  another 
without  uttering  a  word.  Then  they 
stepped  into  my  boat  and  I  took  the 
oars. 

They  were  seated  side  by  side  on  the 
seat  ne:ir  the  stern.  The  usher  was 
the  first  to  speak: 

'This  is  nice  weather  for  a  row  in  a 
boat." 

She  murmured:     "Oh!  yes." 

She  drew  her  hand  through  the  cur- 
rent, skimming  the  water  with  her 
fingers,  which  raised  up  a  thin  trans- 
parent little  stream  Kke  a  sheet  of  glass. 
It  made  a  I'ght  sound,  a:  gentle  ripple, 
as   the  boat   moved   along. 

When  they  were  in  the  restaurant, 
she  took  it  on  herself  to  speak  and 
order  dinner — fried  fish,  a  chicken,  and 
salad;  then,  she  led  us  on  toward  the 
isle  which  she  knew  perfectly 


After  this,  she  was  gay,  romping, 
and  even  rather  mocking. 

Up  to  the  dessert,  no  question  of 
love  arose.  I  had  treated  them,  to 
champagne  and  Pere  Piquedent  was 
tipsy.  Herself  slightly  elevated,  she 
called  out  to  him: 

"Moiisieur  Piquenez." 

He  said  all  of  a  sudden: 

"Mademoiselle,  Monsieur  Raoul  has 
communicated  my  sentiments  to  you." 

She  became  as  serious  as  a  judge: 

"Yes,  Monsieur." 

"Are  you  going  to  give  any  answer?" 

"We  never  rep'y  to  these  questions!" 

He  panted  with  emotion,  and  went 
on: 

"After  all,  a  day  will  come  when  I 
may  make  you  like  mc." 

She  smiled:  "You  bij  fool!  You 
are  very  n*ce." 

"In  short,  Mademoiselle,  do  you 
think  that,  later  on,  we  might — " 

She  hesitated  a  second;  then  in  a 
trembling  voice  she  said: 

"Is  it  in  order  to  marry  me  you  say 
that?     For  never  otherwise,  you  know." 

"Yes,  Mademoiselle!" 

"Well,  that's  all  right.  Monsieur 
Piquedent!" 

It  is  thus  that  these  two  silly  crea- 
tures promised  marriage  to  each  other 
through  the  wiles  of  a  reckless  school- 
boy. But  I  did  not  believe  that  it  was 
serious,  nor  indeed  did  they  themselves, 
perhaps. 

On  her  part  there  was  a  certain  feel- 
ing of  hesitation: 

"You  know,  I  have  nothing — not  four 
sous." 

He  stammered,  for  he  was  as  drunk 

as  Silenus: 


THE  QUESTION   OF  LATIN 


8U 


"I  have  saved  five  thousand  francs." 
She  exclaimed  triumphantly: 
'Then  we   can   set   up  in   business?" 
He     became     restless:       ''In     what 
business?" 

"What  do  I  know  about  that?  We 
shall  see.  With  five  thousand  francs, 
we  could  do  many  things.  You  ion't 
want  me  to  go  and  live  in  your  board- 
ing school,  do  you?" 

He  had  not  looked  forward  so  far  as 
this,  and  he  stammered  in  great  per- 
plexity : 

"What  business  could  we  set  up  in? 
It  is  not  convenient,  for  all  I  knov/  is 
Latin!" 

She  reflected  in  her  turn,  passing  in 
review  all  the  professions  which  she  had 
longed  for. 

"You  could  not  be  a  doctor?" 
"No,  I  have  not  the  diploma." 
"Or  a  chemist?" 
"No  more  than  t!:2  other." 
She  uttered  a  cry,  a  cry  of  joy.     She 
had  discovered  it. 

"Then  we'll  buy  a  grocer's  shop! 
Oh!  what  luck!  we'll  buy  a  grocer's 
shop!  Not  on  a  big  scale,  all  the  some; 
with  five  thousand  francs  one  cannot 
go  far." 

He  was  shocked  at  the  su3:];estion : 

"No,  I  can't  be  a  grocer.  I  am — 
I  am — too  well  known.  I  only  know 
Latin — that's  all  I  knov/." 

But  she  poured  a  glass  of  champagne 
down  his  throat.  He  drank  it  and 
was  silent. 

We  got  back  into  the  boat.  The 
night  was  dark,  very  dark.  I  saw 
clearly,  however,  that  he  had  caught 
her  by  the  waist,  and  that  they  were 
hugging  each  other  again  and  agam. 


It  was  a  frightful  catastrophe.  Ouj 
escapade  was  discovered  with  ihe  re 
suit  that  Pere  Piquedent  was  dismissed. 
And  my  father,  in  a  fit  of  anger,  seni 
me  to  finish  my  course  of  philosophy 
at  Ribaudet's  School. 

Six  months  later  I  passed  for  my 
degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts.  Then  1 
went  to  study  law  in  Paris,  and  I  did 
not  return  to  my  native  town  till  ten 
years  after. 

At  the  corner  of  the  Rue  de  Serpent, 
a  shop  caught  my  eye.  Over  the  door 
were  the  \/ords:  "Colonial  products — 
Piquedent*';  then  underneath  so  as  to 
enlighten  the  most  ignorant:    "Grocery." 

I  exclaimed:  ''Quantum  mutatus  ah 
illo!" 

He  raised  his  head,  left  his  female 
customer,  and  rushed  toward  me  with 
outstretched  hands. 

"Ah!  my  young  friend,  my  young 
friend,  here  you  are!  What  luck! 
What  luck!" 

A  beautiful  woman,  very  plump, 
abruptly  left  the  counter  nnd  flung 
herself  on  my  breast.  I  hod  some 
difficulty  in  recognizing  her,  so  fat  had 
she  grown. 

I  asked:  "So  then  you're  going  on 
well?" 

Piquedent  had  gone  back  to  weigh 
the  groceries: 

"Oh!  very  well,  very  well,  very  well. 
I  have  made  three  thousand  francs 
clear  this  year!" 

"And  what  about  the  Latin,  Monsieur 
Piquedent?" 

"Oh!  goodness  gracious!  the  Latin — 
the  Latin — the  Latin.  Well,  you  see, 
it  does  not  keep  the  pot  boiling!" 


Mother  and  Son!!! 


We  were  chatting  in  the  smoking- 
room  after  a  dinner  at  which  only  men 
were  present.  We  talked  about  un- 
expected legacies,  strange  inheritances. 
Then  M.  le  Brument,  who  was  some- 
times called  "the  illustrious  master" 
and  at  other  times  the  "illustrious  ad- 
vocate," came  and  stood  with  his  back 
to  the  fire. 

"I  have,"  he  said,  "just  now  to  search 
for  an  heir  who  disappeared  under  pe- 
culiarly terrible  circumstances.  It  is 
one  of  those  simple  and  ferocious 
dramas  of  ordinary  life,  a  thing  which 
possibly  happens  every  day,  and  which 
is  nevertheless  one  of  the  most  dread- 
ful things  I  know.    Here  are  the  facts: 

"Nearly  six  months  ago  I  got  a  mes- 
sage to  come  to  the  side  of  a  dying 
woman.    She  said  to  me: 

"  'Monsieur,  I  want  to  intrust  to  you 
the  most  delicate,  the  most  difficult, 
and  the  most  wearisome  mission  that 
can  be  conceived.  Be  good  enough  to 
take  cognizance  of  my  will,  which  is 
there  on  the  table.  A  sum  of  five 
thousand  francs  is  left  to  you  as  a  fee 
if  you  do  not  succeed  and  of  a  hundred 
thousand  francs  if  you  do  succeed.  I 
want  to  have  my  son  found  after  my 
death.' 

"She  asked  me  to  assist  her  to  sit  up 
in  the  bed,  in  order  that  she  might  be 
able  to  speak  with  greater  ease,  for 
her  voice,  broken  and  gasping,  was  gur- 
gling in  her  throat. 

"I  saw  that  I  was  in  the  house  of  a 
very  rich  person.  The  luxurious  apart- 
ment with  a   certain   simplicity   in   its 


solid  as  the  walls,  and  their  soft  sur- 
faces imparted  a  caressing  sensation,  so 
that  every  word  uttered  seemed  to  pene- 
trate their  silent  depths  and  to  disappear 
and  die  there. 

"The  dying  woman  went  on: 

"  'You  are  the  first  to  hear  my  hor* 
rible  story.  I  will  try  to  have  strength 
enough  to  go  on  to  the  end  of  it.  You 
must  know  everything  so  that  you, 
whom  I  know  to  be  a  kind-hearied  man 
as  well  as  a  man  of  the  world  should 
have  a  sincere  desire  to  aid  me  with  all 
your  power. 

"  'Listen  to  me. 

"  'Before  my  marriage,  I  loved  a 
young  man,  whose  suit  was  rejected  by 
my  family  because  he  was  not  rich 
enough.  Not  long  afterward,  1  married 
a  man  of  great  wealth.  I  married  him 
through  ignorance,  through  obedience, 
through  indifference,  as  young  girls  do 
marry. 

"  'I  had  a  child,  a  boy.  My  husband 
died  in  the  course  of  a  few  years. 

"  'He  whom  I  had  loved  had  got  mar- 
ried, in  his  turn.  When  he  saw  that  I 
was  a  widow,  he  was  crushed  by  horri- 
ble grief  at  knowing  that  he  was  not 
free.  He  came  to  see  me;  he  wept  and 
sobbed  so  bitterly  before  my  eyes  that 
it  was  enough  to  break  my  heart.  He 
at  first  came  to  see  me  as  a  friend. 
Perhaps  I  ought  not  to  have  seen  him. 
What  could  I  do?  I  was  alone,  so 
sad,  so  solitary,  so  hopeless!  And  I 
loved  him  still.  What  sufferings  we 
women  have  sometimes  to  endure  I 

*'  *I  had  only  him  in  the  world,  my 
parents  also  being  dead.    He  came  fre- 


luxury,  was  upholstered  with  materials     quently;  he  spent  whole  evenings  with 

812 


MOTHER  AND  SON!  !  !  ,3 

Can  anyone  explain  such  thS     Do  1     "^  ,  ^^^'f'^  "P""  ^m  as  an 

you  think,  it  co'uld  be  othS e  wh^.  iiheT  Is'a  tToiTl%°L'''' 

two   human   being,   are   drawn   toward  t^or    protector       hoi          '     .      "' 

each  other  by  the  irresistible  force  of  a  scrib^  i^'f°''''°'-   ^°'"    »■"    ^   '"   ''^' 

passion  by  which  each  of  them  is  nns.  "  'p«,i,        >i. 

sessed?      Do    you    believe     Monsieur  ,  t  J       ^^  the  reason  why  he  never 

that  it  is  always  in  our  power^o  resls  '     b  en     '"''  T''T\  ""''   '^''  ^'  ^"^ 
that  we  can  Iceen  ,m  (hp  Tf       1     f     '  accustomed     from     his     earliest 

ver  and  refuteTo  X'H  ?.T^'       '"■'     I''''  '°  '''  "^''^  ••"^"  '"  'h^  house,  by 
ever,  and  retuse  to  yie.d  to  the  prayers,     his  side,  and  by  my  side    alwavs  rnn 

Ae  supphcafons   the  tears,  the  frenzied      cerned  ^bout  us  both.        '  ""    '°"* 

words,  the  appeals  on  bended  knees,  the         "  'One  evening  th^  fl„-o=     t 

ffw'e  aTto  be  SrW"    w^  ,X'  ddT"    ?%'°°''  °^^"^^^   "  ^^^  '"'' 

code  of  honor,  we  must  drive  to  despat  Sstrrhed    arr'  .Tl'  'f   "l!^ 

What   strength   would   it   not   require?  S  to^tj  mTJin^a^on;  tncio'::: 

What     a    renunciation    of    happiness?  kiss                                               aeiicioui 

what  self-denial?  and  even  what  virtu-  "  'AU  „f         jj 

ous  selfishness?  , .  T   °^  \="dden,  a  sound,  a  rustling 

"  'In  short,  Monsieur,  I  was  his  mis       w'       ^^'     .^'"'^   t"'^''''"'    "■'^'   ^y^' 
tress;   and  I  was  haonv      For  fwM  "'   sensation   which   indicated    the 

years  I  tas  Tappy'^'^r  be!  m^nd  7.1^  f.  ='"°"^"  f  ^=°"'  '"^'^  - 
this  was  my  greaL's^  weakSra^^my  mo"n  le^n  'Zsof)  H  T" " 
Kfe's^'fTen?  ^"^^^'^"^^  ''^^^'"'     HviU^Urin/aTu's.'"^  ""'  ^'°°'  ^"^• 

.e3e  a'^of-CI  thoroSr^  ''~^-'--  ^^  ^-"  ck°LE 

tatelh^nt.  Tul^    J^^s;  and  °es^^^^^^^^  •""'   '"^. ''^"*   '""-^   my   son   as   if 

of  large  and  generous  idra.     The  boy  ion^r'ne  w'f  '  ""''  "^  '^™  °" 

reached  the  age  of  seventeen.  !ff,^    "'  ^^"^  f""'' 

r^^;  S^aTlsTa;  STh-^^     ^  ^^"^''-'^.tt^'Z 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


814 

powerful  desire  to  fly,  to  go  out  into 
the  night  and  to  disappear  forever. 
Then,  convulsive  sobs  rose  up  in  my 
throat,  and  I  wept,  shaken  with  spasms, 
with  my  heart  torn  asunder,  all  my 
nerves  wriihing  with  the  horrible  sen- 
Mtion  of  an  irremediable  misfortune, 
md  with  that  dreadful  sense  of  shame 
which,  in  such  moments  as  this,  falls 
on  a  mother's  heart. 

"'He  looked  at  me  in  a  scared 
fashion,  not  venturing  to  approach  me 
or  to  speak  to  me  or  to  touch  me,  for 
fear  of  the  boy's  return.     At  last  he 

said : 

"I  am  going  to  follow  him — 
to  talk  to  him— to  explain  matters  to 
him.  In  short,  I  must  see  him  and 
let  him  know — " 

"  'And  he  hurried  away. 

"  'I  waited — I  waited  in  a  distracted 
frame  of  mind,  trembling  at  the  least 
sound,  convulsed  with  terror,  and 
filled  with  some  unutterably  strange 
and  intolerable  emotion  by  every  slight 
crackling  of  the  fire  in  the  grate. 

"  1  waited  for  an  hour,  for  two  hours, 
feeling  my  heart  swell  with  a  dread  I 
had  never  before  experienced,  with  such 
an  anguish  as  I  would  not  wish  the 
greatest  of  criminals  to  experience. 
Where  was  my  son?  What  was  he  do- 
ing? 

"'About  midnight,  a  messenger 
brought  me  a  note  from  my  lover.  I 
still  know  its  contents  by  heart : 

**  *  "Has  your  son  returned?  I  did  not 
find  him.  I  am  down  here.  I  do  not 
want  to  go  up  at  this  hour." 

"  'I  wrote  in  pencil  on  the  same  slip 
of  paper. 


"'"Jean  has  not  returned.    You  must 
go  and  fine*  him." 

"'And  I  remained  all  night  in  the 
armchair,  waiting  for  him. 

"  'I  felt  as  if  I  were  going  mad.  I 
longed  to  run  wildly  about,  to  roll  my* 
self  on  the  floor.  And  yet  I  did  not. 
even  stir,  but  kept  waiting  hour  after 
hour.  What  was  going  to  happen?  I 
tried  to  imagine,  to  guess.  But  I  could 
form  no  conception,  in  spite  of  my 
efforts,  in  spite  of  the  tortures  of  my 
soul! 

"  'And  now  my  apprehension  was  lest 
they  might  meet.  What  would  they  do 
in  that  case?  What  would  my  son  do? 
My  mind  was  lacerated  by  fearful 
doubts,  by  terrible  suppositions. 

"  'You  understand  what  I  mean,  do 
you  not,   Monsieur? 

"  'My  chambermaid,  who  knew  noth- 
ing, who  understood  nothing,  was  com- 
ing in  every  moment,  believing,  natu- 
rally that  I  had  lost  my  reason.  I  had 
sent  her  away  with  a  word  or  a  move- 
ment of  the  hand.  She  went  for  the 
doctor,  who  found  me  in  the  throes 
of  a  nervous  fit. 

"  'I  was  put  to  bed.  Then  came  an 
attack  of  brain-fever.  When  I  re- 
gained consciousness,  after  a  long  ill- 
ness, I  saw  beside  my  bed  my — lover 
— alone.     I  exclaimed: 

"'"My   son?     Where   is   my   son?'* 
"'He  replied: 

"  *  "I  assure  you  every  effort  has 
been  made  by  me  to  find  him,  but  I 
have  failed!" 

"  'Then,  becoming  suddenly  exas- 
perated and  even  indignant, — for 
women  are  subject  to  such  outbursts 
of  unaccountable  and  unreasoning 
anger, — I  said: 


MOTHER  AND  SON!  !! 


815 


"*"I  forbid  you  to  come  near  me 
or  to  see  me  again  unless  you  find  him. 
Go  aA^ay!" 

"  'He  did  go  away. 

"  1  have  never  seen  one  or  the  other 
of  them  since,  Monsieur,  and  thus  I 
have  lived   for  the  last  twenty  years. 

"  'Can  you  imagine  what  all  this 
meant  to  me?  Can  you  understand 
this  monstrous  punishment,  this  slow, 
perpetual  laceration  of  a  mother's  heart, 
this  abominable,  endless  waiting? 
Endless,  did  I  say?  No:  it  is  about  to 
end,  for  I  am  dying.  I  am  dying  with- 
out  ever  again  seeing  either  of  them — • 
either  one  or  the  other! 

*'  'He — the  man  I  loved — ^has  written 
to  me  every  day  for  the  last  twenty 
years;  and  I — I  have  never  consented  to 
see  him,  even  for  one  second;  for  I 
had  a  strange  feeling  that  if  he  came 
back  here,  it  would  be  at  that  very 
moment  my  son  would  again  make  his 
appearance!  Ah!  my  son!  my  son!  Is 
he  dead?  Is  he  living?  Where  is  he 
hiding?  Over  there  perhaps,  at  the? 
other  side  of  the  ocean,  in  some  country 
so  far  av/ay  that  even  its  very  name  is 
unknown  to  me!  Does  he  ever  think 
of  me?  Ah!  if  he  only  knew!  How 
cruel  children  are!  Did  he  understand 
to  what  frightful  suffering  he  con- 
demned me,  into  what  depths  of  des- 
pair, into  what  tortures,  he  cast  me 
while  I  was  still  in  the  prime  of  life, 
leaving  me  to  suffer  like  this  even  to 
this  moment  when  I  am  going  to  die — - 
me,  his  mother,  who  loved  him  with  all 
the  violence  of  a  mother's  love!  Oh! 
isn't  it  cruel,  cruel? 


"'You  will  tell  him  all  this.  Mon- 
sieur— will  you  not?  You  will  repeat 
for  him  my  last  words: 

"  *  "My  child,  my  dear,  dear  child, 
be  less  harsh  toward  poor  women!  Life 
is  already  brutal  and  savage  enough  in 
its  dealing  with  them.  My  dear  son, 
think  of  what  the  existence  of  your 
poor  mother  has  been  ever  since  the 
day  when  you  left  her.  My  dear  child, 
forgive  her,  and  love  her,  now  that  she 
is  dead,  for  she  has  had  to  endure  the 
most  frightful  penance  ever  inflicted 
on  a  woman." 

'"She  gasped  for  breath  shuddering, 
as  if  she  had  addressed  her  last  words 
to  her  son  and  as  if  he  stood  by  her 
bedsid3. 

"Then   she  added: 

"  'You  will  tell  him  also,  Monsieur, 
that  I  never  again  saw — the  other.' 

"Once  more  she  ceased  speaking, 
then,  in  a  broken  voice  she  said: 

"  'Leave  me  now,  I  beg  of  you.  I 
want  to  die  all  alone,  since  they  are 
not  with  me.'  " 

Maitre  Ic  Brument  added: 

"I  left  the  house,  Messieurs,  cry- 
ing like  a  fool,  so  vehemently,  indeed, 
that  my  coachman  turned  round  to 
stare  at  me. 

"And  to  think  that  every  day  heaps 
of  dramas  like  this  are  being  enacted 
all  around  us! 

"I  have  not  found  the  son — that  son 
— well,  say  what  you  like  about  him, 
but  I  call  him  that  criminal  son!" 


HeP* 


My  deal:  friend,  you  cannot  under- 
stand it  by  any  possible  means,  you 
say,  and  I  perfectly  believe  you.  You 
think  I  am  going  mad?  It  may  be  so, 
but  not  for  the  reasons  which  you  sup- 
pose. 

Yes,  I  am  going  to  get  married,  and 
I  will  tell  you  what  has  led  me  to  take 
that  step. 

My  ideas  and  my  convictions  have 
not  changed  at  all.  I  look  upon  all 
legalized  cohabitation  as  utterly  stupid, 
for  I  am  certain  that  nine  husbands  out 
of  ten  are  cuckolds;  and  they  get  no 
more  than  their  deserts  for  having  been 
idiotic  enough  to  fetter  their  lives  and 
renounce  their  freedom  in  love,  the  only 
happy  and  good  thing  in  the  world,  and 
for  having  clipped  the  wings  of  fancy 
which  continually  drives  us  on  toward 
all  women.  You  know  what  I  mean. 
More  than  ever  I  feel  that  I  am  in- 
capable of  loving  one  woman  alone,  be- 
cause I  shall  always  adore  all  the  others 
too  much.  I  should  like  to  have  a 
thousand  arms,  a  thousand  mouths,  and 
a  thousand — temperaments,  to  be  able  to 
strain  an  army  of  these  charming 
creatures  in  my  embrace  at  the  same 
moment. 

And  yet  I  am  going  to  get  married! 

I  may  add  that  I  know  very  little  of 
the  girl  who  is  going  to  become  my 
wife  to-morrow;  I  have  only  seen  her 
four  or  five  times.  I  know  that  there 
is  nothing  unpleasant  about  her,  and 
that  is  enough  for  my  purpose.  She  is 
small,  fair,  and  stout;  so  of  course  the 
day  after  to-morrow  I  shall  ardently 
wish  for  a  tall,  dark,  thin  w^oman. 

She  is  not  rich,  and  belongs  to  the 
rciddle  classes.     She  is  a  girl  sudb  as 


you  m.ay  find  by  the  gross,  well  adapted 
for  matrimony,  without  any  apparent 
faults,  and  with  no  particularly  strik- 
ing qualities.  People  say  of  her:  "Mile. 
Lajolle  is  a  very  nice  girl,"  and  to- 
morrow they  will  say:  "What  a  very 
nice  woman  Madame  Raymon  is."  She 
belongs,  in  a  word,  to  that  immense 
number  of  girls  who  make  very  good 
wives  for  us  till  the  moment  comes 
when  we  discover  that  we  happen  to 
prefer  all  other  women  to  that  par- 
ticular woman  we  married. 

"Well,"  you  will  say  to  me,  "what  on 
earth  do  you  get  married  for?" 

I  hardly  like  to  tell  vou  the  strange 
ana  seemmgly  improbable  reason  that 
urged  me  on  to  this  senseless  act;  the 
fact,  however,  is  that  I  am  frightened 
of  being  alone! 

I  don't  know  how  to  tell  you  or  to 
make  you  understand  me,  but  my  state 
of  mind  is  so  wretched  that  you  will 
pity  and  despise  me. 

I  do  not  want  to  be  alone  any  longer 
at  night;  I  want  to  feel  that  there  is 
some  one  close  to  me  touching  me,  a 
being  who  can  speak  and  say  something, 
no  matter  what  it  be. 

I  wish  to  be  able  to  avaken  somebody 
by  my  side,  so  that  I  may  be  able  to  ask 
some  sudden  question  even,  if  I  feel  in- 
clined, so  that  I  may  hear  a  human 
voice,  and  feel  that  there  is  some  wak- 
ing soul  close  to  me,  some  one  whose 


*It  was  in  this  story  that  the  first 
gleams  of  De  Maupassant's  approaching 
madness  became  apparent.  Thencefor- 
ward he  began  to  revel  in  the  strange  and 
terrible,  until  his  malady  nad  seized  him 
wholly.  "The  Diary  of  a  Madman,"  is 
in  a  similar  veia 


16 


HE? 


817 


reason  is  at  work  —  so  that  when  I 
hastily  light  the  candle  I  may  see  some 
human  face  by  my  side — because — be- 
cause— 1  am  ashamed  to  confess  it — 
because  I  am  afraid  of  being  alone. 

Oh!  you  don't  understand  me  yet. 

I  am  not  afraid  of  any  danger;  if  a 
man  were  to  come  into  the  room  I 
should  kill  him  without  trembling.  I 
am  not  afraid  of  ghosts,  nor  do  I  be- 
lieve in  the  supernatural,  I  am  not 
afraid  of  dead  people,  for  I  believe  in 
the  total  annihilation  of  every  being 
that  disappears  from  the  face  of  this 
earth. 

Well, — ^yes,  well,  it  must  be  told;  I 
am  afraid  of  myself,  afraid  of  that  hor- 
rible sensation  ot  incomprehensible  fear. 

You  may  laugh,  if  you  like.  It  is 
terrible  and  I  cannot  get  over  it.  I  am 
afraid  of  the  walls,  of  the  furniture,  of 
the  familiar  objects,  which  are  animated, 
as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  by  a  kind  of 
animal  life.  Above  all,  I  am  afraid  of 
my  own  dreadful  thoughts,  of  my  rea- 
son, which  seems  as  if  it  were  about 
to  leave  me,  driven  away  by  a  myste- 
rious and  invisible  agony. 

At  first  I  feel  a  vague  uneasiness  in 
my  mind  which  causes  a  cold  shiver  to 
run  all  over  me.  I  look  round,  and  of 
course  nothing  is  to  be  seen,  and  I 
wish  there  were  something  there,  no 
matter  what,  as  long  as  it  were  something 
tangible:  I  am  frightened,  merely  be- 
cause I  cannot  understand  my  own  ter- 
ror. 

If  I  speak,  I  am  afraid  of  my  own 
voice.  If  I  walk,  I  am  afraid  of  I  know 
not  what,  behind  the  door,  behind  the 
curtains,  in  the  cupboard,  or  under  my 
bed,  and  yet  all  tl^  time  I  know  there 
is  nothing  anywhere,  and  I  turn  round 


suddenly  because  I  am  afraid  of  what 
is  behind  me,  although  there  is  nothing 
there,  and  I  know  it. 

I  get  agitated ;  I  feel  that  my  fear  in- 
creases, and  so  I  shut  myself  up  in  my 
own  room,  get  into  bed,  and  hide  under 
the  clothes,  and  there,  cowering  down 
rolled  into  a  ball,  I  close  my  eyes  in 
despair  and  remain  thus  for  an  indefinite 
time,  remembering  that  my  candle  is 
alight  on  the  table  by  my  bedside,  and 
that  I  ought  to  put  it  out,  and  yet — ^I 
dare  not  do  it! 

It  is  very  terrible,  is  it  not,  to  be  like 
that? 

Formerly  I  felt  nothing  of  all  that; 
I  came  home  quite  comfortably,  and' 
went  up  and  down  in  my  rooms  with- 
out anything  disturbing  my  calmness  of 
mind.  Had  anyone  told  me  that  I 
should  be  attacked  by  a  malady — for  I 
can  call  it  nothing  else — of  most  im- 
probable fear,  such  a  stupid  and  terrible 
malady  as  it  is,  I  should  have  laughed 
outright.  I  was  certainly  never  afraid 
of  opening  the  door  in  the  dark;  I  used 
to  go  to  bed  slowly  without  locking  it, 
and  never  got  up  in  the  middle  of  the 
night  to  make  sure  that  everything  was 
firmly  closed. 

It  began  last  year  in  a  very  strange 
manner,  on  a  damp  autumn  evening 
When  my  servant  had  left  the  room, 
after  I  had  dined,  I  asked  myself  what 
I  was  going  to  do.  I  walked  up  and 
down  my  room  for  some  time,  feeling 
tired  without  any  reason  for  it,  unable 
to  work,  and  without  enough  energy  to 
read.  A  fine  rain  was  falling,  and  I 
felt  unhappy,  a  prey  to  one  of  those 
fits  of  casual  despondency  which  make 
use  feel  inclined  to  cry,  or  to  talk,  no 


«18 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


matter  to  whom,  so  as  to  shake  off  our 
depressing  thoughts. 

I  felt  that  I  was  alone  and  that  my 
rooms  seemed  to  me  to  be  more  empty 
than  they  had  ever  been  before.  I  was 
surrounded  by  a  sensation  of  infinite  and 
overwhelming  solitude.  What  was  I  to 
do?  I  sat  down,  but  then  a  kind  of 
nervous  impatience  agitated  my  legs,  so 
that  I  got  up  and  began  to  walk  about 
again.  I  was  feverish,  for  my  hands, 
which  I  had  clasped  behind  me,  as  one 
often  does  when  walking  slowly,  almost 
seemed  to  burn  one  another.  Then  sud- 
denly a  cold  shiver  ran  down  my  back, 
and  I  thought  the  damp  air  might  have 
penetrated  into  my  room,  so  I  lit  the 
fire  for  the  first  time  that  year,  and  sat 
down  again  and  looked  at  the  flames. 
But  soon  I  felt  that  I  could  not  possi- 
bly remain  quiet.  So  I  got  up  again 
and  determined  to  go  out,  to  pull  myself 
together,  and  to  seek  a  friend  to  bear 
me  company. 

I  could  not  find  anyone,  so  I  went 
on  to  the  boulevards  to  try  and  meet 
some  acquaintance  or  other  there. 

I  was  wretched  everywhere,  and  the 
wet  pavement  glistened  in  the  gaslight, 
while  the  oppressive  mist  of  the  al- 
most impalpable  rain  lay  heavily  over 
the  streets  and  seemed  to  obscure  the 
light  from  the  lamps. 

I  went  on  slowly,  saying  to  myself, 
"I  shall  not  find  a  soul  to  talk  to." 

I  glanced  into  several  cafes,  from  the 
Madeleine  as  far  as  the  Faubourg  Pois- 
soniere,  and  saw  many  unhappy-looking 
individuals  sitting  at  the  tables,  who  did 
not  seem  even  to  have  enough  energy 
left  to  finish  the  refreshments  they  had 
ordered. 


up  and  down,  and  about  midnight  1 
started  off  for  home;  I  was  very  calm 
and  very  tired.  My  concierge*  opened 
the  door  at  once,  which  was  quite  un- 
usual for  him,  and  I  thought  thai 
another  lodger  had  no  doubt  just  come 
in. 

When  T  go  out  I  always  double-lock 
the  door  of  my  room.  Now  I  found  it 
merely  closed,  which  surprised  me;  but 
I  supposed  that  some  letters  had  been 
brought  up  for  me  in  the  course  of  the 
evening. 

I  went  in,  and  found  my  fire  still 
burning  so  that  it  lighted  up  the  room 
a  little.  In  the  act  of  taking  up  a  can- 
dle, I  noticed  somebody  sitting  in  my 
armchair  by  the  fire,  warming  his  feetj 
with  his  neck  toward  me. 

I  was  not  in  the  slightest  degree 
frightened.  I  thought  very  naturally 
that  some  friend  or  other  had  come  to 
see  me.  No  doubt  the  porter,  whom  I 
had  told  when  I  went  cut,  had  lent  him 
his  own  key.  In  a  moment  I  remem- 
bered all  the  circumstances  of  my  re- 
turn, how  the  street  door  had  been 
opened  immediately,  and  that  my  own 
door  was  only  latched,  and  not  locked. 

I  could  see  nothing  of  my  friend  but 
his  head.  He  had  evidently  gone  to 
sleep  while  waiting  for  me,  so  I  went 
up  to  him  to  rouse  him.  I  saw  him 
quite  clearly;  his  right  arm  was  hang- 
ing down  and  his  legs  were  crossed, 
while  his  head,  which  was  somewhat  in- 
clined to  the  left  of  the  armchair^ 
seemed  to  indicate  that  he  was  asleep. 
"Who  can  it  be"  I  asked  myself.  I 
could  not  see  clearly,  as  the  room  was 
rather  dark,  so  I  put  out  my  hand  tO 


For  a  long  time  I  wandered  aimlessly         *Hall-porter. 


HE? 


au 


touch  him  on  the  shoulde  .,  and  it  came 
in  contact  with  the  bad  of  the  chair. 
There  was  nobody  there ;  the  seat  was 
empty. 

I  fairly  jumped  with  fright.  For  a 
moment  I  drew  back  as  if  some  terrible 
danger  had  suddenly  appeared  in  my 
way;  then  I  turned  round  again,  impelled 
by  some  imperious  desire  to  look  at  the 
armchair  again.  I  remained  standing 
upright,  panting  with  fear,  so  upset 
that  I  could  not  collect  my  thoughts, 
and  ready  to  drop. 

But  I  am  naturally  a  cool  man,  and 
soon  recovered  myself.  I  thought:  "It 
is  a  mere  hallucination,  that  is  all,"  and 
I  immediately  began  to  reflect  about 
this  phenomenon.  Thoughts  fly  very 
quickly  at  such  moments. 

I  had  been  suffering  from  a  hallucina- 
tion, that  was  an  incontestable  fact. 
My  mind  had  been  perfectly  lucid  and 
had  acted  regularly  and  logically,  so 
there  was  nothing  the  matter  with  the 
brain.  It  was  only  my  eyes  that  had 
been  deceived;  they  had  had  a  vision, 
one  of  those  vi'iions  which  lead  simple 
folk  to  believe  in  miracles.  It  was  a 
nervous  accident  to  the  optical  appa- 
ratus, nothing  more;  the  eyes  were 
rather  overwrought,  perhaps. 

I  lit  my  candle,  and  when  I  stooped 
down  to  the  fire  in  so  doing,  I  noticed 
that  I  was  trembling,  and  I  raised 
myself  up  with  a  jump,  as  if  somebody 
had  touched  me  from  behind. 

I  was  certainly  not  by  any  means  re- 
assured. 

I  walked  up  and  down  a  little,  and 
hummed  a  tune  or  two.  Then  I  double- 
locked  my  door,  and  felt  rather  reas- 
sured; now,  at  any  rate,  nobody  could 
come  in. 


I  sat  down  again,  and  thought  over 
my  adventure  for  a  long  time;  then  I 
went  to  bed,  and  pat  out  my  light. 

For  some  minutes  all  went  well;  I 
lay  quietly  on  my  back.  Then  an  irre- 
sistible desire  seized  me  to  look  round 
the  room,  and  I  turned  on  to  my  side. 

My  fire  was  nearly  out  and  the  few 
glowing  embers  threw  a  faint  light  on 
to  the  floor  by  the  chair,  where  I  fan- 
cied I  saw  the  man  sitting  again. 

I  quickly  struck  a  match,  but  I  had 
been  mistaken,  for  there  was  nothing 
there;  I  got  up,  however,  and  hid  the 
chair  behind  my  bed,  and  tried  to  get 
to  sleep  as  the  room  was  now  dark. 
But  I  had  not  forgotten  myself  for 
more  than  five  minutes  when  in  my 
dream  I  saw  all  the  scene  A^hich  I  had 
witnessed  as  clearly  as  if  it  were  reality. 
I  woke  up  with  a  start,  and,  having  lit 
the  candle,  sat  up  in  bed,  without  ven- 
turing even  to  try  and  go  to  sleep  again. 

Twice,  however,  sleep  overcame  me 
for  a  few  moments  in  spite  of  myself, 
and  twice  I  saw  the  same  thing  again, 
till  I  fancied  I  was  going  mad.  When 
day  broke,,  however,  I  thought  that  I 
was  cured,  and  slept  peacefully  till 
noon. 

It  was  all  past  and  over.  I  had  been 
feverish,  had  had  the  nightmare;  I 
don't  know  what.  I  had  been  ill,  in  a 
word,  but  yet  I  thought  that  I  was  a 
great  fool. 

I  enjoyed  myself  thoroughly  that  eve- 
ning; I  went  and  dined  at  a  restaurant; 
afterward  I  went  to  the  theater,  and 
then  started  home.  But  as  I  got  near 
the  house  I  was  seized  by  a  strange  feel- 
*ng  of  uneasiness  once  more;  I  was 
afraid  of  seeing  him  again.  I  was  not 
afraid  of  him,  not  afraid  of  his  pres- 


8;'o 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ence,  in  which  I  did  not  believe;  but 
I  was  afraid  of  being  deceived  again;  I 
was  afraid  of  some  fresh  hallucination, 
afraid  lest  f'^ar  should  take  possession 
of  n^^. 

P  or  more  than  an  hour  I  wandered  up 
and  down  the  pavement;  then  I  thought 
that  I  was  really  too  foolish,  and  re- 
turned home.  I  panted  so  that  I  could 
scarcely  get  upstairs,  and  remained 
standing  outside  my  door  for  more  than 
ten  minutes;  then  suddenly  I  took  cour- 
age and  pulled  myself  together.  I  in- 
serted my  key  into  the  lock,  and  went 
in  with  a  candle  in  my  hand.  I  kicked 
open  my  half-op^n  bedroom  door,  and 
gave  a  frightened  look  toward  the  fire- 
place; there  was  nothing  there.    A— h! 

What  a  relief  and  what  a  delight! 
What  a  deliverance:  I  walked  up  and 
down  bnskly  and  boldly,  but  I  was  not 
altogether  reassured,  and  kept  turning 
round  with  a  jump;  the  very  shadows 
in  the  corners  disquieted  me. 

I  slept  badly,  and  was  constantly  dis- 
turbed by  imaginary  noises,  but  I  did 
not  see  him;  no,  that  was  all  over. 

Since  that  time  I  have  been  afraid  of 
being  alone  at  night.  I  feel  that  the 
specter  Is  there,  close  to  me,  around  me; 
but  it  has  not  appeared  to  me  again. 
And  supposing  it  did,  what  would  it 
matter,  since  I  do  not  believe  in  it  and 
know  that  it  is  nothing? 

It  still  worries  me,  however,  because 
I  am  constantly  thinking  of  it:  his  right 
arm  hanging  down  and  his  head  inclkied 


to  the  left  like  a  man  who  was  asleep^ 
Enough  of  that,  in  Heaven's  name!  I 
don't  want  to  think  about  it! 

Why,  however,  am  I  so  persistently 
possessed  with  this  idea?  His  feei  were 
close  to  the  fire ! 

He  haunts  me;  it  is  very  stupid,  but 
so  it  is.  Who  and  what  is  HE?  I  know 
that  he  does  not  exist  except  in  my 
cowardly  imagination,  in  my  fears,  and 
in  my  agony!     There — enough  of  that! 

Yes,  it  is  all  very  well  for  me  to  rea- 
son with  myself,  to  stiffen  myself j  so  to 
say;  but  I  cannot  remain  at  home, 
because  T  know  he  is  there.  I  know  I 
shall  not  see  him  again ;  he  will  not  show 
himself  again;  ihat  is  all  over.  But  he 
is  there  all  the  same  in  my  thoughts. 
He  remains  invisible,  but  that  does  not 
prevent  his  being  there.  He  is  behind 
the  doors,  in  the  closed  cupboards,  in 
the  wardrobe,  under  the  btd,  in  e^^ry 
dark  corner.  If  I  open  the  door  or  the 
cupboard,  if  I  take  the  candle  to  look 
under  the  bed  and  throw  a  light  on  to 
the  dark  places,  he  is  there  no  longer, 
but  I  feel  that  he  is  behind  me.  I 
turn  round,  certain  that  I  shall  not  see 
him,  that  I  shall  never  see  him  again; 
but  he  is,  none  the  less,  behind  me. 

It  is  very  stupid,  it  is  dreadful;  but 
what  am  I  to  do?    I  cannot  help  it. 

But  if  there  were  two  of  us  in  the 
place,  I  feel  certain  that  he  would  not 
be  there  any  longer,  for  he  is  there  just 
because  I  am  alone,  simply  and  solely 
because  I  am  alone! 


VOLUME  Vni 


The  Avenger 


When  M.  Antoine  Leuillet  married 
the  Widow  Mathiide  Souris,  he  had  been 
in  love  with  her  lor  nearly  ten  years. 

M.  Souris  had  been  his  friend,  his  old 
college  chum.  Leuillet  was  very  fond 
of  him,  but  found  him  rather  a  muff. 
He  often  used  to  say:  "That  poor 
Souris  will  never  set  the  Seine  on  fire." 

When  Souris  married  Mile.  Mathiide 
Duval,  Leuillet  was  surprised  and  some- 
what vexed,  for  he  had  a  slight  weak- 
ness for  her.  She  was  the  daughter  of 
a  neighbor  of  his,  a  retired  haberdasher 
with  a  good  deal  of  money.  She  was 
pretty,  well-mannered,  and  intelligent. 
She  accepted  Souris  on  account  of  his 
money. 

Then  Leuillet  cherished  hopes  of 
his  friend's  wife.  He  was  a  handsome 
man,  not  at  all  stupid,  and  also  well 
off.  He  was  confident  that  he  would 
succeed;  he  failed.  Then  he  fell  in  love 
with  her,  and  he  was  the  sort  of  lover 
who  is  rendered  timid,  prudent,  and 
embarrassed  by  intimacy  with  the  hus- 
band. Mme.  Souris  fancied  that  he 
no  longer  meant  anything  serious  by 
his  attentions  to  her,  and  she  became 
simply  his  friend.  This  state  of  af- 
fairs  lasted   nine   years. 

Now,  one  morning,  Leuillet  received 
a  startling  communication  from  the 
poor  woman.  Souris  had  died  suddenly 
of  aneurism  of  the  heart. 

He  got  a  terrible  shock,  for  they 
were  of  the  same  age;  but,  the  very 
next  moment  a  sensation  of  profound 
joy,  of  infinite  relief,  of  deliverance, 
penetrated  his  body  and  soul.  Mme. 
Souris  was  free. 

He  had  the  tact,  however,  to  make 
i  puch  a  display  of  grief  as  the  occasion 


required;  he  waited  for  the  proper 
time  to  elapse,  and  attended  to  all  the 
conventional  usages.  At  the  end  of 
fifteen  months,  he  married  the  widow. 

His  conduct  was  regarded  as  not 
only  natural  but  generous.  He  had 
acted  like  a  good  friend  and  an  honest 
man.  In  short,  he  was  happy,  quite 
happy. 

They  lived  on  terms  of  the  closest 
confidence,  having  from  the  first 
understood  and  appreciated  each  other. 
One  kept  nothing  secret  from  the  other, 
and  they  told  each  other  their  inmost 
thoughts.  Leuillet  now  loved  his  wife 
with  a  calm,  trustful  affection;  he 
loved  her  as  a  tender,  devoted  partner, 
who  is  an  equal  and  confidant.  But 
there  still  lingered  in  his  soul  a  singular 
and  unaccountable  grudge  against  the 
deceased  Souris,  who  had  been  the  first 
to  possesss  this  woman,  who  had  even 
robbed  her  of  ner  youth  and  her  soul, 
and  who  had  had  even  robbed  her  of 
her  poetic  attributes.  The  memory  of 
the  dead  husband  spoiled  the  happiness 
nf  the  living  husband;  and  this  pos« 
thumous  jealousy  now  began  to  torment 
Leuillet's  heart  day  and  night. 

The  result  was  that  he  was  inces- 
santly talking  about  Souris,  asking  a 
thousand  minute  and  intimate  questions 
about  him,  and  seeking  information  as 
to  all  of  his  habits  and  personal  charac- 
teristics. And  he  pursued  him  with 
railleries  even  into  the  depths  of  the 
tomb,  recalling  with  self-satisfaction 
his  oddities,  emphasizing  his  ab- 
surdities, and  pointinsj  out  his  defects 

Constantly  he  would  call  out  to  his 
wife  from  one  end  to  the  other  of  the 
house: 


821 


I 


822 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


♦'Hello,  Mathilde!" 

"Here   I   am   dear." 

"Come  and  let  us  have  a  chat.'* 

She  always  came  over  to  him,  smil- 
ing, well  aware  that  Souris  was  to  be 
the  subject  of  the  chat,  and  anxious  to 
gratify  her  second  husband's  harmless 
fad. 

"I  say!  do  you  remember  how 
Souris  wanted  one  day  to  prove  to  me 
that  small  men  are  always  better  loved 
than  big  men?" 

And  he  launched  out  into  reflec- 
tions unfavorable  to  the  defunct  hus- 
band, who  was  small,  and  discreetly 
complimentary  to  himself  as  he  hap- 
pened to  be  tall. 

And  Mme.  Leuillet  let  him  think 
that  he  was  quite  right;  and  she 
laughed  very  heartily,  turned  the  first 
husband  into  ridicule  in  a  playful  fash- 
ion for  the  amusement  of  his  suc- 
cessor, who  always  ended  by  remark- 
ing: 

"Never  mind!    Souris  was  a  muff!" 

They  were  happy,  quite  happy.  And 
Leuillet  never  ceased  to  testify  his  un- 
abated attachment  to  his  wife  by  all 
the  usual  manifestations. 

Now,  one  night,  when  they  happened 
to  both  be  kept  awake  by  a  renewal 
of  youthful  ardor,  Leuillet  who  held 
his  wife  clasped  tightly  in  his  arms  and 
had  his  lips  glued  to  hers  said: 

"Tell  me  this  darling." 

"What?" 

"Souris — 'tisn't  easy  to  put  the  ques- 
tion— ^was  he  very — very  loving?" 

She  gave  him  a  warm  kiss,  as  she 
murmured: 

"Not  as  much  as  you,  my  sweet." 

His  male  vanity  was  flattered  and 
he  went  on: 


"He  must  have  been — rather  a  flat 
-~eh?" 

She  did  not  answer.  There  was 
merely  a  sly  little  laugh  on  her  face, 
which  she  pressed  close  to  her  hus- 
band's neck. 

He  persisted  in  his  questions: 

"Come  now!  Don't  deny  that  he  was 
a  flat — well,  I  mean,  rather  an  awk- 
ward  sort  of  fellow?" 

She  nodded  slightly. 

"Well  yes,  rather  awkward." 

He  went  on: 

"I'm  sure  he  used  to  weary  you 
many  a  night — isn't  that  so?" 

This  time  she  had  an  access  of  frank- 
ness, and  she  replied: 

"Oh!  yes." 

He  embraced  her  once  more  when 
she  made  this  acknowledgment,  and 
murmured : 

"What  an  ass  he  was!  You  were  not 
happy  with  him?" 

"No.    He  was  not  always  jolly." 

Leuillet  felt  quite  delighted,  mak- 
ing a  comparison  in  his  own  mind  be- 
tween his  wife's  former  situation  and 
her  present  one. 

He  remained  silent  for  some  time: 
then,  with  a  fresh  outburst  of  curi- 
osity, he  said: 

"Tell  me  this!" 

"What?" 

"Will  you  be  quite  candid — quite 
candid  with  me?" 

"Certainly,   dear." 

"Well,  look  here!  Were  you  ever 
tempted  to — to  deceive  this  imbecile, 
Souris?" 

Mme.  Leuillet  uttered  a  little  "Oh!*" 
in  a  shamefaced  way  and  again  cud- 
dled her  face  closer  to  her  husband'* 


THE    AVENGER 


823 


chest.  But  he  could  see  that  she  was 
laughing. 

"Come  now,  confess  it!  He  had  a 
head  just  suited  for  a  cuckold,  this 
blockhead !  It  would  be  so  funny !  The 
good  Souris!  Oh!  I  say,  darling,  you 
might  tell  it  to  me — only  to  me!" 

He  emphasized  the  words  "to  me,'* 
feeling  certain  that  if  she  wanted  to 
show  any  taste  when  she  deceived  her 
husband,  he,  Leuillet  would  have  been 
the  man;  and  he  quivered  with  joy  at 
the  expectation  of  this  avowal,  sure 
that  if  she  had  not  been  the  virtuous 
woman  she  was  he  could  not  have  won 
her  then. 

But  she  did  not  reply,  laughing  in- 
cessantly as  if  r,t  the  recollection  of 
something  infinitely  comic. 

Leuillet,  in  his  turn,  burst  out  laugh- 
ing at  the  notion  that  he  might  have 
made  a  cuckold  of  Souris.  What  a  good 
joke!  What  a  capital  lot  of  fun  to  be 
sure! 

He  exclaimed  in  a  Toice  broken  by 
convulsions  of  laughter: 

"Oh!  poor  Souris!  poor  Souris!  Ah! 
yes,  he  had  that  sort  of  head — oh, 
certainly  he  had!" 

And  Mme.  Leuillet  now  twisted  her- 
self under  the  sheets  laughing  till  the 
tears  almost  came  into  her  eyes. 

And  Leuillet  repeated:  "Come,  con- 
fess it!  confess  it!  Be  candid.  You 
must  know  that  it  cannot  be  unpleasant 
to  me  to  hear  such  a  thing." 

Then  she  stammered,  still  choking 
with  laughter: 

"Yes,  yes." 

Her  husband  pressed  her  for  an 
answer : 

"Yes  what?  Look  here!  tell  me 
everything." 


She  was  now  laugLmg  in  a  more 
subdued  fashion,  and,  raising  her  mouth 
up  to  Leuillet's  ear,  which  was  held 
toward  her  in  anticipation  of  some 
pleasant  piece  of  confidence  she 
whispered:     "Yes — I  did  deceive  him!" 

He  felt  a  cold  shiver  down  his  back, 
and  utterly  dumfounded,  he  gasped: 

"You  —  you  —  did  —  really — deceive 
him?" 

She  was  still  under  the  impression 
that  he  thought  the  thing  infinitely 
pleasant,  and  replied: 

"Yes — really — really." 

He  was  obliged  to  sit  up  in  bed  so 
great  was  the  shock  he  received,  hold- 
ing his  breath,  just  as  overwhelmed  as 
if  he  had  just  been  told  that  he  was 
a  cuckold  himself.  At  first  he  was 
unable  to  articulate  properly;  then 
after  the  lapse  of  a  minute  or  so,  he 
merely  ejaculated: 

"Ah!" 

She,  too,  had  stopped  laughing  now, 
realizing  her  mistake  too  late. 

Leuillet  at  length  asked: 

"And  with  whom?" 

She  kept  silent,  cudgeling  her  brain 
to  find  some  excuse. 

He  repeated  his  question: 

"With  whom?" 

At  last,  she  said: 

"With  a  young  man." 

He  turned  toward  her  abruptly,  and 
in  a  dry  tone,  said: 

"Well,  I  suppose  it  wasn't  with  some 
kitchen-slut.  I  ask  you  who  was  the 
young  man — do  you  understand?" 

She  did  not  answer.  He  tore  away 
the  sheet  which  she  had  drawn  over  her 
head,  and  pushed  her  into  the  middle 
of  the  bed,  repeating: 


824 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"T  want  to  know  with  what  young 
man — do  you  understand?" 

Then,  she  replied,  having  some  dif- 
ficulty in  uttering  the  words: 

"I  only  wanted  to  laugh."  But  he 
fairly  shook  with  rage: 

"What?  How  is  that?  You  only 
wanted  to  laugh?  So  then  you  were 
making  game  of  me?  I'm  not  going  to 
be  satisfied  with  these  evasions,  let  me 
tell  you!  I  ask  you  what  was  the 
young  man's  name?" 

She  did  net  reply,  but  lay  motionless 
on  her  back. 

He  caught  hold  of  her  arm  and 
pressed  it  tightly: 

"Do  you  hear  me,  I  say?  I  want 
you  to  give  me  an  answer  when  I 
speak  to  you.'' 

Then  she  said,  in  nervous  tones: 

"I  think  you  must  be  going  mad! 
Let  me  alone!" 

He  trembled  with  fury,  so  exas- 
perated that  he  scarcely  knew  v/hat  he 
was  saying,  and,  shaking  her  with  all 
his  strength,  he  repeated: 

"Do  you  hear  me?  do  you  hear  me?'* 
She  wrenched  herself  out  of  his  grasp 
«vith  a  sudden  movement  and  with  the 
tips  of  her  fingers  slapped  her  hus- 
band on  the  nose.  He  entirely  lost 
his  temper,   feeling  that  he  had  been 


struck,  and  angrily  pounced  down  on 
her. 

He  now  held  her  under  him,  box- 
ing her  ears  in  a  roost  violent  maimer, 
and  exclaiming: 

"Take  that — and  that — and  that — 
there  you  are,  you  trollop,  you  strumpet 
— ^you  strumpet!" 

Then  when  he  was  out  of  breath, 
exhausted  from  beating  her,  he  got  up 
and  went  over  to  the  bureau  to  get 
himself  a  glass  of  sugared  orange- 
water,  almost  ready  to  feint  after  his 
exertion. 

And  she  by  huddled  up  in  bed,  cry- 
ing and  heaving  great  sobs,  feeling 
that  there  was  an  end  of  her  hap- 
piness, and  that  it  was  all  her  own 
fault. 

Then  in  the  midst  cf  her  tears,  she 
faltered: 

"Listen,  Antoine,  come  here!  I  told 
you  a  lie — listen !  1 11  explain  it  to  you." 

And  now,  prepared  to  defend  herself, 
armed  with  excuses  and  subterfuges, 
she  slightly  raised  her  head  all  dis- 
heveled under  her   crumpled  nightcap. 

And  he  turning  toward  her,  drew 
close  to  her,  ashamed  of  having 
whacked  her,  but  feeling  still  in  his 
heart's  core  as  a  husband  an  inex- 
haustible hatred  against  the  woman  who 
had  deceived  his  predecessor,  Souris. 


The  Conservatory 


Monsieur  and  Mme.  Lerebour  were  Mantes  in  a  pretty  estate  which  they 

about    the    same    age.      But    Monsieur  had  bought   after  having  maae   a  for* 

looked   younger,   although   he   was   the  tune  by  selling  printed  cottons, 

weaker  of  the  two.     They  lived  near  The    house    was  surrounded    by    6 


TIIE  CONSERVATORY 


82S 


beautiful  garden,  containing  a  poultry 
yard,  Chinese  kiosques,  and  a  little  con- 
servatory at  the  end  of  the  avenue.  M. 
Lerebour  was  short,  round  and  jovial, 
with  the  joviality  of  a  shopkeeper  of 
epicurean  tastes.  His  wife,  lean,  self- 
willed,  and  always  discontented  had  not 
succeeded  in  overcoming  her  husband's 
good-humor.  She  dyed  her  hair,  and 
sometimes  read  novels,  which  made 
dreams  pass  through  her  soul,  although 
she  affected  to  despise  writings  of  this 
kind.  People  said  she  was  a  woman  of 
strong  passions  without  her  having  ever 
done  anything  to  sustain  that  opinion. 
But  her  husband  sometimes  said:  "My 
wife  is  a  gay  woman,"  with  a  certain 
knowing  air  which  awakened  supposi- 
tions. 

For  some  years  past,  however,  she 
had  shown  herself  aggressive  toward  M. 
Lerebour,  always  irritated  and  hard, 
as  if  a  secret  and  unavoidable  grief  tor- 
mented her.  A  sort  of  misunderstand- 
ing was  the  result.  They  scarcely  spoke 
to  each  other,  and  Madame,  whose 
name  was  Palmyre,  was  incessantly 
heaping  unkind  compliments,  wounding 
allusions,  bitter  words,  without  any  ap- 
parent reason,  on  Monsieur,  whose  name 
was   Gustave. 

He  bent  his  back,  bored  though  gay, 
all  the  same,  endowed  with  such  a  fund 
of  contentment  that  he  endured  her 
domestic  bickerings.  He  asked  him- 
self, nevertheless,  what  unknown  cause 
could  have  thus  embittered  his  spouse, 
for  he  had  a  strong  feeling  that  her 
irritation  had  a  hidden  reason,  but  so 
difficult  to  penetrate  that  his  efforts 
to  do  so  were  in  vain. 

He  often  said  to  her:  "Look  here  my 
dear,  tell  me  what  you  have  against  me. 


I  feel  that  you  are  concealing  some- 
thing." 

She  invariably  replied:  "But  there  is 
nothing  the  matter  with  me,  absolutely 
nothing.  Besides,  if  I  had  some  cause 
for  discontent,  it  would  be  for  you  to 
guess  at  it.  I  don't  like  men  who 
understand  nothing,  who  are  so  soft  and 
incapable  that  one  must  come  to  their 
assistance  to  make  them  grasp  the 
slightest  thing." 

He  murmured  dejectedly:  "I  see 
clearly  that  you  don't  want  to  say  any- 
thing." 

And  he  went  away  still  striving  to 
unravel  the  mystery. 

The  nights  especially  became  pain- 
ful to  him,  for  they  always  shared  the 
same  bed,  as  one  does  in  good  and 
simple  households.  It  was  not,  there- 
fore, mere  ordinary  ill-temper  that  she 
displayed  toward  him.  She  chose  the 
moment  when  they  were  lying  side  by 
side  to  load  him  with  the  liveliest 
raillery.  She  reproached  him  prin* 
cipally  with  his  corpulence:  "You 
take  up  all  the  room,  you  are  becoming 
so  fat." 

And  she  forced  him  to  get  up  on 
the  slightest  pretext,  sending  him  down- 
stairs to  look  for  a  newspaper  she  had 
forgotten,  or  a  bottle  of  orange-water, 
v;hich  he  failed  to  find  as  she  had 
herself  hidden  it  away.  And  she  ex- 
claimed in  a  furious  and  sarcastic  tone: 
"You  might,  however,  know  where  to 
find  it,  you  big  booby!"  When  he  had 
been  wandering  about  the  sleeping 
house  for  a  whole  hour,  and  returned 
to  the  room  empty-handed,  the  only 
thanks  she  gave  him  was  to  say: 
"Come,  get  back  to  bed,  it  will  make 
you  thin  to  take  a  little  walking;  you 


826 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSAxNT 


are  becoming  as  flabby  as  a  sponge." 

She  kept  waking  him  every  moment 
by  declaring  that  she  was  suffering 
from  cramps  in  her  stomach,  and  in- 
sisting on  his  rubbing  her  with  flannel 
soaked  in  eau  de  Cologne.  He  would 
make  efforts  to  cure  her,  grieved  at 
seeing  her  ill,  and  would  propose  to  go 
and  rouse  up  Celeste,  their  maid.  Then 
she  would  get  angry,  crying:  "You 
must  be  a  fool.  Well!  it  is  over;  I  am 
better  now,  so  go  back  to  bed,  you  big 
lout" 

To  his  question:  "Are  you  quite 
sure  you  have  got  better?"  she  would 
fling  this  harsh  answer  in  his  face: 

"Yes,  hold  your  tongue!  let  me 
sleep!  Don't  worry  me  any  more  about 
it!  You  are  incapable  of  doing  any- 
thing, even  of  rubbing  a  woman." 

He  got  into  a  state  of  deep  dejec- 
tion: "But,  my  darling — " 

She  became  exasperated:  "I  want 
no  'buts.'  Enough,  isn't  it?  Give  me 
some  rest  now.  And  she  turned  her 
face  to  the  wall. 

Now,  one  night,  she  shook  him  so 
abruptly  that  he  started  up  in  terror, 
and  found  himself  in  a  sitting  posture 
with  a  rapidity  which  was  not  habitual 
to  him.     He  stammered: 

"W^hat?    What's  the  matter?" 

She  caught  him  by  the  arm  and 
pinched  him  till  he  cried  out.  Then 
she  gave  him  a  box  on  the  ear:  "I 
hear  some  noise  in  the  house." 

.Accustomed  to  the  frequent  alarms 
of  Mme.  Lerebour  he  did  not  disturb 
himself  very  much  and  quietly  asked: 

"What  sort  of  noise,  my  darling?" 

She  trembled  as  if  she  were  in  a 
state   of  terror   anr'    replied:    "Noise — 


why  noise — the  noise  of  footsteps. 
There  is  some  one," 

He  remained  incredulous:  "Some 
one?  You  think  so?  But  no;  you 
must  be  mistaken.  Besides  whom  do 
you  think  it  can  be?" 

She  shuddered: 

Who?  Who?  Why,  thieves,  of 
course,  you  imbecile!" 

He  plunged  softly  under  the  sheets: 

"Ah!  no,  my  darling!  There  is  no- 
body.   I  dare  say  you  dreamed  it." 

Then,  she  flung  off  the  coverlet,  and, 
jumping  out  of  bed,  in  a  rage:  "Why, 
then,  you  are  just  as  cowardly  as  you 
are  incapable!  In  any  case,  I  shall  not 
let  myself  be  massacred  owing  to  your 
pusillanimity."  And  snatching  up  the 
tongs  from  the  fireplace,  she  placed 
herself  in  a  fighting  attitude  in  front 
of  the  bolted  door. 

Moved  by  his  wife's  display  of  valor, 
perhaps  ashamed,  he  rose  up  in  his 
turn  sulkily,  and  without  taking  off 
his  nightcap  he  seized  the  shovel,  and 
placed  himself  face  to  face  with  his 
better  half. 

They  waited  for  twenty  minutes  in 
the  deepest  silence.  No  fresh  noise 
disturbed  the  repose  of  the  house. 
Then,  Madame,  becoming  furious,  got 
back  into  bed  saying:  "Nevertheless 
I'm  sure  there  is  some  one." 

In  order  to  avoid  anything  like  a 
quarrel  he  did  not  make  an  allusion 
during  the  next  day  to  this  panic.  But, 
next  night,  Mme.  Lerebour  woke  up 
her  husband  with  more  violence  still 
than  the  night  before,  and,  panting, 
she  stammered:  "Gustave,  Gustave, 
somebody  has  just  opened  the  garden- 
gate!" 

Astonished    at    this    persistence,    he 


THE  CONSERVATORY 


82? 


fancied  that  his  wife  must  have  had 
an  attack  of  somnambulism,  and  was 
about  to  make  an  effort  to  shake  off 
this  dangerous  state  when  he  thought 
he  heard,  in  fact,  a  slight  sound  under 
the  walls  of  the  house.  He  rose  up, 
rushed  to  the  window  and  he  saw — ^yes, 
he  saw — a  white  figure  quickly  passing 
along  one  of  the  garden-walks. 

He  murmured,  as  if  he  were  on  the 
point  of  fainting:  'There  is  some  one." 
Then,  he  recovered  his  self-possession, 
felt  more  resolute,  and  suddenly  car- 
ried away  by  the  formidable  anger  of 
a  proprietor  whose  territory  has  been 
encroached  upon,  he  said:  "Wait! 
wait,  and  you  shall  see!" 

He  rushed  toward  the  writing-desk, 
opened  it,  took  out  the  revolver,  and 
dashed  out  into  the  stairs.  His  wife, 
filled  with  consternation,  followed  him, 
exclaiming:  "Gustave,  Gustave,  don't 
abandon  me,  don't  leave  me  alone! 
Gustave!     Gustave!" 

But  he  scarcely  heard  her;  he  had  by 
this  time  laid  his  hand  on  the  garden- 
gate. 

Then  she  went  back  rapidly  and  bar- 
ricaded herself  in  the  conjugal  cham- 
ber. 
****** 

She  waited  five  minutes,  ten  minutes, 
a  quarter  of  an  hour.  Wild  terror  took 
possession  of  her.  Without  doubt,  they 
had  killed  him;  they  had  seized,  gar- 
roted,  strangled  him.  She  would  have 
preferred  to  hear  the  report  cf  the 
six  barrels  of  the  revolver,  to  know  that 
he  was  fighting,  that  he  was  defend- 
ing himself.  But  this  great  silence, 
this  terrifying  silence  of  the  country 
overwhelmed  her. 

She  rang   for  CBff^f^-     Celeste   did 


not  come  in  answer  to  the  bell.  She 
rang  again,  on  the  point  of  swooning, 
of  sinking  into  unconsciousness.  The 
entire  house  remained  without  a  sound. 
She  pressed  her  burning  forehead  to 
the  window,  seeking  to  peer  through  the 
darkness  without.  She  distinguished 
nothing  but  the  blacker  shadows  of  a 
row  of  trees  beside  the  gray  ruts  on 
the  roads. 

It  struck  half  past  twelve.  Her  hus- 
band had  been  absent  for  forty-five 
minutes.  She  would  never  see  him 
again.  No!  she  would  never  see  him 
again.  And  she  fell  on  her  knees  sob- 
bing. 

Two  light  knocks  at  the  door  of  the 
apartment  called  out  to  her:  "Open, 
pray,  Palmyre — 'tis  I."  She  rushed 
forward,  opened  the  door,  and  stand- 
ing in  front  of  him,  with  her  arms 
akimbo  and  her  eyes  full  of  tears,  ex- 
claimed: "Where  have  you  been,  you 
dirty  brute?  Ah!  you  left  me  here 
by  myself  nearly  dead  of  fright.  You 
care  no  more  about  me  than  if  I  never 
existed." 

He  closed  the  bedroom  door;  then 
he  laughed  and  laughed  like  a  mad- 
man, grinning  from  ear  to  ear,  with  his 
hands  on  his  sides,  till  the  tears  came 
into  his  eyes. 

Mme.  Lerebour,  stupefied,  remained 
silent. 

He  stammered:  "It  was — it  was-  • 
Celeste,  who  had  an  appointment  in  the 
conservatory.  If  you  knew  what — 
what  I  have  seen — " 

She  had  turned  pale,  choking  with 
indignation. 

"Eh?  Do  you  tell  me  so?  Celeste? 
In  my  house?  in — my — house — in  my 
— my — in  my  conservatory.     And  you 


828 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


have  not  killed  the  man  who  was  her 
accomplice!  You  had  a  revolver  and 
did  not  kill  him?  In  my  house — in  my 
house." 

She  sat  down,  not  feeling  able  to  do 
anything. 

He  danced  a  caper,  snapped  his 
fingers,  smacked  his  tongue,  and,  still 
laughing:  "If  you  knew — if  you 
knew — "    II3  suddenly  gave  her  a  kiss. 

She  tore  herself  away  from  h"m  and 
in  a  voic3  broken  with  rage,  she  said: 
"I  will  not  lei  this  girl  remain  one  day 
longer  in  my  house,  do  you  hear?  Not 
one  day — not  one  hour.  When  she  re- 
turns to  the  house,  we  will  throw  her 
out." 

M.  Lercbour  had  seized  his  wife  by 
the  waist,  end  he  planted  rows  of  kisses 
on  her  neck,  loud  kisses,  as  in  by- 
gone days.  She  became  silent  once 
more,  petrified  with  astonishment.  But 
he,  holding  her  clasped  in  his  arms, 
drew  her  softly  toward  the  bed. 
****** 

Toward  half  past  nine  in  the  morning. 
Celeste,  astonished  at  not  having  yet 
seen  her  master  and  mistress,  who  al- 
ways rose  early,  came  and  knocked 
softly  at  their  door. 

They   were   in   bed,   and  were   gaily 


chatting  side  by  side.  She  stood  there 
astonished,  and  said;  ''Madame,  it  is 
the  coffee." 

Mme.  Lerebour  said  in  a  very  soft 
voice:  "Bring  it  here  to  me,  my  girl. 
We  are  a  little  tired;  we  have  slept 
very  badly." 

Scarcely  had  the  servant-maid  gone 
than  M.  Lerebour  began  to  laugh 
again,  tickling  his  wife  under  the  chin, 
and  repeating:  "If  you  knev;.  Oh!  if 
you  knew." 

But  she  caught  his  hands:  "Look  here! 
keep  quiet,  my  darling,  if  you  laugh  like 
this  you  will  make  yourself  ill." 

And   she   kissed   him   softly   on   the 

eyes. 
****** 

Mme.  Lerebour  has  no  more  fits  of 
sourness.  Sometimes  on  bright  nights 
the  husband  and  wife  come,  wi'.h  fur- 
tive steps,  along  the  clumps  of  trees 
and  flower-beds  as  far  as  the  little 
conservatory  at  the  end  of  the  garden. 
And  they  remain  there  planted  side  by 
side  with  their  faces  pressed  against 
the  glass  as  if  they  were  looking  at 
something  strange  and  full  of  interest 
going  on  within. 

They  have  increased  Celeste's  wages. 
But  M.  Lerebour  has  got  thin. 


Letter  Found  on  a  Corpse 


You  ask  me,  Madame,  whether  I 
am  laughing  at  you?  You  cannot  be- 
lieve that  a  man  has  never  been  smitten 
with  love.  Well,  no,  I  have  never 
loved,  never! 


cannot  tell.  Never  have  I  been  under 
the  influence  of  that  sort  of  intoxica- 
tion of  tha  heart  which  we  call  love! 
Never  have  I  lived  in  that  dream,  in 
that  exaltation,  in  that  state  of  madness 


What  is  the  cause  of  this?     I  really     into  which  the  image  of  a  womau  casts 


LETTER  FOUND  ON  A  CORPSE 


S29 


us.  I  have  never  been  pursued, 
haunted,  roused  to  fever-heat,  hfted  up 
to  Paradise  by  the  thought  of  meeting, 
or  by  the  possession  of,  a  being  who 
had  suddenly  become  for  me  more  de- 
sirable than  any  good  fortune,  more 
beautiful  than  any  other  creature,  more 
important  than  the  whole  world!  I 
have  never  wept,  I  have  never  suffered 
on  account  of  any  of  you.  I  have  not 
passed  my  nights  thinking  of  one  wo- 
man without  closing  my  eyes.  I  have 
no  experience  of  waking  up  with  the 
thought  and  the  memory  of  her  shed- 
ding her  illumination  on  me.  I  have 
never  known  the  wild  desperation  of 
hope  when  she  was  about  to  come,  or 
the  divine  sadness  of  regret  when  she 
parted  with  me,  leaving  behind  her  in 
the  room  a  delicate  odor  of  violet-pow- 
der. 

I  have  never  been  in  love. 

I,  too,  have  often  asked  myself  why 
fs  this.  And  truly  I  can  scarcely  tell. 
Nevertheless,  I  have  found  some  rea- 
sons for  it;  but  they  are  of  a  meta- 
physical character,  and  perhaps  you 
will  not  be  able  to  appreciate  them. 

I  suppose  I  sit  too  much  in  judgment 
on  women  to  submit  much  to  their  fas- 
cination. I  ask  you  to  forgive  me  for 
this  remark.  I  am  going  to  explain  what 
I  mean.  In  every  creature  there  is  a 
moral  being  and  a  physical  being.  In 
order  to  love,  it  would  be  necessary  for 
me  to  find  a  harmony  between  these 
two  beings  which  I  have  never  found. 
One  has  always  too  great  a  predomi- 
nance over  the  other,  sometimes  the 
the  physical. 

The  intellect  which  we  have  a  right 
to  require  in  a  woman,  in  order  to  love 
ber,  is  not  the  same  as  virile  intellect. 


It  is  more  and  it  is  less.  A  woman 
must  have  a  mind  open,  delicate,  sensi- 
tive, refined,  impressionable.  She  has 
no  need  of  either  power  or  initiative 
in  thought,  but  she  must  have  kind- 
ness, elegance,  tenderness,  coquetry, 
and  that  faculty  of  assimilation  which, 
in  a  little  while,  raises  ncr  to  an 
equality  with  him  who  shares  her  life. 
Her  greatest  quality  must  be  tact,  that 
subtle  sense  which  is  to  the  mind  what 
touch  is  to  the  body.  It  reveals  to  her 
a  thousand  little  things,  contours, 
angles,  and  forms  in  the  intellectual 
life. 

Very  frequently  pretty  women  have 
not  intellect  to  correspond  with  their 
personal  charms.  Now  the  slightest  lack 
of  harmony  strikes  me  and  pains  me 
at  the  first  glance.  In  friendship,  this 
is  not  of  importance.  Friendship  is  a 
compact  in  which  one  fairly  divides 
defects  and  merits.  We  may  judge  of 
friends,  whether  man  or  woman,  take 
into  account  the  good  they  possess, 
neglect  the  evil  that  is  in  them,  appreci- 
ate their,  value  exactly,  while  giving 
ourselves  up  to  an  intimate  sympathy 
of  a  deep  and  fascinating  character. 

In  order  to  love,  one  must  be  blind, 
surrender  oneself  absolutely,  see  noth- 
ing, reason  from  nothing,  understand 
nothing.  One  must  adore  the  weakness 
as  well  as  the  beauty  of  the  beloved 
object,  renounce  all  judgment,  all  re- 
flection, all  perspicacity. 

I  am  incapable  of  such  blindness, 
and  rebel  against  a  seductiveness  not 
founded  on  reason.  This  is  not  all.  I 
have  such  a  high  and  subtle  idea  of 
harmony  that  nothing  can  ever  realize 
my  ideal.  But  you  will  call  me  a  mad- 
man.   Listen  to  me.    A  woman,  in  my 


830 


WORKS  OF  GU\"  DE  MACPASSANT 


opinion,  may  have  an  exquisite  soul  and 
a  charming  body  without  that  body 
and  that  soul  being  in  perfect  accord 
with  one  another.  I  mean  that  persons 
who  have  noses  made  in  certain  shape 
are  not  to  be  expected  to  think  in  a 
certain  fashion.  The  fat  have  no  right 
to  make  use  of  the  same  words  and 
phrases  as  the  thin.  You  who  have 
blue  eyes,  Madame,  cannot  look  at  life, 
and  judge  of  things  and  events  as  if 
you  had  black  eyes.  The  shades  of 
your  eyes  should  correspond,  by  a  sort 
of  fatality,  with  the  shades  of  your 
thought.  In  perceiving  these  things  I 
have  the  scent  of  a  bloodhound.  Laugh 
if  you  like,  but  it  is  so. 

And  yet  I  imagined  that  I  was  in 
love  for  an  hour,  for  a  day.  I  had 
foolishly  yielded  to  the  influence  of  sur- 
rounding circumstances.  I  allowed  my- 
self to  be  beguiled  by  the  mirage  of  an 
aurora.  Would  you  like  to  hear  this 
short  history? 
****** 

I  met,  one  evening,  a  pretty,  en- 
thusiastic woman  who  wanted  for  the 
purpose  of  humoring  a  poetic  fancy,  to 
spend  a  night  with  me  in  a  boat  on  a 
river.  I  would  have  preferred — but, 
no  matter,  I  consented. 

It  was  in  the  month  of  June.  My  fair 
companion  chose  a  moonlight  night  in 
order  to  excite  her  imagination  all  the 
better. 

We  had  dined  at  a  riverside  inn,  and 
then  we  set  out  in  the  boat  about  ten 
o'clock.  I  thought  it  a  rather  foolish 
kind  of  adventure:  but  as  my  com- 
panion pleased  me  I  did  not  bother  my- 
self too  m.uch  about  this.  I  sat  down 
on  thft  seat  facing  her,  seized  the  oars, 
and  off  we  started. 


I  could  not  deny  that  the  scene  was 
picturesque.  We  glided  past  a  wooded 
isle  full  of  nightingales,  and  the  current 
carried  us  rapidly  over  the  river  cov- 
ered with  silvery  ripples.  The  grass- 
hoppers uttered  their  shrill,  monot- 
onous cry;  the  frogs  croaked  in  the 
grass  by  the  river's  bank,  and  the  lap- 
ping of  the  water  as  it  flowed  on  made 
around  us  a  kind  of  confused,  almost 
imperceptible  murmur,  disquieting, 
which  gave  us  a  vague  sensation  of 
mysterious  fear. 

The  sweet  charm  of  warm  nights  and 
of  streams  glittering  in  the  moonlight 
penetrated  us.  It  seemed  bliss  to  live 
and  to  float  thus,  to  dream  and  to  feel 
by  one's  side  a  young  woman  sympa- 
thetic and  beautiful. 

I  was  somewhat  affected,  somewhat 
agitated,  somewhat  intoxicated  by  the 
pale  brightness  of  the  night  and  the 
consciousness  of  my  proximity  to  a 
lovely  woman. 

"Come  and  sit  beside  me,"  she  said. 
I  obeyed.    She  went  on: 
"Recite  some  verses  for  me.'* 
This  appeared  to  me  rather  too  much. 
I    declined;    she   persisted.      She    cer- 
tainly   wanted    to    have    the    utmost 
pleasure,  the  whole  orchestra  of  senti' 
ment,  from  the  moon  to  the  rhymes  of 
poets.    In  the  end,  I  had  to  yield,  and, 
as  if  in  mockery,  I  recited  for  her  a 
charming  little  poem  by  Louis  Bouilhet, 
of    which    the    following    are    a    few 
strophes : 

"I  hate  the  poet  who  with  tearful  eye 
Murmurs  some  name  while  gazing 
tow'rds  a  star, 
Who  sees  no  magic  in  the  earth  or  sky, 
Unless  Lizette  or  Ninon  be  not  far. 


LETTER  FOUND  ON  A  CORPSE 


^:,l 


The  bard  who  In  all  Nature  nothing  sees 

Divine,  unless  a  petticoat  he  ties 
Amorously  to  the  branches  of  the  trees, 
Or  nightcap  to  the  grass,  is  scarcely 
wise. 
He  has  not  heard  the  eternal's  thunder- 
tone, 
The  voice  of  Nature  in  her  various 
moods, 
He  cannot  tread  the  dim  ravines  alone, 
And    of    no    woman    dream    'mid 
whispering  woods." 

I  expected  some  reproaches.  Nothing 
of  the  sort.     She  murmured: 

"How  true  it  is!" 

I  remained  stupefied.  Had  she 
understood? 

Our  boat  was  gradually  drawing 
nearer  to  the  bank,  and  got  entangled 
under  a  willow  which  impeded  its  prog- 
ress. I  drew  my  arm  around  my  com- 
panion's waist,  and  very  gently  moved 
my  lips  toward  her  neck.  But  she  re- 
pulsed me  with  an  abrupt,  angry  move- 
ment: 

''Have  done,  pray!     You  are  rude!" 

I  tried  to  draw  her  toward  me.  She 
resisted,  caught  hold  of  the  tree  and 
nearly  upset  us  both  into  the  water.  I 
deemed  it  the  prudent  course  to  cease 
my  importunities. 

She  went  on: 

"I  would  rather  have  you  capsized. 
I  feel  so  happy.  I  want  to  dream — that 
is  so  nice."  Then,  in  a  slightly 
malicious  tone,  she  added: 

"Have  you,  then,  already  forgotton 
the  verses  you  recited  for  me  just 
now?" 

She  was  right.    I  became  silent. 

She  went  on: 

"Come!  row!" 

And  I  plied  at  the  oars  once  more. 
(  began  to  find  the  night  long  and  to 


see  the  absurdity  of  my  conduct.     Mj, 
companion  said  to  me: 

"Will  you  make  me  a  promise?*' 

"Yes.     What  is  it?" 

"To  remain  quiet,  well-behaved,  and 
discreet,  if  I  permit  you — "' 

"What?     Say  what  you  mean!" 

"Here  is  what  I  mean!  I  want  to 
lie  down  on  my  back  in  the  bottom  of 
of  the  boat  with  you  by  my  side.  I 
forbid  you  to  touch  me  to  embrace  me 
— in  short  to — caress  me." 

"If  you  move,  I'll  capsize  the  boat." 

And  then  we  lay  down  side  by  side, 
our  eyes  turned  toward  the  sky,  while 
the  boat  glided  slowly  through  the 
water.  We  were  rocked  by  the  gentle 
movement  of  the  shallop.  The  light 
sounds  of  the  night  came  to  us  more 
distinctly  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat, 
sometimes  causing  us  to  start.  And  I 
felt  springing  up  within  me  a  strange, 
poignant  emotion,  an  infinite  tender- 
ness something  like  an  irresistible  im- 
pulse to  open  my  arms  in  order  to  em- 
brace, to  open  my  heart  in  order  to 
love,  to  give  myself,  to  give  my 
thoughts,  my  body,  my  life,  my  entire 
being  to  some  one. 

My  companion  murmured  like  one  in 
a  dream: 

"Where  are  we?  Where  are  we  go- 
ing? It  seems  to  me  that  I  am  quit- 
ting the  earth.  How  sweet  it  is!  Ah! 
if  you  loved  me — a  little!" 

My  heart  began  to  throb.  I  had  no 
answer  to  give.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
I  loved  her.  I  had  not  longer  any  vio- 
lent d'^sire.  I  felt  happy  there  by  her 
side  and  that  was  enough  for  me. 

And  thus  we  remained  for  a  long, 
long  time  without  stirring.  We  caught 
each     other's  hands:     some     del'ghtful 


832 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


force  jcandered  us  motionless,  an  un- 
known force  stronger  than  ourselves, 
an  alliance,  chaste,  intimate,  absolute, 
of  our  persons  lying  there  touching 
each  other.  What  was  this?  How  do 
I  know?    Love  perhaps. 

Little  by  little,  the  dawn  appeared.  It 
was  three  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
Slowly,  a  great  brightness  spread  over 
the  sky.  The  boat  knocked  against 
something.  I  rose  up.  We  had  come 
close  to  a  tiny  islet. 

But  I  remained  ravished  in  a  state 
jf  ecstasy.  In  front  of  us  stretched  the 
shining  firmament,  red,  rosy,  violet, 
spotted  with  fiery  clouds  resembling 
golden  vapors.  The  river  was  glowing 
with  purple,  and  three  houses  on  one 
side  of  it  seemed  to  be  burning. 

I  bent  toward  my  companion.  I  was 
going  to  say:  "Oh!  look!"  But  I 
held  my  tongue,  quite  dazed,  and  I 
could  no  longer  see  anything  except 
her.  She,  too,  was  rosy,  with  the  rosy 
flesh  tints  with  which  must  hive 
mingled  a  little  the  hue  of  the  sky.  Her 
tresses  were  rosy;  her  eyes  were  rosy; 


her  teeth  were  rosy;  her  dress,  her 
laces,  her  smile,  all  were  rosy.  And 
in  truth  I  believed,  so  overpowering  was 
the  illusion,  that  the  aurora  was  there 
before  me. 

She  rose  softly  to  her  feet,  holding 
out  her  lips  to  me;  and  I  moved  tO' 
ward  her,  trembling,  delirious,  feeling 
indeed  that  I  wa^  going  to  kiss  Heaven, 
to  kiss  happinebb  co  kiss  a  dream  which 
had  become  a  woman,  to  kiss  an  ideal 
which  had  descended  into  human  flesh. 

She  said  to  me:  "You  have  a  cater- 
pillar in  your  hair."  And  suddenly  I 
felt  myself  becoming  as  sad  as  if  I  had 
lost  all  hope  in  life. 

That  is  all,  Madame.  It  is  puerile, 
stupid.  But  I  am  sure  that  since  that 
day  it  would  be  impossible  for  me  to 
love.    And  yet — ^who  can  tell? 

[The  young  man  upon  whom  this  letter 
was  found  was  yesterday  taken  out  of 
the  Seine  between  Bougival  and  Marly, 
An  obliging  bargeman,  vho  had  searched 
the  pockets  in  order  to  ascertain  the 
name  of  the  deceased,  brought  this 
paper  to  the  author.] 


The  Little  Cask 


jcJLES   Chicot,   the   innkeeper,   who 

lived  at  Epreville,  pulled  up  his  tilbury 
in  front  of  Mother  Magloire's  farm- 
house. He  was  a  tall  man  of  about 
forty,  fat  and  with  a  red  face  and  was 
generally  said  to  be  a  very  knowing 
customer. 

He  hitched  his  horse  up  to  the  gate- 
post and  went  in.  He  owned  some 
land  adjoining  that  of  the  old  woman. 


He  had  been  coveting  her  plot  for  a 
long  while,  and  had  tried  in  vain  to 
buy  it  a  score  of  times,  but  she  had  al- 
ways obstinately  refused  to  part  with 
it. 

"I  was  bom  here,  and  here  I  mean 
to  die,"  was  all  she  said. 

He  found  her  peeling  potatoes  out- 
side the  farmhouse  door.  She  was  a 
woman  of  about  seventy-two,  very  tbin. 


THL  LITTL  E  CASK 


833 


shriveled  and  wrinkled,  almost  dried- 
up,  in  fact,  and  much  bent,  but  as  ac- 
tive and  untiring  as  a  girl.  Chicot 
patted  her  on  the  back  in  a  very 
friendly  fashion,  and  then  sat  down  by 
her  on  a  stool. 

"Well,  Mother,  you  are  always  pretty 
well  and  hearty,  I  am  glad  to  see." 

"Nothing  to  complain  of,  consider- 
ing, thank  you.  And  how  are  you.  Mon- 
sieur Chicot?" 

"Oh!  pretty  well,  thank  you,  except 
a  few  rheumatic  pains  occasionally; 
otherwise,  I  should  have  nothing  to 
complain  of." 

"That's  all  the  better!" 

And  she  said  no  more,  while  Chicot 
watched  her  going  on  with  her  work. 
Her  crooked,  knotty  fingers,  hard  as  a 
lobster's  claws,  seized  the  tubers,  which 
were  lying  in  a  pail,  as  if  they  had  been 
a  pair  of  pincers,  and  peeled  them  rapidly, 
cutting  off  long  strips  of  skin  with  an 
old  knife  which  she  held  in  the  other 
hand,  throwing  the  potatoes  into  the 
water  as  they  were  done.  Three  daring 
fowls  jumped  one  after  another  into  her 
lap,  seized  a  bit  of  peel  and  then  ran 
away  as  fast  as  their  legs  would  carry 
them  with  it  in  their  beaks. 

Chicot  seemed  embarrassed,  anxious, 
with  something  on  the  tip  of  his  tongue 
which  he  could  not  get  out.  At  last  he 
said  hurriedly: 

"I  say.  Mother  Magloire — ^'* 

"Well,  what  is  it?" 

"You  are  quite  sure  that  you  do  not 
want  to  sell  your  farm?" 

"Certainly  not;  you  may  make  up 
your  mind  to  that.  What  I  have  said, 
I  have  said,  so  don't  refer  to  it  again.'* 

'*Very   well;    only   I    fancy   I   have 


thought  of  an  arrangement  that  might 
suit  us  both  very  well." 

"What  is  it?" 

"Here  you  are:  You  shall  sell  it  to 
me,  and  keep  it  all  the  same.  You 
don't  understand?  Very  well,  so  just 
follow  me  in  what  I  am  going  to  say." 

The  old  woman  left  off  peeling  her 
potatoes  and  looked  at  the  innkeeper 
attentively  from  under  her  bushy  eye- 
brows, and  went  on: 

"Let  me  explain  myself :  Every  month 
I  will  give  you  a  hundred  and  fifty 
francs.*  You  understand  me,  I  sup- 
pose? Every  month  I  will  come  and 
bring  you  thirty  crows,f  and  it  will 
not  make  the  slightest  difference  in 
your  life — not  the  very  slightest.  You 
will  have  your  own  home  just  as  you 
have  now,  will  not  trouble  yourself 
about  me,  and  will  owe  me  nothing; 
all  you  will  have  to  do  will  be  to  take 
my  money:  Will  that  arrangement 
suit  you?" 

He  looked  at  her  good-humoredly, 
one  might  have  said  benevolently,  and 
the  old  woman  returned  his  looks  dis- 
trustfully, as  if  she  suspected  a  trap, 
•and  said: 

"It  seems  all  right,  as  far  as  I  am 
concerned,  but  it  will  not  give  you  the 
farm." 

"Never  mind  about  that,"  he  said, 
"you  will  remain  here  as  long  as  it 
pleases  God  Almighty  to  let  you  live; 
it  will  be  your  home.  Only  you  will 
sign  a  deed  before  a  lawyer  making  it 
over  to  me  after  your  death.  You  have 
no  children,  only  nephews  ana  nieces 
for  whom  you  don't  care  a  straw.  Will 


♦As  near  as  possible  $30. 
fThe  old  name,  still  applied  locally  tO 
•i  five-franc  piece. 


834 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


that  suit  you?  You  will  keep  every- 
thing during  your  life,  and  I  'v^'ill  give 
the  thirty  crowns  a  month.  It  is  a 
pure  gain  as  far  as  you  are  concerned." 

The  old  woman  was  surprised,  rather 
uneasy,  but,  nevertheless,  very  much 
tempted  to  agree  and  answered: 

"I  don't  say  that  I  will  not  agree  to 
it,  but  I  must  think  about  it.  Come 
back  in  a  week  and  we  will  talk  it  over 
again,  and  I  will  then  give  you  my 
definite  answer." 

And  Chicot  went  off,  as  happy  as  a 
king  who  had  conquered  an  empire. 

Mother  Magloire  was  thoughtful, 
and  did  not  sleep  at  all  that  night;  in 
fact,  for  four  days  she  was  in  a  fever  of 
hesitation.  She  swelled,  so  to  say,  that 
there  was  something  underneath  the 
offer  which  was  not  to  her  advantage; 
but  then  the  thought  of  thirty  crowns 
a  month,  of  all  those  coins  chinking  in 
her  apron,  falling  to  her,  as  it  were, 
from  the  skies  without  her  doing  any- 
thing for  it  filled  her  with  covetous- 
ness. 

She  went  to  the  notary  and  told  him 
about  it.  He  advised  her  to  accept 
Chicot's  offer,  but  said  she  ought  to 
ask  for  a  monthly  payment  of  fifty 
crowns  instead  of  thirty,  as  her  farm 
was  worth  sixty  thousand  francs*  at 
the  lowest  calculation. 

"If  you  live  fifteen  years  longer,"  he 
said,  "even  then  he  will  only  have  paid 
forty-five  thousand  francsf  for  it." 

The  old  woman  trembled  with  joy  at 
this  prospect  of  getting  fifty  crowns 
a  month;  but  she  was  still  suspicious, 
fearing  some  trick  and  she  remained 
a  long  time  with  the  lawyer  askin;] 
questions  without  being  able  to  mak2 
up  her  mind  to  gc.     At  last  she  gave 


him  instructions  to  draw  up  the  deed, 
and  returned  home  with  her  head  in  a 
whirl,  just  as  if  she  had  just  drunk  four 
jugs  of  new  cider. 

When  Chicot  came  again  to  receive 
her  answer  she  took  a  lot  of  persuading, 
and  declared  that  she  could  not  make  up 
her  mind  to  agree  to  his  proposal, 
though  she  was  all  the  time  on  tenter- 
hooks lest  he  should  not  consent  to 
give  the  fifty  crowns.  At  last,  when  he 
grew  urgent,  she  told  him  what  she 
expected  for  her  farm. 

He  looked  surprised  and  disap- 
pointed, and  refused. 

Then,  in  order  to  convince  him,  she 
began  to  talk  about  the  probable  dura- 
tion of  her  life. 

"I  am  certainly  not  likely  to  live 
more  than  five  or  six  years  longer.  I 
am  nearly  seventy- three,  and  far  from 
strong,  even  considering  my  age.  The 
other  evening  I  though  I  was  going  to 
die,  and  could  hardly  manage  to  crawl 
into  bed." 

But  Chicot  was  not  going  to  be  taken 
in. 

"Come,  come,  old  lady,  you  are  as 
strong  as  the  church  tower,  and  will 
live  till  you  are  a  hundred  at  least; 
you  will  be  sure  to  see  me  put  under- 
ground first." 

The  whole  day  was  spent  in  discus- 
sing the  money,  and  as  the  old  woman 
would  not  give  way,  the  landlord  con- 
sented to  give  the  fifty  crowns,  and 
she  insisted  upon  having  ten  crowns 
over  and  above  to  strike  the  bargain. 

Three  years  passed  by,  and  the  old 
dame   did  not  seem   to  have  grown  a 


^$12000. 


WOOO- 


THE  LITTLE  CASK 


635 


day  older.  Qiicot  was  in  despair.  It 
seemed  to  him  as  if  he  had  been  pay- 
ing that  annuity  for  fifty  years,  that  he 
had  been  taken  in,  outwitted,  and 
ruined.  From  time  to  time  he  went 
to  see  his  annuitant,  just  as  one  goes 
in  July  to  see  when  the  harvest  is  likely 
to  begin.  She  always  met  him  with 
a  cunning  look,  and  one  would  have 
felt  inclined  to  thing  that  she  was  con- 
gratulating herself  on  the  trick  she  had 
played  on  him.  Seeing  how  well  and 
hearty  she  seemed,  he  very  soon  got 
into  his  tilbury  again,  growling  to  him- 
self: 

"Will  you  never  die,  you  old  brute?" 

He  did  not  know  what  to  do,  and 
felt  inclined  to  strangle  her  when  he 
saw  her.  He  hated  her  with  a  fero- 
cious, cunning  hatred,  the  hatred  of  a 
peasant  who  has  been  robbed,  and  be- 
gan to  cast  about  for  means  of  getting 
rid  of  her. 

One  day  he  came  to  see  her  again, 
rubbing  his  hands  like  he  did  the  first 
time  when  he  proposed  the  bargain, 
and,  after  having  chatted  for  a  few 
minutes,  he  said: 

"Why  do  you  never  come  and  have 
a  bit  of  dinner  at  my  place  when  you  are 

in  Epreville?  The  people  are  talk- 
ing about  it  and  saying  that  we  are 
not  on  friendly  terms,  and  that  pains 
me.  You  know  it  will  cost  you  nothing 
II  you  come,  for  I  don't  look  at  the 
price  of  a  dinner.  Come  whenever  you 
feel  inclined;  I  shall  be  very  glad  to 
see  you." 

Old  Mother  Magloire  did  not  need 
to  be  told  twice,  and  the  next  day  but 
one — she  was  going  to  the  town  in  any 
case,  it  being  market-day,  in  her  gig, 
driven  by  her  man — she,  without  any 


demur,  put  her  trap  up  in  Chicot's 
stable,  and  went  in  search  of  her  prom- 
ised dinner. 

The  publican  was  delighted,  and 
treated  her  like  a  princess,  giving  her 
roast  fowl,  black  pudding,  leg  of  mut- 
ton, and  bacon  and  cabbage.  But  she 
ate  next  to  nothing.  She  had  always 
been  a  small  eater  and  had  generally 
lived  on  a  little  soup  and  a  crust  of 
bread-and-butter. 

Chicot  was  disappointed,  and  pressed 
her  to  eat  more,  but  she  refused.  She 
would  drink  next  to  nothing  either,  and 
declined  any  coffee,  so  he  asked  her: 

"But  surely,  you  will  take  a  little 
drop  of  brandy  or  liquor?" 

"Well,  as  to  that,  I  don't  know  that 
I  will  refuse."  Whereupon  he  shouted 
out: 

"Rosalie,  bring  the  superfine  brandy, 
— the  special, — ^you  know." 

The  servant  appeared,  carrying  a 
long  bottle  ornamented  with  a  paper 
vine-leaf,  and  he  filled  two  liquor 
glasses. 

"Just  try  that;  you  will  find  it  first- 
rate." 

The  good  woman  drank  it  slowly  in 
sips,  so  as  to  make  the  pleasure  last 
all  the  longer,  and  when  she  had 
finished  her  glass,  draining  the  last 
drops  so  as  to  make  sure  of  all,  she 
said: 

"Yes,  that  is  first-rate!" 

Aijnost  before  she  had  said  it,  Chi- 
cot 'lad  poured  her  out  another  glass- 
ful. She  wished  to  refuse,  but  it  was 
too  late,  and  she  drank  it  very  slowly, 
as  she  had  done  the  first,  and  he  asked' 
her  to  have  a  third.  She  objected,  bul 
he  persisted. 

"It  is  as  mild  as  milk,  you  know.  1 


836 


WORKS  OF  GXry  DE  MAUPASSANT 


can  driiik  ten  or  a  dozen  without  any 
ill  effect;  it  goes  down  like  sugar,  and 
leaves  no  headache  behind;  one  would 
think  that  it  evaporated  on  the  tongue. 
It  is  the  most  wholesome  thing  you 
can  drink." 

She  took  it,  for  she  really  wished  to 
have  it,  but  she  left  half  the  glass. 

Then  Chicot,  in  an  excess  of  gen- 
erosity said: 

*'Look  here,  as  it  is  so  much  to  your 
taste,  I  will  give  you  a  small  keg  of  it, 
just  to  show  that  you  and  I  are  still 
excellent  friends."  Then  she  took  her 
leave,  feeling  slightly  overcome  by  the 
effects  of  what  she  had  drunk. 

The  next  day  the  innkeeper  drove 
into  her  yard,  and  took  a  little  iron- 
hooped  keg  out  of  his  gig.  He  insisted 
on  her  tasting  the  contents,  to  make 
sure  it  was  the  same  delicious  article, 
and,  when  they  had  each  of  them  drunk 
three  more  glasses,  he  said,  as  he  was  go- 
ing away: 

"Well,  you  know,  when  it  is  all  gone, 
there  is  more  left ;  don't  be  modest  for  I 
shall  not  mind.  The  sooner  it  is  fin- 
ished the  better  pleased  I  shall  be." 

Four  days  later  he  came  again.  The 
old  woman  was  outside  her  door  cutting 
up  the  bread  for  her  soup. 

He  went  up  to  her,  and  put  his  face 


close  to  hers,  so  that  he  might  smell 
her  breath;  and  when  he  smelled  th'i 
alcohol  he  felt  pleased. 

*T  suppose  you  will  give  me  a  glass 
of  the  special?"  he  said.  And  they  had 
three  glasses  each. 

Soon,  however,  it  began  to  be  whis- 
pered abroad  that  Mother  Magloire  was 
in  the  habit  of  getting  drunk  all  by  her- 
self. She  was  picked  up  in  her  kitchen, 
then  in  her  yard,  then  in  the  roads 
in  the  neighborhood,  and  was  often 
brought  home  like  a  log. 

Chicot  did  not  go  near  her  any  more, 
and  when  people  spoke  to  him  about 
her,  he  used  to  say,  putting  on  a  dis- 
tressed look: 

"It  is  a  real  pity  that  she  should 
have  taken  to  drink  at  her  age;  but 
when  people  get  old  there  is  no  remedy. 
It  will  be  the  death  of  her  in  the  long 
run." 

And  it  certainly  was  the  death  of 
her.  She  died  the  next  winter.  About 
Christmas  time  she  fell  down  uncon- 
scious in  the  snow,  and  was  found  dead 
the  next  morning. 

And  when  Chicot  came  in  for  the 
farm  he  said: 

"It  was  very  stunid  of  her;  if  she 
had  not  taken  to  drink  she  might  very 
well  have  lived  for  ten  years  longer." 


Poor  Andrew 


The  lawyer's  house  looked  on  to  the         At     the    bottom     of     that    garden 


Square.  Behind  it,  there  was  a  nice, 
well-kept  garden,  with  a  back  entrance 
into  a  narrow  street  which  was  almost 
always  deserted,  and  from  which  it  was 
separated  by  a  wall 


Maitre*   Moreau's   wife  had   promised, 
for    the   first   time,    to    meet    Captain 


*Maitre   (Master)  {-'  the  official  title 
of  French  lawverj;. 


I 


POOR  ANDREW 


S37 


Sommerive,  who  had  been  making  love 
to  her  for  a  long  time. 

Her  husband  had  gone  to  Paris  for 
a  week,  so  she  was  quite  free  for  the 
time  being.  The  Captain  had  begged 
so  hard,  and  he  loved  her  so  ardently, 
and  she  felt  so  isolated,  so  misunder- 
stood, so  neglected  amid  all  the  law 
business  which  seemed  to  be  her  hus^ 
band's  sole  pleasure,  that  she  had  given 
away  her  heart  without  even  asking 
herself  whether  he  would  give  her  any- 
thing else  at  some  future  time. 

Then,  after  some  months  of  Platonic 
love,  of  pressing  of  hands,  of  kisses 
rapidly  stolen  behind  a  door,  the  Cap- 
tain had  declared  that  he  would  ask 
permission  to  exchange,  and  leave  town 
immediately,  if  she  would  not  grant 
him  a  meeting,  a  real  meeting,  during 
her  husband's  absence.  So  at  length  she 
yielded  to  his  importunity. 

Just  then  she  was  waiting,  close 
against  the  wall,  with  a  beating  heart, 
when  at  length  she  heard  somebody 
climbing  up  the  wall,  she  nearly  ran 
away. 

Suppose  it  were  not  he,  but  a  thief? 
But  no;  some  one  called  out  softly, 
"Matilda!"  and  when  she  replied, 
"Etienne!'*  a  man  jumped  on  to  the 
path  with  a  crash. 

,      It  was  he, — and  what  a  kiss! 

I  For  a  long  time  they  remained  in 
each  other's  arms,  with  united  lips.  But 
suddenly  a  fine  rain  began  to  fall,  and 
the  drops  from  the  leaves  fell  on  to 
her  neck  and  made  her  start.  Where- 
upon he  said: 
"Matilda,  my  adored  one,  my  darling, 

I  my    angel    let    us    go    indoors.      It    is 
twelve   o'clock,   we   can  have   nothing 


to     fear;     please     let     us     go     in." 
"No,  dearest;  I  am  too  frightened." 
But  he  held  her  in  his   arms,  and 
whispered  in  her  ear: 

"Your  servants  sleep  on  the  third 
floor,  looking  on  to  the  Square,  and 
your  room,  on  the  first,  looks  on  to 
the  garden,  so  nobody  can  hear  us.  I 
love  you  so  that  I  wish  to  love  you 
entirely  from  head  to  foot."  And  he 
embraced  her  vehemently. 

She  resisted  still,  frightened  and  even 
ashamed.  But  he  put  his  arms  round 
her,  lifted  her  up,  and  carried  her  off 
through  the  rain,  which  was  by  this 
time  descending  in  torrents. 

Thd  door  was  open;  they  groped 
their  way  upstairs;  and  when  they  were 
in  the  room  he  bolted  the  door  while 
she  lit  a  candle. 

Then  she  feli,  half  fainting,  into  a 
chair,  while  he  kneeled  down  beside 
her. 

At  last,  she  said,  panting: 

"No!  no!  Etienne,  please  let  me  re- 
main a  virtuous  woman;  I  should  be 
too  angry  with  you  afterward;  and 
after  all,  it  is  so  horrid,  so  common. 
Cannot  we  love  each  other  with  a 
spiritual  love  only?     Oh!  Etienne!" 

But  he  was  inexorable,  and  then  she 
tried  to  get  up  and  escape  from  his  at- 
tacks. In  her  fright  she  ran  to  the 
bed  in  order  to  hide  herself  behind 
the  curtains;  but  it  was  a  dangerous 
place  of  refuge,  and  he  followed  her. 
But  in  haste  he  took  off  his  sword  too 
quickly,  and  it  fell  on  to  the  floor  with 
a  crash.  And  then  a  prolonged,  shrill 
child's  cry  came  from  the  next  room, 
the  door  of  which  had  remained  open. 

"You  have  awakened  the  child,"  she 


83S 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


whispered,   "and  perhaps   he  will  not 
go  to  sleep  again." 

He  was  only  fifteen  months  old  and 
slept  in  a  room  adjoining  out  of  hers, 
so  that  she  might  be  able  to  hear  him. 

The  Captain  exclaimed  ardently: 

"What  does  it  matter,  Matilda?  How 
I  love  you;  you  must  come  to  me, 
Matilda." 

But  she  struggled  and  resisted  in  her 
fright. 

"No!  no!  Just  listen  how  he  is  cry- 
ing; he  will  wake  up  the  iiurse,  and  what 
should  we  do  if  she  were  to  come?  We 
should  be  lost.  Just  listen  to  me,  Etienne. 
When  he  screams  at  night  his  father  al- 
ways takes  him  into  our  bed,  and  he 
is  quiet  immediately;  it  is  the  only 
means  of  keeping  him  still.  Do  let  me 
take  him." 

The  child  roared,  uttering  shrill 
screams,  which  pierced  the  thickest 
walls  and  could  be  heard  by  passers- 
by  in  the  streets. 

In  his  consternation  the  Captain  got 
up,  and  Matilda  jumped  out  and  took 
the  child  into  her  bed,  when  he  was 
quiet  at  once. 

Etienne  sat  astride  on  a  chair,  and 
made  a  cigarette,  and  in  about  five  min- 
utes Andrew  went  to  sleep  again. 

"I  will  take  him  back,"  his  mother 
said;  and  she  took  him  back  very  care- 
fully to  his  bed. 

When  she  returned,  the  Captain  was 
waiting  for  her  with  open  arms,  and  put 
his  arms  round  her  in  a  transport  of  love, 
while  she,  embracing  him  more  closely, 
said,  stammering: 

"Oh!  Etienne,  my  darling,  if  you  only 
knew  how  I  love  you;  how — " 

Andrew  began  to  cry  again,  and  he, 
in  a  rage,  exclaimed* 


"Confound  it  all,  won't  the  little  brute 
be  quiet?" 

No,  the  little  brute  would  not  be  quiet, 
but  howled  all  the  louder,  on  the  con- 
trary. 

She  thought  she  heard  a  noise  down- 
stairs; no  doubt  the  nurse  was  coming, 
so  she  jumped  up  and  took  the  child 
into  bed,  and  he  grew  quiet  directly. 

Three  times  she  put  him  back,  and 
three  times  she  had  to  fetch  him  again, 
and  an  hour  before  daybreak  the  Captain 
had  to  go,  swearing  like  a  proverbial 
tiooper;  and,  to  calm  his  impatience, 
Matilda  promised  to  receive  him  again 
the  next  night.  Of  course  he  came, 
more  impatient  and  ardent  than  ever,  ex- 
cited by  the  delay. 

He  took  care  to  put  his  sword  care- 
fully into  a  corner;  he  took  off  his  boots 
like  a  thief,  and  spoke  so  low  that 
Matilda  could  hardly  hear  him.  At  last, 
he  was  just  going  to  be  really  happy 
when  the  floor,  or  some  piece  of  furni- 
ture, or  perhaps  the  bed  itself,  creaked; 
it  sounded  as  if  something  had  broken; 
and  in  a  moment  a  cry,  feeble  at  first,  | 
but  which  grew  louder  every  moment, ' 
made  itself  heard.  Andrew  was  awake 
again. 

He  yapped  like  a  fox,  and  there  was  j 
not  the  slightest  doubt  that  if  he  went  ' 
on   like   that   the   whole   house   would - 
awake ;  so  his  mother,  not  knowing  what  i 
to  do,  got  up  and  brought  him.    The , 
Crptain  was   more   furious  than   ever, 
but  did  not  move,  and  very  carefully 
he  put  out  his  hand,  took  a  small  piece 
of  the  child's  skin  between  his  two  fin- 
gers, no  matter  where  it  was,  the  thighs 
or  elsewhere,  and  pinched  it.    The  little 
one  struggled  and  screimed  in  a  deafen- 
ing manner,  but  his  tormentor  oinched 


POOR  ANDREW 


839 


everywhere,  furiously  and  more  vigor- 
ously. He  took  a  morsel  of  flesh  and 
twisted  and  turned  it,  and  then  let 
go  in  order  to  take  hold  of  another 
piece,  and  then  another  and  another. 

The  child  screamed  like  a  chicken  hav- 
ing its  throat  cut,  or  a  dog  being  mer- 
cilessly beaten.  His  mother  caressed 
him,  kissed  him,  and  tried  to  stifle  his 
cries  by  her  tenderness;  but  Andrew 
grew  purple,  as  if  he  were  going  into 
convulsions,  and  kicked  and  struggled 
with  his  little  arms  and  legs  in  an 
alarming  manner. 

The  Captain  said,  softly: 

"Try  and  take  him  back  to  his  cradle; 
perhaps  he  will  be  quiet." 

And  Matilda  went  into  the  other  room 
with  the  child  in  her  arms.  As  soon  as 
he  was  out  of  his  mother's  bed  he  cried 
less  loudly,  and  when  he  was  in  his  own 
he  was  quiet,  with  the  exception  of  a 
few  broken  sobs.  The  rest  of  the  night 
was  tranquil. 

The  next  night  the  Captain  cam:; 
again.  As  he  happened  to  speak  rathf  r 
loudly,  Andrew  awoke  again  and  began 
to  scream.  His  mother  went  and  fetched 
him  immediately,  but  the  Captain 
pinched  so  hard  and  long  that  the  child 
was  nearly  suffocated  by  its  cries,  its 
eyes  turned  in  its  head  and  it  foamed  at 
the  mouth.  As  soon  as  it  was  back  in 
its  cradle  it  was  quiet,  and  in  four  days 
Andrew  did  not  cry  any  more  to  come 
into  his  mother's  bed. 

On  Saturday  evening  the  lawyer  re- 
turned, and  took  his  place  again  at  the 
domestic  hearth  and  in  the  conjugal 
chamber.  As  he  was  tired  with  his 
journey  he  went  to  bed  early;  but  he 
had  not  long  lain  down  when  he  said  to 
his  wife: 


"Why,  how  is  it  that  Andrew  is  not 
crying?  Just  go  and  fetch  him,  Ma- 
tilda; I  like  to  feel  that  he  is  between 
us." 

She  got  up  and  brought  the  child,  but 
as  soon  as  he  saw  that  he  was  in  that 
bed,  in  which  he  had  been  so  fond  of 
sleeping  a  few  days  previous,  he  wrig- 
gled and  screamed  so  violently  in  his 
fright  that  she  had  to  take  him  back  to 
his  cradle. 

M.  Moreau  could  not  get  over  his  sur- 
prise. "What  a  very  funny  thing! 
What  is  the  matter  with  him  this  eve- 
ning?   I  suppose  he  is  sleepy?" 

"He  has  been  like  that  all  the  time 
that  you  were  away;  I  have  never  been 
able  to  have  him  in  bed  with  me  once." 

In  the  morning  the  child  woke  up  and 
began  to  laugh  and  play  with  his  toys. 

The  lawyer,  who  was  an  affectionate 
man,  got  up,  kissed  his  offspring,  and 
took  him  into  his  arms  to  carry  him  to 
their  bed.  Andrew  laughed,  with  that 
vacant  laugh  of  little  creatures  whose 
ideas  are  still  vague.  He  suddenly  saw 
the  bed  and  his  mother  in  it,  and  his 
happy  little  face  puckered  up,  till  sud- 
denly he  began  to  scream  furiously,  and 
struggled  as  if  he  were  going  to  be  put 
to  the  torture. 

In  his  astonishment  his  father  said: 

"There  must  be  something  the  mat- 
ter with  the  child,"  and  mechanically  he 
lifted  up  his  little  nightshirt. 

He  uttered  a  prolonged  "0 — o — ^h!" 
of  astonishment.  The  child's  calves, 
thighs,  and  buttocks  were  covered  with 
blue  spots  as  big  as  half-pennies. 

"Just  look,  Matilda!"  the  father  ex- 
claimed; "this  is  horrible!"  And  tlie 
mother  rushed  forward  in  a  fright.     It 


84U 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


was  horrfble;  no  doubt  the  beginning  of 
some  sort  of  leprosy,  of  one  of  those 
strange  affections  of  the  skin  which  doc- 
tors are  often  at  a  loss  to  account  for. 
The  parents  looked  at  one  another  in 
consternation. 

"We  must  send  for  the  doctor,"  the 
father  said. 

But  Matilda,  pale  as  death,  was  look- 
ing at  her  child,  who  was  spotted  like 
a  leopard.  Then  suddenly  uttering  a 
vdolent  cry  as  if  she  had  seen  something 
that  filled  her  with  honor,  she  ex- 
claimed: 

"Oh!  the  wretch!" 

In    his     astonishment     M.     Moreau 


asked:     "What  are  you  talking  about? 
What  wretch?" 

She  got  red  up  to  the  roots  of  her 
hair,  and  stammered: 

"Oh,  nothing!  but  I  think  I  can  guess 
— it  must  be — we  ought  to  send  for  the 
doctor.  It  must  be  that  wretch  of  a 
nurse  who  has  been  pinching  the  poor 
child  to  make  him  keep  quiet  when  he 
cries." 

In  his  rage  the  lawyer  sent  for  the 
nurse,  and  very  nearly  beat  her.  She 
denied  it  most  impudently,  but  was  in- 
stantly dismissed,  and  the  Municipality 
having  been  informed  of  her  conduct, 
she  will  find  it  a  hard  matter  to  get 
another  situation, 


A  Fishing  Excursion 


Paris  was  blockaaed,  desolate,  fam- 
ished. The  sparrows  were  few,  and  any- 
thing that  was  to  be  had  was  good  to 

eat. 

On  a  bright  morning  in  January,  Mr. 
Morissot,  a  watchmaker  by  trade,  but 
idler  through  circumstances,  was  walk- 
ing along  the  boulevard,  sad,  hungry, 
with  his  hands  in  the  pockets  of  his  uni- 
form trousers,  when  he  came  face  to 
face  with  a  brother-in-arms  whom  he 
rerognized  as  an  old-time  friend. 

Before  the  war,  Morissot  could  be 
seen  at  daybreak  every  Sunday,  trudging 
along  with  a  cane  in  one  hand  and  a  tin 
box  on  his  back.  He  would  take  the 
train  to  Colombes  and  walk  from  there 
to  the  Isle  of  Marante  where  he  would 
fish  until  dark. 

It  was  there  he  had  met  Mr.  Sauvage 


who  kept  a  little  notion  store  in  the  Rue 
Notre  Dame  de  Lorette,  a  jovial  fellow 
and  passionately  fond  of  fishing  like 
himself.  A  warm  friendship  had  sprung 
up  between  these  two  and  they  would 
fish  side  by  side  all  day,  very  often  with- 
out saying  a  word.  Some  days,  when 
everything  looked  fresh  and  new  and  the 
beautiful  spring  sun  gladdened  every 
heart,  Mr.  Morissot  would  exclaim: 

"How  delightful!"  and  Mr.  Sauvage 
would  answer: 

"There  is  nothing  to  equal  it." 

Then  again  on  a  fall  evening,  when 
the  glorious  setting  sun,  spreading  its 
golden  mantle  on  the  already  tinted 
leaves,  would  throw  strange  shadows 
around  the  two  friends,  Sauvage  would 
say: 

"What  a  grand  picture!" 


A  FISHING  EXCURSION 


841 


"It  beats  the  boulevard!"  would  an- 
swer Morissut.  But  they  understood 
each  other  quite  as  well  without  speak- 
ing. 

The  two  friends  had  greeted  each 
other  warmly  and  had  resumed  their 
walk  side  by  side,  both  thinking  deeply 
of  the  past  and  present  events.  They 
entered  a  caje,  and  when  a  glass  of 
absinthe  had  been  placed  before  each 
Sauvage  sighed : 

"What  terrible  events,  my  friend!" 

"And  what  weather!"  said  Morissot 
sadly;  "this  is  the  first  nice  day  v/c  have 
had  this  year.  Do  you  remember  our 
fishing  excursions?" 

"Do  I!  Alas!  when  shall  we  go 
again!" 

After  a  second  absinthe  they  emerged 
from  the  caje,  feeling  rather  dizzy — that 
light-headed  effect  which  alcohol  has  on 
an  empty  stomach.  The  balmy  air  had 
made  Sauvage  exuberant  and  he  ex- 
claimed: 

"Suppose  we  go!" 

"Where?" 

"Fishing." 

"Fishing!    Where?" 

"To  our  old  spot,  to  Colombes.  The 
French  soldiers  are  stationed  near  there 
and  I  know  Colonel  Dumoulin.  will  give 
us  a  pass." 

"It's  a  go;  I  am  with  you." 

An  hour  after,  having  supplied  them- 
selves with  their  fishing  tackle,  they  ar- 
rived at  the  colonel's  villa.  He  had 
smiled  at  their  request  and  had  given 
them  a  pass  in  due  form. 

At  about  eleven  o'clock  they  reached 
the  advance-guard,  and  after  presenting 
their  pass,  walked  through  Colombes  and 
found  themselves  very  near  their  desti- 
nation.   Argenteuil,  across  the  way,  and 


the  great  plains  toward  Nanterre  were 
all  deserted.  Solitary  the  hill  of  Oge- 
mont  and  Sannois  rose  clearly  above 
the  plains;  a  splendid  point  of  observa- 
tion. 

"See,"  said  Sauvage  pointing  to  the 
hills,  "the  Prussians  are  there.'' 

Prussians!  They  had  never  seen  one, 
but  they  knew  that  they  were  all  around 
Paris,  invisible  and  powerful;  plunder- 
ing, devastating,  and  slaughtering,  lo 
their  superstitious  terror  they  added  a 
deep  hatred  for  this  unknown  and  vic- 
torious people. 

"What  if  we  should  meet  some?"  saM 
Morissot. 

"We  would  ask  them  to  join  us,"  said 
Sauvage  in  true  Parisian  style. 

Still  they  hesitated  to  advance.  The 
silence  frightened  them.  Finally  Sau- 
vage picked  up  courage. 

"Come,  let  us  go  on  cautiously." 

They  proceeded  slowly,  hiding  behind 
bushes,  looking  anxiously  on  every  side, 
listening  to  every  sound.  A  bare  strip 
of  land  had  to  be  crossed  before  reach- 
ing the  river.  They  started  to  run.  At 
last,  they  reached  the  bank  and  sank 
into  the  bushes;  breathless,  but  re- 
lieved. 

Morissot  thought  he  heard  some  one 
walking.  He  listened  attentively,  but 
no,  he  heard  no  sound.  They  were  in- 
deed alone!  The  little  island  shielded 
them  from  view.  The  house  where  the 
restaurant  used  to  be  seemed  deserted; 
feeling  reassured,  they  settled  them- 
selves for  a  good  day's  sport. 

Sauvage  caught  the  first  fish,  Moris- 
sot the  second;  and  every  minute  they 
would  bring  one  out  which  they  would 
place  in  a  net  at  their  feet.  It  was  in- 
deed  miraculous!     They   felt   thai;  su* 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


842 

prenie  joy  which  one  feels  after  having 
been  deprived  for  months  of  a  pleasant 
pastime.  They  had  forgotton  every- 
thing; even  the  warl 

Suddenly,  they  heard  a  rumbling 
sound  and  the  earth  shook  beneath 
ihem.  It  was  the  cannon  on  Mont 
Valerien.  Morissot  looked  up  and  saW 
a  trail  of  smoke,  which  was  instantly 
followed  by  another  explosion.  Then 
they  followed  in  quick  succession. 

"They  are  at  it  again,"  said  Sauvage 
shrugging  his  shoulders.  Morissot,  who 
was  naturally  peaceful,  felt  a  sudden, 
uncontrollable  anger. 

"Stupid  fools!  What  pleasure  can 
they  find  in  killing  each  other!" 

"They  are  worse  than  brutes!" 

"It  will  always  be  thus  as  long  as 
we  have  governments." 

"Well,  such  is  life!" 

"Vou  mean  death!'  said  Morissot 
laughing. 

They  continued  to  discuss  the  dif- 
ferent poHtical  problems,  while  the 
cannon  on  Mont  Valerien  sent  death  and 
desolation  among  the  French. 

Suddenly  they  started.  They  had 
heard  a  step  behind  them.  They  turned 
and  beheld  four  big  men  in  dark  uni- 
forms, with  guns  pointed  right  at  them. 
Their  fishng-lines  dropped  out  of  their 
hands  and  floated  away  with  the  cur- 
rent. 

In  a  few  minutes,  the  Prussian 
soldiers  had  bound  them,  cast  them  into 
a  boat,  and  rowed  across  the  river 
to  the  island  which  our  friends 
had  thought  deserted.  They  soon  found 
out  their  mistake  when  they  reached 
the  house,  behind  which  stood  a  score 
or  more  of  soldiers.  A  big  burly  of- 
ficer,  seated  astride   a   chair,  smoking 


an  immense  pipe,  addressed  their,  in  ex- 
cellent French: 

"Well,  gentlemen,  have  you  made  a 
good  haul?' 

Just  then,  a  soldier  deposited  at  his 
feet  the  net  full  of  fish  which  he  had 
taken  care  to  take  along  with  him.  The 
officer  smiled  and  said: 

"I  see  you  have  done  pretty  well;  but 
let  us  change  the  subject.  You  are 
evidently  sent  to  spy  upon  me.  You 
pretended  to  fish  so  as  to  put  me  off 
the  scent,  but  I  am  not  so  simple.  I 
have  caught*  you  and  shall  have  you 
shot.  I  am  sorry,  but  war  is  war.  As 
you  passed  the  advance-guard  you  cer- 
tainly must  have  the  password;  give 
it  to  me,  and  I  will  set  you  free." 

The  two  friends  stood  side  by  side, 
pale  and  slightly  trembling,  but  they 
answered  nothing. 

"No  one  will  ever  know.  You  will  go 
back  home  quietly  and  the  secret  wiL 
disappear  with  you.  If  you  refuse,  it 
is  instant  death!     Choose!" 

They  remained  motionless;  silent. 
The  Prussian  officer  calmly  pointed  to 
the  river. 

"In  five  minutes  you  will  be  at  the 
bottom  of  this  river!  Surely,  you  have 
a  family,  friends  waiting  for  you?" 

Still  they  kept  silent.  The  cannon 
rumbled  incessantly.  The  officer  gave 
orders  in  his  own  tongue,  then  moved 
his  chair  away  from  the  prisoners.  A 
squad  of  men  advanced  within  twenty 
feet  of  them,  ready  for  command. 

"I  give  you  one  minute;  not  a  sec- 
ond more!" 

Suddenly  approaching  the  two 
Frenchmen,  he  took  Morissot  aside  and 
whispered : 

"Quick;   the  password.     Your  friend 


AFTER 


843 


ivill  not  know;  Le  will  think  I  changed 
my  mind/'     Morissot  said  nothing. 

Then  taking  Sauvage  aside  he  asked 
him   the   same  thing,   but  he  also  was 
silent.     The  officer  gave  further  orders 
and  the  men  leveled  their  guns.   At  that 
moment,  Morissot's  eyes  rested  on  the 
net  full  of  fish  lying  in  the  grass  a  few 
feet  away.     The  sight  made  him  faint 
and,  though  he  struggled  against  it,  his 
eyes   filled   with   tears.     Then    turning 
to  his  friend: 
"Farewell!     Mr.  Sauvage!" 
*  Farewell!     Mr.  Morissot." 
They   stood   for   a  minute,   hand   in 
hand,    trembling    with    emotion    which 
they  were  unable  to  control. 
"Fire'"  commanded  the  officer. 
The    squad    of    men    fired    as    one. 
Sauvage  fell  straight  on  his  face.  Moris- 
sot, who  was  taller,  swayed,  pivoted  and 
fell   across   his   friend's  body  his   face 
to  the  sky;  while  blood  flowed  freely 
from  the  wound  in  the  breast.    The  of- 
ficer gave  further  orders  and  his  men 


disappeared.  They  came  back  pres- 
ently with  ropes  and  stones,  which  they 
tied  to  the  feet  of  the  two  friends,  and 
four  of  them  carried  them  to  the  edge 
of  the  river.  They  swung  them  and 
threw  them  in  as  far  as  they  could.  The 
bodies  weighted  by  stones  sank  im- 
mediately. A  splash,  a  few  ripples  and 
the  water  resumed  its  usual  calmness. 
The  only  thing  to  be  seen  was  a  little 
blood  floating  on  the  surface.  The  of- 
ficer calmly  retraced  his  steps  toward 
the  house  muttering: 

"The  fish  will  get  even  now." 

He  perceived  the  net  full  of  fish, 
picked  it  up,  smiled,  and  called: 

"Wilhelm!" 

A  soldier  in  a  white  uniform  ap- 
proached. The  officer  handed  him  the 
fish  saying: 

"Fry  ihese  little  things  while  they  are 
still  alive;  they  will  make  a  delicious 
meal." 

And  having  resumed  his  position  on 
the  chair,  he  puffed  away  at  his  pipe." 


After 


"My  darlings,"  said  the  Comtesse, 
'"you  must  go  to  bed." 

The  three  children,  two  girls  and  a 

boy,  rose  up  to  kiss  their  grandmother. 

Then  they  said  "Good  night"  to  M. 

le  Cure,  who  had  dined  at  the  chateau, 

as  he  did  every  Thursday. 

The   Abbe   Mauduit  sat   two   of  the 

young   ones  on  his   knees,  passing  his 

long    arms    clad    in    black   behind    the 

;  children's    necks;    and,    drawing    their 

J  head^  toward  him  with  a  paternal  move- 


ment, he  kissed  each  of  them  on  the 
forehead  with  a  long,  tender  kiss. 

Then,  he  again  set  then,  down  on  the 
floor,  and  the  little  beings  went  off, 
the  boy  in  front,  and  the  girls  behind. 

"You  are  fond  of  children,  M.  le 
Cure,"  said  the  Comtesse. 

"Very  fond,  Madame." 

The  old  woman  raised  her  bright 
eyes  toward  the  priest. 

"And — ^has  your  solitude  never 
weighed  too  heavily  on  you?" 


<J44 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"Yes,  sometimes.'* 

He  became  silent,  hesitated,  and  then 
added:  'But  I  was  never  made  for 
ordinary  life." 

"What  do  you  know  about  it?" 

"Oh!  I  knt)w  very  well.  I  was  made 
to  be  a  priast;  I  followed  my  own 
path." 

The  Comtesse  kept  staring  at  him: 

"Look  here,  Ivl.  le  Cure,  tell  me 
this — tell  me  how  it  was  that  you  re* 
solved  to  renounce  forever  what  makes 
us  love  life — ^the  rest  of  us — all  that 
consoles  and  sustains  us?  What  is  it 
that  drove  you,  impelled  you,  to  sepa- 
rate yourself  from  the  great  natural 
path  of  marriage  and  the  family.  You 
are  neither  an  enthusiast  nor  a 
fanatic,  neither  a  gloomy  person  nor 
a  sad  person.  W^as  it  some  strange  oc- 
currence, some  sorrow,  that  led  you  to 
take  lifelong  vows?" 

The  Abbe  Mauduit  rose  up  and  drew 
near  to  the  fire,  stretching  out  to  tha 
flames  the  b'g  shoes  that  country 
priests  generally  wear.  He  seemed 
still  hesitating  as  to  what  reply  he 
should  make. 

He  was  a  tall  old  man  with  white 
hair,  and  for  the  last  twenty  years  had 
been  the  pastor  of  the  parish  of  Sainte- 
Antoine-du-Rocher.  The  peasants  said 
of  him,  "There's  a  good  man  for  youl" 
And  indeed  he  was  a  good  man,  benevo- 
lent, friendly  to  all,  gentle,  and,  to 
crown  all,  generous.  Like  Saint  Martin, 
he  had  cut  his  cloak  in  two.  He  freely 
laughed,  and  wept  too,  for  very  little, 
just  like  a  woman, — a  thing  that 
prejudiced  him  more  or  less  in  the 
hard  minds  of  the  country  people. 

The  old  Comtesse  de  Savill^  living 
in  retirement  in  her  chateau  of  Rocher, 


in  order  to  bring  up  her  grandchildren, 
after  successive  deaths  of  her  son  and 
her  daughter-in-law,  was  very  much  at- 
tached to  the  cure,  and  used  to  say  of 
him.     "He  has  a  kind  heart!" 

The  abbe  came  every  Thursday  to 
spend  the  evening  at  the  chateau,  and 
they  were  close  friends,  with  the  open 
and  honest   friendship  of  old  people. 

She  persisted: 

"Look  here  M.  le  Cure!  'tis  your  turn 
now  to  make  a  confession!" 

He  repeated.  "I  was  not  made  for 
a  life  like  everybody  else.  I  s.-iw  it 
myself,  fortunately,  in  time,  and  have 
had  many  proofs  since  that  I  made  no 
mistake  on  that  point. 

"My  parents,  who  wc!-e  mercers  in 
Vedriers,  and  rather  rich,  had  much  am- 
bition on  my  account.  They  sent  me 
to  a  boarding-school  while  I  was  very 
young.  You  cannot  conceive  what  a 
boy  may  suffer  at  college,  by  tne  mere 
fact  of  separation,  of  isolation.  This 
monotonous  life  without  affection  is 
good  for  some  and  detestable  for 
others.  Young  p3op!e  often  have  hearts 
more  sensitive  than  one  supposes,  and 
by  shutting  them  up  thus  too  soon,  far 
from  those  they  love,  we  may  develop 
to  an  excessive  extent  a  sensibility 
which  is  of  an  overstrung  kind,  and 
which  becomes  sickly  and   dangerous. 

"I  scarcely  ever  played;  I  never  had 
companions;  I  passed  my  hours  in  look- 
ing  back  to  my  home  with  regret;  I 
spent  the  whole  night  weeping  in  my 
bed.  I  sought  to  bring  up  before  my 
mind  recollections  of  my  own  home, 
trifling  recollections  of  little  things, 
little  events.  I  tnought  incessantly  of 
all  I  had  left  behind  there.  I  became 
almost   imperceptibly   an   oversensitive: 


AFTER 


845 


youth,  to  whom  the  slightest  annoy- 
ances were  dreadful  griefs. 

"Together  with  this,  I  remained 
taciturn,  self-absorbed,  without  expan- 
sion, without  confidants.  This  work  of 
mental  exaltation  was  brought  about 
obscurely  but  surely.  The  nerves  of 
children  are  quickly  excited;  one 
ought  to  realize  the  fact  that  they  live 
in  a  state  of  deep  quiescence  up  to 
the  time  of  almost  complete  develop- 
ment. But  does  anyone  reflect  that, 
for  certain  students,  an  unjust  impo- 
sition can  be  as  great  a  pang  as  the 
death  of  a  friend  afterward?  Does  any- 
one realize  the  fact  that  certain  young 
souls  have,  with  very  httle  cause,  ter- 
rible emotions,  and  are  in  a  very  short 
time  diseased  and  incurable  souls? 

"This  was  my  case.  This  faculty  of 
regret  developed  itself  in  me  in  such 
a  fashion  that  my  existence  became  a 
martyrdom. 

"I  did  not  speak  about  it;  I  said 
nothing  about  it;  but  gradually  I  ac- 
quired a  sensibiHty,  or  rather  a  sensi- 
tivity, so  hvely  that  my  soul  resembled 
a  living  wound.  Everything  that 
touched  it  produced  in  it  twitchings  of 
pain,  frightful  vibrations,  and  veritable 
ravages.  Happy  are  the  men  whom 
nature  has  buttressed  with  indifference 
and  cased  in  stoicism. 

*'I  reached  my  sixteenth  year.  An 
I  excessive  timidy  had  come  to  me  from 
this  aptitude  to  suffer  on  account  of 
everything.  Feeling  myself  unpro- 
tected against  all  the  attacks  of  chance 
or  fate,  I  feared  every  contact,  every 
approach,  every  event.  I  lived  on  the 
watch  as  if  under  the  constant  threat 
of  an  unknown  and  ahvays  expected 
misfortune.  I  was  afraid  either  to  speak 


or  to  act  publicly.  I  had,  indeed,  the 
sensation  that  life  is  a  battle,  a  dreadful 
conflict  in  which  one  receives  terrible 
blows,  grievous,  mortal  wounds.  In 
place  of  cherishing,  like  all  men,  the 
hope  of  good  fortune  on  the  morrow, 
I  only  kept  a  confused  fear  of  it,  and  I 
felt  in  my  own  mind  a  desire  to  con- 
ceal myself — to  avoid  combat  in  which 
I  should  be  vanquished  and  slain. 

"As  soon  as  my  studies  were  finished, 
they  gave  m^e  six  months  time  to 
choose  a  career.  Suddenly  a  very 
s'mple  event  made  me  see  clearly  into 
myself,  showed  me  the  disea&^d  con- 
dition of  my  mind,  made  m.e  under- 
stand the  danger,  and  caused  me  to 
make  up  my  mind  to  fly  from  it. 

"Verdiers  is  a  little  town  surrounded 
with  plains  and  woods.  In  the  central 
street  stands  my  parents'  house.  I  now 
passed  my  day?  far  from  this  dwelling 
which  I  had  so  much  regretted,  so 
much  desired.  L'reams  were  awakened 
in  me,  and  I  walked  all  alone  in  the 
fields  in  order  to  let  them  escape  and 
fly  away.  My  father  and  my  mother 
quite  occupied  with  business,  and 
anxicus  about  my  future,  talked  to  me 
only  about  their  profits  or  about  my 
possible  plans.  They  were  fond  of  me 
in  the  wa,y  that  hard-headed,  practical 
people  are;  they  had  more  reasons  than 
heart  in  their  affection  for  me.  I  lived 
imprisoned  in  my  thoughts,  and  trem- 
bling with  eternal  uneasiness. 

"Now,  one  evening,  after  a  long 
walk,  as  I  was  making  my  way  home 
with  quick  strides  so  as  not  to  be  late, 
I  met  a  dog  trotting  toward  me.  He  was 
a  species  of  red  spaniel,  very  lean^ 
with  long  curly  ears. 

"When  he  was  ten  paces  away  from 


846 


WORKS  OF  GTJY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


me,  he  stopped.  I  did  the  same.  Then 
he  began  wagging  his  tail,  and  came 
over  to  me  with  short  steps  and  ner- 
vous movements  of  his  whole  body, 
going  down  on  his  paws  as  if  appeal' 
ing  to  me,  and  softly  shaking  his  head. 
He  then  made  a  show  of  crawling  with 
an  air  so  humble,  so  sad,  so  suppliant, 
that  I  felt  the  tears  coming  into  my 
eyes.  I  came  near  him;  he  ran  away; 
then  he  came  back  again;  and  I  bent 
down  trying  to  coax  him  to  approach 
me  with  soft  words.  At  last,  he  was 
within  reach  and  I  gently  caressed  him 
with  the  most  careful  hands. 

"He  grew  bold,  rose  up  bit  by  bit, 
laid  his  paws  on  my  shoulders,  and  be- 
gan to  lick  my  face.  He  followed  me 
into  the  house. 

"This  was  really  the  first  being  I  had 
passionately  loved,  because  he  re- 
turned my  affection.  My  attachment 
to  this  animal  was  certainly  exaggerated 
and  ridiculous.  It  seemed  to  me  in  a 
confused  sort  of  way  that  we  were 
brothers,  lost  on  this  earth,  and  there- 
fore isolated  and  without  defense,  one 
as  well  as  the  other.  He  never  quitted 
my  side.  He  slept  at  the  foot  of  my 
bed,  ate  at  my  table  in  spite  of  the  ob- 
jections of  my  parents,  and  followed  me 
in  my  solitary  walks. 

"I  often  stopped  at  the  side  of  a 
ditch,  and  I  sat  down  in  the  grass.  Sam 
would  lie  on  my  knees,  and  lift  up  my 
hand  with  the  end  of  his  nose  so  that 
I  might  caress  him. 

"One  day  toward  the  end  of  June,  as 
we  were  on  the  road  from  Saint-Pierre- 
de-Chavrol,  I  saw  the  diligence  from 
Pavereau  coming  along.  Its  four 
horses  were  going  at  a  gallop.  It  had  a 
yellow  box-seat,  and  imperial  crowned 


with  black  leather.  The  coachman 
cracked  his  whip;  a  cloud  of  dust  rose 
up  under  the  wheels  of  the  heavy  ve- 
hicle, then  floated  behind,  just  as  a 
cloud  would  do. 

"And,  all  of  a  sudden,  as  the  vehicle 
came  close  to  me,  Sam,  perhaps 
frightened  by  the  noise  and  wishing  to 
join  me,  jumped  in  front  of  it.  A  horse's 
foot  knocked  him  down.  I  saw  him 
roUing  over,  turning  round,  falling  back 
agam  on  all  fours,  and  then  the  entire 
coach  gave  two  big  jolts  and  behind  it  I 
saw  something  quivering  in  the  dust  on 
the  road.  He  was  nearly  cut  in  two; 
all  his  intestines  were  hanging  through 
his  stomach,  which  had  been  ripped 
open,  and  spurts  of  blood  fell  to  the 
ground.  He  tried  to  get  up,  to  walk, 
but  he  could  only  move  his  two  front 
paws,  and  scratch  the  ground  with 
them,  as  if  to  make  a  hole.  The  two 
others  were  already  dead.  And  he 
howled  dreadfully,  mad  with  pain. 

"He  died  in  a  few  minutes.  I  can- 
not describe  how  much  I  felt  and  suf- 
fered. I  was  confined  to  my  own  room 
for  a  month. 

"Now,  one  night  my  father,  en- 
raged at  seeing  me  in  such  a  state  for 
so  little,  exclaimed: 

"  'How  then  will  it  be  when  you 
have  real  griefs,  if  you  lose  your  wife 
or  children?' 

"And  I  began  to  see  clearly  into  my- 
self. I  understood  why  all  the  small 
miseries  of  each  day  assumed  in  my 
eyes  the  importance  of  a  catastrophe; 
I  saw  that  I  was  organized  in  such  a 
way  that  I  suffered  dreadfully  from 
everything,  that  even  painful  impres- 
sion was  multiplied  by  my  diseased 
sensibility,   and    an    atrocious    fear    of 


THE  SPASM 


847 


life  took  possession  of  me.  I  was  with- 
out passions,  without  ambitions;  I  re- 
solved to  sacrifice  possible  joys  in  order 
to  avoid  sorrows.  Existence  is  short, 
but  I  made  up  my  mind  to  spend  it  in 
the  service  of  others,  in  reheving  their 
troubles  and  enjoying  their  happiness. 
By  having  no  direct  experience  of  either 
one  or  the  other,  I  would  only  be  con- 
scious of  passionless  emotions. 

"And  if  you  only  knew  how,  in  spite 
of  this,  misery  tortures  me,  ravages 
me.  But  what  would  be  for  me  an 
intolerable  affliction  has  become  com- 
miseration, pity. 

"The  sorrows  which  I  have  every  day 
to  concern  myself  about  I  could  not 
endure  if  they  fell  on  my  own  heart.  I 
could  not  have  seen  one  of  my  chil- 
dren die  without  dying  myself.  And  I 
have,  in  spite  of  everything,  preserved 
such  a  deep  and  penetrating  fear  of 
circumstances  that  the  sight  of  the 
postman  entering  my  house  makes  a 
shiver  pass  every  day  through  my  veins, 
and  yet  I  have  nothing  to  be  afraid  of 
now." 

The  Abbe  Mauduit  ceased  speaking. 


He  stared  into  the  nie  in  the  huge 
grate,  as  if  he  saw  there  mysterious 
things,  all  the  unknown  portions  of 
existence  whkh  he  would  have  been 
able  to  live  if  he  had  been  more  fear- 
less in  the  face  of  suffering. 

He  added,  then,  in  a  subdued  tone: 

"I  was  right.  I  was  not  made  for 
this  world." 

The  Comtesse  said  nothing  at  first; 
but  at  length,  after  a  long  silence,  she 
remarked: 

"For  my  part,  if  I  had  not  my  grand- 
children, I  believe  I  would  not  have  the 
courage  to  live." 

And  the  Cure  rose  up  without  saying 
another  word. 

As  the  servants  v/ere  asleep  in  the 
kitchen,  she  conducted  him  herself  to 
the  door  which  looked  out  on  the 
garden,  and  she  saw  his  tall  shadow, 
revealed  by  the  reflection  of  the  lamp, 
disappearing  through  the  gloom  of 
night. 

Then  she  came  back,  sat  down  before 
the  fire,  and  pondered  ovp"  many 
things  on  which  we  never  thimc  whe»* 
we  are  young. 


The  Spasm 


The  hotel-guests  slowly  entered  the 
dining-room,  and  sat  downn  in  their 
places.  The  waiters  began  to  attend  on 
them  in  a  leisurely  fashion  so  as  to 
enable  those  who  were  late  to  arrive, 
and  to  avoid  bringing  back  the  dishes. 
The  old  bathers,  the  hahituis,  those 
whose  season  was  advancing,  gazed  with 
interest  toward  the  door,  whenever  it 


opened,  with  a  desire  to  see  new  faces 
appearing. 

This  is  the  principal  distraction  of 
health  resorts.  People  look  forward  to 
the  dinner  hour  in  order  to  inspect  each 
day's  new  arrivals,  to  find  out  who  they 
are,  what  they  do,  and  what  they  think. 
A  vague  longing  springs  up  m  the  mind, 
a  longing  for  agreeable  meetings,  for  plea- 


848 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


sant  acquaintances,  perhaps  for  love- 
adventures.  In  this  life  of  elbowings, 
strangers,  as  well  as  those  with  whom 
we  have  come  into  daily  contact,  as- 
sume an  extreme  importance.  Curiosity 
is  aroused,  sympathy  is  ready  to  ex- 
hibit itself,  and  sociability  is  the  order 
of  the  day. 

We  cherish  antipathies  for  a  week 
and  friendships  for  a  month;  we  see 
other  people  with  different  eyes,  when 
we  view  them  through  the  medium  of 
the  acquaintanceship  that  is  brought 
about  at  health-resorts.  We  discover 
in  meii  suddenly,  after  an  hour's  chat 
in  the  evening  after  dinner,  or  under 
the  trees  in  the  park  where  the  gen- 
erous spring  bubbles  up,  a  high  intel- 
ligence and  astonishing  merits,  and,  a 
month  afterward,  we  have  completely 
forgotten  these  new  friends,  so  fas- 
cinating when  we  first  met  them. 

There  also  are  formed  lasting  and 
serious  ties  more  quickly  than  any- 
where else.  People  see  each  other  every 
day;  they  become  acquainted  very 
quickly;  and  with  the  affection  thus 
originated  is  mingled  something  of  the 
sweetness  and  self-abandonment  of 
long-standing  intimacies.  We  cherish  in 
after  years  the  dear  and  tender 
memories  of  those  first  hours  of 
friendship,  the  memory  of  those  first 
conversations  through  which  we  have 
been  able  to  unveil  a  soul,  of  those 
first  glances  which  interrogate  and  re- 
spond to  the  questions  and  secret 
thoughts  which  the  mouth  has  not  as 
yet  uttered,  the  memory  of  that  first 
cordial  confidence,  the  memory  of  that 
delightful  sensation  of  opening  our 
hearts  to  those  who  are  willing  to  open 
theirs  to  us. 


And  the  melancholy  of  health-resorts, 
the  monotony  of  days  that  are  alike, 
help  from  hour  to  hour  in  this  rapid 
development  of  affection. 
****** 

Well,  this  evening,  as  on  every  other 
evening,  we  awaited  the  appearance  of 
strange  faces. 

Only  two  appeared,  but  they  were 
very  remarkable  looking,  a  man  and  a 
woman — father  and  daughter.  They  im- 
mediately produced  the  same  effect  on 
my  mind  as  some  of  Edgar  Poe's  char- 
acters; and  yet  there  was  about  them 
a  charm,  the  charm  associated  with 
misfortune.  I  looked  upon  them  as 
the  victims  of  fatality.  The  man  was 
very  tall  and  thin,  rather  stooped,  with 
hair  perfectly  white,  too  white  for  his 
comparatively  youthful  physiognomy; 
and  there  was  in  his  bearing  and  in 
his  person  that  austerity  peculiar  to 
Protestants.  The  daughter,  who  was 
probably  twenty-four  or  twenty-five, 
was  small  in  stature,  and  was  also  very 
thin,  very  pale,  and  had  the  air  of  one 
worn  out  with  utter  lassitude.  We  meet 
people  like  this  from  time  to  time, 
people  who  seem  too  weak  for  the 
tasks  and  the  needs  of  daily  life,  too  -. 
weak  to  move  about,  to  walk,  to  do  al)  l| 
that  we  do  every  day.  This  young  girl 
was  very  pretty,  with  the  diaphanous 
beauty  of  a  phantom;  and  she  ate  with 
extreme  slowness,  is  if  she  were  al- 
most incapable  of  moving  her  arms.  It 
must  have  been  she  assuredly  who  had 
come  to  take  the  waters. 

They  found  themselves  facing  me  at 
the  opposite  side  of  the  table;  and  I 
at  once  noticed  that  the  father  had  a 
very  singular  nervous  spasm.  Ever^i 
time  he  wanted  to  reach  an  object,  his 


TiiE  SPASM 


849 


hand  made  a  hook-like  movement,  a 
sort  of  irregular  zigzag,  before  it  suc- 
ceeded in  touching  what  it  was  in  search 
of;  and,  after  a  liitle  while,  this  ac- 
tion was  so  wearisome  to  me  that  I 
turned  aside  my  head  in  order  not  to 
see  it.  I  noticed,  too,  that  the  young 
girl,  during  meals,  wore  a  glove  on  her 
left  hand. 

After  dinner  I  went  for  a  stroll  in 
the  park  of  the  thermal  establishment. 
This  led  toward  the  little  Auvergnese 
station  of  Chatel  Guyon,  hidden  in  a 
gorge  at  the  foot  of  the  high  mountain, 
of  that  mountain  from  which  flow  so 
many  boiling  springs,  rising  from  the 
deep  bed  of  extinct  volcanoes.  Over 
there,  above  us,  the  domes,  which  had 
once  been  craters,  raised  their  m.utilated 
heads  on  the  summit  of  the  long  chain. 
For  Chatel  Guyon  is  situated  at  the 
spot  where  the  region  of  domes  begins. 
Beyond  it  stretches  out  the  region  of 
peaks,  and,  further  on  again,  the  region 
of  precipices. 

The  Puy  de  Dome  is  the  highest  of 
the  domes,  the  Peak  of  Sancy  is  the 
loftiest  of  the  peaks,  and  Cantal  is 
the  most  precipitous  of  these  mountain 
heights. 

This  evening  it  was  very  warm.  I 
walked  up  and  down  a  shady  path,  on 
the  side  of  the  mountain  overlooking 
the  park,  listening  to  the  opening 
strains  of  the  Casino  band.  I  saw  the 
father  and  the  daughter  advancing 
slowly  in  my  direction.  I  saluted  them, 
as  we  are  accustomed  to  salute  our 
hotel-companions  at  health-resorts;  and 
the  man,  coming  to  a  sudden  halt,  said 
to  me: 

"Could  you  not,  Monsieur,  point  out 
to  us  a  short  walk,  nice  and  easy,  if 


that  is  possible,  and  excuse  my  intru- 
sion on  you?" 

I  offered  to  show  them  the  way  to- 
ward the  valley  through  which  the  little 
river  flowed,  a  deep  valley  forming  a 
gorge  between  two  tall,  craggy,  wooded 
slopes.  They  gladly  accepted  my  offer, 
and  we  talked  naturally  about  the 
virtues  of  the  waters. 

"Oh!"  he  said,  "my  daughter  has  a 
strange  malady,  the  seat  of  Vv^hich  is  un- 
known. She  suffers  from  incompre- 
hensible  nervous  disorders.  At  one 
tim.e,  the  docters  think  she  has  an  at- 
tack of  heart  disease,  at  another  time, 
they  imagine  it  is  some  affection  of 
the  liver,  and  at  another  time  they  de- 
clare it  to  be  a  disease  of  the  spine. 
To-day,  her  condition  is  attributed  to 
thr  stomach,  which  is  the  great  caldron 
and  regulator  of  the  body,  the  Protean 
source  of  diseases  with  a  thousand 
forms  and  a  thousand  susceptibilities  to 
attack.  This  is  why  we  have  come  here. 
For  my  part,  I  am  rather  inclined  to 
think  it  is  the  nerves,  in  any  case  it  is 
very  sad." 

Immediately  the  remembrance  of  the 
violent  spasmodic  movement  of  his 
hand  came  back  to  my  mind,  and  I 
asked  him: 

"But  is  this  not  the  result  of 
heredity?  Are  not  your  own  nerve.* 
somewhat  affected?" 

"Mine?  Oh!  no — my  nerves  have  al- 
ways been  very  steady." 

Then  suddenly,  after  a  pause,  he  went 
on: 

"Ah!  You  are  alluding  to  the  spasm 
in  my  hand  every  time  I  want  to  reach 
for  anything?  This  arises  from  a  ter- 
rible   experience    which    I    h^^       Tu>^ 


850  WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 

imagine!  this  daughter  of  mine  was  ac-  sleep,  entered  the  room  noiselessly,  and 

tuaUy  buried  alive!"  asked: 

I   could   only   give  utterance   to   the  "  'Does  Monsieur  want  anything? 

word  "Ah!"  so  great  were  my  astonish-  "I  merely  shook  my  head,  by  way  of 

uent  and  emotion.  answering  ^No.' 

^            ^            ^  "He  urged:    'Monsieur  is  wrong.    He 

*            *   ,  will    bring    some    illness    on    himself. 

He  continued:                 ,     .       .      i  Would  Monsieur  like  me  to  put  him  to 

"Here    is    the    story.      It   is   simple.  ^^^^, 

Juliette  had  been  subject  for  some  time  ^.^  answered:     *No!   let   me  alone!' 

to  serious  attacks  of  the  heart     We  be-  ^^^  ^^  ^^^^  ^^^  ^^^^ 

Ueved  that  she  had  disease  of  that  organ  ^.^  ^^^  ^^^  ^^^  ^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^jpp^^ 

and  we  were  prepared  for  the  worst.  ^^^  ^^^^  ^  ^^.^^^^  ^^^^^  ^  ^^^^^^ 

"One  day,  she  was  carried  into  the  ^^  ^^^  ^^^^     ^^  ^^^  ^^^  ^,^^  ^^^  -^ 

house    cold,    lifeless,    dead.     She   had  ^^^                     ,    ^^^^    ^^^    ^-^^^^    the 

fallen  down  unconcsious  m  the  garden.  ^.^^^^  ^.^^^  ^^  .^^  ^.^^^  ^  hurricane 

The  docter  certified  that  life  was  ex-  ^^^         ^jed  by  frost  and  snow,  kept 

tinct.    I  watched  by  her  side  for  a  uay  ^^.^    ^    .^^^  ^^^  ^j^^^^,  ^ith  a  sin- 

and  two  nights      I  laid  her  with  my  .^^^^  ^^^  ^^^^^^  ^^^^^ 

own  hands  in  the  coffin,  which  1  ac-  ^^^^^    ^^^^    ^^^^^    ^^pp^^j    ^^^yp 

companied  to  the  cemetery  where  she  ^^^^^  ^  ^^^  ^.^^^^^  sleeping,  power- 

was  deposited  in  the  family  vault    it  ^^^^    crushed,  my  eyes  wide  open,  my 

is  situated  in  tne  very  heart  of  Lor-  j^^;  g^retched  out,  my  body  limp,  inani- 

"^aine.                             ,.      .  .       ^     vi,  mate,   and   my   mind   torpid   with   de- 

"I  wished  to  have  her  interred  with  Suddenly,  the  great  bell  of  the 

her   jewels,  bracelets,   necklaces,   rings,  ^^^^^^^^    ^^^^  ^^e  bell  of  the  vestibule, 

all  presents  which   she  had  got   from  ^        ^^^^ 

me  and  with  her  first  ball-dress  on.  ^  ^ot 'such  a  shock  that  my   chair 

"You  may   easily  imagine  the  state  ^^^^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^     ^^^  ^^^^^^  ^^^, 

of  mind  in  which  I  was  when  I  re-  ^^^^^^     ^^^^^    vibrated    through    the 

turned  home.     She  was  the  oniy  com-  ^^.^^^^  ^^  .^  ^^^^^^^  ^  ^^ult. 

panion  1  had.  for  my  wife  has  been  dead  ^  ^^^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^  ^^^  ^^^^  ^^^  ^^^^  ^^s 

for  many  years.    I  found  my  way  to  my  ^^^^^     ^^  ^^^  .^^^^  ^^o  ^^  the 

own  apartment  in  a  half-distracted  con-  ^^^'        ^^o  could  be  coming  at  such 

dition,   utterly   exhausted,   and   I   sank  ^^  j^^^j.^ 

into      my      f^yj^^^^^'  ,  7^^\^;^^^^^  "And   abruptly    the   bell   again   rang 

capacity  to   think   or  the   strength   to  ^               servants,   without    doubt, 

move.     I  was  nothing  betternow  than  '^^^'' ^^^^^^  ,^^^^        I  took  a  wax- 

a  suffering,  vibrating  machme,  a  human  were  ^^'^^^^/^  f^^  7.     \' .        . 

being  who  had,  as  it  were,  been  flayed  candle  and  ^^^/^\^.^^^  .^^^^'.^"^  1  .^J'! 

alive;  my  soul  was  like  a  living  wound,  on  the  point  of  asking:     Who  is  there? 

"My  old  valet  Prosper,  who  had  as-  "Then,  I  felt  ashamed  of  my  weak- 

6lsted  me  in  placing  Juliette  m  her  cof-  ness,   and   I    slowly   opened   the    huge 

5n     and    preparing   her    for   her    last  door.    My  heart  was  throbbmg  wildly; 


THE  SPASM 


SSI 


I  was  frightened;  I  hurriedly  drew 
back  the  door,  and  in  the  darkness,  I 
distinguished  a  white  iigure  standing 
erect,  something  that  resembled  an  ap- 
parition. 

*'I  recoiled,  petrified  with  horror, 
faltering: 

"'Who — ^who — ^who  are  you?* 

"A  voice  replied: 

"It  is  I,  father.' 

"It  was  my  daughter.  I  really 
thought  I  must  be  mad,  and  I  retreated 
backward  before  this  advancing  specter. 
I  kept  moving  away,  making  a  sign 
with  my  hand,  as  if  to  drive  the 
phantom  away,  that  gesture  which  you 
have  noticed, — that  gesture  of  which 
since  then  I  have  never  got  rid. 

"The  apparition  spoke  again: 

"  *Do  not  be  afraid,  papa;  I  was 
not  dead.  Somebody  tried  to  steal  my 
rings,  and  cut  one  of  my  fingers,  the 
blood  began  to  flow,  and  this  reani- 
mated me.* 

And,  in  fact,  I  could  see  that  her 
hand  was  covered  with  blood. 

"I  fell  on  my  knees,  choiring  with 
sobs  and  with  a  rattling  in  my  throat. 

"Then,  when  I  had  somewhat  col- 
lected my  thoughts,  though  I  was  still 
so  much  dismayed  that  I  scarcely  rea- 
lized tha  gruesome  good-fortune  that 
had  fallen  to  my  lot,  I  made  her  go 
up  to  my  room,  and  sit  down  in  my 
easy-chair;  then  I  rang  excitedly  for 
Prosoer  to  get  him  to  light  up  the  fire 
again  and  to  get  her  some  wine  and 


summon  the  rest  of  the  servants  to  her 
assistance. 

"The  man  entered,  stared  at  my 
daughter,  opened  his  mouth  with  a  gasp 
of  alarm  and  stupefaction,  and  then 
fell  back  insensible. 

"It  was  he  who  had  opened  the  vault, 
and  who  had  mutilated  and  then 
abandoned  my  daughter,  for  he  could 
not  efface  the  traces  of  the  theft.  He 
had  not  even  taken  the  trouble  to  put 
back  the  coffin  into  its  place,  feeling 
sure,  besides,  that  he  would  not  be 
suspected  by  me,  as  I  completely 
trusted  him. 

"You  see,  Monsieur,  tiiat  we  are  very 
unhappy  people.'* 
*  *  *  1|^  if  %: 

He  stopped. 

The  night  had  fallen,  casting  its 
shadows  over  the  desolate,  mournful 
vale,  and  a  sort  of  mysterious  fear  pos- 
sessed me  at  finding  myself  by  the  side 
of  those  strange  beings,  of  this  young 
girl  who  had  come  back  from  the  tomb 
and  this  father  with  b's  uncanny  spasm. 

I  found  it  impossible  to  make  any 
comment  on  this  dreadful  story.  I 
only  murmured: 

"What  a  horrible  thing!'* 

Then,  after  a  minute's  silence,  I 
added: 

"Suppose  we  go  back,  I  think  it  ii 
getting  cold." 

And  we  made  our  way  back  to  the 
hotel 


A  Meeting 


It  was  all  an  accident,  a  pure  acci- 
dent. Tired  of  standing,  Baron  d'Et- 
raille  went — as  all  the  Princess's  rooms 
were  open  on  that  particular  evening— 
into  an  empty  bedroom,  which  ap- 
peared almost  dark  after  commg  out 
of  the  brilliantly-lighted  drawing- 
rooms. 

He  looked  round  for  a  chair  in  which 
to  have  a  doze,  as  he  was  sure  his 
wife  would  not  go  away  before  daylight. 
As  soon  as  he  got  inside  the  door  he 
saw  the  big  bed  with  its  azure-and- 
gold  hangings,  in  the  middle  of  the 
great  room,  looking  like  a  catafalque  in 
which  love  was  buried,  for  the  Prin- 
cess was  no  longer  young.  Behind  it,  a 
large  bright  spot  looked  like  a  lake  seen 
at  a  distance  from  a  window.  It  was  a 
big  looking-glass,  which,  discreetly 
covered  with  dark  drapery  very  rarely 
let  down,  seemed  to  look  at  the  bed, 
which  was  its  accomplice.  One  might 
almost  fancy  that  it  felt  regrets,  and 
that  one  was  going  to  see  in  it  charming 
shapes  of  nude  women  and  the  gentle 
movement  of  arms  about  to  embrace 
them. 

The  Baron  stood  still  for  a  moment, 
smiling  and  rather  moved,  on  the 
threshold  of  this  chamber  dedicated  to 
love.  But  suddenly  something  ap- 
peared in  the  looking-glass,  as  if  the 
phantoms  which  he  had  evoked  had 
come  up  before  him.  A  man  and  a 
woman  who  had  been  sitting  on  a  low 
couch  hidden  in  the  shade  had  risen, 
and  the  polished  surface,  reflecting 
their  figures,  showed  that  they  were 
lissing  each   other  before   separating. 


the  Marquis  de  Cervigne.  He  turned 
and  went  away  like  a  man  fully  master 
of  himself,  and  waited  till  it  was  day 
before  taking  away  the  Baroness.  But 
he  had  no  longer  any  thoughts  of  sleep- 
ing. 
As  soon  as  they  were  alone,  he  said: 
"Madame,  I  saw  you  just  now  in  the 
Princess  de  Raynes's  room.  I  need  say 
no  more,  for  I  am  not  fond  either  of 
reproaches,  acts  of  violence,  or  of  ridi- 
cule. As  I  wish  to  avoid  all  such 
things,  we  shall  separate  without  any 
scandal.  Our  lawyers  will  settle  your 
position  according  to  my  orders.  You 
will  be  free  to  live  as  you  please  when 
you  are  no  longer  under  my  roof;  but, 
as  you  will  continue  to  bear  my  name.. 
I  must  warn  you  that  should  any 
scandal  arise,  I  shall  show  myself  in- 
flexible. 

She  tried  to  speak,  but  he  stopped 
her,  bowed,  and  left  the  room. 

He  was  more  astonished  and  sad  than 
unhappy.  He  had  loved  her  dearly 
during  the  first  period  of  their  married 
life;  but  his  ardor  had  cooled,  and  now 
he  often  had  a  caprice,  either  in  a 
theater  or  in  society,  though  he  always 
preserved  a  certain  liking  for  the 
Baroness. 

She  was  very  young,  hardly  four-and- 
twenty,  small,  slight, — too  slight, — and 
very  fair.  She  was  a  true  Parisian  doll: 
clever,  spoiled,  elegant,  coquettish, 
witty,  with  more  charm  than  rea) 
beauty.  He  used  to  say  familiarly  \\ 
his  brother,  when  speaking  of  her: 

"My  wife  is  charming,  attractive, 
but — there  is  nothing   to  lay  hold   of. 


The  Baron  recognized  his  wite  and     Sne  is  like  a  glass  of  champagne  that 

852 


A  MEETING 


853 


is  all  froth — ^when  you  have  got  to  the 
wine  it  is  very  good,  but  there  it  too 
little  of  it,  unfortunately." 

He  walked  up  and  down  the  room  in 
great  agitation,  thinking  of  a  thousand 
things.  At  one  moment  he  felt  in  a 
great  rage  and  felt  inclined  to  give  the 
Marquis  a  good  thrashing,  to  horse- 
whip him  publicly  in  the  club.  But  he 
thought  that  would  not  do,  it  would 
not  be  the  thing;  he  would  be  laughed 
at,  and  not  the  other,  and  he  felt  that 
his  anger  proceeded  more  from 
wounded  vanity  than  from  a  broken 
heart.  So  he  went  to  bed,  but  could 
not  get  to  sleep. 

A  few  days  afterward  it  was  known 
in  Paris  that  the  Baron  and  Baroness 
d'Etraille  had  agreed  to  an  amicable 
separation  on  account  of  incompati- 
bility of  temper.  Nobody  suspected 
anything,  nobody  laughed,  and  nobody 
was  astonished. 

The  Baron,  however,  to  avoid  meet- 
ing her,  traveled  for  a  year;  then  he 
spent  the  summer  at  the  seaside  and  the 
autumn  in  shooting,  returning  to  Paris 
for  the  winter.  He  did  not  meet  his 
wife  once. 

He  did  not  even  know  what  people 
said  about  her.  At  any  rate,  she  took 
care  to  save  appearances,  and  that  was 
all  he  asked  for. 

He  got  dreadfully  bored,  traveled 
again,  restored  his  old  castle  of  Villc- 
bosc — ^which  took  him  two  years;  then 
for  over  a  year  he  received  relays  of 
friends  there,  till  at  last,  tired  of  all 
these  commonplace,  so-called  pleasures, 
he  returned  to  his  mansion  in  the  Rue 
de  Lills,  just  six  years  after  their  sepa- 
ration. 

He  was  then  forty-five,  with  a  good 


crop  of  gray  hair,  raiher  stout,  and 
with  that  melancholy  look  of  people 
who  have  been  handsome,  sought  after, 
much  liked,  and  are  deteriorating  daily. 

A  month  after  his  return  to  Paris 
he  took  cold  on  coming  out  of  his  club, 
and  had  a  bad  cough,  so  his  medical 
man  ordered  him  to  Nice  for  the  rest 
of  the  winter. 

He  started  by  the  express  on  Monday 
evening.  He  was  late,  got  to  the 
station  only  a  very  short  time  before 
the  departure  of  the  train,  and  had 
barely  time  to  get  into  a  carriage,  with 
only  one  other  occupant,  who  was  sit- 
ting in  a  corner  so  wrapped  in  furs 
and  cloaks  that  he  could  not  even  make 
out  whether  it  were  a  man  or  a  woman, 
as  nothing  of  the  figure  could  be  seen. 
When  he  perceived  that  he  could  not 
find  out,  he  put  on  his  traveling-cap, 
rolled  himself  up  in  his  rugs,  and 
stretched  himself  out  comfortably  to 
sleep. 

He  did  not  wake  up  till  the  day  was 
breaking,  and  looked  immediately  at  his 
fellow-traveler.  He  had  not  stirred  all 
night,  and  seemed  still  to  be  sound 
asleep. 

M.  d'Etraille  made  use  of  the  op- 
portunity to  brush  his  hair  and  his 
beard,  and  to  try  and  freshen  himself 
up  a  little  generally,  for  a  night's 
traveling  changes  one's  looks  very  much 
when  one  has  attained  a  certain  age. 

A  great  poet  has  said: 

"When  we  are  young,  our  mornings 
are  triumphant!" 

Then  we  wake  up  with  a  cool  skin,  a 
bright  eye,  and  glossy  hair.  When  one 
grows  old  one  wakes  up  in  a  different 


S54 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MACPASSANi 


state.  Dull  eyes,  red,  swollen  cheeks, 
dry  lips,  the  hair  and  beard  all  disar- 
ranged, impart  an  old,  fatigued,  worn- 
out  look  to  ihe  face. 

The  Eaion  opened  his  traveling 
dressing-case,  made  himself  as  tidy  as 
he  could,  and  then  waited. 

The  engine  whistled  and  the  train 
stopped,  and  his  neighbor  moved.  No 
doubt  he  was  awake.  They  started  o^ 
again,  and  then  an  oblique  ray  of  the 
sun  shone  into  the  carriage  just  on  to 
the  sleeper,  who  moved  again,  shook 
himself,  and  then  calmly  showed  his 
face. 

It  was  a  young,  fair,  pretty,  stout 
woman,  and  the  Baron  looked  at  her 
in  amazement.  He  did  not  know  what 
to  believe.  He  could  have  sworn  that 
it  was  his  wife — but  wonderfully 
changed  for  the  better:  stouter — why, 
she  had  grown  as  stout  as  he  was — 
only  it  suited  her  much  better  than  it 
did  him. 

She  looked  at  him  quietly,  did  not 
seem  to  recognize  him,  and  then  slowly 
laid  aside  her  wraps.  She  had  that 
dalm  assurane  of  a  woman  who  is 
sure  of  herself,  the  insolent  audacity  of 
a  first  awaking,  knowing  and  feeling 
that  she  was  in  her  full  beauty  and 
freshness. 

The  Baron  really  lost  his  head.  Was 
it  his  wife,  or  somebody  else  who  was 
as  like  her  as  any  sister  could  be?  As 
he  had  not  seen  her  for  six  years  he 
might  be  mistaken. 

She  yawned,  and  he  knew  her  by  the 
gesture.  She  turned  and  looked  at  him 
again,  calmly,  indifferently,  as  if  sh'j 
scarcely  saw  him,  and  then  looked  out 
at  the  country  again. 

He   was   upset   and   dreadfully  per- 


plexed and  waited,  looking  at  her  side* 
ways,  steadfastly. 

Yes;  it  was  certainly  his  wife.  How 
could  he  possibly  have  doubted?  There 
could  certainly  not  be  two  noses  like 
that,  and  a  thousand  recollections 
flashea  through  him,  slight  details  of 
her  body,  a  beauty-spot  on  one  of  her 
Kmbs  and  another  on  her  back.  How 
often  he  had  kissed  them!  He  felt 
the  old  feeling  of  the  intoxication  of 
love  stealing  over  him,  and  he  called 
to  mind  the  sweet  odor  of  her  skin, 
her  smile  when  she  put  her  arms  on 
to  his  shoulders,  the  soft  intonations  of 
her  voice,  all  her  graceful,  coaxing 
ways. 

But  how  she  had  changed  and  im- 
proves! It  was  she  and  yet  not  she.  He 
thought  her  riper,  more  developed, 
more  of  a  woman,  more  seductive,  more 
desirable,  adoiably  desirable. 

And  this  strange,  unknown  woman, 
whom  he  had  accidently  met  in  a  rail- 
way-carriage belonged  to  him;  he  had 
only  to  say  to  her: 

"I  insist  upon  it.'* 

He  had  formerly  slept  m  her  arms, 
existed  only  in  her  love,  and  now  he 
had  found  her  again  certainly,  but  so 
changed  that  he  scarcely  knew  her.  It 
was  another,  and  yet  she  ai:  the  same 
time.  It  was  another  who  had  been 
bom,  formed,  and  grown  since  he  had 
left  her.  It  was  she,  indeed;  she 
whom  he  had  possessed  but  who  was 
now  altered,  with  a  more  assured  smile 
and  greater  self-possession.  There 
were  two  women  in  one,  mingling  a 
great  deal  of  what  was  new  and  un- 
known with  many  sweet  recollections  of 
the  past.  There  was  something  singular, 
disturbing,  exciting  about  it — a  kind  of 


X  MEETING 


855 


mystery  of  love  in  which  there  floated 
a  delicious  confusion.  It  was  his  wife 
in  a  new  body  and  in  new  flesh  which 
his  lips  had  never  pressed. 

And  he  remembered  that  in  six  or 
seven  years  everything  changes  in  us, 
only  outlines  can  be  recognized,  and 
sometimes  even  they  disappear. 

The  blood,  the  hair,  the  skin,  all 
change  and  are  reconstituted  and  when 
people  have  not  seen  each  other  for  a 
long  time  they  find  when  they  meet, 
another  totally  different  being,  al- 
though it  be  the  same  and  bear  the 
same  name. 

And  the  heart  also  can  change.  Ideas 
may  be  modified  and  renewed,  so  that 
in  forty  years  of  life  we  may,  by 
gradual  and  constant  transformations, 
become  four  or  five  totally  new  and 
different  beings. 

He  dwelt  on  this  thought  till  it 
troubled  him;  it  had  first  taken  pos- 
session of  him  when  he  surprised  her 
in  the  Princess's  room.  He  was  not 
the  least  angry;  it  was  not  the  same 
woman  that  he  was  looking  at — that 
thin,  excitable  doll  of  those  days. 

What  was  he  to  do?  How  should  he 
address  her?  and  what  could  he  say  to 
her?    Had  she  recognized  him? 

The  train  stopped  again.  He  got  up, 
bowed,  and  said:  "Bertha,  do  you 
want  anything  I  can  bring  you?" 

She  looked  at  him  from  head  to  foot, 
and  answered,  without  showing  the 
slightest  surprise  or  confusion  or  anger, 
but  with  the  most  perfect  indifference: 

"I  do  not  want  anything — thank  you." 

He  got  out  and  walked  up  and  down 
the  platform  in  order  to  think,  and,  as 
it  were,  to  recover  his  senses  after  a 
fall.     What   'hould  he  do  now?     If  he 


got  into  another  carriage  it  would  look 
as  if  he  were  running  away.  Should  he 
be  polite  or  importunate?  That  would 
look  as  if  he  were  asking  for  forgive- 
ness. Should  he  speak  as  if  he  were 
her  master?  He  would  look  like  a  fool, 
and  besides,  he  really  had  no  right  to 
do  so. 

He  got  in  again  and  took  his  place. 

During  his  absence  she  had  hastily 
arranged  her  dress  and  hair,  and  was 
now  lying  stretched  out  on  the  seat, 
radiant,  but  without  showing  any  emo- 
tion. 

He  turned  to  her,  and  said :  "My  dear 
Bertha,  since  this  singular  chance  has 
brought  us  together  after  a  separation 
of  six  years — a  quite  friendly  separa- 
tion— are  we  to  continue  to  look  upon 
each  other  as  irreconcilable  enemies? 
We  are  shut  up  together,  tete-a-tete, 
which  is  so  much  the  better  or  so  much 
the  worse.  I  am  not  going  to  get  into 
another  carriage,  so  don"t  you  think  it 
is  preferable  to  talk  as  friends  till  the 
end  of  our  journey?" 

She  answered  quite  calmly  again: 

"Just  as  you  please." 

Then  he  suddenly  stopped,  really  ruA. 
knowing  what  to  say;  but  as  he  had 
plenty  of  assurance,  he  sat  down  on  the 
middle  seat,  and  said: 

"Well,  I  see  I  must  pay  my  court  to 
you;  so  much  the  better  It  is,  how- 
ever, really  a  pleasure,  for  you  are 
charming.  You  cannot  imagine  how 
you  have  improved  in  the  last  six 
years.  I  do  not  know  any  woman  who 
could  give  me  that  delightful  sensation 
which  I  experienced  just  now  when  you 
emerged  from  your  wraps.  I  should 
really  have  thought  such  a  change  im 
possible." 


856 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Without  moving  her  head  or  looking 
at  him  she  sa^d;  "I  cannot  say  the  same 
with  regard  to  you;  you  have  certainly 
deteriorated  a  great  deal," 

He  got  red  and  confused,  and  then, 
with  a  smile  of  resignation,  he  said: 

"You  are  rather  hard.'' 

"Why?"  was  her  reply.  "I  am  only 
ftaf'ng  facts.  I  don't  suppose  you  in- 
tend to  offer  me  your  love?  It  must, 
therefore,  bo  a  matter  of  perfect  in- 
difference to  ycu  what  I  think  about 
you.  But  I  see  it  is  a  painful  subject, 
so  let  us  talk  of  something  else.  What 
have  you  been  doing  since  I  last  saw 
you?" 

He  felt  rather  out  of  countenance, 
and  stammered: 

"I?  I  have  traveled,  shot,  and  grown 
old,  as  you  see.    And  you?" 

She  said,  quite  calmly:  "I  have 
taken  care  of  appearances  as  you 
ordered  me." 

He  was  very  nearly  saying  something 
brutal,  but  ho  checked  himself,  and 
kissed  his  wife's  hand: 

"And  I  thank  you,"  he  said. 

She  was  surprised.  He  was  indeed 
strong  and  always  master  of  himself. 

He  went  on:  "As  you  have  acceded 
to  my  first  request,  shall  we  now  talk 
without  any  bitterness?" 

She  made  a  little  movement  of  sur- 
prise. 

"Bitterness!  I  don't  feel  any;  you 
are  a  complete  stranger  to  me;  I  am 
only  trying  to  keep  up  a  difficult  con- 
versation." 

He  was  still  looking  at  her,  carried 
away  in  spite  of  her  harshness,  and  he 
felt  seized  with  a  brutal  desire,  the  de- 
sire of  the  master. 


Perceiving  that  she  had  hurt  his  feel- 
ings, she  said: 

"How  old  are  you  now?  I  thought 
you  were  younger  than  you  look." 

He  grew  pale: 

"I  am  forty-five;"  and  then  he 
added:  "I  forgot  to  ask  after  Princess 
de  Raynes.  Are  you  still  intimate 
with  her?" 

She  looked  at  him  as  if  she  hated 
him: 

"Yes,  certainly  I  am.  She  is  very 
well,  thank  you." 

They  remained  sitting  side  by  side, 
agitated  and  irritated.  Suddenly  he 
said: 

"My  dear  Bertha,  I  have  changed 
my  mind.  You  are  my  wife,  and  I  ex- 
pect you  to  come  with  me  to-day.  You 
have,  I  think,  improved  both  morally 
and  physically,  and  I  am  going  to  take 
you  back  again.  I  am  your  husband 
and  it  is  my  right  to  do  so." 

She  was  stupefied,  and  looked  at  him^ 
trying  to  divine  his  thoughts;  but  his 
face  was  resolute  and  impenetrable. 

"I  am  very  sorry,"  she  said,  "but  1 
have  made  other  engagements." 

"So  much  the  worse  for  you,"  was  his 
reply.  "The  law  gives  me  the  power 
and  I  mean  to  use  it." 

They  were  getting  to  Marseilles,  and      i 
the  train  whistled  and  slackened  speed       i 
The  Baroness  got   up,   carefully  rolled 
up  her  v:raps,  and  then  turning  to  her 
husband,  she  said: 

"My  dear  Raymond,  do  not  make 
a  bad  use  of  the  tete-a-tete  which  I  had 
carefully  prepared.  I  wished  to  take 
precautions,  according  to  your  advice, 
so  that  I  might  have  nothing  to  fear 
from  you  or  from  other  people^  what- 


A  NEW  YEAR'S  GIFT 


85^ 


ever  mighf.  happen.  You  are  going  to 
Nice,  are  you  not?" 

*'I  shall  go  wherever  you  go." 

*'Not  at  all;  just  listen  to  me,  and  I 
am  sure  that  you  will  leave  me  in 
peace.  In  a  few  moments,  when  we 
get  to  the  station,  you  will  see  the 
Princess  do  Raynes  and  Countess  Her- 
mit waiting  for  me  with  their  husbands. 
I  wished  them  to  see  us,  and  to  know 
that  we  spent  the  night  together  in  the 
railway-carriage.  Dont  be  alarmed; 
they  will  tell  it  everywhere  as  a  most 
surprising  fact. 

"I  told  you  just  now  that  I  had  care- 
fully followed  your  advice  and  saved 
appearances.  Anything  else  does  not 
matter,  does  it?  Well,  in  order  to  do 
so,  I  wished  to  be  seen  with  you.  You 
told  me  carefully  to  avoid  any  scandal, 
and  I  am  avoiding  it,  for,  1  am  afraid 
— ^I  am  afraid — " 

She  waited  till  the  train  had  quite 
stopped,  and  as  her  friends  ran  up  to 
open  the  carriage  donr,  she  said: 

*'I  am  afraid  that  I  am  enceinte." 


The  Princess  stretched  out  her  arms 
to  embrace  her,  and  the  Baroness  said;^ 
pointing  to  the  Baron,  who  was  dumb 
Vk'ith  astonishment,  and  trying  to  get  at 
the  truth: 

"You  do  not  recognize  Raymond?  He 
has  certainly  changed  a  good  deal  and 
he  agreed  to  come  with  me  so  that  I 
might  not  travel  alone.  We  take  little 
trips  like  this  occasionally,  like  good 
friends  who  cannot  live  together.  We 
are  going  to  separate  here;  he  has  had 
enough  of  me  already." 

She  put  out  her  hand,  which  he  took 
mechanically,  and  then  she  jumped  oui 
on  to  the  platform  among  her  friends, 
who  were  waiting  for  her. 

The  Baron  hastily  shut  the  carriage 
door,  for  he  was  too  much  disturbed  to 
say  a  word  or  come  to  any  determina- 
tion. He  heard  his  wife's  voice,  and 
their  merry  laughter  as  they  went  away. 

He  never  saw  her  again,  nor  did  he 
ever  discover  whether  she  had  told  him 
a  lie  or  was  speaking  the  truth. 


A  New  Year's  Gift 


Jacques  de  Randal,  having  dined  at 
home  alone,  told  his  valet  he  might  go, 
and  then  sat  down  at  a  table  to  write 
his  letters. 

He  finished  out  every  year  by  writ- 
ing and  dreaming,  making  for  himself  a 
sort  of  review  of  things  that  had  hap- 
pened since  last  New  Year's  Day,  things 
that  were  now  all  over  and  dead;  and, 
in  proportion  as  the  faces  of  his  friends 
rose  up  before  his  eves,  he  wrote  them 


a  few  lines,  a  cordial  ''Good  morning' 
on  the  first  of  January. 

So  he   sat   down,   opened   a   drawer 
took  out  of  it  a  woman's  photograph, 
gazed  at  it  a  few  moments,  and  kissed 
it.    Then,  having  laid  it  beside  a  sheet 
of  note-paper,  he  began: 

"My  Dear  Irene:  You  must  have 
by  this  time  the  little  souvenir  which  I 
sent  you.  I  have  shut  myself  up  this 
evenine  in  order  to  tell  you — " 


858 


WORKS  OF  GUV  DE  MAUPASSANT 


The  pen  here  ceased  to  move.  Jacques 
rose  up  and  began  walking  up  and  down 
the  room. 

For  the  last  six  months  he  had  a 
mistress,  not  a  mistress  like  <^he  others, 
a  woman  with  whom  one  engages  in  a 
passing  intrigue,  of  the  theatrical  world 
or  the  demi-monde ,  but  a  woman  whom 
he  loved  and  won.  He  was  no  longer  a 
young  man,  although  still  comparatively 
young,  and  he  looked  on  life  seriously 
in  a  positive  and  practical  spirit. 

Accordingly,  he  drew  up  the  balance- 
sheet  of  his  passion,  as  he  drew  up 
ever>'  year  the  balance-sheet  of  friend- 
ships that  were  ended  or  freshly  con- 
tracted, of  circumstances  and  persons 
that  had  entered  his  life.  His  first 
ardor  of  love  having  grown  calmer,  he 
asked  himself,  with  the  precision  of  a 
merchant  making  a  calculation,  what 
was  the  state  of  his  heart  with  regard 
to  her,  and  he  tried  to  form  an  idea 
of  what  it  would  be  in  the  future.  He 
found  there  a  great  and  deep  affection, 
made  up  of  tenderness,  gratitude,  and 
the  thousand  subtleties  which  give 
birth  to  long  and  powerful  attachments. 

A  ring  of  the  bell  made  him  start.  He 
hesitated.  Should  he  open?  But  he 
deemed  it  was  his  duty  to  open,  on  this 
New  Year's  night,  to  the  Unknown  who 
knocks  while  passing,  no  matter  whom 
it  may  be. 

So  he  took  a  wax-candle,  passed 
through  the  ante-chamber,  removed  the 
bolts,  turned  the  key,  drew  the  door 
back,  and  saw  his  mistress  standing 
pale  as  a  corpse  leaning  against  the 
wall. 

He  stammered;  "What  is  the  matter 
with  you?" 

She  replied:  *'Are  you  alone?" 


"Yes." 

"Without  servants?" 

"Yes." 

"You  are  not  going  out?" 

"No." 

She  entered  with  the  air  of  a  woman 
who  knew  the  house.  As  soon  as  she 
was  in  the  drawing-room,  she  sank  into 
the  sofa,  and,  covering  her  face  with 
her  hands,  began  to  weep  dreadfully. 

He  kneeled  down  at  her  feet,  seized 
hold  of  her  hands  to  remove  them  from 
her  eyes,  so  that  he  might  look  at  them, 
and  exclaimed: 

•'Irene,  Irene,  what  is  the  matter 
with  you?  I  implore  of  you  to  tell 
me  what  is  the  matter  with  you?" 

Then  in  the  midst  of  her  sobs  she 
murmured:  "I  can  no  longer  live  like 
this." 

He  did  not  understand. 

"Like   this?     What   do   you  mean?" 

"Yes.  I  can  no  longer  live  like  this. 
I  have  endured  so  much.  He  struck 
me  this  afternoon." 

"Who— your   husband?" 

"Yes — my  husband." 

"Ha!" 

He  was  astonished,  having  never  sus- 
pected that  her  husband  could  be 
brutal.  He  was  a  man  of  the  world, 
of  the  better  class,  a  clubman,  a  lover 
of  horses,  a  theater-goer  and  an  ex- 
pert swordsman;  he  was  known,  talked 
about,  appreciated  everywhere,  havinf? 
very  courteous  manners  but  a  very 
mediocre  intellect,  an  absence  of  edu- 
cation and  of  the  real  culture  needed 
in  order  to  think  like  all  well-bred 
people,  and  finally  a  respect  tor  all  _ 
conventional  prejudices.  | 

He  appeared  to  devote  himself  to  his 
wife,  as  a  man  ought  to  do  in  the  case 


A  NEW  YEAR'S  GIFT 


859 


of  wealthy  and  well-bred  people.  He 
displayed  enough  anxiety  about  her 
wishes,  her  health,  her  dresses,  and,  be- 
yond that,  left  her  perfectly  free. 

Randal,  having  become  Irene's  friend, 
had  a  right  to  the  affectionate  hand- 
clasp which  every  husband  endowed 
with  good  manners  owes  to  his  wife's 
intimate  acquaintances.  Then,  when 
Jacques,  after  having  been  for  some 
time  the  friend,  became  the  lover,  his  re- 
lations with  the  husband  were  more 
cordial. 

Jacques  had  never  dreamed  that  there 
were  storms  in  this  household,  and  he 
was  scared  at  this  unexpected  revelation. 

He  asked. 

"How  did  it  happen?    Tell  me." 

Thereupon  she  related  a  long  history, 
the  entile  history  of  her  life,  since  the 
day  of  her  marriage — the  first  discus- 
sion arising  out  of  a  mere  nothing,  then 
accentuating  itself  in  the  estrangement 
which  grows  up  each  day  between  two 
opposite  types  of  character. 

Then  came  quarrels,  a  complete 
separation,  not  apparent,  but  real;  next, 
her  husband  showed  himself  aggressive, 
suspicious,  violent.  Now,  he  was  jealous, 
jealous  of  Jacques,  and  this  day  even, 
after  a  scene,  he  had  struck  her. 

She  added  with  decision :  "I  will  not 
.  go  back  to  him.  Do  with  me  what  you 
'  like." 

Jacques  sat  down  opposite  to  her, 
their  knees  touching  each  other.  He 
caught  hold  of  her  hands: 

"My  dear  love,  you  are  going  to  com- 
mit a  gross,  an  irreparable  folly.  If  you 
want  to  quit  your  husband,  put  wrongs 
on  one  side,  so  that  your  situation  as  a 
woman  of  the  world  may  be  saved." 


She  asked,  as  she  cast  at  him  a  rest- 
less glance: 

"Then,  what  do  you  advise  me?" 

"To  go  back  home,  and  to  put  up  with 
your  life  there  till  the  day  when  you  can 
obtain  either  a  separation  or  a  divorce, 
with  the  honors  of  war.'* 

"Is  not  this  thing  which  you  advise 
me  to  do  a  little  cowardly?" 

"No;  it  is  wise  and  reasonable.  You 
have  a  high  position,  a  reputation  to 
safeguard,  friends  to  preserve,  and  rela- 
tions to  deal  with.  You  must  not  lose 
all  these  through  a  mere  caprice." 

She  rose  up,  and  said  with  violence : 

"Well,  no!  I  cannot  have  any  more 
of  it!    It  is  at  an  end!  it  is  at  an  end!" 

Then,  placing  her  two  hands  on  her 
lover's  shoulders  and  looking  at  him 
straight  in  the  face,  she  asked: 

"Do  you  love  me?" 

"Yes." 

"Really  and  truly?'* 

•'Yes." 

*Then  keep  me!'* 

He  exclaimed: 

"Keep  you?  In  my  own  houses* 
Here?  Why,  you  are  mad.  It  would 
mean  losing  you  forever;  losing  you  be- 
yond hope  of  recall!     You  are  mad!" 

She  replied,  slowly  and  seriously,  like 
a  woman  who  feels  the  weight  of  her 
words : 

"Listen,  Jacques.  He  has  forbidden 
me  to  see  you  again,  and  I  will  not  play 
this  comedy  of  coming  secretly  to  your 
house.  You  must  either  lose  me  or 
take  me." 

"My  dear  Irene,  in  that  case,  obtain 
your  divorce,  and  I  will  marry  you." 

"Yes,  you  will  marry  me  in — two 
years  at  the  soonest.  Yours  is  a  patient 
love." 


800 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"Look  here !  Reflect !  If  you  remain 
here,  he'll  come  to-morrow  to  take  you 
away,  seeing  that  he  is  your  husband, 
seeing  that  he  has  right  and  law  on  his 
side." 

"I  did  not  ask  you  to  keep  me  in  your 
own  house,  Jacques,  but  to  take  me  any- 
where you  like.  I  thought  you  loved 
me  enough  to  do  that.  I  have  made  a 
mistake.    Good-bye!" 

She  turned  round,  and  went  toward 
the  door  so  quickly  that  he  was  only 
able  to  catch  hold  of  her  when  she  was 
outside  the  room. 

"Listen,  Irene.'* 

She  struggled,  and  did  not  want  to 
listen  to  him  ary  longer,  her  eyes  full 
of  tears,  and  with  these  words  only  on 
her  lips: 

"Let  me  alone!  let  me  alone!  let  me 
alone!" 

He  made  her  sit  down  by  force,  and 
falling  once  more  on  his  knees  at  her 
feet,  he  now  brought  forward  a  number 
ii  arguments  and  counsels  to  make  her 
understand  the  folly  and  terrible  risk 
of  her  project.  He  omitted  nothing 
which  he  deemed  it  necessary  to  say  to 
convince  her,  finding  in  his  very  affec- 
tion for  her  strong  motives  of  persua- 
sion. 

As  she  remained  silent  and  cold,  he 
begged  of  her,  implored  of  her  to  listen 
to  him,  to  trust  him,  to  follow  his 
advice. 

When  he  had  finished  speaking,  she 
only  replied: 

"Are  you  disposed  to  let  me  go  away 
now?  Take  away  your  hands,  so  that  I 
may  rise  up." 

"Look  here,  Irene.'* 

"Will  you  let  go?" 


"Irene — is  your  resolution  irrevo- 
cable?" 

'Do  let  me  go." 

"Tell  me  only  whether  this  resolu- 
tion, this  foolish  resolution  of  yours, 
v/hich  you  will  bitterly  regret,  is  irre- 
vocable?" 

"Yes:  let  me  go!" 

"Then  stay.  You  know  well  that  you 
are  at  home  here.  We  shall  go  away 
to-morrow  morning." 

She  rose  up,  in  spite  of  him,  and 
said  in  a  hard  tone: 

"No.  It  is  tco  late.  I  do  not  want 
sacrifice;  I  want  devotion." 

"Stay!  I  have  done  what  I  ought  to 
do;  I  l^ave  said  what  I  ought  to  say.  I 
have  no  further  responsibility  on  your 
behalf.  My  conscience  is  at  peace. 
Toll  me  what  you  want  me  to  do,  and 
I  will  obey." 

She  resumed  her  seat,  looked  at  him 
for  a  long  time,  and  then  asked,  in  a 
very  calm  voice: 

"Explain,  then." 

"How  is  that?  What  do  you  wish  me 
to  explain?" 

"Everything — everything  that  you 
have  thought  about  before  coming  to 
this  resolution.  Then  I  will  see  whar 
I  ought  to  do." 

"But  I  have  thought  about  nothing  at 
all.  I  ought  to  warn  you  that  you  are 
going  to  accomplish  an  act  of  folly. 
You  persist;  then  I  ask  to  share  in 
this  act  of  folly,  and  I  even  insist  on  it." 

"It  is  not  natural  to  change  one's 
opinion  so  quickly." 

"Listen,  my  dear  love.  It  is  not  a 
question  here  of  sacrifice  or  devotion. 
On  the  day  when  I  realized  that  I  loved 
you,  I  saM  this  to  myself,  which  every 
lover   ought   to  say   to  himself  in  the 


MY  UNCLE  SOSTHENES 


861 


same  case:  'The  man  who  loves  a  wo- 
man, who  makes  an  effort  to  win  her, 
who  gets  her  and  who  takes  her  con- 
tracts so  far  as  he  is  himself  and  so  far 
as  she  is  concerned,  a  sacred  engage- 
ment.' It  is,  mark  you,  a  question  of 
dealing  with  a  woman  like  you,  and 
not  with  a  woman  of  an  impulsive  and 
yielding  disposition. 

"Marriage,  vv^hich  has  a  great  social 
value,  a  great  legal  value,  possesses  in 
my  eyes  only  a  very  slight  moral  value, 
taking  into  account  the  conditions  under 
which  it  generally  takes  place. 

"Therefore,  when  a  woman,  united  by 
this  lawful  bond,  but  having  no  attach- 
ment to  a  husband  whom  she  cannot 
love,  a  woman  whose  heart  is  free, 
meets  a  man  for  whom  she  cares,  and 
gives  herself  to  him,  when  a  man  who 
has  no  other  tie  takes  a  woman  in  this 
way,  I  say  that  they  pledge  themselves 
toward  each  other  by  this  mutual  and 
free  agreement  much  more  than  by  the 
*Yes'  uttered  in  the  presence  of  the 
Mayor. 

"I  say  that,  if  they  are  both  honor- 
able persons,  their  union  must  be  more 
intimate,  more  real,  more  healthy  than 
if  all  the  sacraments  had  consecrated  it. 

"This  woman  risks  everything.  And 
it  is  exactly  because  she  knows  it,  be- 


cause she  gives  everything,  her  heart, 
her  body,  her  soul,  her  honor,  her  life, 
because  she  has  foreseen  all  miseries,  all 
dangers,  all  catastrophes,  because  she 
dares  to  do  a  bold  act,  an  intrepid  act, 
because  she  is  prepared,  determined  to 
brave  everything — her  husband  who 
might  kill  her,  and  society  which  may 
cast  her  cut.  This  is  why  she  is  heroic 
in  her  conjugal  infidelity;  this  is  why 
her  lover  in  taking  her  must  also  have 
foreseen  everything,  and  preferred  her 
to  everything,  whatever  might  happen. 
I  have  nothing  more  to  say.  I  spoke 
in  the  beginning  like  a  man  of  sense 
whose  duty  it  was  to  warn  you;  and 
now  there  is  left  in  m.e  only  one  man — • 
the  man  who  loves  you.  Say,  then,  what 
I  am  to  do!" 

Radiant,  she  closed  his  mouth  with 
her  lips,  and  said  to  him  in  a  low 
tone: 

"It  is  not  true,  darling!  There  is 
nothing  the  matter!  My  husband  does 
not  suspect  anything.  But  I  wanted  to 
see,  I  wanted  to  know,  what  you  would 
do.  I  wished  for  a  New  Year's  gift — 
the  gift  of  your  heart — anothc  gift  be- 
sides the  necklace  you  have  just  sent 
me.  You  have  given  it  to  me.  Thanks! 
thanks !  God  be  thanked  for  the  happi- 
ness you  have  given  me!" 


My  Uncle  Sosthenes 


My  uncle  Sosthenes  was  a  Free- 
thinker, like  many  others  are,  from  pure 
stupidity,  people  are  very  often  reli- 
gious in  the  same  way.  The  mere 
sight  of  a  priest  threw  him  into  a  violent 
rage:  he  would  shak^  his  tist  and  gri- 


mace at  him,  and  touch  a  piece  of  iron 
when  the  priest's  back  was  turned,  for- 
getting that  the  latter  action  showed  a 
belief  after  all,  the  belief  in  the  evil 
eye. 

Now  when   beliefs  are  unreasonable 


862 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


one  should  have  all  or  none  at  all.  I 
myself  am  a  Freethinker;  I  revolt  at  all 
the  dogmas  which  have  invented  the 
fear  of  death,  but  I  feel  no  anger  toward 
places  of  worship,  be  they  Catholic 
Apostolic,  Roman,  Protestant,  Greek, 
Russian,  Buddhist,  Jewish,  or  Moham- 
medan. I  have  a  peculiar  manner  of 
looking  at  them  and  explaining  them. 
A  place  of  worship  represents  the  hom- 
age paid  by  man  to  "The  Unknown." 
The  more  extended  our  thoughts  and 
our  views  become  the  more  The  Un- 
known diminishes,  and  the  more  places 
of  worship  will  decay.  I,  however,  in 
the  place  of  church  furniture,  in  the 
place  of  pulpits,  reading  desks,  altars, 
and  so  on,  would  fit  them  up  with 
telescopes,  microscopes,  and  electrical 
machines;  that  is  all. 

My  uncle  and  I  differed  on  nearly 
every  point.  He  was  a  patriot,  while  I 
was  not — for  after  all  patriotism  is  a 
kind  of  religion;  it  is  the  egg  from 
which  wars  are  hatched. 

My  uncle  was  a  Freemason,  and  I 
used  to  declare  that  they  are  stupider 
than  old  women  devotees.  That  is  my 
opinion,  and  I  maintain  it;  if  we  must 
have  any  religion  at  all  the  old  one  is 
good  enough  for  me. 

What  is  their  object?  Mutual  help 
to  be  obtained  by  tickling  the  palms  of 
each  other's  hands.  I  see  no  harm  in 
it,  for  they  put  into  practice  the  Chris- 
tian precept:  "Do  unto  others  as  ye 
would  they  should  do  unto  you."  The 
only  difference  consists  in  the  tickling, 
but  it  does  not  seem  worth  while  to 
make  such  a  fuss  about  lending  a  poor 
devil  half-a-crown. 

To  all  my  arguments  my  uncle's  reply 
used  to  be. 


"We  are  raising  up  a  religion  against 
a  religion;  Freethought  will  kill  cleri- 
cahsm.  Freemasonry  is  the  head- 
quarters of  those  who  are  demolishing 
all  deities." 

"Very  well,  my  dear  uncle,"  I  would 
reply  (in  my  heart  I  felt  inclined  to  say, 
"You  old  idiot!");  "it  is  just  that 
which  I  am  blaming  you  for.  Instead 
of  destroying,  you  are  organizing  com- 
petition; it  is  only  a  case  of  lowering 
the  prices.  And  then,  if  you  only  ad- 
mitted Freethinkers  among  you  I  could 
understand  it,  but  you  admit  anybody. 
You  have  a  number  of  Catholics  among 
you,  even  the  leaders  of  the  party. 
Pius  IX.  is  said  to  have  been  one  of 
you  before  he  became  Pope.  If  yoii 
call  a  society  with  such  an  organization 
a  bulwark  against  clericalism,  I  think  it 
is  an  extremely  weak  one." 

"My  dear  boy,"  my  uncle  would  re^ 
ply,  with  a  wink,  "our  most  formidable 
actions  are  political;  slowly  and  surely 
we  are  everywhere  undermining  the 
monarchical  spirit." 

Then  I  broke  out:  "Yes,  you  are 
very  clever!  If  you  tell  me  that  Free- 
masonry is  an  election-machine,  I  will 
grant  it  you.  I  whl  never  deny  that  it 
is  used  as  a  machine  to  control  candi- 
dates of  all  shades;  if  you  say  that  it  is 
only  used  to  hoodwink  people,  to  drill 
them  to  go  to  the  voting-urn  as  soldiers 
are  sent  under  fire,  I  agree  with  you; 
if  you  declare  that  it  is  indispensable 
to  all  political  ambitions  because  it 
changes  all  its  members  into  electoral 
agents,  I  should  say  to  you,  'That  is  as 
clear  as  the  sun.'  But  when  you  tell 
me  that  it  serves  to  undermine  the 
monarchical  spirit,  I  can  only  laugh  in 
your  face. 


MY  UNCLE  SOSTHENES 


S63 


"Just  consider  that  vast  and  demo- 
cratic association  which  had  Prince 
Napoleon  for  its  Grand  Master  under 
the  Empire;  which  has  the  Crown 
Prince  for  its  Grand  Master  in  Ger- 
many, the  Czar's  brother  in  Russia,  and 
to  which  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  King 
Humbert  and  nearly  all  the  royalists  of 
the  globe  belong." 

"You  are  quite  right,"  my  uncle  said; 
"but  all  these  persons  are  serving  our 
projects  without  guessing  it." 

I  felt  inclined  to  tell  him  he  was 
talking  a  pack  of  nonsense. 

It  was,  however,  indeed  a  sight  to  see 
my  uncle  when  he  had  a  Freemason  to 
dinner. 

On  meeting  they  shook  hands  in  a 
manner  that  was  iiresistibly  funny;  one 
could  see  that  they  were  going  through 
a  series  of  secret  mysterious  pressures. 
When  I  wished  to  put  my  uncle  in  a 
rage,  I  had  only  to  tell  him  that  dogs 
also  have  a  manner  which  savors  very 
much  of  Freemasonry,  when  they  greet 
one  another  on  meeting. 

Then  my  uncle  would  take  his  friend 
into  a  corner  to  tell  him  something  im- 
portant, and  at  dinner  they  had  a 
peculiar  way  of  looking  at  each  other, 
and  of  drinking  to  each  other,  in  a 
manner  as  if  to  say:  "We  know  all 
about  it,  don't  we?" 

And  to  think  that  there  are  millions 
on  the  face  of  the  globe  who  are  amused 
at  such  monkey  tricks!  I  would  sooner 
be  a  Jesuit. 

Now  in  our  town  there  really  was  an 
old  Jesuit  who  was  my  uncle's  detesta- 
tion. Every  time  he  met  him,  or  if  he 
only  saw  him  at  a  distance,  he  used  to 
say:  "Go  on,  you  toad!"  And  then, 
taking  my  arm,  he  would  whisper  to  me: 


"Look  here,  that  fellow  will  play  me  a 
trick  some  day  or  other,  I  feel  sure  of 
it." 

My  uncle  spoke  quite  truly,  and  this 
was  how  it  happened,  through  my  fault 
also. 

It  was  close  on  Holy  Week,  and  my 
uncle  made  up  his  mind  to  give  a  dinner 
on  Good  Friday,  a  real  dinner  with  his 
favorite  chitterlings  and  black  puddings 
I  resisted  as  much  as  I  could,  and  said: 

"I  shall  eat  me?t  on  that  day,  but  at 
home,  quite  by  myself.  Your  mafiifes* 
tation,  as  you  call  it,  is  an  idiotic  idea. 
Why  should  you  manifest?  What  does 
it  matter  to  you  if  people  do  not  eat 
any  meat?" 

But  my  uncle  would  not  be  persuaded. 
He  asked  three  of  his  friends  to  dine 
with  him  at  one  of  the  best  restaurants 
in  the  town,  and  as  he  was  going  to  pay 
the  bill,  I  had  certainly,  after  all.  no 
scruples  about  nmnifesting. 

At  four  o'clock  we  took  a  conspicuous 
place  in  the  most  frequented  restaurant 
in  the  town,  and  my  uncle  orderea  din- 
ner in  a  loud  voice,  for  six  o'clock. 

We  sat  dovTi  punctually,  and  at  ten 
o'clock  we  had  not  finished.  Five  of  us 
had  drunk  eighteen  bottles  of  fine  still 
wines,  and  four  of  champagne.  Ther 
my  uncle  proposed  what  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  calling:  "The  archbishop's 
feat."  Each  man  put  six  small  glasses 
in  front  of  him,  each  of  them  filled  with 
a  different  liqueur,  and  then  they  had 
all  to  be  emptied  at  one  gulp,  one  after 
another,  while  one  of  the  waiters 
counted  twenty.  It  was  very  stupid, 
but  my  uncle  thought  it  was  very  suit- 
able to  the  occasion. 

At  eleven  o'clock  he  was  dead  drunk. 
So  we  had  to  take  him  home  in  a  cab 


864 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  put  him  to  bed,  and  one  could  easily 
foresee  that  his  anti-clerical  demonstra- 
tion would  end  in  a  terrible  fit  of  indi- 
gestion. 

As  I  was  going  back  to  my  lodgings, 
being  rather  drunk  myself,  with  a  cheer- 
ful Machiavelian  drunkenness  which 
quite  satisfied  all  my  insti/icts  of  scepti- 
cism, an  idea  struck  me. 

I  arranged  my  necktie,  put  on  a  look 
of  great  distress,  and  went  and  rang 
loudly  at  the  old  Jesuit's  door.  As  he 
was  deaf  he  made  me  wait  a  longish 
while,  but  at  length  he  appeared  at  his 
window  in  a  cotton  nightcap  and  asked 
what  I  wanted. 

I  shouted  out  at  the  top  of  my  voice: 

"Make  haste,  reverend  Sir,  and  open 
the  door;  a  poor,  despairing,  sick  man 
is  in  need  of  your  spiritual  ministra- 
tions." 

The  good,  kind  man  put  on  his  trou- 
sers as  quickly  as  he  could  and  came 
down  without  his  cassock.  I  told  him 
in  a  breathless  voice  that  my  uncle, 
the  Freethinker,  had  been  taken  sud- 
denly ill.  Fearing  it  was  going  to  be 
something  serious  he  had  been  seized 
with  a  sudden  fear  of  death,  and  wished 
to  see  a  priest  and  talk  to  him;  to  have 
his  advice  and  comfort,  to  make  up 
with  the  Church,  and  to  confess,  so  as 
to  be  able  to  cross  the  dreaded  threshold 
at  peace  with  himself;  and  I  added  in  a 
mocking  tone: 

"At  any  rate,  he  wishes  it,  and  if  it 
does  him  no  good  it  can  do  him  no 
harm." 

The  old  Jesuit,  who  was  startled,  de- 
lighted, and  almost  trembling,  said  to 
me: 

"Wait  a  moment,  my  son,  I  will  come 
with  you." 


But  I  replied:  "Pardon  me,  reverend 
Father,  if  I  do  not  go  with  you ;  but  my 
convictions  will  not  allow  me  to  do  so. 
I  even  refused  to  come  and  fetch  you, 
so  1  beg  you  not  to  say  that  you  have 
seen  me,  but  to  declare  that  you  had  a 
presentiment — a  sort  of  revelalion  of  his 
illness." 

The  priest  consented,  and  went  o& 
quickly,  knocked  at  my  uncle's  door, 
was  soon  let  in,  and  I  saw  the  black 
cassock  disappear  within  that  strong- 
hold of  Freethought. 

I  hid  under  a  neighboring  gateway  to 
wait  for  events.  Had  he  been  well,  my 
uncle  would  have  half  murdered  the 
Jesuit,  but  I  know  that  he  would 
scarcely  be  able  to  move  an  arm,  and  I 
asked  myself,  gleefully,  what  sort  of  a 
scene  would  take  place  between  these 
antagonists — what  explanation  would  be 
given,  and  what  would  be  the  issue  of 
this  situation,  which  my  uncle's  indigo 
nation  would  render  more  tragic  still? 

I  laughed  till  I  had  to  hold  my  sides, 
and  said  to  myself,  half  aloud:  "Oh! 
v/hat  a  joke,  what  a  joke!" 

Meanwhile  it  was  getting  very  cold. 
I  noticed  that  the  Jesuit  stayed  a  long 
time,  and  thought:  "They  are  having 
an  explanation,  I  suppose." 

One,  two,  three  hours  passed,  and 
still  the  reverend  Father  did  not  come 
out.  What  had  happened?  Had  my 
uncle  died  in  a  fit  when  he  saw  him, 
or  had  he  killed  the  cassocked  gentle- 
man? Perhaps  they  had  mutually  de- 
voured each  other?  This  last  supposi- 
tion appeared  very  unlikely,  for  I  fancied 
that  my  uncle  was  quite  incapable  of 
swallowing  a  grain  more  nourishment  at 
that  moment. 

At  last  the  day  broke.     I  was  very 


MY  UNCLE  SOSTHENES 


865 


uneasy,  and,  not  venturing  to  go  into 
the  house  myself,  1  went  to  one  of  my 
friends  who  lived  opposite.  I  roused 
him,  explained  matters  to  him,  much  to 
his  amusement  and  astonishment,  and 
took  possession  of  his  window. 

At  nine  o'clock  he  relieved  me  and  I 
lot  a  little  sleep.  At  two  o'clock  I,  in 
my  turn,  replaced  him.  We  were  utterly 
astonished- 

At  six  o'clock  the  Jesuit  left,  with  a 
very  happy  and  satisfied  look  on  his 
face,  and  we  saw  him  go  away  with  a 
quiet  step. 

Then,  timid  and  ashamed,  I  went  and 
knocked  at  my  uncle's  door.  When  the 
servant  opened  it  I  did  not  dare  to  ask 
her  any  questions,  but  went  upstairs 
without  saying  a  word. 

My  uncle  was  lying  pale,  exhausted, 
with  weary,  sorrowful  eyes  and  heavy 
arms,  on  his  bed.  A  little  religious  pic- 
ture was  fastened  to  one  of  the  bed- 
curtains  with  a  pin. 

"Why,  uncle,"  I  said,  "you  in  bed 
still?    Are  you  not  well?" 

He  replied  in  a  feeble  voice: 

"Oh!  my  dear  boy,  I  have  been  very 
ill;  nearly  dead." 

"How  was  that,  uncle?'* 

"I  don't  know;  it  was  most  surpris- 
ing. But  what  is  stranger  still  is,  that 
the  Jesuit  priest  who  has  just  left — ^you 
know,  that  excellent  man  whom  I  have 
made  such  fun  of — ^had  a  divine  revela- 
tion of  my  state,  and  carne  to  see  me." 

I  was  seized  with  an  almost  uncon- 
trollable desire  to  laugh,  and  with  diffi- 
culty said:     "Oh,  really!" 

"Yes,  he  came.  He  heard  a  Voice 
t  telling  him  to  get  up  and  come  to  me, 
;  because  I  was  going  to  die.  It  was  a 
1  revelation." 


I  pretended  to  sneeze,  so  as  not  to 
burst  out  laughing;  I  felt  inclined  to 
roll  on  the  ground  with  amusement. 

In  about  a  minute  I  managed  to  say, 
indignantly:  "And  you  received  him, 
uncle,  you?  You,  a  Freethinker,  a 
Freemason?  You  did  not  have  him 
thrown  out-of-doors?" 

He  seemed  confused,  and  stammered: 

"Listen  a  moment,  it  is  so  astonishing 
— so  astonishing  and  providential!  He 
also  spoke  to  me  about  my  father;  it 
seems  he  knew  him  formerly." 

"Your  father,  uncle?  But  that  is  no 
reason  for  receiving  a  Jesuit." 

"I  know  that,  but  I  was  very  ill,  and 
he  looked  after  me  most  devotedly  all 
night  long.  He  was  perfect;  no  doubt 
he  saved  my  life;  tLose  men  are  all 
more  or  less  doctors." 

"Oh!  he  looked  after  you  all  night? 
But  you  said  just  now  that  he  had  only 
been  gone  a  very  short  time." 

"That  is  quite  true;  T  kept  him  to 
breakfast  after  all  his  kindness.  He 
had  it  at  a  table  by  my  bedside  while  I 
drank  a  cup  of  tea." 

"And  he  ate  meat?" 

My  uncle  looked  vexed,  as  if  I  had 
said  something  very  much  out  of  place, 
and  then  added: 

"Don't  joke,  Gaston;  such  things  are 
out  of  place  at  times.  He  has  shown  me 
more  devotion  than  many  a  relation 
would  have  done  and  I  expect  to  have 
his  convictions  respected." 

This  rather  upset  me,  but  I  answered, 
nevertheless:  "Very  well,  uncle;  and 
what  did  you  do  after  breakfast?" 

"We  played  a  game  of  bezique,  and 
then  he  repeated  his  breviary  while  I 
read  a  little  book  which  he  happened  to 


S66 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


have  in  his  pocket,  and  which  was  not 
by  any  means  badly  written." 

"A  religious  book,  uncle?" 

"Yes,  and  no,  or  rather — no.  It  is 
the  b'story  of  their  missions  in  Central 
Africa,  and  is  rather  a  book  of  travels 
and  adventures.  What  these  men  have 
done  is  very  grand." 

I  began  to  feel  that  matters  were  go- 
ing badly,  so  I  got  up.  "Well,  good- 
bye, uncle,"  I  said,  "I  see  you  are  going 
to  leave  Freemasonry  for  religion;  you 
are  a  renegade." 

He    was    still    rather    confused    and 

stammered: 


"Well,  but  religion  is  a  sort  of  Free- 
masonry." 

"When  is  your  Jesuit  coming  back?** 
I  asked. 

"I  don't — I  don't  know  exactly;  to- 
morrow, perhaps;  but  it  is  not  certain." 

I  went  out,  altogether  overwhelmed. 

My  joke  turned  out  very  badly  for 
me!  My  uncle  became  radically  con- 
verted, and  if  that  had  been  all  I  should 
not  have  cared  so  much.  Clerical  or 
Freemason,  to  me  it  is  all  the  same;  six 
of  one  and  half-a-dozen  of  the  other; 
but  the  worst  of  it  is  that  he  has  just 
made  his  will — yes,  made  his  will — ^and 
has  disinherited  me  in  favor  of  that 
rascally  Jesuit! 


All  Over 


The  Comte  de  Lormerin  had  just 
Snished  dressing  himself.  He  cast  a 
parting  glance  at  the  large  glass,  which 
occupied  an  entire  panel  of  his  dressing- 
room,  and  smiled. 

He  was  really  a  fine-looking  man  still, 
though  he  was  quite  gray.  Tall,  slight, 
elegant,  with  no  projecting  paunch,  with 
a  scanty  mustache  of  doubtful  shade  on 
his  thin  face  which  seemed  fair  rather 
than  white,  he  had  presence,  that  "chic," 
in  short,  that  indescribable  something 
which  establishes  between  two  men  more 
difference  than  millions  of  dollars. 

He  murmured:  "Lormerin  is  still 
alive!" 

And  he  made  his  way  into  the  draw- 
ing-room, where  his  correspondence 
awaited  him. 

On  his  table,  where  everything  had  its 


place,  the  work-table  of  the  gentleman 
who  never  works,  there  were  a  dozen 
letters  lying  beside  three  newspapers  of 
different  opinions.  With  a  single  touch 
of  the  finger  he  exposed  to  view  «li 
these  letters,  like  a  gambler  giving  the 
choice  of  a  card;  and  he  scanned  the 
handwriting — a  thing  he  did  each  morn- 
ing before  tearing  open  the  envelopes. 

It  was  for  him  a  moment  of  delight- 
ful expectancy,  of  inquiry,  and  vague 
anxiety.  What  did  these  sealed  mys- 
terious papers  bring  him?  What  did 
they  contain  of  pleasure,  of  happiness,  or 
of  grief?  He  surveyed  them  with  a  rapid 
sweep  of  the  eye,  recognizing  in  each 
case  the  hand  that  wrote  them,  selecting 
them,  making  two  or  three  lots,  accord- 
ing to  what  he  expected  from  them. 
Here,  friends:  there,  persons  to  whom 


ALL  OVER 


66) 


he  was  indifferent;  further  on,  strangers. 
The  last  kind  always  gave  him  a  little 
uneasiness.  What  did  they  want  from 
him?  What  hand  had  traced  those 
curious  characters  full  of  thoughts, 
promises,  or  threats? 

This  day,  one  letter  in  particular 
caught  his  eye.  It  was  simple  neverthe- 
less, without  seeming  to  reveal  any- 
thing; but  he  regarded  it  with  dis- 
quietude, with  a  sort  of  internal  shiver. 

Rethought:  "From  whom  can  it  be? 
I  certainly  know  this  writing,  and  yet  I 
can't  identify  it." 

He  raised  it  to  a  level  with  his  face, 
holding  it  delicately  between  two  fingers, 
striving  to  read  through  the  envelope 
without  making  up  his  mind  to  open  it. 

Then  he  smelled  it,  and  snatched  up 
from  the  table  a  little  magnifying  glass 
which  he  used  in  studying  all  the  niceties 
of  handwriting.  He  suddenly  felt  un- 
nerved. "Whom  is  it  from?  This  hand 
is  familiar  to  me,  very  fdmiliar.  I  must 
have  often  read  its  prosings,  yes,  very 
often.  But  this  must  have  been  a  long, 
long  time  ago.  Who  the  deuce  can  it 
be  from?  Pooh!  'tis  only  from  some- 
body asking  for  money." 

And  he  tore  open  the  letter.  Then 
he  read: 

.      "My  Dear  Friend:      You  have,  with- 

kout  doubt,   forgotten  me,   for  it  is  now 

ftwentv-five    years    since    we    saw    each 

other.     I  was  young;  I  am  old.    When  1 

bade   you    farewell,    I    quitted    Paris    in 

order   to    follow   into   the   prcvlnces   my 

.  husband,    my    old    husband,    whom    you 

I  used  to  call   'my  hospital.'     Do  you  re- 

;  member  him  ?     He  died  five  j^ears  ago ; 

;  and  now  I  am  returning  to  Paris  to  get 

:  my    daughter    married,    for    I    have    a 

.  daughter,    a    beautiful   girl    of    eighteen, 

'  whom  you  have  never  seen.     I  informed 

I  jrou  about  her  entrance   into  the  world, 


but  you  certainly  did  not  pay  much  at- 
tention to  so  trilling  an  event. 

"You,  you  are  always  the  handsome 
Lormerin;  so  I  have  been  told.  Well, 
if  you  still  recollect  Lise,  whom  you  used 
to  call  'Lison,'  come  and  dine  this  eve- 
ning with  her,  with  the  elderly  Baronne 
de  Vance,  your  ever  faithful  friend,  who, 
with  some  emotion,  stretches  out  to  you, 
without  complaining  at  her  lot,  a  devoted 
hand,  which  you  must  clasp  but  no  longer 
kiss,  my  poor  'Jaquelet.' 

"Lise  de  Vance," 

Lormerin's  heart  began  to  throb.  He 
remained  sunk  in  his  armchair,  with  the 
letter  on  his  knees,  staring  straight  be- 
fore him,  overcome  by  poignant  feelings 
that  made  the  tears  mount  up  to  his 
eyes ! 

If  he  had  ever  loved  a  woman  in  his 
life,  it  was  this  one,  little  Lise,  Lise  de 
Vance,  whom  he  called  "Cinder-Flower" 
on  account  of  the  strange  odor  of  her 
hair,  and  the  pale  gray  of  her  eyes.  Oh! 
what  a  fine,  pretty,  charming  creature 
she  was,  this  frail  Baronne,  the  :vife  of 
that  old,  gouty,  pimply  Baron  who  had 
abruptly  carried  her  off  to  the  provinc'^s, 
shut  her  up,  kept  her  apart  througi: 
jealousy,  through  jealousy  of  the  hand- 
some Lormerin. 

Yes,  he  had  loved  her,  and  he  be- 
lieved that  he,  t'^-^,  had  been  truly  loved. 
She  gave  him  the  name  of  Jaquelet,  and 
used  to  pronounce  the  word  in  an  ex- 
quisite fashion. 

A  thousand  memories  that  had  been 
effaced  came  back  to  him,  far  off  and 
sweet  and.  melancholy  now.  One  eve- 
ning, she  called  on  him  on  he**  way  home 
from  a  ball,  and  they  went  out  for  a 
stroll  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  she  in 
evening  dress,  he  in  his  dressing-jacket. 
It   was    springtime;    the    weather   was 


868 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPA:3SANT 


beautiful.  The  odor  of  her  bodice  em- 
balmed the  warm  air, — the  odor  or  ner 
bodice,  and  also  a  little,  the  odor  cl  her 
skin.  What  a  divine  night!  When  they 
reached  the  lake,  as  the  moon's  rays  fell 
across  the  branches  into  the  water,  she 
began  to  weep.  A  little  surprised,  he 
asked  her  why. 

She  replied: 

"I  don't  know.  Tis  the  moon  and 
the  water  that  have  affected  me.  Every 
time  I  see  poetic  things  they  seize  hold 
of  my  heart  and  I  have  to  cry." 

He  smiled,  moved  himself,  considering 
her  feminine  emotion  charming — the 
emotion  of  a  poor  little  woman  whom 
every  sensation  overwhelms.  And  he 
embraced  her  passionately,  stammering: 

"My  li  lie  Lise,  you  are  exquisite." 

What  '.I  charming  love  affair,  short- 
lived and  dainty  it  had  been,  and  all 
over  too  so  quickly,  cut  short  in  the 
midst  of  its  ardor  by  this  old  brute  of  a 
Baron,  who  had  carried  off  his  wife,  and 
never  shown  her  afterward  to  anyone! 

Lormerin  had  forgotten,  in  good 
sooth,  at  the  end  of  two  or  three  months. 
One  woman  drives  out  the  other  so 
quickly  in  Paris,  when  one  is  a 
bachelor!  No  maH.er!  he  had  kept  a 
little  chapel  for  her  in  his  heart,  for  he 
had  loved  her  alone!  He  assured  him- 
self now  that  this  was  so. 

He  rose  up,  and  said  aloud:  "Cer- 
tainly, I  will  go  and  dine  with  her  this 
evening!" 

And  instinctively  he  turned  round 
toward  the  glass  in  order  to  inspect  him- 
self from  head  to  foot.  He  reflected: 
"She  must  have  grown  old  unpleasantly, 
more  tlian  T  have!"  And  he  felt  grati- 
fied at  the  thought  of  showing  himself 
to  her  stU   handsome,  still   fresh,   of 


astonishing  her,  perhaps  of  filling  hei 
witti  emotion,  and  making  her  regret 
those  bygone  days  so  far,  far  distart! 

He  turned  his  attention  to  the  other 
letters.     They  were  not  of  importance. 

The  whole  day,  he  kept  thinking  of 
this  phantom.  What  was  she  like  now? 
How  funny  it  was  to  meet  in  this  way 
after  twenty-five  years !  Would  he  aloae 
recognize  her? 

He  made  his  toilette  with  feminine 
coquetry,  put  on  a  white  waistcoat, 
which  suited  him  better,  with  the  coat, 
sent  for  the  hairdresser  to  give  him  a 
finishing  touch  with  the  curling-iron,  for 
he  had  preserved  his  hair,  and  started 
very  early  in  order  to  show  his  eager- 
ness to  see  her. 

The  first  thing  he  saw  on  entering  a 
pretty  drawing-room,  freshly  furnished, 
was  his  own  portrait,  an  old,  faded 
photograph,  dating  from  the  days  of  his 
good-fortune,  hanging  on  the  wall  in  an 
antique  silk  frame. 

He  sat  down,  and  waited.  A  door 
opened  behind  him.  He  rose  up 
abruptly,  and,  turning  round,  beheld  an 
old  woman  with  white  hair  who  extended 
both  hands  toward  him. 

He  seized  them,  kissed  them  one  after 
the  other  with  long,  long  kisses,  then, 
lifting  up  his  head,  he  gazed  at  the 
woman  he  had  loved. 

Yes,  it  was  an  old  lady,  an  old  lady 
whom  he  did  not  recognize,  and  who. 
while  she  smiled,  seemed  ready  to  weep. 

He  could  not  abstain  from  murmuring: 

"It  is  you,  Lise?'* 

She  replied: 

'Tes,  it  is  I;  it  is  I,  indeed.  You 
would  not  have  Known  me,  isn't  that  so? 
I  have  had  so  much  so-row — so  much 
sorrow.    Sorrow  has  consumed  my  life 


ALL  OVER 


969 


Look  at  me  now — or  rather  don't  look  at 
me!  But  how  handsome  you  have  kept 
— and  young!  If  I  had  by  chance  met 
you  in  the  street,  I  would  have  cried, 
'Jaquelet!'  Now  sit  down  and  let  us, 
first  of  all,  have  a  chat.  And  then  I'll 
show  you  my  daughter,  my  grown-up 
daughter.  You'll  see  how  she  resembles 
me — or  rather  how  I  resembled  her — 
no,  it  is  not  quite  that:  she  is  just  like 
the  'me'  of  former  days — you  shall  see! 
But  I  wanted  to  be  alone  with  yo'\  first. 
I  feared  that  there  would  be  some  emo- 
tion on  my  side,  at  the  first  moment. 
Now  it  is  all  over — it  is  past.  Pray  be 
seated,  my  friend." 

He  sat  down  beside  her,  holding  her 
hand ;  but  he  did  not  know  what  to  say ; 
he  did  not  know  this  woman — it  seemed 
to  him  that  he  had  never  seen  her  be- 
fore. What  had  he  come  to  do  in  this 
house?  Of  what  could  he  speak?  Of 
the  long  ago?  What  was  there  in  com- 
mon between  him  and  her?  He  could 
no  longer  recall  anything  to  mind  in  the 
presence  of  this  grandmotherly  face.  He 
could  no  longer  recall  to  mind  all  the 
nice,  tender  things  so  sweet,  so  bitter, 
,  that  had  assailed  his  heart,  some  time 
I  since,  when  he  thought  of  the  other,  of 
little  Lise,  of  the  dainty  Cinder-Flower. 
What  then  had  become  of  her,  the  for- 
mer one,  the  one  he  had  loved — that 
woman  of  far-off  dreams,  the  blonde 
with  gray  eyes,  the  young  one  who  used 
to  call  him  Jaquelet  so  prettily? 

They  remained  side  by  side,  motion- 
less, both  constrained,  troubled,  pro- 
foundly ill  at  ease. 

As  they  only  talked  in  commonplace 
phrases,  broken  and  slow,  she  rose  up 
and  pressed  the  button  of  the  bell. 

"I  am  going  to  call  Renee^"  she  said. 


There  was  a  tap  at  the  door,  then  the 
rustle  of  a  dress;  next,  a  young  voice 
exclaimed: 

"Here  I  am,  mamma!'* 

Lormerin  remained  scared,  as  if  at  the 
sight  of  an  apparition. 

He  stammered: 

"Good  day.  Mademoiselle." 

Then,  turning  toward  the  mother: 

"Oh!  it  is  you!" 

In  fact,  it  was  she,  she  whom  he  had 
known  in  bygone  days,  the  Lise  who 
had  vanished  and  came  back!  In  her 
he  found  the  woman  he  had  won  twenty- 
five  years  before.  This  one  was  even 
younger  still,  fresher,  more  childlike. 

He  felt  a  wild  desire  to  open  his 
arms,  to  clasp  her  to  his  heart  again, 
murmuring  in  her  ear: 

"Good  day,  Lison!" 

A  man-servant  announced:  "Dinner 
is  ready.  Madame."  And  they  pro- 
ceeded toward  the  dining-room. 

What  passed  at  this  dinner?  What 
did  they  say  to  him,  and  what  could 
he  say  in  reply?  He  found  himself 
plunged  in  one  of  those  strange  dreams 
which  border  on  insanity.  He  gazed  at 
the  two  women  with  a  fixed  idea  in  his 
mind,  a  morbid,  self-contradictory  idea: 
"Which  is  the  real  one?" 

The  mother  smiled,  repeating  over 
and  over  again:  "Do  you  remember?" 
And  it  was  in  the  br'ght  eye  of  the 
young  girl  that  he  found  again  his 
memories  of  the  past.  Twenty  times, 
he  opened  his  mouth  to  say  to  her:  "Do 
you  remember,  Lison? — "  forgetting  this 
white-haired  lady  who  was  regarding  him 
with  looks  of  tenderness. 

And  yet  there  were  moments  when 
he  no  longer  felt  sure,  when  he  lost  his 
head.    He  could  see  that  the  woman  of 


870 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT- 


to-day  was  not  exactly  the  woman  of 
iong  ago.  The  other  one,  the  former 
one,  had  in  her  voice,  in  her  glance,  in 
her  entire  being  something  which  he  did 
not  find  again  in  the  mother.  And  he 
made  efforts  to  recall  his  ladylove,  to 
seize  again  what  had  escaped  from  her, 
what  this  resuscitated  one  did  not 
possess. 

The  Baronne  said: 

"You  have  lost  your  old  sprightliness, 
my  poor  friend." 

He  murmured:  "There  are  many 
other  things  that  I  have  lost!" 

But  in  his  heart,  touched  with  emo- 
tion, he  felt  his  old  love  springing  to 
life  once  more  like  an  awakened  wild 
beast  ready  to  bite  him. 

The  young  girl  went  on  chattering,  and 
every  now  and  then  some  familiar  phrase 
of  her  mother  which  she  had  borrowed, 
a  certain  style  of  speaking  and  thinking, 
that  resemblance  of  mind  and  manner 
which  people  acquire  by  living  together, 
shook  Lormerin  from  head  to  foot.  All 
these  things  penetrated  him,  making  the 
reopened  wound  of  his  passion  bleed 
anew. 

He  got  away  early,  and  took  a  turn 
xlong  the  boulevard.    But  the  image  of 


this  young  girl  pursued  him,  haunted 
him,  quickened  his  heart,  inflamed  his 
blood.  Instead  of  two  women,  he  now 
saw  only  one,  a  young  one,  the  one  of 
former  days  returned,  and  he  loved  her 
as  he  had  loved  her  prototype  in  bygone 
years.  He  loved  her  with  greater  ardor, 
after  an  interval  of  twenty-five  years. 

He   went    home    to    reflect    on    this 
strange  and  terrible  thing,  and  to  think  i 
on  what  he  should  do. 

But  as  he  was  passing,  with  a  wax- 
candle  in  his  hand  before  the  glass,  the 
large  glass  in  which  he  had  contemplated 
himself  and  admired  himself  before  he 
started,  he  saw  reflected  there  an  elderly, 
gray-haired  man;  and  suddenly  he  recol* 
lected  what  he  had  been  in  olden  days, 
in  the  days  of  little  Lise,  He  saw  him- 
self charming  and  handsome,  as  he  had 
been  when  he  was  loved!  Then,  draw- 
ing the  light  nearer,  he  looked  at  him- 
self more  closely,  as  one  inspects  a 
strange  thing  with  a  magnifying  glass, 
tracing  the  wrinkles,  discovering  those 
frightful  ravages  which  he  had  not  per- 
ceived till  now. 

And  he  sat  down,  crushed  at  the  sight 
of  himself,  at  the  sight  of  his  lamen- 
table image,  murmuring: 

"All  over,  Lormerin!" 


My  Landlady 


"At  that  time,"  said  George  Kervc- 
len,  "I  was  living  in  furnished  lodgings 
in  the  Ru'e  des  Saints-Peres. 

*'\Vhen  my  father  had  made  up  hi^  mind 
that  I  should  go  to  Paris  to  continue  my 
law  studies,  there  had  been  a  long  discus- 


sion about  settling  everything.  My  al- 
lowance had  been  fixed  at  first  at  two 
thousand  five  hundred  francs,*  but  my 
poor  mother  was  so  anxious,  that  she 


*$500  a  year. 


MY  LANDLADY 


87] 


said  to  my  father  that  if  I  spent  my 
money  badly  i  might  not  take  enough  to 
eat,  and  then  my  health  would  suffer, 
and  so  it  was  settled  that  a  comfortable 
boarding-house  should  be  found  for  me, 
and  that  the  amount  should  be  paid  to 
the  proprietor  himself,  or  herself,  every 
month. 

"Some  of  our  neighbors  told  us  of  a 
certain  Mme.  Kergaran,  a  native  of 
Brittany,  who  took  in  boarders,  and  so 
my  father  arranged  matters  by  letter 
with  this  respectable  person,  at  whose 
house  I  and  my  luggage  arrived  one 
evening. 

"Mme.  Kergaran  was  a  woman  of 
about  forty.  She  was  very  stout,  had  a 
voice  like  a  drill-sergeant,  and  decided 
everything  in  a  very  abrupt  manner. 
Her  house  was  narrow,  with  only  one 
window  opening  on  to  the  street  on 
each  story,  which  rather  gave  it  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  ladder  of  windows,  or 
better,  perhaps,  of  a  slice  of  a  house 
sandwiched  in  between  two  others. 

"The  landlady  lived  on  the  first  floor 
with  her  servant,  the  kitchen  and  dining- 
room  were  on  the  second,  and  four 
boarders  from  Brittany  lived  on  the 
third  and  fourth,  and  I  had  two  rooms 
on  the  fifth. 

"A  little  dark  corkscrew  staircase  led 
r  up  to  these  attics.  All  day  long  Mme. 
Kergaran  was  up  and  down  these  stairs 
like  a  captain  on  board  ship.  Ten  times 
a  day  she  would  go  into  each  room, 
noisily  superintending  everything,  see- 
ing that  the  beds  were  properly  made, 
the  clothes  well  brushed,  that  the  at- 
tendance was  all  that  it  should  be;  in  a 
\  word,  she  looked  after  her  boarders  like 
a  mother,  and  better  than  a  mother. 

''^  soon  made  the  acquaintance  of  my 


four  fellow-countrymen.  Two  were 
medical  and  two  were  law  students,  but 
all  impartially  endured  the  landlady's 
despotic  yoke.  They  were  as  frightened 
of  her  as  a  boy  robbing  an  orchard  is 
of  a  rural  policeman. 

"I,  however,  immediately  felt  that  I 
wished  to  be  independent;  it  is  my  na- 
ture to  rebel.  I  declared  at  once  that  I 
meant  to  come  in  at  whatever  time  I 
liked,  for  Mme.  Kergaran  had  fixed 
twelve  o'clock  at  night  as  the  limit.  On 
hearing  this  she  looked  at  me  for  a  few 
moments,  and  then  said: 

"  *It  is  quite  impossible;  I  cannot 
have  Annette  called  up  at  any  hour  of 
the  night.  You  can  have  nothing  to  do 
out-of-doors  at  such  a  time.' 

"I  replied  firmly  that,  according  to 
the  law,  she  was  obliged  to  open  the 
door  for  me  at  any  time. 

*'  Tf  you  refuse,'  I  said,  'I  shall  get 
a  policeman  to  witness  the  fact,  and 
go  and  get  a  bed  at  some  hotel,  at  your 
expense  in  which  I  shall  be  fully  justi- 
fied. You  will,  therefore,  be  obliged 
either  to  open  the  door  for  me  or  to 
get  rid  of  me.    Do  which  you  please.' 

"I  laughed  in  her  face  as  I  told  her 
my  conditions.  She  could  not  speak  for 
a  moment  for  surprise,  then  she  tried  to 
negotiate,  but  I  was  firm,  and  she  was 
obliged  to  yield.  It  was  agreed  that  I 
should  have  a  latchkey,  on  my  solemn 
undertaking  that  no  one  else  should 
know  it. 

"My  energy  made  such  a  wholesome 
impression  on  her  that  from  that  time 
she  treated  me  with  marked  favor;  she 
was  most  attentive,  and  even  showed 
me  a  sort  of  rough  tenderness  which 
was  not  at  all  unpleasing.  Sometime? 
when  I  was  in  a  jovial  mood  I  would 


874 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


have  my  house  respected,  and  I  will  not 
have  it  lose  its  reputation,  you  under- 
stand me?    I  know — ' 

''She  went  on  thus  for  at  least  twenty 
minutes,  overwhelming  me  with  the 
e;ood  name  of  her  house,  with  reasons 


for  her  indignation,  and  loading  me 
with  severe  reproofs.  I  went  to  bed 
crestfallen,  and  resolved  never  again  to 
try  such  an  experiment,  so  long,  at  least, 
as  I  continued  to  be  a  lodger  of  Mme. 
Kercraran," 


The  Horrible 


The  shadows  of  a  blamy  night  were 
slowly  falling.  The  women  remained  in 
the  drawing-room  of  the  villa.  The 
men,  seated  or  astride  on  garden-chairs, 
were  smoking  in  front  of  the  door,  form- 
ing a  circle  round  a  table  laden  with 
cups  and  wineglasses. 

rheir  cigars  shone  like  eyes  in  the 
darkness  which,  minute  by  minute,  was 
growing  thicker.  They  had  been  talking 
about  a  frightful  accident  which  had 
occurred  the  night  before — two  men  and 
three  women  drowned  before  the  eyes 
of  the  guests  in  the  river  opposite. 

General  de  G remarked: 

"Yes,  these  things  are  affecting,  but 
they  are  not  horrible. 

"The  horrible,  that  well-known  word, 
means  much  more  than  the  terrible.  A 
frightful  accident  like  this  moves,  up- 
sets, scares;  it  does  not  horrify.  In 
order  that  we  should  experience  horror, 
something  more  is  needed  than  the  mere 
excitation  of  the  soul,  something  more 
than  the  spectacle  of  the  dreadful  death; 
there  must  be  a  shuddering  sense  of 
mystery  or  a  sensation  of  abnormal  ter- 
ror beyond  the  limits  of  nature.  A  man 
who  dies,  even  in  the  most  dramatic 
conditions,  does  not  excite  horror;  a 
field  of  Dattle  is  not  horrible;  blood  is 


not  horrible ;  the  vilest  crimes  are  rarely 
horrible. 

"Now,  here  are  two  personal  examples, 
which  have  shown  me  what  is  the  mean- 
ing of  horror: 

"It  was  during  the  war  of  1870.  We 
were  retreating  toward  Pont-Audemer, 
after  having  passed  through  Rouen. 
The  army,  consisting  of  about  twenty 
thousand  m.en,  twenty  thousand  men  in 
disorder,  disbanded,  demoralized,  ex- 
hausted, was  going  to  reform  at  Havre. 

"The  earth  was  covered  with  snow. 
The  night  was  falling.  They  had  not 
eaten  anything  since  the  day  before,  and 
were  flying  rapidly,  the  Prussians  not 
far  off.  The  Norman  country,  livid, 
dotted  with  the  shadows  of  the  trees  sur- 
rounding the  farms,  stretched  away  un- 
der a  heavy  and  sinister  black  sky. 

"Nothing  else  could  be  heard  in  the 
wan  twilight  save  the  confused  sound, 
soft  and  undefined,  of  a  marching  throng, 
an  endless  tramping,  mingled  with  the 
vague  clink  of  cant  ens  or  sabers.  The 
men,  bent,  round-shouldered,  dirty,  in 
many  cases  even  in  rags,  dragged  them- 
selves along,  hurrying  through  the  snow, 
with  a  long  broken-backed  stride. 

"The  skin  of  their  hands  stuck  to  the 
steel  of  their  muskets'  butt-ends  for  it 


THE  HORRIBLE 


875 


was  freezing  dreadfully  that  night.  I 
frequently  saw  a  httle  soldier  take  off 
his  shoes  in  order  to  walk  barefooted, 
so  much  did  his  footgear  bruise  him; 
and  with  every  step  he  left  a  track  of 
blood.  Then,  after  some  time,  he  sat 
down  in  a  field  for  a  few  minutes  rest, 
and  never  got  up  again.  Every  man 
who  sat  down  died. 

*' Should  we  have  left  behind  us  those 
poor  exhausted  soldiers,  who  fondly 
counted  on  being  able  to  start  afresh  as 
soon  as  they  had  somewhat  refreshed 
their  stiffened  legs?  Now,  scarcely  had 
they  ceased  to  move,  and  to  make  their 
almost  frozen  blood  circulate  in  their 
veins,  than  an  unconquerable  torpor  con- 
gealed them,  nailed  them  to  the  ground, 
closed  their  eyes,  and  in  one  second  the 
overworked  human  mechanism  collapsed. 
They  gradually  sank  down,  their  heads 
falling  toward  their  knees — without, 
however,  quite  tumbling  over,  for  their 
loins  and  their  limbs  lost  the  capacity 
for  moving,  and  became  as  hard  as 
wood,  impossible  to  bend  or  straighten. 

"The  rest  of  us,  more  robust,  kept 
still  straggling  on,  chilled  to  the  marrow 
of  our  bones,  advancing  by  dint  of 
forced  movement  through  the  night, 
through  that  snow,  through  that  cold 
and  deadly  country,  crushed  by  pain,  by 
defeat,  by  despair,  above  all  overcome 
by  the  abominable  sensation  of  aban- 
donment, of  death,  of  nothingness. 

"I  saw  two  gendarmes  holding  by  the 
arm  a  curious-looking  little  man,  old, 
beardless,  of  truly  surprising  aspect. 

"They  were  looking  out  for  an  ofificer, 
believing  that  they  had  caught  a  spy. 
I'he  word  'Spy'  at  once  spread  through 
the  midst  of  the  stragglers,  and  they 
gathered  in  a  group  round  the  prisoner. 


A  voice  exclaimed:  'He  must  be  shot!* 
And  all  these  soldiers  who  were  falling 
from  utter  prostration,  only  holding 
themselves  on  their  feet  by  leming  on 
their  guns,  felt  of  a  sudden  that  thrill 
of  furious  and  bestial  anger  which 
urges  on  a  mob  to  massacre. 

"I  wanted  to  speak!  I  was  at  that 
time  in  command  of  a  battalion;  but 
they  no  longer  recognized  the  authority 
of  their  commanding  officers;  they 
would  have  shot  me. 

"One  cf  the  gendarmes  said:  'He  has 
been  following  us  for  the  last  three  days. 
He  has  been  asking  information  from 
everyone  about  the  artillery.' 

"J  took  it  on  myself  to  question  this 
person : 

"  'What  are  you  doing?  What  do  you 
want?  Why  are  you  accompanying  the 
army?' 

"He  stammered  out  some  words  in 
some  unintelligible  dialect.  He  was,  in- 
deed, a  strange  being,  with  narrow 
shoulders,  a  sly  look,  and  such  an  agi- 
tated air  in  my  presence  that  I  had  no 
longer  any  real  doubt  that  he  was  a 
spy.  He  seemed  very  aged  and  feeble. 
He  kept  staring  at  me  from  under  his 
eyes  with  a  humble,  stupid,  and  crafty 
air. 

"The  men  ail  round  us  exclaimed: 

"To  the  wall!  to  the  wall!' 

"I  said  to  the  gendarmes: 

"  'Do  you  answer  for  the  prisoner?' 

"I  had  not  ceased  speaking  when  a 
terrible  push  threw  me  on  my  back,  and 
in  a  second  I  saw  the  man  seized  by  the 
furious  soldiers,  thrown  down,  struck, 
dragged  along  the  side  of  the  road,  and 
flung  against  a  tree.  He  fell  in  the 
snow,  nearly  dead  already. 

"And    immediatelv    they   shot    him. 


£:& 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


The  soldiers  fired  at  him,  reloaded  their 
guns,  fired  again  with  the  desperate 
energy  of  brutes.  They  fought  with 
each  other  to  have  a  shot  at  him,  filed 
off  in  front  of  the  corps^e,  and  kept 
firing  at  him,  just  as  people  at  a  funeral 
keep  sprinkling  holy  water  in  front  of  a 
coffin. 

"But  suddenly  a  cry  arose  of  'The 
Prussians!  the  Prussians!  and  all  along 
the  horizon  I  heard  the  great  noise  of 
this  panic-stricken  army  in  full  flight. 

"The  panic,  generated  by  these  shots 
fired  at  this  vagabond,  had  filled  his  very 
executioners  with  terror;  and,  without 
realizing  that  they  were  themselves  the 
originators  of  the  scare,  they  rushed 
away  and  disappeared  in  the  darkness. 

"I  remained  alone  in  front  of  the 
corpse  with  the  two  gendarmes  whom 
duty  had  compelled  to  stay  with  me. 

"They  lifted  up  this  riddled  piece  of 
flesh,  bruised  and  bleeding. 

"  'He  must  be  examined,'  said  I  to 
them. 

"And  I  handed  them  a  box  of  vestas 
which  I  had  in  my  pocket.  One  of  the 
soldiers  had  another  box.  I  was  stand- 
ing between  the  two. 

"The  gendarme,  who  was  feeling  the 
body,  called  out: 

"  'Clothed  in  a  blue  blouse,  trousers, 
and  a  pair  of  shoes.' 

"The  first  match  went  out;  we  lighted 
a  second.  The  man  went  on,  as  he 
turned  out  the  pockets: 

"  'A  horn  knife,  check  handkerchief,  a 
snuffbox,  a  bit  of  pack-thread,  a  piece  of 
bread.' 

"The  second  match  went  out;  we 
lighted  a  third.  The  gendarme,  after 
having   handled  the  corpse  for  a  long 


"  'That  is  aU.* 

"I  said: 

"  'Strip  him.  We  shall  perhaps  fjad 
something  near  the  skin  ' 

"And,  in  order  that  the  two  soldiers 
might  help  each  other  in  this  task,  I 
stood  between  ihem  to  give  them  Ught. 
I  saw  them,  by  the  rapid  and  speedily 
extinguished  flash  of  the  match,  take  off 
the  garments  one  by  one,  and  expose  to 
view  that  bleeding  bundle  of  flesh  still 
warm,  though  lifeless. 

"And  suddenly  one  of  them  ex- 
claimed : 

"  'Good  God,  Colonel,  it  is  a  woman!* 

"I  cannot  describe  to  you  the  strange 
and  poignant  sensation  of  pain  that 
moved  my  heart.  I  could  not  believe  it, 
and  I  kneeled  down  in  the  snow  before 
this  shapeless  pulp  of  flesh  to  see  for 
myself:  it  was  a  woman. 

"The  two  gendarmes,  speechless  and 
stunned,  waited  for  me  to  give  my  opin- 
ion on  the  matter.  But  I  did  not  know 
what  to  think,  what  theory  to  adopt. 

"Then  the  brigadier  slowly  drawled 
out: 

"  'Perhaps  she  came  to  look  for  a  son 
of  hers  in  the  artillery,  whom  she  had 
not  heard  from.' 

"And  the  other  chimed  in: 
"  'Perhaps  indeed  that  is  so.' 

"And  I,  who  had  seen  some  terrible 
things  in  my  time,  began  to  weep.  I 
felt,  in  the  presence  of  this  corpse,  in 
that  icy  cold  night,  in  the  midst  of  that 
gloomy  plain,  at  the  sight  of  this  mys- 
tery, at  the  sight  of  this  murdered 
stranger,  the  meaning  of  that  word 
'horror.' 

"Now,  I  had  the  same  sensation  last 
year  while  interrogating  one  of  the  sut' 


THE  HORRIBLE 


877 


vivors  of  the  Flatters  Mission,  an  Al- 
gerian sharpshooter. 

"You  probably  know  some  of  the  de- 
tails of  this  atrocious  drama.  It  is  pos- 
sible, however,  that  you  are  unac- 
quainted with  all. 

"The  Colonel  traveled  through  the 
desert  into  the  Soudan,  and  passed 
through  the  immense  territory  of  the 
Touaregs,  who  are,  in  that  great  ocean 
of  sand  which  stretches  from  the  At- 
lantic to  Egypt  and  from  the  Soudan  to 
Algeria,  a  sort  of  pirates  resembling 
those  who  ravaged  the  seas  in  former 
days. 

"The  guides  who  accompanied  the 
column  belonged  to  the  tribe  of  Cham- 
baa,  of  Ouargla. 

"One  day,  they  pitched  their  camp  in 
the  middle  of  the  desert,  and  the  Arabs 
declared  that,  as  the  spring  was  a  little 
farther  away,  they  would  go  with  all 
their  camels  to  look  for  water. 

"Only  one  man  warned  the  Colonel 
that  he  had  been  betrayed  Flatters  did 
not  believe  this,  and  accompanied  the 
convoy  with  the  engineers,  the  doctors, 
and  nearly  all  his  officers. 

"They  were  massacred  round  the 
spring  and  all  the  camels  captured. 

"The  Captain  of  the  Arab  Intelligence 
Department  at  Ouargla,  who  had  re- 
mained in  the  camp,  took  command  of 
the  survivors,  spahis  and  sharpshooters, 
and  commenced  the  retreat,  leaving  be- 
hind the  baggage  and  the  provisions  for 
want  of  camels  to  carry  them. 

"Then  they  started  on  their  journey 
through  this  solitude  without  shade  and 
without  limit,  under  a  devouring  sun, 
which  parched  them  from  morning  till 
night. 

"One  tribe  came  to  tender  its  sub- 


mission and  brought  dates  as  a  tribute. 
They  were  poisoned.  Nearly  all  the 
French  died,  and  among  them,  the  last 
officer. 

"There  now  only  remained  a  few 
spahis,  with  their  quartermaster,  Pobe- 
guin,  and  some  native  sharpshooters  of 
the  Chambaa  tribe.  They  had  still  two 
camels  left.  These  disappeared  one 
night  along  with  two  Arabs. 

"Then  the  survivors  feared  that  they 
would  iiave  to  eat  each  other  up.  As 
soon  as  they  discovered  the  flight  of 
the  two  men  with  the  two  beasts,  those 
who  remained  separated,  and  proceeded 
to  march,  one  by  one,  through  the  soft 
sun,  at  a  distance  of  more  than  a  gun- 
shot from  each  other. 

"So  they  went  on  all  day,  and,  when 
they  reached  a  spring,  each  of  them 
came  up  to  drink  at  it  in  turn  as  soon 
as  each  solitary  marrher  had  moved  for- 
ward the  number  of  yards  arranged 
upon.  And  thus  they  continued  march- 
ing the  whole  day,  raising,  everywhere 
they  passed  in  that  level  burned-up  ex- 
panse, those  little  columns  of  dust 
which,  at  a  distance,  indicate  those  who 
are  trudging  through  the  desert. 

"But,  one  morning,  one  of  the  trav- 
elers made  a  sudden  turn,  and  drew 
nearer  to  his  neighbor.  And  they  all 
stopped  to  look. 

"The  man  toward  whom  the  famished 
soldier  drew  near  did  not  fly,  but  lay 
flat  on  the  ground,  and  took  aim  at  the 
one  who  was  coming  on.  When  he  be- 
lieved he  was  within  gunshot,  he  fired. 
The  other  was  not  hit,  and  continued  to 
advance,  and  cocking  his  gun  in  turn, 
killed  his  comrade. 

"Then  from  the  entire  horizon,  the 
others  rushed  to  seek  their  share.    And 


878 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


he  who  had  killed  the  fallen  man,  cut- 
ting the  corpse  into  pieces,  distributed  it. 

"Then  they  once  more  placed  them- 
selves at  fixed  distances,  these  irrecon- 
cilable allies,  preparing  for  the  next 
murder  which  would  bring  them  to- 
gether. 

"For  two  days  they  lived  on  this 
human  flesh,  which  they  divided  among 
each  other.  Then,  the  famine  came 
back,  and  he  who  had  killed  the  first 


man  began  killing  afresh.  And  again, 
like  a  butcher,  he  cut  up  the  corpse  and 
offered  it  to  his  comrades,  keeping  only 
his  own  portion  of  it.  The  retreat  of 
cannibals  continued.  The  last  French- 
man, Pob6guin,  was  massacred  at  the 
side  of  a  well  the  very  night  before  the 
supplies  arrived. 

"Do  vou  understand  now  what  I  mean 
by  the  ''horrible?'  " 

This  was  the  story  told  us  a  few 
nights  ago  by  General  de  G . 


The  First  Snowfall 


The  long  promenade  of  La  Croisette 
runs  in  a  curve  up  to  the  edge  of  the 
blue  water.  Over  there,  at  the  right, 
the  Esterel  advances  far  into  the  sea. 
It  obstructs  the  view,  shutting  in  the 
horizon  with  the  pretty  southern  aspect 
of  its  peaked,  numerous,  and  fantastic 
summits. 

'At  the  left,  the  isles  of  Sainte-Mar- 
guerite  and  Saint-Honorat,  lying  in  the 
water,  present  long  aisles  of  fir-trees. 

And  all  along  the  great  gulf,  all  along 
the  tall  mountains  that  encircle  Cannes, 
the  white  villa  residences  seem  to  be 
sleeping  in  the  sunlight.  You  can  see 
them  from  a  distance,  the  bright  houses, 
scattered  from  the  top  to  the  bottom  of 
the  mountains,  dotting  the  dark  greenery 
with  specks  of  snow. 

Those  near  the  water  open  their  gates 
on  the  vast  promenade  which  is  lashed 
by  the  quiet  waves.  The  air  is  soft 
and  balmy.  It  is  one  of  those  days 
when  in  this  southern  climate  the  chill 
of  winter  is  not  felt.    Above  the  walls 


of  the  gardens  may  be  seen  orange-trees 
and  citron-trees  full  of  golden  Iruit, 
Ladies  advance  with  slow  steps  over  the 
sand  of  the  avenue,  followed  by  chil- 
dren rolling  hoops  or  chatting  with 
gentlemen. 

^  He  ^  :{:  9|;  4i 

A  young  lady  had  just  passed  out 
through  the  door  of  her  coquettish  little 
house  facing  La  Croisette.  She  stops 
for  a  moment  to  gaze  at  the  promenad- 
crs,  smiles,  and,  with  the  gait  of  one 
utterly  enfeebled,  makes  her  way  toward 
an  empty  bench  right  in  front  of  the 
sea.  Fatigued  after  having  gone  twenty 
paces,  she  sits  down  out  of  breath.  Her 
pale  face  seems  that  of  a  dead  woman. 
She  coughs,  and  raises  tc  her  Ups  her 
transparent  fingers  as  if  to  stop  those 
shakings  that  exhaust  her. 

She  gazes  at  the  sky  full  of  sunshine 
and  at  the  swallows,  at  the  zigzag  sum- 
mits of  the  Esterel  over  there,  and  at 
the  sea,  quite  close  to  her,  so  blue,  so 
calm,  so  beautiful. 


THE  FIRST  SNOWFALL 


379 


She  smiles  still,  and  murmurs: 

"Oh!  how  happy  I  am!" 

She  knows,  nowever,  that  she  is  going 
to  die,  that  she  will  never  see  the  spring- 
time, that  in  a  year,  along  the  same 
promenade,  these  same  people  who  pass 
before  her  now  will  come  again  to 
breathe  the  warm  air  of  this  charming 
spot,  with  their  children  a  little  bigger, 
with  their  hearts  all  filled  with  hopes, 
with  tenderness,  with  happiness,  while 
at  the  bottom  of  an  oak  coffin  the  poor 
flesh  which  is  left  to  her  still  to-day 
will  have  fallen  into  a  condition  of  rot- 
tenness, leaving  only  her  bones  lying  in 
the  silk  robe  which  she  has  selected  for 
a  winding-sheet. 

She  will  be  no  more.  Everything  in 
life  will  go  on  as  before  for  others. 
For  her  l.fe  w*ll  be  over — over  forever. 
She  will  be  no  more.  She  smiles,  and 
inhales  as  well  as  she  can,  with  her  dis- 
eased lungs,  the  perfumed  air  of  the 
gardens. 

And  she  sinks  into  a  reverie. 

She  recalls  the  past.  She  had  been 
married,  four  years  ago,  to  a  Norman 
gentleman.  He  was  a  strong  young  man, 
bearded,  healthy  looking,  with  wid3 
shoulders,  narrow  mind,  and  joyous  dis- 
position. 

They  had  been  united  through  worldly 
motives  which  she  did  not  auite  under- 
stand. She  would  willingly  have  said 
*'Yes."  She  did  say  "Yes"  with  a 
movement  of  the  head  in  order  not  to 
thwart  her  father  and  mother.  She  was 
a  Parisian,  ga>  and  full  of  the  joy  of 
living. 

Her  husband  brought  her  home  to  his 
-Gorman  chateau.  It  was  a  huge  stone 
building    surrounded   by    tall    trees    of 


great  age.  A  high  clump  of  fir-trees 
shut  out  the  view  in  front.  On  the 
right  an  opening  in  the  trees  presented  a 
view  of  the  plain  which  stretched  out, 
quite  flat,  up  to  the  distant  farmsteads. 
A  crossroad  passed  before  the  boundary- 
line  leading  to  the  highroad  three  kilo- 
meters away. 

Oh!  she  could  remember  everything — • 
her  arrival,  her  first  day  in  her  new 
abode,  and  her  isolated  fate  afterward. 

When  she  stepped  out  of  the  carriage, 
she  glanced  at  the  old  building  and 
laughingly  exclaimed: 

"It  does  not  look  gay!" 

Her  husband  began  to  laugh  in  his 
turn  and  replied: 

"Pooh!  we  get  used  to  it!  You'll  see. 
I  never  feel  bored  in  it,  for  my  part." 

That  day  they  passed  their  time  in 
embracing  each  other,  and  s!  ■  did  not 
find  it  too  long.  This  lasted  for  the 
best  part  of  three  months.  The  days 
passed  one  after  the  other  in  insignifi- 
cant yet  absorbing  occupations.  She 
barned  the  value  and  the  importance  of 
the  little  things  of  life.  She  knew  that 
people  can  interest  themselves  in  the 
price  of  eggs  which  cost  a  few  centimes 
more  or  less  according  to  the  seasons. 

It  was  summer.  She  went  to  the 
fields  to  see  the  harvest  cut.  The  gaiety 
of  the  sunshine  k'^pt  up  the  gaiety  of 
her  heart. 

The  autumn  came.  Her  husband 
v/ent  hunting.  He  started  in  the  morn- 
ing with  his  two  dogs,  Medor  and 
Mirza.  Then  she  remained  alone,  with- 
out grieving  herself,  moreover,  at 
Henry's  absence.  She  was,  however, 
very  fond  of  him,  but  he  was  not  missed 
by  her.  When  he  returned  home,  her 
affection  was  specially  absorbed  by  the 


880 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSAIn T 


dogs.  She  took  care  of  them  e-^^ery  eve- 
ning with  a  mother's  affection,  caressed 
them  incessantly,  gave  them  a  thousand 
charming  little  names  which  she  had  no 
idea  of  applying  to  her  husband. 

He  invariably  told  her  all  about  his 
hunting.  He  pointed  out  the  placer 
where  he  found  partridges,  expressed  liis 
astonishment  at  not  having  caught  any 
hares  in  Joseph  Ledentu's  clover,  or  else 
appeared  indignant  at  the  conduct  of  M. 
Lechapelier,  of  Havre,  who  always  fol- 
lowed the  border  of  his  estates  to  shoot 
game  that  had  been  started  by  him, 
Henry  de  Parville. 

She  replied:  "Yes,  indeed;  it  is  not 
right,"  thinking  of  something  else  all  the 
while. 

The  winter  came,  the  Norman  winter, 
cold  and  rainy.  The  endless  rain- 
storms came  down  on  the  slates  of  the 
great  many-angled  roof,  rising  like  a 
blade  toward  the  sky.  The  road  seemed 
like  streams  of  mud,  the  country  a  plain 
of  mud,  and  no  noise  could  be  heard 
save  that  of  water  falling;  no  movement 
could  be  seen  save  the  whirling  flight  of 
crows  rolling  themselves  out  like  a 
cloud,  alighting  on  a  field,  and  then 
hurrying  away  again. 

About  four  o'clock,  the  army  of  dark, 
flying  creatures  came  and  perched  in  the 
tall  beeches  at  the  left  of  the  chateau, 
emitting  deafening  cries.  During  nearly 
an  hour,  they  fluttered  from  tree-top  to 
tree-top,  seemed  to  be  fighting,  croaked, 
and  made  the  gray  branches  move  with 
their  black  wings.  She  gazed  at  them, 
each  evening,  with  a  pressure  of  the 
heart,  so  deeply  was  she  penetrated  by 
the  lugubrious  melancholy  of  the  night 
falling  on  the  desolate  grounds. 

Then  she  rang  for  the  lamp,  and  she 


drew  near  the  fire.  She  burned  heaps 
of  wood  without  succeeding  in  warming 
the  spacious  apartments  invaded  by  the 
humidity.  She  felt  cold  every  day, 
everywhere,  in  the  drawing-room,  at 
meals,  in  her  own  apartment.  It  seemed 
to  her  she  was  cold  even  in  the  mar- 
row of  her  bones.  He  only  came  in  to 
dinner,  he  was  always  hunting,  or  else 
occupied  with  sowing  s^ed,  tilling  the 
soil,  and  all  the  work  of  the  country. 

He  used  to  come  back  jolly  and  cov- 
ered with  mud,  rubbing  his  hands  while 
he  exclaimed: 

"What  wretched  weather!"  Or  else: 
"It  is  a  good  thing  to  have  a  fire.''  Or 
sometimes:  "Well,  how  are  you  to-day? 
Do  you  feel  in  good  spirits?" 

He  was  happy,  in  good  health,  without 
desires,  thinking  of  nothing  else  save 
this  simple,  sound,  and  quiet  life. 

About  December,  wh'^n  the  snow  had 
come,  she  sutfered  so  much  from  the 
icy-cold  air  of  the  chateau  which  seemed 
to  have  acquired  a  chill  with  the  cen- 
turies it  had  passed  through,  as  human 
beings  do  with  years,  that  she  asked  her 
husband  one  evening: 

"Look  here,  Henry!  You  ought  to 
have  a  hot-air  plant  put  into  the  house; 
it  would  dry  the  walls.  I  assure  you  I 
cannot  warm  myself  from  morning  till 

night." 

At  first  he  was  stunned  at  this  ex- 
travagant idea  of  introducing  a  hot-air 
plant  into  his  manor-house.  It  would 
have  seemed  more  natural  to  him  to 
have  his  dogs  fed  out  of  his  silver  plate. 
Then,  he  gave  a  tremendous  laugh  which 
made  his  chest  heave,  while  he  ex- 
claimed : 

"A    hot-air   plant    here!       ^    hot-air 


IHE  FIRST  SNOWFALL 


bS. 


plant  here!     Hal  ha!  ha!  what  a  good 
joke!" 

She  persisted: 

''T  assure  you,  dear,  I  feel  frozen,  you 
don't  feel  it  because  you  are  always 
moving  about;  but,  all  the  same,  I  feel 
frozen." 

He  replied,  still  laughing: 

"Pooh!  you  will  get  used  to  it,  and 
besides  it  is  'excellent  for  tne  health. 
You  will  only  be  all  the  better  for  it. 
We  are  not  Parisians,  damn  it!  to  live 
in  hot-houses.  And  besides  the  spring 
is  quite  neai." 
****** 

About  the  beginning  of  January,  a 
great  misfortune  jefell  her.  Her  father 
and  her  mother  died  of  a  carriage-acci- 
dent. She  came  to  Paris  for  the  funeral. 
And  her  mind  was  entirely  plunged  in 
grief  on  account  of  it  for  about  six 
months. 

The  softness  of  fine  days  at  length 
awakened  her,  and  she  lived  a  sad,  drift- 
ing life  of  languor  until  autumn. 

When  the  cold  weather  came  back, 
5he  was  brought  face  to  face,  for  the 
first  time,  with  the  gloomy  future.  What 
was  she  to  do?  Nothing.  What  was 
going  to  happen  to  her  henceforth? 
Nothing.  What  expectation,  what 
hope,  could  revive  her  heart?  None. 
A  doctor  who  was  consulted  declared 
that  she  would  never  have  children. 

Sharper,  more  penetrating  still  than 
the  year  before,  the  cold  made  her 
fuffer  continually. 

She  stretched  out  her  shivering  hands 
to  the  big  flames.  The  glaring  fire 
burned  her  face;  but  icy  puffs  seemed 
to  slip  down  her  back  and  to  penetrate 
between  the  flesh  and  her  underclothing. 
And  she  shook  from  head  to  foot.    In- 


numerable currents  of  air  appeared  to 
have  taken  up  their  abode  in  the  apart- 
ment, living,  crafty  currents  of  air,  as 
cruel  as  enemies.  She  encountered  them 
every  moment;  they  were  incessantly 
buffeting  her,  sometimes  on  the  face, 
sometimes  on  the  hands,  sometimes  on 
the  neck,  with  their  treacherous, 
frozen  breath. 

Once  more  she  spoke  of  a  hot-air 
plant;  but  her  husband  heard  her  re- 
quest as  if  she  were  asking  for  the  moon. 
The  introduction  of  such  an  apparatus 
at  Pa'-ville  appeared  to  him  as  impos- 
sible as  ttie  disco\'ery  of  the  Philoso- 
phers Stone. 

Having  been  at  Rouen  on  business  one 
day  he  brought  back  to  his  wife  a  dainty 
foot-warmer  made  of  copper,  which  he 
laughingly  called  a  "portable  hot-water 
heater";  and  he  considered  that  this 
would  prevent  her  henceforth  from  ever 
being  cold. 

Toward  the  end  of  December  she  un- 
derstood that  she  could  not  live  thus 
always,  and  she  said  timidly  one  evening 
at  dinner: 

"Listen,  dear!  Are  we  not  going  to 
spend  a  week  or  two  in  Paris  before 
spring?" 

He  was  stupefied: 

"In  Paris?  In  Paris?  But  what  are 
we  to  do  there?  No,  by  Jove!  We  are 
better  off  here.  What  odd  ideas  come 
into  your  head  sometimes." 

She  faltered: 

"It  might  distract  us  a  little." 

He  did  not  understand: 

"What  is  it  you  want  to  distract  you? 
Theaters,  evening  parties,  dinners  in 
town?  You  know,  however,  well  that 
in  coming  here  you  ought  not  to  expect 
any  distractions  of  that  kind!" 


882 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


She  saw  a  reproach  in  these  words 
and  in  the  tone  in  which  they  were 
uttered.  She  relapsed  into  silence.  She 
was  timid  and  gentle,  without  resisting 
power  and  without  strength  of  will. 

In  January,  the  cold  weather  re- 
turned with  violence.  Then  the  snow 
covered  the  earth. 

One  evening,  as  she  watched  the  great 
whirling  cloud  of  crows  v;inding  round 
the  trees,  she  began  to  weep,  in  spite  of 
herself. 

Her  husband  came  in.  He  asked,  in 
great  surprise; 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you?" 

He  was  happy,  quite  happy,  never 
having  dreamed  of  another  life  or  other 
pleasures.  He  had  been  born  and  had 
grown  up  in  this  melancholy  district. 
He  felt  well  in  his  own  house,  at  his 
ease  in  body  and  mmd. 

He  did  not  realize  that  we  may  desire 
events,  have  a  thirst  for  changing  plea- 
sures; he  did  not  understand  that  it 
does  not  seem  natural  to  certain  beings 
to  remain  in  the  same  places  during  the 
four  seasons;  he  seemed  not  to  know 
that  spring,  summer,  autumn,  and 
winter,  have  for  multitudes  of  persons, 
new  pleasures  in  new  countries. 

She  could  not  say  anything  in  reply, 
and  she  quickly  dried  her  eyes.  At 
last  she  murmured,  in  a  distracted  sort 
of  way: 

"I  am — I — I  am  a  little  sad — I  am  a 
little  bored." 

But  she  was  seized  with  terror  for 
having  even  said  so  much,  and  she  added 
very  quickly: 

"And  besides — I  am — I  am  a  little 
cold." 

At  this  statement  he  got  angry: 

"Ah!  yes,  still  your  idea  of  the  hot- 


air  plant.    But  look  here,  deuce  take  ill 
you  have  only  had  one  cold  smce  you 
came  here." 
******* 

The  night  came.  She  went  up  to  her 
room,  for  she  had  insisted  on  having  a 
separate  apartment.  She  went  to  bed. 
Even  in  the  bed,  she  felt  cold.  She 
thought:  "Is  it  to  be  like  this  always, 
always  till  death?' 

And  she  thought  of  her  husband. 
How  could  he  have  said  this: 

"You  have  only  had  one  cold  since 
you  came  here?" 

Then  she  must  get  ill;  she  must  cough 
in  order  that  he  might  understand  what 
she  suffered! 

And  she  was  filled  with  indignation, 
the  angry  indignation  of  a  weak,  a  timid 
being. 

She  must  cough.  Then,  without 
doubt,  he  would  take  pity  on  her.  Well, 
she  would  cough;  he  would  hear  her 
coughing;  the  doctor  should  be  called 
in ;  he  would  see  that  her  husband  would 
see. 

She  got  up  with  her  legs  and  her  feet 
naked,  and  a  childish  idea  made  her 
smile : 

"I  want  a  hot-air  plant,  and  I  must 
have  it.  I  shall  cough  so  much  that  he'll 
have  to  put  one  into  the  house." 

And  she  sat  down  almost  naked  in  a 
chair.  She  waited  an  hour,  two  hours. 
She  shivered,  but  she  did  not  catch  cold. 
Then  she  resolved  to  make  use  of  a  bold 
expedient. 

She  noiselessly  left  her  room,  de- 
scended the  stairs,  and  opened  the  gar- 
den-gate. 

The  earth,  covered  with  snow,  seemed 
dead.  She  abruptly  thrust  forward  her 
naked  foot,  and  plunged  it  into  the  light 


THE  FIRST  SNOWFALL 


883 


and  icy  froth.  A  sensation  of  cold, 
painful  as  a  wound,  mounted  up  to  her 
heart.  However,  she  stretched  out  the 
other  leg  and  began  to  descend  the  steps 
slowly. 

Then  she  advanced  through  the  grass, 
saying  to  herself: 

"I'll  go  as  far  as  the  fir-trees.' 

She  walked  with  quick  steps,  out  of 
breath,  choking  every  time  she  drove  her 
foot  through  the  snow. 

She  touched  the  first  fir-tree  with  her 
hand,  as  if  to  convince  herself  that  she 
carried  out  her  plan  to  the  end ;  then  she 
went  back  into  the  house.  She  believed 
two  or  three  times  that  she  was  going 
to  fall,  so  torpid  and  weak  did  she  feel. 
Before  going  in,  meanwhile,  she  sat  in 
that  icy  snow,  and  she  even  gathered 
some  in  order  to  rub  on  her  breast. 

Then  she  went  in,  and  got  into  bed. 
It  seemed  to  her,  at  the  end  of  an  hour, 
that  she  had  a  swarm  of  ants  in  her 
throat,  and  that  other  ants  were  running 
all  over  her  limbs.    She  slept,  however. 

Next  day,  she  was  coughing,  and  she 
could  not  get  up. 

She  got  inflammation  of  the  lungs. 
She  became  delirious,  and  in  her  delirium 
she  asked  for  a  hot-air  plant.  The 
doctor  insisted  on  having  one  put  in. 
Henry  yielded,  but  with  an  irritated 
repugnance. 

******* 

She  could  not  be  cured.  The  lungs, 
severely  attacked,  made  those  who  at- 
tended on  her  uneasy  about  her  life. 

"If  she  remains  here,  she  will  not  last 
as  long  as  the  next  cold  weather,"  said 
the  doctor. 

She  was  sent  to  the  south.  She  came 
fo  Cannes,  recocmized  the  sun,  loved  the 


sea,  and  breathed  the  air  of  orange- 
blossoms.  Then  in  the  spring,  she  re- 
turned  north.  But  she  hved  with  the 
fear  of  being  cured,  with  the  fear  of  the 
long  winters  of  Normandy;  and  as  soon 
as  she  was  better,  she  opened  her  win- 
dow by  night  while  thinking  of  the  sweet 
banks  of  the  Mediterranean.  And  now 
she  was  going  to  die.  She  knew  it  and 
yet  she  was  contented. 

She  unfolds  a  newspapei  which  she 
had  not  already  opened,  and  reads  this 
heading : 

"The  First  Snow  in  Paris." 

After  this,  she  shivers  and  yet  smiles. 
She  looks  across  the  Esterel  which  is 
turning  rose-colored  under  the  setting 
sun.  She  looks  at  the  vast  blue  sea,  so 
ver>'  blue  also,  and  rises  up  and  returns 
to  the  house,  with  slow  steps,  only  stop- 
ping to  cough,  for  she  had  remained  out 
too  long;  and  she  has  caught  cold,  a 
slight  cold. 

She  finds  a  letter  from  her  husband. 
She  opens  it  still  smihng,  and  she  reads: 

"My  dear  Love:  I  hope  you  are  go- 
ing on  well,  and  that  you  do  not  regret 
too  much  our  beautiful  district.  We 
have  had  for  some  days  past,  a  good 
frost  which  announces  snow.  For  my 
part,  I  adore  this  weather,  and  you  un- 
derstand that  I  am  keeping  that  cursed 
hot-air  plant  of  yours  going — " 

She  ceases  reading,  quite  happy  at  the 
thought  that  she  has  had  her  hot-air 
plant.  Her  right  hand,  which  holds  the 
letter,  falls  down  slowly  over  her  knees, 
while  she  raises  her  left  hand  to  her 
mouth,  as  if  to  calm  the  obstinate  cough 
which  is  tearing  her  chest. 


The  Wooden  Shoe: 


The  old  priest  was  sputtering  out  the 
last  woras  of  his  sermon  over  ttie  white 
caps  ot  the  peasant  women,  and  the 
rough  or  greasy  heads  of  the  men.  The 
large  baskets  of  the  farmers'  wives 
who  had  come  from  a  distance  to  attend 
mass  were  on  the  ground  beside  them, 
and  the  heavy  heat  of  a  July  day  caused 
them  all  to  exhale  a  smell  like  that  of 
cattle,  or  of  a  flock  of  sheep,  and  the 
cocks  could  be  heard  crowing  through 
the  large  west  door,  which  was  wide 
open,  as  well  as  the  lowing  of  the  cows 
in  a  neighboring  field. 

"As  God  wishes.  Amen!"  the  priest 
said.  Then  he  ceased,  opened  a  book, 
and,  as  he  did  every  week,  began  to  give 
notice  of  all  the  small  parish  events  for 
the  following  week.  He  was  an  old  man 
with  white  hair  who  had  been  in  the 
parish  for  over  forty  years,  and  from 
the  pulpit  was  in  the  habit  of  discours 


When  the  Malandains  had  returned 
to  their  cottage,  which  was  the  last  in 
the  village  of  La  Sabliere,  on  the  road 
to  P'ourville,  the  father,  a  thin,  wrinkled 
old  peasant,  sat  down  at  the  table,  while 
his  wife  took  the  saucepan  off  the  fire, 
and  Adelaide,  the  daughter,  took  the 
glasses  and  plates  out  of  the  sideboard. 
Then  the  father  said:  *'I  think  that 
place  at  Maitre  Omont's  ought  to  be  a 
good  one,  as  he  is  a  widower  and  his 
daughter-in-law  does  not  like  him.  He 
is  all  alone  and  has  money.  I  think  it 
would  be  a  good  thing  to  send  Adelaide 
there." 

His  wife  put  the  black  saucepan  on 
to  the  table,  took  the  lid  off,  and  while 
the  steam,  which  smelled  strongly  of 
cabbage,  rose  into  the  air  she  pondered 
on  the  suggestion.  Presently  the  old 
man  continued:  "He  has  got  some 
money,  that  is  certain,  but  any  one  go- 


ing familiarly  to  them  all;  so  he  went  ing  there  ought  to  be  very  sharp,  and 

on:     "I  will  recommend  Desire  Vaiiin,  Adelaide  is  not  that  at  all." 

who  is  very  ill,  to  your  prayers,  and  His  wife  replied:     'T  might  go  and 

also  La  Paumelle,  who  is  not  recovering  see,  ail  the  same,"  and  turning  to  her 

from  her  confinement  satisfactorily."  daughter,  a  strapping,  silly  looking  girl 

He  had  forgotten  the  rest,  and  so  he  v/ith   yellow   hair  and   fat,   red   cheeks 

looked   for  the   slips   of    paper   which  like  apples,  she  said:     "Do  you  hear, 


were  put  away  in  a  breviary.  At  last 
he  found  two  and  continued:  "I  will 
not  have  the  lads  and  girls  come  into 
the  church-yard  in  the  evening,  as  they 
do;  otherwise  I  shall  inform  the  rural 
policeman.  Monsieur  Cesaire  Omont 
would  like  to  find  a  respectable  girl  as 
servant."  He  reflected  for  a  few  mo- 
ments, and  then  added:     "That  is  all, 


you  great  silly?  You  are  to  go  to 
Maitre  Omont's  and  offer  yourself  as 
his  servant,  and  you  will  do  whatever  he 
tells  you." 

The  girl  began  to  laugh  in  a  foolish 
manner,  without  replying,  and  then  the 
three  began  their  dinner.  In  a  few  min- 
utes, the  father  continued:  "Listen  to 
me,  girl,  and  try  not  to  make  a  mistake 


my  brethren,  and  I  wish  that  all  of  you  about  what  I  am  going  to  say  to  you.'* 
may  find  the  Divine  mercy."  And  he  And  slowly  and  minutely  he  laid  down 
came  down  from  the  pulpit,  to  finish  for  her  her  line  of  conduct,  anticipating 
jixass.  the  minutest  details,  and  preparing  her 

SS4 


THE  WOODEN  SHOES 


i8S 


for  the  conquest  of  an  old  widower  who 
was  on  unfriendly  terms  with  his  family. 
The  mother  ceased  eating  to  listen  to 
him,  and  she  sat  there,  wiih  her  fork  in 
her  hand,  looking  at  her  husband  and 
her  daughter  by  turns,  and  following 
every  word  with  concentrated  and  silent 
attention,  while  Adelaide  remained  list- 
less, docile,  and  stupid,  with  vague  and 
wandering  eyes. 

As  soon  as  their  meal  was  over,  her 
mother  made  her  put  her  cap  on,  and 
they  both  started  off  to  see  Monsieur 
Cesaire  Omont.  He  lived  in  a  small, 
brick  house  adjoining  his  tenants'  :ot- 
tages,  for  he  had  retired,  and  was  liv- 
ing by  subdividing  and  letting  his  land. 

He  was  about  fifty-five  years  old,  and 
was  stout,  jovial,  and  rough-mannered, 
as  rich  men  often  are.  He  laughed  and 
shouted  loud  enough  to  make  the  walls 
fall  down,  drank  orandy  and  cider  by 
the  glassful,  and  was  said  to  be  still  of 
an  amorous  disposition,  in  spite  of  his 
age.  He  liked  to  walk  about  his  fields 
with  his  hands  behind  his  back,  digging 
his  wooden  shoes  into  the  fat  soil,  look- 
ing at  the  sprouting  corn  or  the  flower- 
ing colza  with  the  ey^  of  a  retired 
farmer,  at  his  ease,  who  Kkes  to  see  the 
crops  but  does  not  trouble  himself  about 
them  any  longer.  People  used  to  say  of 
him:  *'There  is  a  Mr.  Merrj'-man,  who 
does  not  get  up  in  a  good  temper  every 
day.'* 

He  received  the  two  women,  as  he 
was  finishing  his  coffee,  with  his  fat 
stomach  against  the  table,  and  turning 
round  said:     "What  do  you  want?" 

The  mother  was  spokeswoman.  *This 
is  our  girl  Adelaide,  and  I  have  come 
to  ask  you  to  take  her  as  servant,  as 


Monsieur  le  Cur6  told  us  you  wanted 
one." 

Maitre  Omont  looked  at  the  girl,  and 
then  he  said  roughly:  "How  old  is  the 
great  she -goat?" 

"Twenty  last  Michaelmas-Day,  Mon- 
sieur Omont." 

"That  is  settled,  she  will  have  fifteen 
francs  a  month  and  her  food.  I  shall 
expect  her  to-morrow,  to  make  my  soup 
in  the  morning."  And  he  dismissed  the 
two  women. 

The  next  day  Adelaide  entered  upon 
her  duties,  and  began  to  work  hard, 
without  saying  a  word,  as  she  was  in  the 
habit  of  doing  at  home.  About  nine 
o'clock,  as  she  was  scrubbing  the  kitchen 
floor.  Monsieur  Omont  called  her: 
"Adelaide!" 

She  came  immediately  saying :  "Here 
I  am,  master."  As  soon  as  she  was  op-^ 
posite  him,  with  her  red  and  neglected 
hands,  and  her  troubled  looks,  he  5aid. 
"Now  just  listen  to  me,  &o  that  there 
may  be  no  mistake  between  us.  You 
are  my  servant,  but  nothing  else;  you 
understand  what  I  mean.  We  shall  keep 
our  shoes  apart." 

"Yes,  master." 

"Each  in  our  own  place,  my  girl,  you 
in  your  kitchen;  I  in  my  dining-room, 
and  with  that  exception,  everything  will 
be  for  you  just  as  it  is  for  me.  Is  that 
settled?" 

"Yes,  master." 

"Very  well ;  that  is  all  right,  and  now 
go  to  your  work." 

And  she  went  out,  to  attend  to  her 
duties,  and  at  midday  she  served  up  her 
master's  dinner  in  the  little  drawing- 
room  with  the  flowered  paper  on  the 
walls,  and  then,  when  the  soup  was  on 


886 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


the  table,  she  went  to  tell  him.  "Din- 
ner is  ready,  master." 

He  went  in  and  sat  down,  looked 
round,  unfolded  his  table  napkin,  hesi- 
tated for  a  moment  and  then  in  a  voice 
of  thunder  he  shouted:     "Adelaide!" 

She  rushed  in,  terribly  frightened,  for 
he  had  shouted  as  if  he  meant  to  murder 
her. 

"Well,  in  heaven's  name,  where  is 
your  place?" 

"But,  master!" 

"I  do  not  like  to  eat  alone,"  he 
roared;  "you  will  sit  there,  or  go  to  the 
devil,  if  you  don't  choose  to  do  so. 
Go  and  get  your  plate  and  glass." 

She  brought  them  in,  feeling  very 
frightened,  and  stammered:  "Here  I 
am,  master,"  and  then  sat  down  opposite 
to  him.  He  grew  jovial;  clinked  glasses 
with  her,  rapped  the  table,  and  told  her 
stories  to  which  she  listened  with  down- 
cast eyes,  without  daring  to  say  a  word, 
and  from  time  to  time  she  got  up  to 
fetch  some  bread,  cid^r,  or  plates. 
When  she  brought  in  the  coffee  she 
only  put  one  cup  before  him,  and  then 
he  grew  angry  again,  and  growled: 
''Well,  what  about  yourself?" 

"I  never  take  any,  master." 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  I  do  not  like  it." 

Then  he  burst  out  afresh:  "I  am  not 
fond  of  having  my  coffee  by  myself,  con- 
found it!  If  you  will  not  take  it  here, 
you  can  go  to  the  devil.  Go  and  get  a 
cup,  and  make  haste  about  it." 

So  she  went  and  fetched  a  cup,  sat 
down  again,  tasted  the  black  liquor  and 
made  faces  over  it,  but  swallowed  it  to 
the  last  drop,  under  her  master's  furi- 
ous looks.    Then  he  made  her  also  drink 


her  first  glass  of  brandy  as  an  extra 
drop,  the  second  as  a  livener,  and  the 
third  as  a  kick  behind,  and  then  he  told 
her  to  go  and  wash  up  her  plates  and 
dishes,  adding,  that  she  was  "a  good 
sort  of  girl." 

It  was  the  same  at  supper,  after  which 
she  had  to  play  dominoes  with  him. 
Then  he  sent  her  to  bad.  saying  that  he 
should  come  upstairs  soon.  So  she  went 
to  her  room,  a  garret  under  the  roof, 
and  after  saying  her  prayers,  undressed 
and  got  into  bed.  But  very  soon  she 
sprang  up  in  a  fright,  for  a  furious  shout 
had  shaken  the  house.  "Adelaide!" 
She  opened  her  door,  and  replied  from 
her  attic:     "Here  I  am,  master." 

"Where  are  ycu?" 

"In  bed,  of  course,  master."  '-mL 

Then  he  roared  out:  "Will  you  come 
downstairs,  in  heaven's  name?  I  do 
not  like  to  sleep  alone,  and,  by  Jove, 
if  you  object,  you  can  just  go  at  once." 

Then  in  her  terror  she  replied  from 
upstairs:  "I  will  come,  master."  She 
looked  for  her  candle,  and  he  soon  heard 
her  small  clogs  patterirg  down  the  stairs. 
When  she  had  got  to  the  bottom  steps, 
he  seized  her  by  the  arm,  and  as  soon 
as  she  had  left  her  light  wooden  shoes 
by  the  side  of  her  master's  heavy  boots, 
he  pushed  her  into  his  room,  growling 
out:     "Quicker  than  that,  confound  it!" 

And  without  knowing  what  she  was 
saying  she  answered:  "Here  I  am,  here 
I  am,  master." 


Six  months  later,  when  she  went  to 
see  her  parents  one  Sunday,  her  father 
looked  at  her  curiously,  and  then  said: 
"Are  you  not  enceinte?" 

She     remained     thunderstruck,     and 


BOITELLE 


887 


looked  at  her  waist,  and  then  said: 
"No,  I  do  not  think  so." 

Then  he  asked  her,  for  he  wanted  to 
know  everything:  "Just  tell  me,  didn't 
you  mix  your  clogs  together,  one  night?" 

"Yes,  I  mixed  them  the  first  night, 
and  then  every  other  night." 

"Well,  then  you  are  enceinte,  you 
great  fool!" 

On  hearing  that,  she  began  to  sob, 
and  stammered:  "How  could  I  know? 
How  was  I  to  know?"  Old  Malandain 
looked  at  her  knowingly,  and  appeared 
very  pleased,  and  then  he  asked:  "What 
did  you  not  know?"  And  amid  tears 
she  replied:  "How  was  I  to  know  how 
children  were  made?"  And  when  her 
mother  came  back,  the  man  said,  with- 


out any  anger:  "There,  she  is  enceinte, 
now." 

But  the  woman  was  furious,  her  finer 
instinct  revolted,  and  she  called  her 
daughter,  who  was  in  tears,  every  name 
she  could  think  of — a  "trollop"  and  a 
"strumpet."  Then,  however,  the  old 
man  made  her  hold  her  tongue,  and  as 
he  took  up  his  cap  to  go  and  talk  the 
matter  over  with  Master  Cesaire  Omont, 
he  remarked:  "She  is  actually  more 
stupid  than  I  thought  she  was;  she  did 
not  even  know  what  he  was  doing,  the 
fool!" 

On  the  next  Sunday,  after  the  sermon, 
the  old  Cure  published  the  banns  be- 
tween Monsieur  Onufre-Cesaire  Omont 
and  Celeste-Adelaide  Malandain. 


Boitelle 


Pere  Boitelle  (Antoine)  had  the 
reputation  through  the  whole  country 
of  a  specialist  in  dirty  jobs.  Every  time 
a  pit,  a  dunghill,  or  a  cesspool  required 
to  be  cleared  away,  or  a  dirt-hole  to  be 
cleansed  out,  he  was  the  person  em- 
ployed to  do  it. 

He  would  ccme  there  with  his  night- 
man's tools  and  his  wooden  shoes  cov- 
ered with  dirt,  and  would  set  to  work, 
whining  incessantly  about  the  nature  of 
his  occupation.  When  people  asked  him 
why  he  did  this  loathsome  work,  he 
would  reply  resignedly: 

"Faith,  'tis  for  my  children  whom  I 
must  support.  This  brings  in  more  than 
anything  else." 

He  had,  indeed,  fourteen  children.  If 
anyone  asked  him  what  had  become  of 


them,  he  would  say  with  an  air  of  in- 
difference: 

"There  are  only  eight  of  them  left 
in  the  house.  One  is  out  at  service, 
and  five  are  married." 

When  the  questioner  wanted  to  know 
whether  they  were  well  married,  he  re- 
plied vivaciously; 

"I  did  not  cross  them.  I  crossed 
them  in  nothing.  They  married  just  as 
they  pleased.  We  shouldn't  go  against 
people's  Hkings — it  turns  our  badly.  I 
am  a  night-cartman  because  my  parents 
went  against  my  likings.  But  for  that  1 
would  have  become  a  workman  like  the 
others." 

Here  is  the  way  his  parents  had 
thwarted  him  in  his  likings: 

He  was  at  that  time  a  soldier  stationed 


888 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


at  Havre,  not  more  stupid  than  another, 
or  sharper  either,  a  rather  simple  fellow, 
in  truth.  During  his  hours  of  freedom 
his  greatest  pleasure  was  to  walk  along 
the  quay,  where  the  bird-dealers  congre- 
gate. Sometimes  alone,  sometimes  with 
a  soldier  from  his  own  part  of  the 
country,  he  would  slowly  saunter  along 
by  cages  where  parrots  with  green  backs 
and  yellow  heads  from  the  banks  of  the 
Amazon,  parrots  with  gray  backs  and 
red  heads  from  Senegal,  enormous  ma- 
caws, which  looked  like  birds  brought  up 
in  conservatories,  with  their  flower-like 
feathers,  plumes,  and  tufts,  paroquets  of 
every  shape,  painted  with  minute  care 
by  that  excellent  miniaturist,  God  Al- 
mighty, with  the  little  young  birds,  hop- 
ping about,  yellow,  blue,  and  variegated, 
mingling  their  cries  with  the  noise  of 
the  quay,  added  to  the  din  caused  by 
the  unloading  of  the  vessels,  as  well  as 
by  passengers  and  vehicles — a  violent 
clamor,  loud,  shrill,  and  deafening,  as  if 
from  some  distant,  monstrous  forest. 

Boitelle  would  stop,  with  strained 
eyes,  wide-open  mouth,  laughing  and  en- 
raptured, showing  his  teeth  to  the  cap- 
tive cockatoos,  who  kept  nodding  their 
white  or  yellow  topknots  toward  the 
glaring  red  of  his  breeches  and  the  cop- 
per buckle  of  his  belt.  When  he  found 
a  bird  that  could  talk,  he  put  questions 
to  it,  and  if  it  happened  at  the  time  to 
be  disposed  to  reply  and  to  hold  a  con- 
versation with  him,  he  would  remain 
there  till  nightfall  filled  with  gaiety  and 
contentment.  He  also  found  heaps  of 
fun  in  looking  at  the  monkeys,  and 
couid  conceive  no  greater  luxury  for  a 
rich  man  than  to  possess  these  animals, 
just  like  cats  and  doj^s.  This  taste  for 
the  exotic  he  had  in  his  blood,  as  people 


have  a  taste  for  the  chase,  or  for  medi- 
cine, or  for  the  priesthood.  He  could 
not  refrain,  every  time  the  gates  of  the 
barracks  opened,  from  going  back  to  the 
quay,  as  if  drawn  toward  it  by  an  irre- 
sistible longing. 

Now,  on  one  occasion,  having  stopped 
almost  in  ecstasy  before  an  enormous 
ararauna,  which  was  swelling  out  its 
plumes,  bending  forward,  and  bridling 
up  again,  as  if  making  the  court-courte- 
sies of  parrot-land,  he  saw  the  door  of 
a  little  tavern  adjoining  the  bird-dealer's 
shop  opening,  and  his  attention  was  at- 
tracted by  a  young  negrpss,  with  a  silk 
kerchief  tied  round  her  head,  sweeping 
into  the  street  the  rubbish  and  the  sand 
of  the  establishment. 

Boitelle's  attention  was  sjon  divided 
between  the  bird  and  the  woman,  and  he 
really  could  not  tell  which  of  these  two 
beings  he  contemplated  with  the  greater 
astonishment  and  delight. 

The  negress,  having  got  rid  of  the 
sweepings  of  the  tavern,  raised  her  eyes, 
and,  in  her  turn,  was  dazzled  by  the 
soldier's  uniform.  There  she  stood  fac- 
ing him  with  her  broom  in  her  hands  as 
if  she  were  presenting  arms  for  him, 
while  the  ararauna  continued  making 
courtesies.  Now  at  the  end  of  a  few 
seconds  the  soldier  began  to  get  em- 
barrassed  by  this  attention,  and  he 
walked  away  gingerly  so  as  not  to  pre- 
sent the  appearance  of  beating  a  retreat 

But  he  came  back.  Almost  every  day 
he  passed  in  front  of  the  Colonial  tav- 
ern, and  often  he  could  distinguish 
through  the  windowpanes  the  figure  of 
the  little  black-skinned  maid  filling  out 
"bocks"  or  glasses  cf  brandy  for  the 
sailors  of  the  port.  Frequently,  too,  she 
would  come  out  to  the  doGr  on  seeing 


BOITELLE 


88^ 


him.  Soon,  without  even  having  ex- 
changed a  word,  they  smiled  at  one  an- 
other like  old  acquaintances;  and  Boi- 
telle  feit  his  heart  moved  when  he  saw 
suddenly  glittering  between  the  dark  lips 
of  the  girl  her  shining  row  of  white 
teeth.  At  length,  he  ventured  one  day 
to  enter,  and  was  quite  surprised  to 
find  that  she  could  speak  French  like 
everyone  else.  The  bottle  of  lemonade, 
of  which  she  was  good  enough  to  accept 
a  glassful,  remained  in  the  solider's 
recollection  memorably  delicious;  and  it 
became  habitual  with  him  to  come  and 
absorb  in  this  little  tavern  on  the  quay 
all  the  agreeable  drinks  which  he  could 
afford. 

For  him  it  was  a  treat,  a  happiness, 
on  which  his  thoughts  were  constantly 
dwelling,  to  watch  the  black  hand  of  ♦•he 
little  maid  pouring  out  something  into 
his  glass  while  her  teeth,  brighter  than 
her  eyes,  showed  themselves  as  she 
laughed.  When  they  had  kept  company 
in  this  way  for  two  months,  they  be- 
came fast  friends,  and  Boitelle,  after  hir 
first  astonishment  at  discovering  that 
this  negress  was  in  principle  as  good 
as  the  best  girls  in  the  country,  that  she 
exhibited  a  regard  for  economy,  indus- 
try, religion,  and  good  conduct,  loved 
her  more  on  that  account,  and  became 
so  much  smitten  with  her  that  he  wanted 
to  marry  her. 

He  told  her  about  his  intentions, 
which  made  her  dance  with  joy.  Be- 
sides, she  had  a  little  money,  left  her 
by  a  female  oyster-dealer,  who  had  picked 
her  up  when  she  had  been  left  on  the 
quay  at  Havre  by  an  American  captain. 
This  captain  had  found  her,  when  she 
was  only  about  six  years  old,  Iving  on 
bales  of  cotton  in  the  hold  of  his  ship, 


some  hours  after  his  departure  from 
New  York.  On  his  arrival  in  Havre,  he 
there  abandoned  to  the  care  of  this  com- 
passionate oyster-dealer  the  little  black 
creature,  who  had  been  hidden  (n  board 
his  vessel,  he  could  not  tell  how  or  why. 

The  oyster-woman  having  died,  the 
young  negress  became  a  servant  at  the 
Colonial  tavern. 

Antoine  Boitel\e  added:  "This  will  be 
all  right  if  my  parents  don't  go  against 
it.  I  will  never  go  against  them,  you 
understand — never!  I'm  going  to  say  a 
word  or  two  to  them  the  first  time  I  go 
back  to  the  country." 

On  the  following  week,  in  fact,  hav- 
ing obtained  twenty-four  hours'  leave,  he 
went  to  see  his  family,  who  cultivated  a 
liltlc  farm  at  Tourteville  near  Yvetot. 

He  waited  till  the  meal  was  finished, 
the  hour  when  the  coffee  baptized  with 
brandy  makes  people  more  open-hearted, 
before  informing  his  parents  that  he  had 
found  a  girl  answering  so  well  to  his 
likings  in  every  way  that  there  could 
not  exist  any  other  in  all  the  world  so 
perfectly  suited  to  him. 

The  old  people,  at  this  observation, 
immediately  assumed  a  circumspect  air, 
and  wanted  explanations.  At  first  he 
concealed  nothing  from  them  except  the 
color  of  her  skin. 

She  was  a  servant,  without  much 
means,  but  strong,  thrifty,  clean,  well- 
conducted,  and  sen^-'ble.  All  these 
were  better  than  money  would  be  in  the 
hands  of  a  bad  housewife.  Moreover, 
she  had  a  few  sous,  left  her  by  a  wo- 
man who  had  reared  her, — a  good  num- 
ber of  sous,  almost  a  little  dowry, — 
fifteen  hundred  francs  in  the  savings' 
bank.  The  old  people,  overcome  by  his 
talk,  and  relying,  too,  on  their  own  judg- 


890 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


inent,  were  gradually  giving  way,  when 
he  came  to  the  delicate  point.  Laughing 
in  rather  a  constrained  fashion,  he  said: 

'There's  only  one  thing  you  may  not 
like.     She  is  not  white." 

They  did  not  understand,  and  he  had 
to  explain  at  some  length  and  very  cau- 
tiously, to  avoid  shocking  them,  that  she 
belonged  to  the  dusky  race  of  which  they 
had  only  seen  samples  among  figures  ex- 
hibited at  Epinal.  Then,  they  became 
restless,  perplexed,  alarmed,  as  if  he 
had  proposed  a  union  with  the  Devil. 

The  mother  said:  *'Black?  How 
much  of  her  is  black?  Is  it  the  whole 
of  her?" 

He  replied:  "Certainly.  Everywhere, 
just  as  you  are  white  everywhere." 

The  father  interposed:  "Black?  Is  it 
as  black  as  the  pot?" 

The  son  answered:  "Perhaps  a  little 
less  than  that.  She  is  black,  but  not  dis- 
gustingly black.  The  cure's  cossack  is 
black;  but  it  is  not  uglier  than  a  sur- 
plice, white  is  white." 

The  father  said:  "Are  there  more 
black  people  besides  her  in  her  coun- 
try?" 

And  the  son,  with  an  air  of  convic- 
tion, exclaimed:     "Certainly!" 

But   the    old   man    shook   his   head: 
"This  must  be  disagreeable!" 
'     Said   the   son:      "It   isn't   more   dis- 
agreeable than  anything  else,  seeing  that 
you  get  used  to  it  in  no  time." 

The  mother  asked:  "It  doesn't  soil 
linen  more  than  other  skins,  this  black 
skin?" 

"Not  more  than  your  own,  as  it  is 
her  proper  color," 

Then,  after  many  other  questions,  it 
was  agreed  that  the  parents  should  see 
this  girl  before  coming  to  any  decision 


and  that  the  young  fellow,  whose  period 
of  service  was  coming  to  an  end  in  the 
course  of  a  month,  should  bring  her  to 
the  house  in  order  that  they  might  ex- 
amine her,  and  decide  by  talking  the 
matter  over  whether  or  not  she  was  too 
dark  to  enter  the  Boitelle  family. 

Antoine  accordingly  announced  that 
on  Sunday,  the  twenty-second  of  May, 
the  day  of  his  discharge,  he  would  start 
for  Tourteville  with  his  sweetheart. 

She  had  put  on,  for  this  journey  to 
the  house  of  her  lover's  parents,  her 
most  beautiful  and  most  gaudy  clothes, 
in  which  yellow,  red,  and  blue  were  the 
prevailing  colors,  so  that  she  had  the 
appearance  of  one  adorned  for  a  national 
jete. 

At  the  terminus,  as  they  were  leaving 
Havre,  people  stared  at  her  very  much, 
and  Boitelle  was  proud  of  giving  his  arm 
to  a  person  who  commanded  so  muct 
attention.  Then,  in  the  third-class  car- 
riage, in  which  she  took  a  seat  by  hi? 
side,  she  excited  so  much  astonishment 
among  the  peasants  that  the  people  in 
the  adjoining  compartments  got  up  on 
their  benches  to  get  a  look  at  her  over 
the  wooden  partition  which  divided  the 
different  portions  of  the  carriage  from 
one  another.  A  child,  at  sight  of  her, 
began  to  cry  with  terror,  another  con- 
cealed his  face  in  his  mother's  apron. 
Everything  went  off  well,  however,  up  to 
their  arrival  at  their  destination.  But, 
when  the  train  slackened  its  rate  of  mo- 
tion as  they  drew  near  Yvetot,  Antoine 
felt  ill  at  ease,  as  he  would  have  done 
at  an  inspection  when  he  did  not  know 
his  drill-practice.  Then,  as  he  put  his 
head  out  through  the  carriage  door,  he 
recognized,  some  distance  away,  his 
father,  who  was  holding  the  bridle  of 


BOITELLE 


891 


the  horse  yoked  to  a  carriage,  and  his 
mother  who  had  made  her  way  to  the 
railed  portion  of  the  platform  where  a 
number  of  spectators  had  gathered. 

He  stepped  out  first,  gave  his  hand 
to  his  sweetheart,  and  holding  himself 
erect,  as  if  he  were  escorting  a  gen- 
eral, he  advanced  toward  his  family. 

The  mother,  on  seeing  this  black  lady, 
in  variegated  costume  in  her  son's  com- 
pany, remained  so  stupefied  that  she 
could  not  open  her  mouth;  and  the 
father  found  it  hard  to  hold  the  horse, 
which  the  engine  or  the  negress  caused 
to  rear  for  some  time  without  stopping. 
But  Antoine,  suddenly  seized  with  the 
unmingled  joy  of  seeing  once  more  the 
old  people,  rushed  forward  with  open 
arms,  embraced  his  mother,  embraced 
his  father,  in  spite  of  the  nag's  fright, 
and  then  turning  toward  his  companion, 
at  whom  the  passengers  on  the  platform 
stopped  to  stare  with  amazement,  he 
proceeded  to  explain: 

"Here  she  is!  I  told  you  that,  at  first 
sight,  she  seems  odd;  but  as  soon  as 
you  know  her,  in  very  truth,  there's  not 
a  better  sort  in  the  whole  world.  Say 
good  morrow  to  her  without  making  any 
bother  about  it." 

Thereupon,  Mere  Boitelle,  herself 
nearly  frightened  out  of  her  wits,  made 
a  sort  of  courtesy,  while  the  father 
took  off  his  cap,  murmuring:  *T  wish 
you  good  luck!" 

Then,  without  further  delay,  they 
climbed  up  on  the  car,  the  two  women 
at  the  lower  end  on  seats,  which  made 
them  jump  up  and  down  as  the  vehicle 
went  jolting  along  the  road,  and  the 
two  men  outside  on  the  front  seat. 

Nobody  spoke.  Antoine,  ill  at  ease, 
whistled  a  barrack-room  air;  his  father 


lashed  the  nag;  and  his  mother,  from 
where  she  sat  in  the  corner,  kept  casting 
sly  glances  at  the  negress,  whose  fore- 
head and  cheek-bones  shone  in  the  sun- 
light like  well-blacked  shoes. 

Wishing  to  break  the  ice,  Antoine 
turned  round. 

''Well,"  said  he,  "we  don't  seem  in- 
clined to  talk." 

"We  must  get  time,"  replied  the  old 
woman. 

He  went  on : 

"Come!  tell  us  the  little  story  about 
that  hen  of  yours  that  laid  eight  eggs.'' 

It  was  a  funny  anecdote  of  long  stand* 
ing  in  the  family.  But,  as  his  mother 
still  remained  silent,  paralyzed  by  emo- 
tion, he  started  the  talking  himself  and 
narrated,  with  much  laughter  on  his  own 
part,  this  memorable  adventure.  The 
father,  who  knew  it  by  heart,  brightened 
up  at  the  opening  words  of  the  narra- 
tive; his  wife  soon  followed  his  example; 
and  the  negress  herself,  when  he  had 
reached  the  drollest  part  of  it,  suddenly 
gave  vent  to  a  laugh  so  noisy,  rolling, 
and  torrentlike  that  the  horse,  becoming 
excited,  broke  into  a  gallop  for  a  little 
while. 

This  served  as  the  introduction  tc 
their  acquaintanceship.  The  company 
at  length  began  to  chat. 

On  reaching  the  house  they  aP 
alighted,  and  he  conducted  his  sweet- 
heart to  a  room  so  that  she  might  take 
off  her  dress,  to  avoid  staining  it  while 
preparing  a  good  dish  intended  to  win 
the  old  people's  affections  by  appealing 
to  their  stomachs.  Then  he  drew  his 
parents  aside  near  the  door,  and  with 
beating  heart,  asked: 

"Well,  what  do  you  say  now?^ 


892 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


The  father  said  nothing.  The  mother, 
less  timid,  exclaimed : 

"She  is  too  black.  No,  mdeed,  this  is 
too  much  for  me.    It  turns  my  blood." 

"That  may  be,  but  it  is  only  for  the 
moment.'* 

They  then  made  their  way  into  the 
interior  of  the  house  where  the  good 
woman  was  somewhat  affected  at  the 
spectacle  of  the  negress  engaged  in  cook- 
ing. She  at  once  proceeded  to  assist 
her,  with  petticoats  tucked  up,  active  in 
spite  of  her  age. 

The  meal  w^3  an  excellent  one — ^very 
long,  very  enjoyable.  When  they  had 
afterward  taken  a  turn  together,  An- 
toine  said  to  his  father: 

"Well,  dad,  what  do  you  say  to  this?" 

The  peasant  took  care  never  to  com- 
promise himself. 

"I  have  no  opinion  about  it.  Ask  your 
mother." 

So  Antoine  went  back  to  his  mother, 
and,  leading  her  to  the  end  of  the 
room,  said: 

"Well,  mother,  what  do  you  think  of 
her?" 

"My  poor  lad,  she  is  really  too  black. 
If  she  were  only  a  little  less  black,  I 
would  not  go  against  you,  but  this  is  too 
much.    One  would  think  it  was  Satan!" 

He  did  not  press  her,  knowing  how 
obstinate  the  old  woman  had  always 
been,  but  he  felt  a  tempest  of  disap- 
pointment sweeping  over  his  heart.  He 
was  turning  over  in  his  mind  what  he 
ought  to  do,  what  plan  he  could  devise, 
surprised,  moreover,  that  she  had  not 
conquered  'them  already  as  she  had  cap- 
tivated himself.  And  they  all  four  set 
out  with  slow  steps  through  the  corn- 


fields, having  again  relapsed  into 
silence.  Whenever  they  passed  a  fence, 
they  saw  a  countryman  sitting  on  the 
stile  and  a  group  of  brats  climbing  up  to 
stare  at  them.  People  rushed  out  into 
the  road  to  see  the  "black"  whom  young 
Boitelle  had  brought  home  with  him. 
At  a  distance  they  noticed  people  scam- 
pering across  the  fields  as  they  do  when 
the  drum  beats  to  draw  public  attention 
to  £ome  living  phenomenon.  Pere  and 
Mere  Boitelle,  scared  by  this  curiosity, 
which  was  exhibited  everywhere  through 
the  country  at  their  approach,  quickened 
their  pace,  walking  side  by  side,  leaving 
far  behind  their  son,  whom  his  dark 
companion  asked  what  his  parents 
thought  of  her. 

He  hesitatingly  replied  that  they  had 
not  yet  made  up  their  minds. 

But  on  the  village-green,  people 
rushed  out  of  all  the  houses  in  a  flutter 
of  excitement;  and,  at  the  sight  of  the 
gathering  rabble,  old  Boitelle  took  to  his 
heels,  and  regained  his  abode,  while 
Antoine,  swelling  with  rage,  his  sweet- 
heart on  his  arm,  advanced  majestically 
under  the  battery  of  staring  eyes  opened 
wide  in  amazement. 

He  understood  that  it  was  at  an  end, 
that  there  was  no  hope  for  him,  that  he 
could  not  marry  his  negress.  She  also 
understood  it;  and  as  they  drew  near 
the  farmhouse  they  both  began  to  weep. 
As  soon  as  they  had  got  back  to  the 
house,  she  once  more  took  off  her  dress 
to  aid  the  mother  in  her  household  du- 
ties, and  followed  her  everywhere,  to 
the  dairy,  to  the  stable,  to  the  henhouse, 
taking  on  herself  the  hardest  part  of  the 
work,  repeating  always,  "Let  me  do  it» 
Madame  Boitelle,"  so  that,  when  night 


SELFISHNESS 


893 


came  on,  the  old  woman,  touched  but 
inexorable,  said  to  her  son:  "She  is  a 
good  girl,  all  the  same.  'Tis  a  pity  she 
is  so  black;  but  indeed  she  is  too  much 
50.  I  couldn't  get  used  to  it.  She  must 
go  back  again.    She  is  too  black!" 

And  young  Boitelle  said  to  his  sweet- 
heart : 

"She  wiU  not  consent.  She  thinks 
you  are  too  black.  You  must  go  back 
again.  I  will  go  with  you  to  the  train. 
No  matter — don't  fret.  I  am  going  to 
talk  to  them  after  you  have  started." 

He  then  conducted  her  to  the  railway- 
station,  still  cheering  her  up  with  hope, 
and,  when  he  had  kissed  her,  he  put  her 
into  the  train,  wlrch  he  watched  as  it 
passed  out  rf  ri^^ht,  his  eyes  swollen 
with  tears.    In  vain  did  he  appeal  to  the 


old  people.  They  would  not  give  their 
consent. 

And  when  he  had  told  this  story, 
which  was  known  all  over  the  country, 
Antoine  Boitelle  would  always  add: 

"From  that  time  forward  I  have  had 
no  heart  for  anything — for  anything  at 
all.  No  trade  suited  me  any  longer,  and 
so  I  became  what  I  am — a  night- 
cartman." 

People  would  say  to  him:  "Yet  you 
got  married." 

"Yes,  and  I  can*t  say  that  my  wife 
didn't  please  me,  seeing  that  I've  got 
fourteen  children;  but  she  is  not  the 
other  one,  oh!  no — certainly  not!  The 
other  one,  mark  you,  my  negress,  she 
had  on'y  to  ^ive  me  one  glance  and  I 
felt  as  if  I  were  in  Heaven!" 


Seljishne. 


'JT 


We  read  lately  in  the  journals,  the 
loilowing  lines: 

"Boijlogn£:-Sur-Mer,  January  22. 
"A  frightful  disaster  has  occurred 
which  throws  into  consternation  our 
maritime  population,  so  grievously  af- 
flicted two  years  since.  The  fishing 
boat,  commanded  by  shipmaster  Javel, 
entering  into  port,  was  carried  to  the 
\»^cst,  and  broken  upon  the  rocks  of  the 
breakwater  near  the  pier.  In  spite  of 
ihe  efforts  of  the  salvage  boat,  and  of 
life  lines  shot  out  to  them,  four  men 
and  a  cabin  boy  perished.  The  bad 
weather  continues.  We  fear  new 
calamities." 

Who  is  this  shipmaster  Javel?  Is  he 
the  brother  of  the  one-armed  Javel?  If 
this  poor  man  tossed  by  the  waves,  and 


dead  perhaps,  under  the  debris  of  his 
boat  cut  in  pieces,  is  the  one  I  think 
he  is,  he  assisted,  eighteen  years  ago,  at 
another  drama,  terrible  and  simple  as 
are  all  the  formidable  dramas  of  the 
billows. 

Javel  the  elder  was  then  master  of  a 
smack.  The  smack  i?  the  fishing  boat 
par  excellence.  Solid,  fearing  no  kind 
of  weather,  with  round  body,  rolled 
incessantly  by  the  waves,  like  a  cork, 
always  lashed  by  the  hard,  foul  winds 
of  the  Channel,  it  travels  the  sea  in- 
defatigably,  with  sail  filled,  making  in 
its  wake  a  path  which  reaches  the  bot- 
tom of  the  ocean,  detaching  all  the 
sleeping  creatures  from  the  rocks,  the 
flat  fishes  glued  to  the  s^nd,  the  heavy 
crabs  with  their  hooked  claws,  and  the 


894 


WORKS  OF  GUY    DE  MAUPASSANT 


lobster  with  his  pointed  mustaches. 
When  the  breeze  is  fresh  and  the 
waves  choppy,  the  boat  puts  about  to 
fish.  A  rope  is  fastened  to  the  end  of  a 
great  wooden  shank  tipped  with  iron, 
which  is  let  down  by  means  of  two 
cables  slipping  over  two  spools  at  the 
extreme  end  of  the  craft.  And  the  boat, 
driving  under  wind  and  current,  drags 
after  her  this  apparatus,  which  ravages 
and  devastates  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 

Javel  had  on  board  his  younger 
brother,  four  men,  and  a  cabin  boy. 
He  had  set  out  from  Boulogne  in  fair 
weather  to  cast  the  nets.  Then,  sud- 
denly, the  wind  arose  and  an  unlooked- 
for  squall  forced  th^  boat  along  over  the 
waters.  It  gained  the  coast  of  England ; 
but  a  tremendous  sea  beat  so  against 
the  cliffs  and  the  shore  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  enter  port.  The  little  boat 
put  to  sea  again  and  returned  to  the 
coast  of  France.  The  tempest  continued 
to  make  the  piers  unapproachable,  en- 
veloping them  with  foam,  and  shutting 
ofif  all  places  of  refuge  by  noise  and 
danger. 

The  fishing  boat  set  out  again,  running 
under  the  billows,  tossed  about,  shaken 
up,  suffocated  in  mountains  of  water, 
but  merry  in  spite  of  all,  accustomed 
to  heavy  weather,  which  sometimes  held 
it  for  five  or  six  hours  between  the  two 
countries,  unable  to  land  in  the  one  or 
the  other. 

Finally,  the  hurricane  ceased,  when 
they  came  out  into  open  sea,  and  al- 
though the  sea  was  still  high,  the  com- 
mander ordered  them  to  cast  the  net. 
Then  the  great  fishing  tackle  was  thrown 
overboard,  and  two  men  at  one  side  and 
two  at  the  other  besdn  to  unwind  from 
rollers  the  cable  which  holds  it.     Sud- 


denly it  touches  the  bottom,  but  a  high 
wave  tips  the  boat.  Javel  the  youngerj 
who  is  in  the  prow  directing  the  casting 
of  the  net,  totters,  and  finds  his  arm 
caught  between  the  cable,  stopped  an 
instant  by  the  motion,  and  the  wood  on 
which  it  slipped.  He  made  a  desperate 
effort  with  his  other  hand  to  lift  the 
cable,  but  the  net  already  dragged  and 
the  rapidly  slipping  cable  would  not 
yield. 

Faint  from  pain,  he  called.  All  ran 
to  him.  His  brother  left  the  helm.  They 
threw  their  full  force  upon  the  rope, 
forcing  it  away  from  the  arm  it  was 
grinding.  It  was  in  vain.  "We  must 
cut  it,"  said  a  sailor,  and  he  drew  from 
his  pocket  a  large  knife  which  could,  in 
two  blows,  save  young  Javel's  arm. 
But  to  cut  was  to  lose  the  net,  and  the 
net  meant  money,  much  money — five 
hundred  francs;  it  belonged  to  the  elder 
Javel,  who  held  to  his  property. 

With  tortured  heart  he  cried  out: 
"No,  don't  cut;  I'll  luff  the  ship."  And 
he  ran  to  the  wheel,  putting  the  helm 
about.  The  boat  scarcely  obeyed, 
paralyzed  by  the  net  which  counteracted 
its  power,  and  dragged  besides  from  the 
force  of  the  leeway  and  the  wind. 

Young  Javel  fell  to  his  knees  wath 
set  teeth  and  haggard  eyes.  He  said 
nothing.  His  brother  returned,  fearing 
the  sailor's  cutting. 

"Wait!  wait!"  he  said,  "don't  cut, 
we  must  cast  anchor." 

The  anchor  was  thrown  overboard,  all 
the  chain  paid  out,  and  they  then  tried 
to  take  a  turn  around  the  capstan  with 
the  cables  in  order  to  loosen  the  strain 
from  the  weight  of  the  net.  They  v;ere 
successful,  finally,  and  released  the  arm 


SELFISHNESS 


895 


which  hung  inert  under  a  sleeve  of 
bloody  woolen  cloth. 

Young  Javel  was  nearly  beside  him- 
self. They  removed  the  covering  from 
his  arm,  and  then  saw  something  hor- 
rible ;  bruised  flesh,  from  which  the  blood 
spurted  in  waves,  as  if  it  were  forced  by 
a  pump.  The  man  himself  looked  at  his 
arm  and  murmured:     "Fool!" 

Then,  as  the  hemorrhage  made  a  river 
on  the  deck  of  the  boat,  the  sailors 
cried:  "Hell  lose  all  his  blood.  We 
must  bind  the  vein!" 

They  then  took  a  rope,  a  great,  black, 
*.arred  rope  and,  twisting  it  around  the 
member  above  the  wound,  bound  it  with 
all  their  strength.  Little  by  little  the 
jets  of  blood  stopped,  and  finally  ceased 
altogether. 

Young  Javel  arose,  his  arm  hanging 
by  his  side.  He  took  it  by  the  other 
hand,  raised  it,  turned  it,  shook  it. 
Everything  was  broken;  the  bones  were 
crushed  completely;  only  the  muscles 
held  it  to  his  body.  He  looked  at  it 
with  sad  eyes,  as  if  reflectinig.  Then  he 
seated  himself  on  a  folded  sail,  and  his 
comrades  came  around  him,  advising  him 
to  soak  it  continually  to  prevent  its 
turning  black. 

They  put  a  bucket  near  him  and, 
from  minute  to  minute,  he  would  poor 
water  from  a  glass  upon  the  horrible 
wound,  leaving  a  thread  of  color  in  the 
clear  water. 

"You  would  be  better  down  below," 
said  his  brother.  He  went  down,  but  at 
the  end  of  an  hour  came  up  again,  feel- 
ing better  not  to  be  alone.  And  then,  he 
preferred  the  open  air.  He  sat  down 
again  upon  the  sail  and  continued  bath- 
ing his  arm. 

The   fishing  was  good.     Larc;e  fishes 


with  white  bodies  were  lying  beside  him, 
shaken  by  the  spasms  of  death.  He 
looked  at  them  without  ceasing  to 
sprinkle  his  mangled  flesh. 

When  they  started  to  return  to 
Boulogne,  another  gale  of  wind  pre- 
vented. The  little  boat  began  again  its 
mad  course,  bounding,  tumbling,  shaking 
sadly  the  wounded  man. 

The  night  came.  The  weather  was 
heavy  until  daybreak.  At  sunrise,  they 
could  see  England  again,  but  as  the  sea 
was  a  little  less  rough,  they  turned 
toward  France,  beating  in  the  wind. 

Toward  evening,  young  Javel  called 
his  comrades  and  showed  them  black 
traces  and  a  villainous  look  of  decay 
around  that  part  of  his  arm  which  was 
no  longer  joined  to  his  body. 

The  sailors  looked  at  it,  giving  ad- 
vice: "Ttiat  must  be  gangrene,"  said 
one. 

"It  must  have  salt  water  on  it,"  said 
another. 

Then  they  brought  salt  water  and 
poured  it  on  the  wound.  The  wounded 
man  became  livid,  grinding  his  teeth, 
and  twisting  with  pain;  but  he  uttered 
no  cry. 

When  the  burning  grew  less,  he  said 
to  his  brother:  "Give  me  your  knife." 
The  brother  gave  it  to  him. 

"Hold  this  arm  up  for  me,  drawn  out 
straight." 

His  brother  did  as  he  was  asked. 

Then  he  began  to  cut.  He  cut  gently, 
with  caution,  severing  the  last  tendons 
with  the  sharp  blade  as  one  would  a 
thread  with  a  razor.  Soon  he  had  only  a 
stump.  He  fetched  a  deep  sigh  and 
said:    "That  had  to  be  done.    Fool!" 

He  seemed  relieved  and  breathed  with 
force.     He  continued  to  pour  water  on 


896 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


tie  part  of  his  arm  remaining  to  him. 

The  night  was  still  bad  and  they  could 
tM)t  land.  When  the  day  appeared, 
young  Javel  took  his  detached  arm  and 
examined  it  carefully.  Putrefaction  had 
begun.  The  comrades  came  also  and  ex- 
amined it,  passing  it  from  hand  to  hand, 
touching  it,  turning  it  over,  and  smelling 
it. 

His  brother  said :  "It^s  about  time  to 
throw  that  into  the  sea." 

Young  Javel  was  angry,  he  replied: 
"No,  oh!  no!  I  will  not.  It  is  mine, 
isn't  it?  Wor3e  still,  it  is  my  arm."  He 
took  it  and  held  it  iDetween  his  legs. 

*lt  won't  grow  any  less  putrid,"  said 
the  elder. 

Then  an  idea  came  to  the  wounded 
man.  In  order  to  keep  the  fish  which 
they  kept  out  a  long  time,  they  had  with 
them  barrels  of  salt.  ^'Couldn't  I  put 
it  in  there  in  the  brine?"  he  asked. 

"That's  so,"  declared  the  others. 

Then  ihey  emptied  one  of  the  barrels, 
already  full  of  fish  from  the  last  few 
days,  and,  at  the  bottom,  they  deposited 
the  arm.  Then  they  turned  salt  upon  it 
and  replaced  the  fishes,  one  by  one. 

One  of  the  sailors  made  a  little  joke: 
"Perhaps  I  could  sell  it,  if  I  criea  it 
around  town." 

And  everybody  laughed  except  the 
Javel  brothers 

The  wind  still  blew.  They  b^t  about 
in  sight  of  Boulogne  until  the  next  day 
at  ten  o'clock.  The  wounded  man  still 
poured  water  on  his  arm.    From  time  to 


time  he  would  get  up  and  walk  from 
one  end  of  the  boat  to  the  other.  His 
brother,  who  was  at  the  wheel,  shook  his 
head  and  followed  him  with  his  eye. 

Finally,  they  came  into  port. 

The  doctor  examined  the  wound  and 
declared  it  in  good  shape  He  dressed  it 
perfectly  and  ordered  rest.  But  Javel 
could  not  go  to  bed  without  seeing  his 
arm  again,  and  went  quickly  back  to 
the  dock  to  find  the  barrel  which  he 
had  marked  with  a  cross. 

They  emptied  it  before  him,  and  ne 
found  his  arm  refreshed,  well  preserved 
in  the  salt.  He  wrapped  it  in  a  napkin 
brought  for  this  purpose,  and  took  it 
home. 

His  wife  and  children  examined  care- 
fully this  fragment  of  their  father, 
touching  the  fingers,  taking  up  the  grains 
of  salt  that  had  lodged  under  the  nails. 
Then  they  went  to  the  joiner  for  a  little 
coffin. 

The  next  day  a  complete  procession  of 
the  crew  of  the  fishing  smack  followed 
the  detached  arm  to  its  interment.  The 
two  brothers,  side  by  side,  conducted  the 
ceremony,  ihe  parish  priest  held  the 
coffin  under  his  arm. 

Javel  the  younger  gave  up  going  to 
sea.  He  obtained  a  small  position  in 
port,  and,  later,  whenever  he  spoke  of 
the  accident,  he  would  say  to  his  audi- 
tor, in  a  low  tone:  "If  my  brother  had 
been  willing  to  cut  the  cable,  I  should 
still  nave  my  arm,  be  sure.  But  he  was 
looking  to  his  own  pocket." 


VOLUME  DC 


The  Watchdog 


Madame  Lefevre  w?s  a  country  wo- 
man, a  wiaow,  one  of  those  half  peasants 
with  ribbons  and  furbelows  on  her  cap, 
a  person  who  spoke  with  some  care, 
taking  on  grandiose  airs  in  public,  and 
conceahng  a  pretentious,  brute  soul  un- 
der an  exterior  comically  glossed  over,  as 
she  concealed  her  great  red  hands  under 
gloves  of  ecru  silk. 

She  had  for  a  servant  a  simple,  rustic, 
named  Rose.  The  two  women  lived  in  a 
little  house  with  green  shutters,  on  a 
highway  in  Normandy,  in  the  center  of 
the  country  of  Caux.  As  there  was  a 
garden  spot  in  front  of  the  house,  they 
cultivated  some  vegetables. 

One  night,  some  one  robbed  them  of  a 
dozen  onions.  When  Rose  perceived  the 
larceny,  she  ran  to  tell  Madame,  who 
came  down  in  a  wool  petticoat.  Here 
was  a  sorrow,  and  a  terror,  besides! 
Some  one  had  robbed,  robbed  Madame 
Lefevre!  And  when  a  robber  visits  one 
in  the  country,  he  may  come  again. 

And  the  two  frightened  women  studied 
the  footprints,  prattled,  and  supposed 
certain  things: 

"Here,"  they  would  say,  "they  must 
have  passed  here.  They  must  have  put 
their  foot  on  the  wall  and  then  leaped 
into  the  flower  bed." 

And  they  trembled  for  the  future. 
-   How  could  they  sleep  peacefully  now? 

The  news  of  the  robbery  spread.  The 
neighbors  arrived  to  prove  and  discuss 
the  matter,  each  in  his  turn.  To  each 
newcomer  the  two  v^omen  explained 
their  observations  and  tht'r  ideas.  A 
farmer  on  the  other  side  of  them  said: 

"You  ought  to  keep  a  dog." 

That  was  true,  that  was;  they  ought 
to  keep  a  dog,  even  if  it  were  good  for 


nothing  but  to  give  an  alarm.  Not  a 
big  dog,  Monsieur!  What  would  they 
do  with  a  big  dog?  It  would  rain  them 
to  feed  it!  But  a  litUe  dog,  a  little 
puppy  that  could  yap. 

When  everybody  was  gont,  Madame 
Lefevre  discussed  this  idea  of  having  a 
dog  for  a  long  time.  After  reflection, 
she  made  a  thousand  objections,  terrified 
at  the  thought  of  a  bowlful  of  porridge. 
Because  she  was  of  that  race  of  parsi- 
monious country  damos  who  always 
carry  pennies  in  their  pockets,  in  order 
to  give  alms  ostensibly  along  the  street, 
and  to  the  contributions  on  Sunday. 

Rose,  who  loved  animals,  brought  for- 
ward her  reasons  and  defended  them 
with  astuteness.  And  finally,  it  was  de- 
cided that  they  should  have  a  dog,  but 
a  1-ttle  dcg. 

They  began  to  look  for  one,  but  could 
only  find  big  ones,  swallowers  of  food 
enough  to  make  one  tremble.  The  Rolle- 
ville  grocer  had  one,  very  small;  but 
he  asked  two  francs  for  him,  to  cover 
the  expense  of  bringing  him  up.  Madame 
Lefevre  declared  that  she  was  willing 
to  feed  a  dog,  but  she  never  would  buy 
one. 

Then  the  baker,  who  knew  the  circum- 
stances, brought  them,  one  morning,  a 
little,  yellow  animal,  nearly  all  paws, 
with  the  body  of  a  crocodile,  the  head 
of  a  fox,  a  tail,  trumpet-shaped,  a  regu- 
lar plume,  large  like  the  rest  of  his 
person.  Madame  Lefevre  found  this  cur 
that  cost  nothing  very  beautiful  Rose 
embraced  it,  and  then  asked  its  name. 
The  baker  said  it  was,  "Pierrot." 

He  was  installed  in  an  old  soap  box^ 
and  he  was  given  first,  a  drink  of  water. 


897 


898 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


He  drank.  Tlien  they  gave  him  a  piece 
of  bread.    He  ate. 

Madame  Lefevre,  somewhat  disturbed, 
had  one  idea: 

"When  he  gets  accustomed  to  the 
house,  we  can  let  him  run  loose.  He  will 
find  something  to  eat  in  roaming  around 
the  country." 

In  fact,  they  did  let  him  run,  but  it 
did  not  prevent  him  from  being  fam- 
ished. Besides,  he  only  barked  to  ask 
for  his  pittance,  in  which  case,  he  did 
indeed  bark  with  fury. 

Anybody  could  enter  the  garden. 
Pierrot  would  go  and  caress  each  new- 
comer, remaining  absolutely  mute. 
Nevertheless,  Madame  Lefevre  became 
accustomed  to  the  beast.  She  even  came 
to  love  it,  and  to  give  it  from  her  hand, 
sometimes,  pieces  of  bread  dipped  in  the 
sauce  from  her  meat. 

But  she  had  never  dreamed  of  a  tax, 
and  when  they  came  to  her  for  eight 
francs — eight  francs,  Madame ! — for  this 
little  cur  of  a  dog,  that  would  not  even 
bark,  she  almost  fainted  from  shock.   It 
was  immediately  decided  that  they  must 
get  rid  of  Pierrot.    No  one  wanted  him. 
AH  the  inhabitants,  for  ten  miles  around, 
refused  him.    Then  it  was  resolved  that, 
by  some  means,  they  must  make  him  ac- 
quainted with  the  little  house.    Now,  to 
be  acquainted  with  the  little  house  is  to 
eat  of  the  chalk  pit.     They  make  all 
dogs  acquainted  with  the  little  house 
when  they  wish  to  get  rid  of  them. 

In  the  midst  of  a  vast  plain,  there  ap- 
peared a  kind  of  hut,  or  rather,  the 
little  roof  of  a  cottage,  rising  above  the 
sod.  It  is  the  entrance  to  the  marlpit. 
One  great  shaft  went  down  about  twenty 
meters,  where  it  was  met  by  a  series  of 
long  galleries,  penetrating  the  mine. 


Once  a  year  they  descended  in  a  sort 
of  carriage  and  marled  the  clay.  All 
the  rest  of  the  time,  the  pit  serves  as  a 
cemetery  for  condemned  dogs;  and 
often,  when  one  passes  near  the  mouth, 
there  comes  to  his  ears  plaintive  howls, 
furious  barking,  and  lementable  appeals. 

Hunting  and  shepherd  dogs  flee  with 
fright  at  the  first  sound  of  these  noises; 
and  when  one  stoops  down  above  this 
opening,  he  finds  an  abominable  odor  of 
putrefaction.  Frightful  dramas  have 
taken  place  v/ithin  the  bounds  of  this 
shadow. 

When  a  beast  suffers  from  hunger  at 
the  bottom  of  the  pit  for  ten  or  twelve 
days,  nourished  only  on  the  remains  of 
his  predecessors,  sometimes  a  new  ani- 
mal, larger  and  more  vigorous,  is  sud- 
denly thrown  in.  There  they  are,  alone, 
famished,  their  eyes  glittering.  They 
watch  each  other,  follow  each  other, 
hesitate  anxiously.  But  hunger  presses; 
they  attack  each  other,  struggling  a 
long  time  infuriated;  and  the  strong 
cats  the  weak,  devouring  him  alive. 

When  it  was  decided  that  they  would 
get  rid  of  Pierrot,  they  looked  about 
them  for  an  executioner.  The  laborer 
who  was  digging  in  the  road,  demanded 
six  sous  for  the  trouble.  This  appeared 
exaggerated  folly  to  Madame  Lefevre. 
A  neighbor's  boy  would  be  content  with 
five  sous ;  that  was  still  too  much.  Then 
Rose  observed  that  it  would  be  better 
for  them  to  take  him  themselves,  be- 
cause he  would  not  then  be  tortured  on 
the  way  and  warned  of  his  lot;  and  so 
it  was  decided  that  they  go  together  at 
nightfall. 

They  p'ave  him,  this  evening,  a  good 
soun  with  a  bit  of  butter  in  it.  He 
swallowed  it  to  the  last  droo.    .\nd  when 


THE  WATCHDOG 


899 


he   wagged  his  tail   with   contentment. 
Rose  took  him  in  her  apron. 

They  went  at  a  great  pace,  like  iciarau- 
ders,  across  the  plain  As  soon  xs  :Jiev 
reached  the  pit,  Madame  -.^tevre 
stooped  to  listen;  she  wanted  :c  inow  i 
any  other  beast  was  aowling  n  iliere. 
No,  there  was  no  souna  t^ierrot  would 
he  alone.  And  Rose  /vnc  nsls  weeping, 
embraced  him,  tlier  ilirew  tiim  in  the 
hole.  And  the>  stooped,  both  of  them, 
and  listened. 

They  heard  first  a  heavy  thud;  then 
the  sharp,  broken  cry  of  a  wounded 
beast;  then  a  succession  of  imploring 
supplications,  -iie  nead  raised  to  the 
opening. 

He  yapped,  oh!  how  he  yapped! 

They  were  seized  with  remorse,  with  a 
foolish,  inexplicable  fear.  They  jumped 
up  and  ran  away.  And,  as  Rose  ran 
more  quickly,  Madame  Lefevre  would 
cry:    "Wait,  Rose,  wait  for  me!" 

Their  night  was  filled  with  frightful 
nightmares.  Madame  Lefevre  dreamed 
that  she  seated  herself  at  the  table  to 
eat  soup,  and  when  she  uncovered  the 
tureen,  Pierrot  was  in  it.  He  darted  out 
and  bit  her  on  the  nose.  She  awoke  and 
thought  she  heard  the  barking  still;  she 
listened;  she  was  deceived.  Again  she 
slept,  and  found  herself  upon  a  great 
road,  an  interminable  road,  that  sh2 
must  follow.  Suddenly,  in  the  middle 
of  the  road,  she  perceived  a  basket,  a 
great,  farmer's  basket,  a  basket  that 
brought  her  fear.  Nevertheless,  she 
finished  by  opening  it,  and  Pierrot,  hid- 
den within,  seized  her  hand,  not  loosing 
it  again.  And  she  knew  that  she  was 
lost,  carrying  about  forever  suspended 
\ipon  her  arm,  a  dog  with  open  mouth. 


fit  the  dawn  of  day,  she  arose,  almos' 
msane,  and  ran  to  the  pit. 

He  was  barking,  barkmg  still;  he  had 
oarked  all  night.  She  began  to  sob  and 
called  him  with  a  thousand  caressing 
names.  He  responded  with  all  the  ten- 
der inflections  a  dog's  vuice  is  capable 
of.  Then  she  wished  to  see  him  again, 
promising  herself  to  make  him  happy  to 
the  day  of  her  death.  She  ran  to  the 
Louse  of  the  man  in  charge  of  the  mine, 
and  told  him  her  story.  The  man  lis- 
tened without  laughing.  When  she  had 
finished,  he  said:  "You  want  your  dog? 
That  will  be  four  francs." 

It  was  a  shock.  All  her  grief  van- 
ished at  a  blow. 

"Four  francs,"  said  she,  "Four  francs! 
would  you  make  a  murderer  of  your- 
.«^elf!" 

He  replied:  "You  believe  that  I  am 
going  to  bring  my  ropes  and  tackle  and 
set  them  up,  and  go  down  there  with  my 
boy  and  get  bitten,  perhaps,  by  your 
mad  dog,  for  the  pleasure  of  giving  him 
back  to  you?  You  shculdn't  have  thrown 
him  in  there!" 

She  went  away  indignant.  "Four 
francs!" 

As  soon  as  she  entered,  she  called 
Rose  and  told  her  the  demands  of  the 
miner.  Rose,  always  resigned,  answered: 
*  Four  francs!  It  is  considerable  money, 
Madame."  Then  she  added  that  they 
might  throw  the  poor  dog  something  to 
cat,  so  that  it  might  not  die  there. 

Madame  Lefevre  approved  galdly,  and 
again  they  set  out  with  a  big  piece  of 
bread  and  butter.  They  broke  off  mor- 
sels, which  they  threw  in  one  after 
the  other,  calling  in  turn  to  Pierrot. 
And  as  soon  as  the  dog  had  got  one 
piece,  he  barked  for  the  next. 


900 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


They  returned  that  evening,  then  the 
next  day,  every  day.  But  never  more 
than  one  journey. 

One  morning,  at  the  moment  they 
dropped  the  first  morsel,  they  heard  sud- 
denly, a  formidable  barking  in  the  shaft. 
There  were  two  of  them!  Another  dog 
had  been  thrown  in,  a  big  dog! 

Rose  cried:  "Pierrot!"  And  Pierrot 
answered:  "Yap,  Yap!"  Then  they  be- 
/gan  to  feed  him,  but  each  time  they 
threw  down  a  bit,  they  heard  a  terrible 
tussle,  then  the  plaintive  cries  of  Pier- 
rot bitten  by  his  companion,  who  ate 
all,  being  the  stronger, 


Then  they  specified:  "This  is  for 
you  Pierrot!"  Pierrot  evidently  got 
nothing. 

The  two  women,  amazed,  looked  at 
each  other.  And  Madame  Lefevre  de- 
clared in  a  sharp  voice: 

"I  certainly  can't  feed  all  the  dogs 
they  throw  in  there.  We  must  give  it 
up." 

Overcome  with  the  idea  of  all  those 
dogs  living  at  her  expense,  she  went 
away,  carrying  even  the  bread  that  she 
had  begun  to  feed  to  p>oor  Pierrot. 

Rose  followed,  wiping  her  eyes  on  the 
corner  of  her  blue  apron. 


The  Dancers 


*'Great  misfortunes  grieve  me  little," 
said  John  Brideilc,  an  old  bachelor  who 
passed  for  a  sceptic.  "I  have  seen  war 
at  close  range;  I  could  stride  over  dead 
bodies  pitilessly.  The  strong  brutalities 
of  nature,  where  we  can  utter  cries  of 
horror  or  indignation,  do  not  wring  our 
hearts  or  send  the  shiver  down  the  back, 
as  do  the  little  wondering  sights  of  life. 

"Certainly  the  most  violent  grief  that 
one  can  experience  is  for  a  mother  the 
loss  of  a  child,  and  for  a  son  the  loss  of 
a  mother.  It  is  violent  and  terrible,  it 
overturns  and  lacerates;  but  one  is 
healed  cf  such  catastrophes,  as  of  large, 
bleeding  wounds.  But,  certain  accidents, 
certain  ihlngs  hinted  at,  suspected,  cer- 
tain secret  griefs,  certain  perfidy,  of  the 
sort  that  stirs  up  in  us  a  world  of  griev- 
ous thoughts,  which  opens  before  us  sud- 
denly the  mysterious  door  of  moral 
Buffering,     complicated,     incurable,     so 


much  the  more  profound  because  it 
seems  worthy,  so  much  the  more  sting- 
ing because  unseizable,  the  more  tena- 
cious because  artificial,  these  leave  upon 
the  soul  a  train  of  sadness,  a  feeling  of 
sorrow,  a  sensation  of  disenchantment 
that  we  are  long  in  ridding  ourselves  of. 

"I  have  ever  before  my  eyes  two  or 
three  things,  that  possibly  had  not  been 
noticed  by  others,  but  which  entered 
into  my  sympathies  like  deep,  unhealable 
stings. 

"You  will  not  comprehend,  perhaps, 
the  emotion  that  has  relieved  me  from 
these  rapid  impressions.  I  will  tell  you 
only  one.  It  is  old,  but  lives  with  me 
as  if  it  occurred  yesterday.  It  may  be 
imagination  alone  that  keeps  it  fresh  in 
my  memory. 

"I  am  fifty  years  old.  I  was  young 
then  and  studious  by  nature.  A  little 
sad,  a  little  dreamy,  impregnated  with 


THE  DANCERS 


901 


a  melanclioly  philosophy,  I  never  cared 
much  for  the  brilliant  cajes,  noisy  com- 
rades, nor  stupid  girls.  I  rose  early, 
and  one  of  my  sweetest  indulgences  was 
to  take  a  walk  alone,  about  eight  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  in  tlie  nursery  of  the 
Luxemburg. 

'Terhaps  you  do  not  know  this 
nursery?  It  was  like  a  forgotten  gar- 
den of  another  century,  a  pretty  garden, 
like  the  smile  of  an  old  person.  Trimmed 
hedges  separated  the  straight,  regular 
walks,  calm  walks  between  two  walls  of 
foliage  neatly  pruned.  The  great  scis- 
sors of  the  gardener  clipped  without 
mercy  the  offshoots  of  the  branches. 
While  here  and  there  were  walks  bor- 
dered with  flowers,  and  clumps  of  little 
trees,  arranged  like  collegians  promenad- 
ing, masses  of  magnificent  roses,  and 
regiments  of  fruit-trees. 

"The  whole  of  one  corner  of  this  de- 
lightful copse  was  inhabited  by  bees. 
Their  straw  houses,  skillfully  spaced 
upon  the  planks,  opened  to  the  sun  their 
great  odors,  like  the  opening  of  a  sew- 
ing thimble.  And  all  along  the  path 
golden  flies  were  buzzing,  true  mistresses 
of  this  peaceful  place,  ideal  inhabitants 
of  these  walks  and  corridors. 

"I  went  there  nearly  every  morning. 
.  I  would  seat  myself  upon  a  bench  and 
;  read.  Sometimes,  I  would  allow  my  book 
to  fall  upon  my  knees,  while  I  dreamed 
and  listened  to  the  living  Paris  all  about 
me,  and  enjoyed  the  infinite  repose  of 
these  rows  of  ancient  oaks. 

"All  at  once  I  perceived  that  I  was 
not  alone  a  frequenter  of  this  spot, 
reached  through  an  opening  in  the  fence. 
From  time  to  time  I  encountered,  face 
to  face,  an  old  man  in  the  corner  of  the 
thicket.      He    wore    shoes    with    silver 


buckles,  trousers  with  a  flap,  a  tobacco- 
colored  coat,  lace  in  place  of  a  cravat, 
and  an  unheard-of  hat  with  nap  and 
edges  worn,  which  made  one  think  of 
the  deluge. 

"He  was  thin,  very  thin,  angular, 
smiling,  grimacing.  His  bright  eyes 
sparkled,  agitated  by  a  continual  move- 
ment of  the  pupils;  and  he  always  car- 
tied  a  superb  cane,  with  a  gold  head, 
which  must  have  been  a  souvenir,  and  a 
magnificent  one. 

"This  good  man  astonished  me  at  first, 
then  interested  me  beyond  measure. 
And  I  watched  him  behind  a  wall  of 
foliage,  and  followed  him  from  afar, 
stopping  behind  shrubbery,  so  as  not  to 
be  seen. 

"It  happened  one  morning  as  he  be- 
lieved himself  entirely  alone,  that  he  be- 
gan some  singular  movements;  some 
little  bounds  at  first,  then  a  bow;  then 
he  struck  up  some  capers  with  his  lank 
legs,  then  turned  cleverly,  as  if  on  a 
pivot,  bending  and  swaying  in  a  droll 
fashion,  smiling  as  if  before  the  publiCj 
making  gestures  with  outsti etched  arms, 
twisting  his  poor  body  like  a  jumping- 
jack,  throv/ing  tender,  ridiculous  saluta- 
tions to  the  open  air.  He  was 
dancing ! 

"I  remained  petrified  with  amazement, 
asking  myself  which  of  the  two  was  mad, 
he  or  I.  But  he  stopped  suddenly,  ad- 
vanced as  actors  do  upon  the  stage, 
bowed,  and  took  a  few  steps  backward, 
with  the  gracious  smiles  and  kisses  of 
the  comedian,  which  he  threw  with  trem- 
bling hand  to  the  two  rows  of  shapely 
trees. 

"After  that,  he  resumed  his  walk  with 
gravity. 
"From  this  day,  I  never  lost  sight  of 


002 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


him.  And  each  morning  he  recommenced 
his  p>ecuiiar  exercise. 

**A  foolish  nesirt  led  me  to  speak  to 
fcjm.  I  venturec  and  naving  bowed,  I 
eald: 

"  'It  Is  3  ^ne  day,  to-day,  sir.* 
"He  DowcQ     \os,  sir,  it  is  like  the 
weatner  jr  -ong  ago.* 

**A  weelr  alter  this,  we  were  friends, 
und  1  Itnew  nis  history.    He  had  been 
dancing  master  at  the  Opera  from  the 
time  ot  Louis  XV.    His  beautiful  cane 
was  a   gift   from  Count  de  Chrmont. 
And  when  he  began  to  speak  of  dancing, 
he  never  knew  when  to  stop. 
"One  day  he  confided  in  me: 
"  *I  married  La  Castris,  sir.     I  will 
present  her  to  you,  if  you  wish,  but  she 
never  comes  here  so  early.     This  gar- 
den, you  see,  is  our  pleasure  and  our 
life.     It  is  all  that  remains  to  us  of 
former  times.     It  seems  to  us  that  we 
could  not  exist  if  we  did  not  have  it. 
It  is  old  and  distinguished,  is  it  not? 
Here  I  can  seem  to  breathe  air  that  has 
not  changed  since  my  youth.     My  wife 
ind  I  pass  every  afternoon  here.      But 
I,  I  come  again  in  the  morning,  because 
I  rise  so  early.* 

*'After  luncheon,  1  returned  to  the 
Luxemburg,  and  soon  I  perceived  my 
friend,  who  was  giving  his  arm  with 
great  ceremony  to  a  little  old  woman 
clothed  in  black,  to  whom  I  was  pre- 
sented. It  was  La  Castris,  the  great 
dancer,  loved  of  princes,  loved  of  the 
king,  loved  of  all  that  gallant  century 
which  seems  to  have  left  in  the  world 
an  odor  of  love. 

*'We  seated  ourselves  upon  a  bench. 
It  was  in  the  month  cf  May.  A  perfume 
of  flowers  flitted  through  all  the  tidy 
walks;  a  pleasant  sun  glistened  between 


the  leaves  and  spread  over  us  large 
spots  of  light.  The  black  robe  of  La 
Castris  seemed  all  permeated  with 
brightness. 

"The  garden  was  empty.  The  roll  of 
carriages  could  be  heard  in  the  distance. 

"  'Will  you  explain  to  me,'  said  I  to 
the  old  dancing  master,  'what  the 
minuet  was?' 

"He  started.  *The  minuet,  sir,  is  the 
queen  of  dances  and  the  dance  of 
queens,  do  you  understand?  Since  there 
are  no  more  kings,  there  are  no  more 
minuets.* 

"And  he  commenced,  in  pompous 
style,  a  long,  dlthyrambic  eulogy  of 
which  I  comprehended  nothing.  I 
wanted  him  to  describe  the  step  to  me, 
all  the  movements,  the  poses.  He  per- 
plexed and  exasperated  himself  with  his 
lack  of  strength,  and  then  became  ner- 
vous and  spent.  Then,  suddenly,  tuniing 
toward  his  old  companion,  always  silent 
and  grave,  he  said: 

"  'Elise,  will  you,  I  say — will  you  be 
so  kind  as  to  show  this  gentleman  what 
the  minuet  really  was?' 

"She  turned  her  unquiet  eyes  in  every 
direction,  then  rising,  without,  a  word, 
placed  herself  opposite  him. 

"Then  I  saw  something  never  to  be 
forgotten. 

"They  went  forward  and  back  with  a 
child-like  apishness,  smiling  to  each 
other  and  balancing,  bowing  and  hopping 
like  two  old  puppets  made  to  dance  by 
some  ancient  mechanism,  a  little  out  of 
repair,  and  constructed  long  ago  by  some 
skillful  workman  following  the  custom 
of  his  day. 

"And  I  looked  at  them,  my  heart 
troubled  with  extraordinary  sensations, 
my    soul   moved    by   an    indescribable 


CHRISTENING 


903 


melancholy.  I  seemed  to  see  a  lament- 
able, comic  apparition,  the  shadow  of  a 
century  past  and  gone.  I  had  a  desire 
to  laugh  when  I  felt  more  like  weeping. 

"Then  they  stopped;  they  had  ended 
the  figure  of  the  dance.  For  some 
seconds  they  remained  standing  before 
each  other,  smirking  in  a  most  surprising 
manner;  then  they  embraced  each  other 
with  a  sob. 

"I  left  town  three  days  later  for  the 
provinces.  I  have  never  seen  them 
again.  When  I  returned  to  Paris,  two 
years  later,  they  had  destroyed  the 
nursery    f;arden.      What   have    the    old 


couple  done  without  the  dear  garden  o! 
other  days,  with  its  labyrinths,  its  odor 
of  long  ago,  and  its  walks  shaded  by 
graceful  elms?  Are  they  dead?  Are 
they  wandering  through  modern  streets, 
like  exiles  without  hope?  Are  they 
dancing  somewhere,  grotesque  specters, 
a  fantastic  minuet  among  the  cypresses 
in  the  cemetery,  along  the  paths  beside 
the  tombs,  in  the  moonlight? 

"The  remembrance  haunts  me,  op- 
presses and  tortures  me ;  it  remains  with 
me  like  a  wound.    Why?    I  cannot  tell. 

"You  will  find  this  very  ridiculous, 
without  doubt." 


Christening 


"Come,  doctor,  a  little  more  cognac." 
"With  pleasure."  The  old  navy  doctor 
watched  the  golden  liquid  flow  into  his 
glass,  held  it  up  to  the  light,  took  a  sip 
and  kept  it  in  his  mouth  a  long  while 
before  swallowing  it,  and  said: 

"What  a  delicious  poison!  I  should 
say,  what  a  captivating  destroyer  of 
humanity!  You  do  not  know  it  as  I 
know  it.  You  may  have  read  that  re- 
markable book  called  X'Assommoir,'  but 
you  have  not  seen  a  whole  tribe  of  sav- 
ages exterminated  by  this  same  poison. 
I  have  seen  with  my  own  eyes  a  strange 
and  terrible  drama,  which  was  the  result 
of  too  much  alcohol.  It  happened  not 
very  far  from  here,  in  a  little  village 
near  Pont-l'abbe  in  Brittany.  I  was  on 
a  vacation  and  was  living  in  the  little 
country  house  which  my  father  had  left 
me.  You  all  know  that  wild  country 
surrounded  by  the  sea — that  wicked  sea, 


rJways  lying  in  wait  for  some  new  vic» 
tim!  The  poor  fishermen  go  out  day  and 
night  in  their  little  boats  and  the  wicked 
sea  upsets  their  boats  and  swallows 
them!  Fearlessly  they  go  out,  yet  feel- 
ing uneasy  as  to  their  safety,  but  half 
of  the  time  they  are  intoxicated.  'When 
the  bottle  is  full  we  feel  safe,  but  when 
it  is  empty  w^e  feel  lost*;  they  say.  If 
you  got  into  their  huts,  you  will  never 
find  the  father  and  if  you  ask  the  woman 
what  has  become  of  her  man,  she  will 
answer  pointing  to  the  raging  sea:  *He 
stayed  there  one  night,  when  he  had  too 
much  drink  and  my  eldest  son  too.* 
She  has  still  four  strunsr  boys;  it  will 
be  their  turn  soon! 

"Well,  as  T  have  said,  I  was  living  at 
my  little  country  house  with  one  ser- 
vant, an  old  sailor,  and  the  Breton 
family  who  took  care  of  the  place  dur- 
ing my  absence,  which  consisted  of  two 


904 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


sisters  and  the  husband  of  one  of  them, 
who  was  also  my  gardener. 

"Toward  Christmas  of  that  year,  the 
gardener's  wife  gave  birth  to  a  boy  and 
he  asked  me  to  be  godfather.  I  could 
not  very  well  refuse,  and  on  the  strength 
of  it  he  borrov/ed  ten  francs  from  me, 
*for  the  church  expenses/  he  said. 

"The  christening  was  to  take  place  on 
the  second  of  January.  For  the  past 
week  the  ground  had  been  covered  with 
snow  and  it  was  bitter  cold.  At  nine 
o*clock  of  ]the  morning  designated,  Ker- 
andec  and  his  sister-in-law  arrived  in 
front  of  my  door,  with  a  nurse  carrying 
the  baby  wrapped  up  in  a  blanket,  and 
we  started  for  the  church.  The  cold 
was  terrific  and  I  wondered  how  the 
poor  little  child  could  stand  such  cold. 
These  Bretons  must  be  made  of  iron,  I 
thought,  if  they  can  stand  going  out  in 
such  weather  at  their  birth! 

"When  we  arrived  at  the  church  the 
door  was  closed.  The  priest  had  not 
come  yet.  The  nurse  sat  on  the  steps 
and  began  to  undress  the  child.  I 
thought  at  first  that  she  only  wanted 
to  arrange  his  clothes,  but  to  my  horror 
I  saw  that  she  was  taking  every  stitch 
of  clothing  off  his  back!  I  was  horrified 
at  such  imprudence  and  I  went  toward 
her  saying: 

"  'What  in  the  world  are  you  doing? 
Are  you  crazy?  Do  you  want  to  kill 
him?' 

"  *0h,  no,  master,*'  she  answered 
placidly,  'but  he  must  present  himself 
before  God  naked.'  His  father  and  aunt 
looked  on  calmly.  It  was  the  custom 
in  Brittany  and  if  they  had  not  done 
this  they  said,  something  would  happen 
to  the  child. 

"I  got  furiously  angry.    I  called  the 


father  all  kinds  of  names;  1  threatened 
to  leave  them  and  tried  to  cover  the 
child  by  force,  but  in  vain.  The  nurse 
ran  away  from  me  with  the  poor  little 
naked  body,  which  was  fast  becoming 
blue  v/ith  the  biting  cold.  I  had  made 
up  my  mind  to  leave  these  brutes  to 
their  ignorance,  when  I  saw  the  priest 
coming  along  followed  by  the  sexion 
and  an  altar  boy.  I  ran  toward  him  and 
told  him  in  a  few  words  what  these 
brutes  had  done,  but  he  was  not  a  bit 
surprised;  nor  did  he  hurry. 

"  'What  can  I  do,  my  dear  sir?  It  is 
the  custom,  they  all  do  it.' 

"  'But  for  goodness  sake  hurry  up,'  I 
cried  impatiently. 

"  'I  cannot  go  any  faster,'  he  answered, 
and  at  last  he  entered  the  vestry.  We 
waited  outside  the  church-door  and  I 
suffered  terribly  at  hearing  that  poor 
little  wretch  crying  with  pain.  At  last 
the  door  opened  and  we  went  in,  but 
the  child  had  to  remain  naked  during 
the  whole  ceremony.  It  seemed  to  me 
as  if  it  would  never  come  to  an  end. 
The  priest  crawled  along  like  a  turtle, 
muttered  his  Latin  words  slowly,  as  if 
he  took  pleasure  in  torturing  the  poor 
little  baby.  At  last,  the  torture  came 
to  an  end  and  the  nurse  wrapped  the 
child  in  his  blanket  again.  By  that  time 
the  poor  little  thing  was  chilled  through 
and  was  crying  pileously. 

"  'Will  you  come  in  and  sign  your 
name  to  the  register?'  asked  the  priest. 

"I  turned  to  the  gardener  and  urged 
him  to  go  home  immediately  and  warm 
the  child  up,  so  as  to  avoid  pneumonia 
if  there  was  still  time.  He  promised  to 
follow  my  advice,  and  left  with  his 
sister-in-law  and  the  nurse.  I  followed 
the  priest  into  the  vestry,  and  when  I 


CHRISTENING 


90S 


hRd  signed  tlie  register,  he  demanded 
five  francs.  As  I  had  given  ten  francs 
to  the  father,  I  refused.  The  priest 
threatened  to  tear  up  the  certificate  and 
to  annul  the  ceremony,  and  I.  in  my 
turn,  threatened  to  prosecute  him.  We 
quarreled  for  a  long  time,  but  at  last  I 
paid  the  five  francs. 

"As  soon  as  I  got  home,  I  ran  to 
Kerandec's  house,  but  neither  he,  nor  his 
sister-in-law  or  the  nurse  had  come 
home.  The  mother  was  in  bed  shiver- 
ing with  cold  and  she  was  hungry,  not 
having  eaten  anything  since  the  day 
before. 

"  'Where  on  earth  did  they  go?*  I 
asked.  She  did  not  seem  the  least  bit 
surprised  and  answered  calmly: 

'•  Thpv  went  to  have  a  drink  in  honor 
of  the  christening.*  That  also  was  the 
custom  and  I  thought  of  my  ten  francs 
which  I  had  given  the  father,  and  which 
would  pay  for  the  drinks  no  doubt.  I 
sent  some  beef-tea  to  the  mother  and 
had  a  good  fire  made  in  her  room.  I 
was  so  angry  at  those  brutes  that  I  made 
up  my  mind  to  discharge  them  when 
they  came  back;  but  what  worried  me 
most  was  the  poor  little  baby.  What 
would  become  of  him? 

"At  six  o'clock  they  had  not  come 
back.  I  ordered  my  servant  to  wait  for 
them  and  I  went  to  bed. 

"I  slept  soundly,  as  a  sailor  will  sleep, 
•jntil  daybreak  and  did  not  wake  until 
my  servant  brought  me  some  hot  water. 
'is  soon  as  I  opened  my  e>es  I  asked 


him  about  Kerandec.  The  old  sailor 
hesitated,  then  finally  answered: 

"  *He  came  home  past  midnight  as 
drunk  as  a  fool;  the  Kermagan  woman 
and  the  nurse  too.  I  think  they  slept 
in  a  ditch,  and  the  poor  little  baby  died 
without  their  even  noticing  it.* 

"'Dead!'  I  cried  jumping  to  my  feet. 

"'Yes,  sir,  they  brought  it  to  the 
mother,  and  when  she  saw  it  she  cried 
terribly,  but  they  made  her  drink  to  for- 
get her  sorrow.' 

"  'What  do  you  mean  by  "they  made 
her  drink?"  ' 

"  'This,  sir.  I  only  found  out  this 
morning.  Kerandec  had  no  mor**  liquor 
and  no  more  money  to  buy  any,  so  he 
took  the  wood  alcohol  that  you  gave  him 
for  the  lamp  and  they  drank  that  until 
they  had  finished  the  bottle  and  now 
the  Kerandec  woman  is  very  sick.* 

"I  dressed  in  haste,  seized  a  cane  with 
the  firm  intention  of  chastising  those 
human  brutes  and  ran  to  the  gardener's 
house.  The  mother  lay  helpless,  dying 
from  the  effects  of  the  alcohol,  with  the 
discolored  corpse  of  her  baby  lying  near 
her,  while  Kerandec  and  the  Kermagan 
woman  lay  snoring  on  the  floor. 

"I  did  everything  in  my  power  to 
save  the  woman,  but  she  died  at  noon.*' 

The  old  doctor  having  concluded  hia 
narrative,  took  the  bcttle  of  cognac, 
poured  out  a  glass  for  himself,  and  hav- 
ing held  it  up  to  the  light,  swallowed 
the  golden  liquid  and  smacked  his  lips. 


A  Costly  Outing 


Hector  de  Gribelin,  descendant  of 
an  old  provincial  family,  had  spent  his 
early  years  in  his  ancestral  home  and 
had  finished  his  studies  under  the  guid- 
ance of  an  old  abbe.  The  family  was 
far  from  rich,  but  they  kept  up  appear- 
ances the  best  way  they  could.  At  the 
age  of  twenty  a  position  was  procured 
for  him  at  the  Navv  administration,  at 
one  thousand  five  hundred  francs  a 
year,  but  like  a  great  many,  not  being 
prepared  for  the  battle,  his  first  three 
years  of  office  life  had  been  exceedingly 
hard. 

He  had  renewed  acquaintance  with  a 
f^w  old  friends  of  his  family,  poor  like 
himself,  but  living  in  the  secluded  Fau- 
bourg St.-Germain,  keeping  up  appear- 
ances at  any  cost,  sacrificing  everything 
in  order  to  hold  their  rank. 

It  was  there  he  had  met  and  married  a 
young  girl,  titled  but  penniless.  Two 
children  had  blessed  their  union.  Hec- 
tor and  his  wife  struggled  constantly 
to  make  both  ends  meet  and  for  the 
past  four  years  they  had  known  no 
other  distractions  than  a  walk  on  Sun- 
day to  the  Champs-Elysees,  and  a  few 
evenings  at  the  theater,  a  friend  giving 
them  tickets. 

His  chief  had  just  intrusted  him  with 
some  extra  work  and  he  received  the 
extra  compensation  of  three  hundred 
francs.  Coming  home  that  night  he  said 
to  his  wife: 

"My  dear  Henriette,  we  ought  to  do 
something  vMth  this  money;  a  little  out- 
ing in  the  country  for  the  children  for 
instance." 

They  had  a  lengthy  discussion,  and 
dnally  decided  on  a  family  picnic. 


"We  have  had  so  very  few  outings,** 
said  Hector,  *'that  we  may  as  well  do 
tilings  right.  We  will  hire  a  rig  for  you 
ind  the  little  ones,  and  T  will  hire  a 
horse;  it  will  do  me  good.*' 

They  talked  of  nothing  else  all  week. 
Each  night,  he  would  dance  his  elder  son 
up  and  down  on  his  foot  and  say: 

"This  is  the  way  papa  will  ride  next 
Sunday."  And  the  boy  would  ride  chairs 
all  day  screaming: 

"This  is  papa  on  horseback."  Even 
the  servant  marveled  when  she  heard 
Hector  tell  of  his  feats  on  horseback 
when  he  was  home  and  how  he  would 
ride  at  the  side  of  the  carriage. 

"When  once  on  a  horse  I  am  afraid 
of  nothing,"  he  would  say.  "If  they 
could  give  me  a  frisky  animal  I  would 
like  it  all  the  better.  You  will  see  how 
I  ride,  and,  if  you  like,  we  can  come 
back  by  the  Champs-Elysees  when 
everybody  is  coming  home.  We  shall 
cut  quite  a  figure,  and  I  should  not  be 
sorry  to  meet  some  one  from  the  office; 
there  is  nothing  like  it  to  inspire  re- 
spect." 

At  last  Sunday  came.  The  carriage 
and  the  horse  were  at  the  door,  and 
Hector  came  down  immediately,  holding 
a  newly-bought  riding-whip,  to  look  the 
horse  over.  He  examined  him  from  head 
to  foot,  opened  his  mouth,  told  his  age, 
and  as  the  family  was  coming  out  at 
that  moment,  he  discoursed  on  horses 
in  general  and  that  one  in  particular, 
which  he  declared  to  be  an  excellent 
animal. 

When  everyone  was  comfortably 
placed  in  the  carriage.  Hector  examined 
the  saddle,  and  mounting  with  a  springy 


^06 


A  COSTLY  ouTi::a 


dropped  on  the  horse  with  such  force 
that  he  immediately  set  up  a  dance 
which  alniost  threw  his  rider.  Hector 
became  flustered  and  tried  to  calm  him, 
saying:  "Come,  old  fellow,  be  quiet." 
And  having  succeeded  in  calming  him  a 
little  he  asked : 

*'Is  everybody  ready?" 

Everybody  said  they  were  and  the 
party  proceeded.  All  eyes  were  turned  on 
Hector,  who  affected  the  English  seat 
and  leaped  up  and  down  on  his  saddle 
in  an  exaggerated  manner.  He  looked 
straight  before  him,  contracting  his  brow 
and  looking  very  pale.  His  wife  and  the 
servant  each  held  one  of  the  boys  on 
their  lap  and  every  minute  they  would 
say: 

"Look  at  papa!"  And  tKe  boys, 
overcome  with  joy,  uttered  piercing 
screams. 

The  horse,  frightened  at  so  much 
noise,  started  off  at  a  gallop  and  while 
Hector  tried  to  stop  him  his  hat  fell  off. 
The  driver  had  to  come  down  and  pick  it 
up,  and  having  recovered  it,  Hector 
shouted  to  his  wife: 

"Make  the  children  stop  screaming, 
will  you?  They  will  make  the  horse 
run  away." 

They  arrived  at  last.  The  baskets 
having  been  opened  they  lunched  on  the 
grass.  Although  the  driver  looked  after 
the  horses,  Hector  went  every  minute  to 
see  if  his  horse  wanted  anything.  He 
patted  him  and  fed  him  bread,  cake, 
and  sugar. 

"He  is  a  great  trotter,"  he  said  to  his 
wife.  "He  shook  me  at  first,  but  you 
saw  how  quickly  I  subdued  him.  He 
knows  his  master  now." 

They  came  back  by  the  Champs- 
Elysees  as  agreed.     The  weather  being 


beautiful,  the  avenue  was  crowdef  mth 
carriages  and  the  sidewalks  lined  with 
pedestrians.  The  horse,  scenting  the 
stable,  suddenly  took  to  his  heel?..  He 
dashed  between  carriages  like  a  whirl- 
wind and  Hector's  efforts  to  stop  him 
were  unavailing.  The  carriage  contain- 
ing  his  family  was  far  behind.  In  front 
of  the  Palais  de  ITndustrie,  the  horse 
turned  to  the  right  at  a  gallop.  An  old 
woman  was  at  that  moment  leisurely 
crossing  the  street,  and  Hector,  who  was 
unable  to  stop  the  horse  shouted :  "Hey 
there,  hey!"  But  the  old  woman  was 
deaf,  perhaps,  for  she  slowly  kept  on 
until  the  horse  struck  b«r  with  such  force 
that  she  turned  a  triple  somersault  and 
landed  ten  feet  away.  Several  people 
shouted:    "Stop  him." 

Hector  was  distracted  and  held  on  des- 
perately to  tht  horse's  mane,  crying: 
"Help,  help!"  A  terrible  shock  sent  him 
ovre  the  horse's  head  like  a  bomb,  and 
he  landed  in  the  arms  of  a  policeman 
who  was  running  toward  him.  An  angry 
crowd  gathered.  An  old  gentleman 
wearing  a  decoration  was  especially 
angry. 

"Confound  it,  sir!''  he  said,  "if  you 
cannot  ride  a  horse  why  do  you  not  stay 
at  home  instead  of  running  over  people!" 

Four  men  were  carrying  the  old  wo- 
man, who  to  all  appearances  was  dead. 

"Take  this  woman  to  a  drug-store," 
said  the  old  gentleman,  "and  let  us  go 
to  the  station-house." 

A  crowd  followed  Hector,  who  walked 
between  two  policemen,  while  a  third 
led  his  horse.  At  that  moment  the  car- 
riage appeared,  and  his  wife  taking  in 
the  situation  at  a  glance,  ran  toward 
him;  the  servant  and  the  children  came 
behind   crying.     He  explained  that  hij 


908 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


horse  had  knocked  a  woman  down,  but 
it  was  nothing,  he  would  be  home  very 
soon. 

Arrived  at  the  station-house,  he  gave 
his  name,  his  place  of  employment,  and 
awaited  news  of  the  injured  woman.  A 
poHceman  came  back  with  the  informa- 
tion that  the  woman's  name  was  Mme. 
Simon,  and  that  she  was  a  charwoman 
sixty-five  years  old.  She  had  regained 
consciousness,  but  she  suffered  inter- 
nally, she  claimed.  When  Hector  found 
that  she  was  not  dead,  he  recovered  his 
spirits  and  promised  to  defray  the  ex- 
penses of  her  illness.  He  went  to  the 
drug-store  where  they  had  taken  the  old 
woman.  An  immense  crowd  blocked  the 
doorway.  The  old  woman  was  whining 
and  groaning  pitifully.  Two  doctors 
were  examining  her. 

"There  are  no  bones  broken "  they 
said,  "but  we  are  afraid  she  is  hurt 
internally." 

"Do  you  suffer  much?"  asked  Hector. 

"Oh,  yes." 

"Where?" 

"I  feel  as  if  my  inside  \\ras  on  fire." 

"Then  you  are  the  cause  of  the  acci- 
de-nt?"  said  a  doctor  approaching. 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Hector. 

"This  woman  must  go  to  a  sanitarium. 
I  know  one  where  they  will  take  her  for 
six  francs  a  day;  shall  I  fix  it  for  you?" 

Hector  thanked  him  gratefully  and 
went  home  relieved.  He  found  his  wife 
in  tears,  and  he  comforted  her  saying: 

"Don't  worry,  she  is  much  better  al- 
ready. I  sent  her  to  a  sanitarium,  and 
in  three  days  she  will  be  all  right." 

After  his  work  the  next  day  he  went 
10  see  Mme.  Simon,  She  was  eating 
iome  beef  soup  which  she  seemed  to 
telisK 


"Well,"  said  Hector,  *Tiow  do  you 
feel?" 

"No  better,  my  poor  man,"  she  an- 
swered.   "*I  feel  as  good  as  dead!" 

The  doctor  advised  waiting,  compli- 
cations might  arise.  He  waited  three 
days,  then  went  to  see  the  old  woman 
again.  Her  skin  was  clear,  her  eyes 
bright,  but  as  soon  as  she  saw  Hector 
she  commenced  to  whine: 

"I  can't  move  any  more,  my  poor 
man ;  I'll  be  like  this  for  the  rest  of  my 
days!" 

Hector  felt  a  shiver  running  up  and 
down  his  back.  He  asked  for  the  doctor 
and  inquired  about  the  patient. 

"I  am  puzzled,"  the  doctor  said. 
"Every  time  we  try  to  lift  her  up  or 
change  her  position,  she  utters  heartrend- 
ing screams ;  still,  I  am  bound  to  believo 
her.  I  cannot  say  that  she  shams  until  I 
have  seen  her  walk." 

The  old  woman  listened  attentively; 
a  sly  look  on  her  face.  A  week,  two, 
then  a  month  passed  and  still  Mme. 
Simon  did  not  leave  her  chair.  Her 
appetite  was  excellent,  she  gained  flesh 
and  joked  with  the  other  patients.  She 
seemed  to  accept  her  lot  as  a  well-earned 
rest  after  fifty  years  of  labor  as  a  char- 
woman. 

Hector  came  every  day  and  found  her 
the  same;  always  repeating: 

"I  can't  move,  my  poor  man,  I  can't!" 

When  Hector  came  home,  bis  wife 
would  ask  with  anxiety: 

"How  is  Mme.  Simon?" 

"Just  the  same;  absolutely  no 
change,"  answered  Hector  dejectedly. 

They  dismissed  the  servant  and 
economi2>ed  more  than  ever.  The  money 
received  from  his  chief  had  been  spent. 
Hector  was  desperate  and  one  day  he 


t 


THE  MAN  WITH  THE  DOGS 


90V 


called  four  doctors  to  hold  a  consulta- 
tion. They  examined  Mme.  Simon 
thoroughly,  while  she  watched  them 
slyly. 

"We  must  make  her  walk,"  said  one 
of  the  doctors. 
'T  can't,  gentlemen;  I  can't!" 
They  took  hold  of  her  and  dragged 
her  a  few  steps,  but  she  freed  herself, 
and  sank  to  the  floor  emitting  such 
piercing  screams,  that  they  carried  her 
back  to  her  chair  very  gently. 


They  reserved  their  opinion,  but  con- 
cluded, however,  that  she  was  in- 
capacitated for  work. 

When  Hector  brought  the  news  to  his 
wife,  she  collapsed. 

"We  had  much  better  take  her  here,  it 
would  cost  us  less." 

"In  our  own  house!  What  are  you 
thinking  of?" 

"What  else  can  we  do,  dear?  I  am 
sure  it  is  no  fault  of  mine  I" 


The  Man  with  the  Dogs 


His  wife,  even  when  talking  to  him, 
always  cahed  him  Monsieur  Bistaud,  but 
in  all  the  country  round,  within  a  rad.us 
of  ten  leagues,  in  France  and  Belgium, 
he  was  known  as  Cet  homme  aux  chiens.* 
It  was  not  a  very  valuable  reputation, 
however,  and  "That  man  with  the  dogs," 
became  a  sort  of  pariah. 

In  Thierache  they  are  not  very  fond 
of  the  custom-house  officers,  for  every- 
body, high  or  low,  profits  by  smuggling; 
thanks  to  which  many  articles,  and  espe- 
cially coffee,  gun-powder,  and  tobacco, 
are  to  be  had  cheap.  It  may  here  be 
stated  that  on  that  wooded,  broken 
country,  where  the  meadows  are  sur- 
rounded by  brushwood,  and  the  lanes 
are  dark  and  narrow,  smuggling  is  car- 
ried on  chiefly  by  means  of  sporting 
dogs,  who  are  broken  in  to  become 
smuggling  dogs.  Scarcely  an  evening 
passes  without  some  of  them  being 
seen,  loaded^  with  contraband,  trotting 
silently  along,  pushing  their  nose 
through  a  hole  in  a  hedge,  with  furtive 


and  uneasy  looks,  and  sniffing  the  air 
to  scent  the  custom-house  officers  and 
their  dogs.  These  dogs  also  are  spe* 
cially  trained,  and  are  vci-y  ferocious, 
and  can  easily  kill  their  unfortunate 
congeners,  who  become  the  game  instead 
of  hunting  for  it. 

Now,  nobody  was  capable  of  impart- 
ing this  unnatural  education  to  them 
so  well  as  the  man  with  the  dogs,  whose 
business  consisted  in  breaking  in  dogs 
for  the  custom-house  authorities.  Every- 
body looked  upon  it  as  a  dirty  busi- 
ness, a  business  which  could  only  be 
performed  by  a  man  without  any  proper 
feeling. 

"He  is  a  man's  robber,"  the  women 
said,  "to  take  honest  dogs  in  to  nurse, 
and  to  make  a  lot  of  traitors  out  of 
them." 

While  the  boys  shouted  insulting 
verses  behind  his  back,  and  the  men  and 
the  women  abused  him,  no  one  ventured 


♦That  man  with  the  dogs. 


910 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


to  do  it  to  his  face,  for  he  was  not 
very  patient,  and  was  always  accom- 
panied by  one  of  his  huge  dogs,  and  that 
served  to  make  him  respected. 

Certainly  without  that  bodyguard,  he 
would  have  had  a  bad  time  of  it,  espe- 
cially at  the  hands  of  the  smugglers, 
who  had  a  deadly  hatred  for  him.  By 
himself,  and  in  spite  of  h's  quarrelsome 
looks,  he  did  not  appear  very  formid- 
able. He  was  short  and  thin,  his  back 
was  round,  his  legs  were  bandy,  and  his 
arms  were  as  long  and  as  thin  as  spi- 
ders' legs,  and  he  could  easily  have  been 
knocked  down  by  a  back-handed  blow  oi 
a  kick.  But  then,  he  had  those  con- 
founded dogs,  which  intimidated  even 
the  bravest  smugglers.  How  could  they 
risk  even  a  blow  when  he  had  those  huge 
brutes,  with  their  fierce  and  bloodshot 
eyes,  and  their  s'luare  heads,  with  jaws 
like  a  vise,  and  enormous  white  teeth, 
sharp  as  daggers,  and  with  huge  molars 
which  crunched  up  beef  bones  to  a  pulp? 
They  were  wonderfully  broken  in,  were 
always  by  him,  obeyed  him  by  signs, 
and  were  taught  not  only  to  worry  the 
smugglers*  dogs,  but  also  to  fly  at  the 
throats  of  the  smugglers  themselves. 

The  consequence  was  that  both  he  and 
his  dogs  were  left  alone,  and  people 
were  satisfied  with  calling  them  names 
and  sending  them  all  to  Coventry.  No 
peasant  ever  set  foot  in  his  cottage,  al- 
though Eistaud's  wife  kept  a  small  shop 
and  was  a  handsome  woman,  and  the 
only  persons  who  went  there  were  the 
custom-house  officers.  The  others  took 
their  revenge  on  them  all  by  saying  that 
the  man  with  the  dogs  sold  his  wife  to 
the  custom-house  officers,  like  he  did 
his  dogs. 

''He  keeps  her  for  them,  as  well  as 


his  dogs,"  they  said  jeeringly.  "You  can 
see  that  he  is  a  bom  cuckold  with  his 
yellow  beard  and  eyebrows,  which  stick 
up  like  a  pair  of  horns." 

His  hair  was  certainly  red  or  rather 
yellow,  his  thick  eyebrows  were  turned 
up  in  two  points  on  his  temples,  and  he 
used  to  twirl  them  mechanically  as  if 
they  had  been  a  pair  of  mustaches. 
And  certainly,  with  hair  like  that,  and 
with  his  long  beard  and  shaggy  eye- 
brows, with  his  sallow  face,  blinking 
eyes,  and  dull  looks,  with  his  dogged 
mouth,  thin  lips,  and  h's  miserable,  de- 
formed body,  he  was  net  a  pleasing'  ob- 
ject. 

But  he  assuredly  was  not  a  com* 
plaisant  cuckold,  and  those  who  said  that 
of  him  had  never  seen  him  at  home. 
On  the  contrary,  he  was  always  jealous, 
and  kept  as  sharp  a  lookout  on  his 
wife  as  he  did  on  his  dogs,  and  if  he 
had  broken  her  in  at  all,  it  was  to  be 
as  faithful  to  him  as  they  were. 

She  was  a  handsome  and,  what  they 
call  in  tk?  country,  a  fine  body  cf  a 
woman;  tall,  well-built,  with  a  full  bust 
and  broad  hips,  and  she  certainly  made 
more  than  one  exciseman  squint  at  her. 
But  it  was  no  use  for  them  to  come 
and  sniff  round  her  too  closely,  cr  else 
there  would  have  been  blows.  At  least, 
that  is  what  the  custom-house  officers 
said,  when  anybody  joked  with  them 
and  said  to  them:  *That  does  not  mat- 
ter; no  doubt,  you  and  she  have  hunted 
for  your  fleas  together." 

It  was  no  use  for  them  to  defend 
T.Iadame  Bistaud's  fierce  virtue;  nobody 
believed  them,  and  the  only  answer  they 
got,  was:  ^'You  are  hiding  your  game, 
and  are  ashamed  of  going  to  seduce  a 


THE  MAN  WITH  THE  DOGS 


911 


woman,  who  belongs  to  such  a  wretched 
creature." 

And,  certainly,  nobody  would  have  be- 
lieved that  such  a  buxom  woman,  who 
must  have  liked  to  be  well  attended 
to,  could  be  satisfied  with  such  a  puny 
husband,  with  such  an  ugly,  weak,  red- 
headed fellow,  who  smelled  of  his  dogs, 
and  of  the  mustiness  of  the  carrion 
which  he  gave  to  his  hounds. 

But  they  did  not  know  that  the  man 
with  the  dcgs  had  some  years  before 
given  her,  once  for  all,  a  lesson  in  fi- 
delity, and  that  for  a  mere  trifle,  a 
venial  sin!  He  had  surprised  her  for 
allowing  herself  to  be  kissed  by  some 
gallant,  that  was  all !  He  had  not  taken 
any  notice,  but  when  the  man  was  gone, 
he  brought  two  cf  his  hounds  into  the 
room,  and  said: 

"If  ycu  do  not  want  them  to  tear 
your  inside  out  as  they  would  a  rabbit's, 
go  down  on  your  knees  so  that  I  may 
thrash  you!" 

She  obeyed  in  terror,  and  the  man 
with  the  dogs  had  beaten  her  with  a 
whip  until  his  arm  dropped  with  fatigue. 
And  she  did  not  venture  to  scream,  al- 
though she  was  bleeding  under  the  blows 
of  the  thong,  which  tore  her  dress,  and 
cut  into  the  flesh;  all  she  dared  to  do 
was  to  utter  low,  hoarse  groans;  for 
while  beating  her,  he  kept  ou  saying: 

"Don't  make  a  noise,  by ;  don't 

make  a  noise,  or  I  will  let  the  dogs  fly 
at  you." 

From  that  time  she  had  been  faith- 
ful to  Bistaud,  though  she  had  naturally 
not  told  anyone  the  reason  for  it,  or 
for  her  hatred  either,  not  even  Bistaud 
himself,  who  thought  that  she  was  sub- 
dued for  all  time,  and  always  found  her 
very  submissive  and  respectful.    But  for 


six  years  she  had  nourished  her  hatred 
in  her  heart,  feeding  it  on  silent  hopes 
and  promises  of  revenge.  And  it  was 
that  flame  oi  hope  and  that  longing  for 
revenge,  which  made  her  so  coquettish 
with  the  custom-house  officers,  for  she 
hoped  to  find  a  possible  avenger  among 
her  inflammable  admirers. 

At  last  she  came  across  the  right  man. 
He  was  a  splendid  sub-officer  of  the 
customs,  built  like  a  Hercules,  with  fists 
like  a  butcher's,  and  had  long  leased 
four  of  his  ferocious  dogs  from  her 
husband. 

As  soon  as  they  had  grown  accus- 
tomed to  their  new  master,  and  espe- 
cially after  they  had  tasted  the  flesh 
of  the  smugglers'  dogs,  they  had,  by 
degrees  become  detached  from  their 
former  master,  who  had  reared  them. 
No  doubt  they  still  recognized  him  a 
little,  and  would  not  have  sprung  at 
his  throat,  as  if  he  were  a  perfect 
stranger,  but  still,  they  did  not  hesitate 
between  his  voice  and  that  of  their  new 
master,  and  they  obeyed  the  latter  only. 

Although  the  woman  had  often  noticed 
this,  she  had  net  hitherto  been  able  to 
make  much  u^e  cf  the  circumstance.  A 
custom-house  ofTicer,  as  a  rule,  only 
keeps  one  dog,  and  Bistaud  always  had 
half-a-dozen,  at  least,  in  training,  with- 
out reckoning  a  personal  guard  which 
he  kept  for  himself,  which  was  the 
fiercest  cf  all.  Consequently,  any  duel 
between  some  lover  assisted  by  only  one 
dog,  and  the  dog-breaker  defended  by 
his  pack,  was  impossible. 

But  on  that  occasion,  the  chances 
were  more  equal.  Just  then  he  had 
only  five  dogs  in  the  kennel,  and  two  of 
them   were   quite   young,    though    cer* 


A  King's  Son 


The  Boulevard,  that  river  of  life, 
was  rushing  along  under  the  golden  light 
of  the  setting  sun.  All  the  sky  was  red, 
dazzling  red;  and  behind  the  Madeleine 
an  immense,  brilliant  cloud  threw  into 
the  long  avenue  an  oblique  shower  of 
file,  vibrating  like  the  rays  from  live 
coals. 

The  gay  crowd  moved  along  in  this 
ruddy  mist  as  if  they  were  in  an  apo- 
theosis. Their  faces  were  golden;  their 
black  hats  and  coats  were  reflected  in 
shades  of  purple;  the  varnish  of  their 
shoes  threw  red  lights  upon  the  asphalt 
of  the  sidewalks. 

Before  the  cafes,  men  were  drinking 
brilliantly  colored  drinks,  which  one 
might  take  for  precious  stones  melted  in 
the  crystal. 

In  the  midst  of  the  consumers,  two 
officers,  in  very  rich  uniforms,  caused 
all  eyes  to  turn  in  their  direction  on 
account  of  their  gold  bri^id  and  grand 
bearing.  They  were  chatting  pleasantly, 
without  motive,  rejoicing  in  this  glory 
of  life,  in  the  radiant  beauty  of  the 
evening.  And  they  looked  at  the  crowd 
— at  the  slow  men  and  the  hurrying 
women  who  left  behind  them  an  attrac- 
tive, disturbing  odor. 

All  at  once,  an  enormous  negro, 
clothed  in  black,  corpulent,  decorated 
"With  trinkets  all  over  his  duck  waist- 
coat, his  face  shining  as  if  it  had  been 
oiled,  passed  before  them  with  an  air  of 
triumph.  Ke  smiled  at  the  passers-by, 
he  smiled  at  the  venders  ot  the  news- 
papers, he  smiled  ac  the  shining  heavens, 
and  the  whole  of  Paris.  He  was  so 
large  that  he  towered  above  all  their 
heads;  and  all  the  loungers  that  he  left 


behind  him  turned  to  contemplate  his 

back. 

Suddenly  he  perceived  the  officers  and, 
pushing  aside  the  drinkers,  he  rushed 
toward  them.  When  he  was  before 
their  table,  he  planted  upon  them  his 
shining,  delighted  eyes,  and,  raising  the 
corners  of  his  mouth  to  his  ears,  showed 
his  white  teeth,  shining  like  a  crescent 
moon  in  a  black  sky.  The  two  men, 
stupefied,  looked  at  this  ebony  giant 
without  understanding  his  merriment. 

Then  he  cried  out,  in  a  voice  that 
made  everybody  at  all  the  tables  laugh: 

"Good  evenin',  my  Lieutenant." 

One  of  the  officers  was  chief  of  a 
battalion,  the  other  was  a  colonel.  The 
first  said: 

*T  do  not  know  you,  sir;  and  cannot 
think  what  you  can  want  of  me." 

The  negro  replied: 

*'Me  like  you  much,  Lieutenant 
Vedie,  siege  of  Bezi,  much  grapes,  hunt 
me  up." 

The  officer,  much  astonished,  looked 
closely  at  the  man,  seeking  to  place  him 
in  his  memory.     Suddenly  he  cried: 

"Timbuctoo?" 

The  negro,  radiant,  struck  himself  on 
his  leg,  uttered  a  most  strident  laugh, 
and  bellowed: 

"Yes,  ya,  ya,  my  Lieutenant,  remem- 
ber Timbuctoo,  ya,  good  evenin'." 

The  officer  extended  his  hand,  laughing 
now  himself  with  all  his  heart.  Then 
Timbuctoo  became  grave.  He  seized 
the  officer's  hand  and  kissed  it  as  the 
custom  is  in  Arabia,  so  quickly  that  it 
could  not  be  stopped.  In  a  confused 
manner,  the  military  man  said  to  him, 
his  voice  rather  severe: 

"Come,   Timbuctoo,   we  are  not  in 


0J4 


A  KING'S  SON 


915 


Africa,  be  seated  and  tell  me  how  you 
came  to  be  here." 

Timbuctoo  swelled  out  his  ample 
front  and  stammered,  from  trying  to 
talk  too  quickly: 

''Got  much  money,  much,  great 
rest'rant,  good  eat,  Prussians  come, 
much  steal,  much,  French  cooking, 
Timbuctoo  chef  to  Emperor,  two  hun- 
dred thousand  francs  for  me.  Ah!  ah! 
ah!  ah  I" 

And  he  laughed,  twisting  himself  and 
howling,  with  a  perfect  madness  of  joy 
in  his  eye. 

When  the  officer  who  comprehended 
this  strange  language  had  asked  him 
questions  for  some  time,  h3  said  to  him: 

"Well,  good-bye  now,  Timbuctoo;  I 
will  see  you  again." 

The  negro  immediately  arose,  shook 
the  hand  that  was  extended  to  him, 
properly  this  time,  and,  continuing  to 
laugh,  cried: 

"Good  evenin*,  good  evenin*,  my 
Lieutenant." 

He  went  away  so  content  that  he 
gesticulated  as  he  walked  until  he  was 
taken  for  a  crazy  man. 

The  colonel  asked:  "Who  was  that 
brute?" 

The  commander  responded:  *'A 
brave  boy  and  a  brave  soldier.  1  will 
,  tell  you  what  I  know  of  him;  it  is 
j  funny  enough. 

1.    ♦  iic  :ic  :tc  :((  ]|c  3|c 

"You  know  that  at  the  commencement 
'  of  the  war  of  1870  I  was  shut  up  in 
Bezieres,  which  the  negro  calls  Bezi.  We 
were  not  besieged,  but  blockaded.  The 
Prussian  lines  surrounded  us  every- 
where, beyond  the  reach  of  cannon,  no 
longer  shooting  at  us  but  starving  us 
little  by  llttic. 


"I  was  then  a  lieutenant.  Our  garri- 
son was  composed  of  troops  of  every 
nature,  the  debris  of  cut-up  regiments, 
fugitives  and  marauders  separated  from 
the  body  of  the  army.  We  even  had 
eleven  Turcos  arrive  finally,  one  evening, 
from  no  one  knew  where.  They  pre- 
sented themselves  at  the  gates  of  the 
town,  harassed,  hungry,  drunk,  and  in 
tatters.    They  were  given  to  me. 

"I  soon  recognized  the  fact  that  they 
were  averse  to  all  discipline,  that  they 
were  always  absent  and  always  tipsy. 
I  tried  the  police  station,  even  the 
prison,  without  effect.  My  men  disap- 
peared for  whole  days,  as  if  they  had 
sunk  into  the  earth,  then  reappeared  in- 
toxicated enough  to  fall.  They  had  no 
money.  Where  did  they  get  their  drink c* 
How  and  by  what  means  ? 

"This  began  to  puzzle  me  much,  es- 
pecially as  these  savages  interested  m^ 
with  their  eternal  laugh  and  their  char- 
acter, which  was  that  of  a  great  roguisl 
child. 

"I  then  perceived  that  they  blindl) 
obeyed  the  biggest  one  of  them  all,  the 
one  you  have  just  seen.  He  governed 
them  by  his  will,  planned  their  myste- 
rious enterprises,  and  was  chief,  all- 
powerful  and  incontestable.  I  made  him 
come  to  my  house  and  I  questioned  him. 
Our  conversation  lasted  a  good  three 
hours,  so  great  was  my  difficulty  in  pene- 
trating his  surprising  mixture  of  tongues. 
As  for  him,  poor  devil,  he  made  the 
most  unheard-of  efforts  to  be  understood, 
invented  words,  gesticulated,  fnirly 
sweated  from  his  difficulty,  wiped  his 
brow,  puffed,  stopped,  and  then  began 
suddenly  again  when  he  thou.'^ht  he  had 
found  a  new  means  of  explaining 
himself. 


916 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"I  finally  divined  that  he  was  the  son 
of  a  great  chief,  a  sort  of  negro  king 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Timbuctoo.  I 
asked  him  his  name.  He  responded 
something  like  Chavaharibouhalikhrana- 
fotapolara.  It  appeared  simpler  to  me 
to  call  him  by  the  name  of  his  country: 
*Timbuctoo.'  And  eight  days  later  all 
the  garrison  was  calling  him  that  and 
nothing  else. 

"A  foolish  desire  seized  me  of  finding 
out  where  this  ex-African  prince  found 
his  drink.  And  I  discovered  it  in  a 
singular  way. 

"One  morning  I  was  on  the  ramparts 
studying  the  horizon,  when  I  perceived 
something  moving  in  a  vine  near  by. 
It  was  at  the  time  of  the  vintage;  the 
grapes  were  ripe,  but  I  scarcely  gave 
this  a  thought.  My  idea  was  that  some 
spy  wa.-i  approaching  the  town,  and  I 
organized  an  expedition  complete  enough 
to  seize  the  prowlers.  I  myself  took  the 
command,  having  obtained  the  General's 
authorization. 

"Three  small  troops  were  to  set  out 
through  three  different  gates  and  join 
near  the  suspected  vine  to  watch.  In 
order  to  cut  off  the  retreat  of  any  spy; 
one  detachment  had  to  make  a  march  of 
an  hour  at  least.  One  man  remained 
upon  the  wa'l  for  observation,  to  indi- 
cate to  me  by  a  sign  that  the  person 
sought  had  not  left  the  field.  We  pre- 
served a  deep  silence,  crawling,  almost 
lying  in  the  wheel-ruts.  Finally,  we 
reached  the  designated  point ;  I  suddenly 
deployed  my  soldiers,  charging  them 
quickly  upon  the  vine,  and  found — ^Tim- 
buctoo traveling  along  among  the  vine 
stocks  on  four  paws,  eating  grapes,  or 
rather  snapping  them  up  as  a  dog  eats 
his  soup,  his  mouth  full,  of  leaves,  even, 


snatching  the  bunches  off  with  a  blow 
of  his  teeth. 

"I  wished  to  make  him  get  up; 
there  was  no  longer  any  mystery  and  I 
comprehended  why  he  dragged  himself 
along  upon  his  hands  and  knees. 

''When  he  was  planted  upon  his  feet, 
he  swayed  back  and  forth  for  some 
seconds,  extending  his  arms  and  striking 
his  nose.  He  was  as  tipsy  as  any  tipsy 
man  I  have  ever  seen. 

'They  brought  him  away  on  two  poles. 
He  never  ceased  to  laugh  all  along  the 
route,  gesticulating  v/ith  his  arms  and 
legs. 

"That  was  the  whole  of  it.  My  merry 
fellows  had  drunk  of  the  grape  itself. 
Then,  when  they  could  no  longer  drink 
and  could  not  budge,  they  went  to  sleep 
on  the  spot. 

"As  for  Timbuctoo,  his  love  for  the 
vine  passed  all  belief  and  all  measure. 
He  lived  down  there  after  the  fashion 
of  the  thrushes,  which  he  hated  with 
the  hatred  of  a  jealous  rival.  He  re- 
peated without  ceasing: 

"  'The  th'ushes  eat  all  g'apes,  the 
d'unkards.' 

******* 

"One  evening  some  one  came  to  find 
me.  Off  over  the  plain  something 
seemed  to  be  moving  toward  us.  I  did 
rot  have  my  glass  with  me,  and  could 
not  distinguish  what  it  was.  It  looked 
hke  a  great  serpent  rolling  itself  along, 
or  a  funeral  procession;  how  could  I 
tell? 

"I  sent  some  men  to  meet  this  strange 
caravan,  which  soon  appeared  in  trium- 
phal march.  Timbuctoo  and  nine  of  his 
companions  were  carrying  a  sort  of  altar, 
made  of  campaign  chiirs,  upon  which 


I 


A  KING'S  SON 


^17 


were  eight  cut-off  heads,  bloody  and 
grimacing.  The  tenth  Turco  dragged  a 
horse  by  the  tail  to  which  another  was 
attached,  and  six  other  beasts  still  fol- 
lowed, held  in  the  same  fashion." 

'This  is  what  I  learned.  Having  set 
out  for  the  vine,  my  Africans  had  sud- 
denly perceived  a  detachment  of  Prus- 
sian soldiers  approach'ng  a  neighboring 
village.  Instead  of  fleeing  they  con- 
cealed themselves;  then,  when  the  offi- 
cers put  foot  to  the  ground  at  an  inn  to 
refresh  themselves,  the  eleven  merry 
ones  threw  themselves  upon  them,  put 
to  flight  the  uhlans  who  believed  them- 
selves attacked,  k.llcd  the  two  sentinels, 
then  the  Colonel  and  the  five  officers 
comprising  his  escort. 

"That  day  I  embraced  Timbuctoo. 
But  I  also  perceived  that  he  walked  with 
difficulty;  I  believed  that  he  was 
wounded.  He  began  to  laugh  and  said 
to  me: 

"  *Me  get  provisions  for  country.' 

"It  seems  that  Timbuctoo  had  not 
made  war  Tor  the  sake  of  honor,  but 
for  gain.  All  that  he  found,  all  that 
appeared  to  him  to  have  any  value 
whatever,  everything  that  glistened,  es- 
pecially, he  plunged  into  his  pocket. 
And  what  a  pocket!  An  abyss  that  be- 
gun at  the  hip  and  extended  to  the 
I  heels.  Having  learned  the  word  of  a 
\  trooper,  he  called  it  his  ^profound.'  It 
■  was,  in  fact,  his  profound!  He  had 
detached  the  gold  from  the  Prussian  uni- 
forms, the  copper  from  their  helmets, 
the  buttons,  etc.,  and  thrown  them  all 
into  his  profound,  which  was  full  to  the 
brim. 

"Each  day  he  cast  in  there  every 
gliLitening  object  that  fell  under  his  eye, 
-'pieces  of  tin  cr  pieces  of  money, — 


which  sometimes  gave  him  an  infinitely 
droll  figure. 

"He  counted  on  bringing  things  back 
like  an  ostrich,  which  he  resembled  like 
a  brother, — this  son  of  a  king  tortured 
by  a  desire  to  devour  these  shining 
bodies.  If  he  had  not  had  his  profound, 
T;hat  would  he  have  done?  toubtless 
he  would  have  swallowed  them. 

"Each  morning  his  pocket  was  empty. 
He  had  a  kind  of  general  store  where  he 
heaped  up  his  riches.  Where?  No  one 
could  ever  discover. 

"The  General,  foreseeing  the  uproar 
that  Timbuctoo  had  created,  had  the 
bodies  quickly  interred  in  a  neighboring 
village,  before  it  was  discovered  that 
they  had  been  decapitated.  The  Prus- 
sians came  the  next  day.  The  mayor 
and  seven  distinguished  inhabitants  were 
shot  immediately,  as  it  had  been  learned 
through  informers  that  they  had  de- 
nounced the  Germans. 

"The  winter  had  come.  We  were 
harassed  and  desperate.  There  was 
fighting  now,  every  day.  The  starved 
men  could  no  longer  walk.  The  eight 
Turks  alone  (three  had  been  killed) 
were  fat  and  shining,  vigorous  and  al- 
ways ready  for  battle.  Timbuctoo  even 
grew  stout.    He  said  to  me  one  day : 

"*You  much  hungry,  me  good  food.* 

"In  fact,  he  brought  me  an  excellent 
fillet.  Of  what?  We  had  neither 
beeves,  sheep,  goats,  asses,  nor  pigs.  It 
was  impossible  for  him  to  procure  a 
horse.  I  reflected  upon  all  this  after 
having  devoured  my  viand.  Then,  a 
terrible  thought  came  to  me.  These 
negroes  were  born  near  a  country  where 
they  ate  men!  And  every  day  soldiers 
were  falling  all  about  them!     I  ques- 


918 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


tioned  Timbuctoo.  He  did  not  wish  to 
jay  anything.  I  did  not  insist,  but 
henceforth  I  ate  no  more  of  his  presents. 

"He  adored  me.  One  night  the  snow 
overtook  us  at  the  outposts.  We  were 
seated  on  the  ground.  I  looked  with 
pity  upon  the  poor  negroes  shivering 
under  this  white,  freezing  powder.  As 
I  was  very  cold,  I  began  to  cough. 
Immediately,  I  felt  something  close 
around  me  like  a  great  warm  cover.  It 
was  Timbuctoo's  mantle,  which  he  had 
thrown  around  my  shoulders. 

"I  arose  and  returned  the  garment  to 
him,  saying: 

"  'Keep  it,  my  boy,  you  have  more 
need  of  it  than  I.* 

"He  answered:  *No,  no,  my  Lieu- 
tenant, for  you,  me  not  need,  me  hot, 
bot!» 

"And  he  looked  at  me  with  suppliant 
eyes.    I  replied: 

"'Come  obey,  keep  your  mantle;  I 
wish  it.' 

"The  negro  arose,  drew  his  saber 
which  he  knew  how  to  make  cut  like  a 
scythe,  held  in  the  other  the  large  cloak 
that  I  had  refused  and  said : 

"  *So  you  not  take  mantle,  me  cut;  no 
mantle.* 

"He  would  have  done  it.    I  yielded. 

*  lie  4(  Jic  ♦  He  * 

"Eight  days  later  we  had  capitulated. 
Some  among  us  had  been  able  to  get 
away.  The  others  were  going  out  of  the 
town  and  giving  themselves  up  to  the 
conquerors. 

"I    directed    my    steps    toward    the 


Armory,  where  we  were  to  reunite,  when 
I  met  face  to  face  a  negro  giant  clothed 
in  white  duck  and  wearing  a  straw  cap. 
It  was  Timbuctoo.  He  seemed  radiant 
and  walked  along,  his  hands  in  his 
pockets,  until  we  came  to  a  little  shop, 
where  in  the  window  there  were  two 
plates  and  two  glasses. 

"I  asked  him:  'What  are  you  doing 
here?' 

"He  responded: 

"'Me  not  suffer,  me  good  cook,  me 
make  Colonel  Algeie  to  eat,  me  feed 
Prussians,  steal  much,  much.' 

"The  mercury  stood  at  ten  degrees.  I 
shivered  before  this  negro  in  white  duck. 
Then  he  took  me  by  the  arm  and  made 
me  enter.  There  I  perceived  a  huge  sign 
that  he  was  going  to  hang  up  before  his 
door  as  soon  as  I  had  gone  out,  for  he 
had  some  modesty.  I  read,  traced  by 
the  hand  of  some  accomplice,  these 
words : 

"  'MILITARY  CUISINE  OF  M. 

TIMBUCTOO. 

Formerly  caterer  to  H.  I.L  the  Emperor. 

Paris  Artist.     Prices  Moderate.* 

"In  spite  of  the  despair  which  was 
gnawing  at  my  heart,  I  could  not  help 
laughing,  and  I  left  my  negro  to  his 
new  business.  It  would  have  availed 
nothing  to  have  him  taken  prisoner. 

"You  see  how  he  has  succeeded,  the 
rascal,  Bezieres  to-day  belongs  to  Ger- 
many. Timbuctoo's  restajjra^i  was  the 
beginning  of  revenge.'* 


I 


I 


Mohammed  Fripouli 


"Shall  we  have  our  coffee  on  the 
roof?"  asked  the  captain. 

I  answered: 

"Yes,  certainly." 

He  rose.  It  was  already  dark  in  the 
room  which  was  lighted  only  by  the  in- 
terior court,  after  the  fashion  of  Moorish 
houses.  Before  the  high,  ogive  win- 
dows, convolvulus  vines  hung  from  the 
gnat  terrace,  where  they  passed  the  hot 
summer  evenings.  There  only  remained 
upon  the  table  some  grapes,  big  as  plums, 
some  fresh  figs  of  a  violet  hue,  some 
yellow  pears,  some  long,  plump  bananas, 
and  some  Tougourt  dates  in  a  basket 
of  alja. 

The  Moor  who  waited  on  them  opened 
the  door  and  I  went  upstairs  to  the  azure 
walls  which  received  from  above  the 
soft  light  of  the  dying  day. 

And  soon  I  gave  a  deep  sigh  of 
happiness,  on  reaching  the  terrace.  It 
overlooked  Algiers,  the  harbor,  the  road- 
stead, and  the  distant  shores. 

The  house,  bought  by  the  captain, 
was  a  former  Arab  residence,  situated  in 
the  midst  of  the  old  city,  among  those 
labyrinthine  little  streets,  where  swarm 
the  strange  population  of  the  African 
coasts. 

Beneath  us,  the  flat,  square  roofs 
descended,  hke  steps  of  giants,  to  the 
pointed  roofs  of  the  European  quarter 
of  the  city.  Behind  these  might  be 
perceived  the  flags  of  the  boats  at 
anchor,  then  the  sea,  the  open  sea,  blue 
and  calm  under  the  blue  and  calm  sky. 

We  stretched  ourselves  upon  the 
mats,  our  heads  resting  upon  cushions, 
and  while  leisurely  sipping  the  savory 
coffee  of  the  locality,  I  gazed  at  the 
first  stars  in  the  dark  azure.    They  were 


hardly  perceptible,  so  far  away,  so  pale, 

as  yeL  giving  scarcely  any  light. 

A  light  heat,  a  wingen  heat,  caressed 
our  skins.  And  at  t.mes  the  warm, 
heavy  air,  in  which  the:e  was  a  vague 
odor,  the  odor  of  Africa,  seemed  the  hot 
breath  of  the  desert,  coming  over  the 
peaks  of  Atlas.  The  captain,  lying  on 
his  back,  said: 

"What  a  country,  my  dear  boy!  How 
soft  life  is  here!  How  peculiar  and 
delicious  repose  is  in  this  land!  Hov> 
the  nights  seem  to  be  made  for  dreams." 

I  looked  at  the  stars  coming  out  with 
a  lazy,  yet  active,  curiosity,  with  a 
drowsy  happiness. 

I  murmured: 

"You  might  tell  me  something  of  your 
life  in  the  south." 

Captain  Marret  was  one  of  the  oldest 
officers  in  the  army  of  Atrica,  an  officer 
of  fortune,  a  former  spahi,  who  had  cut 
his  way  to  his  present  rank. 

Thanks  to  him,  to  his  relations  and 
friendships,  I  had  been  able  to  accom- 
plish a  superb  trip  to  the  desert,  and  I 
had  come  that  evening  to  thank  him  be- 
fore going  to  France. 

He  said:  "What  kind  of  a  story  do 
you  want?  I  have  had  so  many  ad- 
ventures during  twelve  years  of  sand, 
that  I  can't  think  of  a  single  one."  And 
1  replied:  "Well,  tell  me  of  the 
Arabian  women."  He  did  not  reply. 
He  remained  stretched  out  with  his 
arms  bent,  and  his  hands  under  his 
head,  and  I  noticed  at  times  the  odor 
of  his  cigar,  the  smoke  of  which  went 
straight  up  into  the  sky,  so  breezeless 
was  the  night. 

And  all  of  a  sudden  he  began  to  laugh. 

"Ah!  yes,  I'll  tell  you  about  a  queei 


919 


920 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


affair  which  occurred  in  my  first  days 
in  Algeria. 

"We  had  then  in  the  army  of  Africa 
some  extraordinary  types,  such  as  have 
not  been  seen  since,  types  which  would 
have  amused  you,  so  much  in  fact,  that 
you  would  have  wanted  to  spend  all 
your  life  in  this  country. 

"I  was  a  simple  spaki,  a  little  spaU, 
twenty  years  old,  light-haired,  swagger- 
ing, supple,  and  strong.  I  was  attached 
to  a  military  command  at  Boghar.  You 
know  Boghar,  which  they  call  the  bal- 
cony of  the  south.  You  have  seen  from 
the  top  of  the  fort  the  beginning  of  this 
land  of  fire,  devoured,  naked,  tormented, 
stony,  and  red.  It  is  really  the  ante- 
chamber to  the  desert,  the  broiling  and 
superb  frontier  of  the  immense  region 
of  yellow  solitudes. 

'Well,  there  were  forty  of  us  spahis 
at  Boghar,  r,  company  of  joyeux,  and  a 
squadron  of  Chasseurs  d'Afrique,  when 
it  was  learned  that  the  tribe  of  the 
Ouled-Berghi  had  assassinated  an  EngHsh 
traveler,  come,  no  man  knows  how,  into 
the  country,  for  the  English  have  the 
devil  in  their  bodies. 

"Punishment  had  to  be  given  for  the 
crime  against  a  European;  but  the  com- 
manding officer  hesitated  at  sending  a 
column,  thinking,  in  truth,  that  one 
Englishman  wasn't  worth  so  much  of  a 
movement. 

"Now,  as  he  was  talking  of  this  affair 
with  the  captain  and  the  lieutenant,  a 
quartermaster  of  spahis  who  was  waiting 
for  orders  proposed  all  at  once  to  go 
and  punish  the  tribe  if  they  would  give 
him  only  six  men.  You  know  that  in 
the  south  they  are  more  free  than  in 
the  city  garrisons  and  there  exists  be- 
tween officer  and  soldier  a  sort  of  com- 


radeship which  is  not  found  elsewhere. 

"The  captain  began  to  laugh: 

"  'You,  my  good  man?' 

"  'Yes,  captain,  and  if  you  desire  it,  1 
will  bring  you  back  the  whole  tribe  as 
prisoners.' 

"The  commandant,  who  had  fantastic 
ideas,  took  him  at  his  word. 

"  'You  will  start  to-morrow  morning 
with  six  men  of  your  own  selection,  and 
if  you  don't  accomplish  your  purpose, 
look  out  for  yourself.' 

"The  subofficer  smiled  in  his  mustache. 

"  'Fear  nothing,  commandant.  My 
prisoners  shall  be  here  Wednesday  noon 
at  latest.' 

"The  quartermaster,  Mohammed 
Fripouli,  as  he  was  called,  was  a  Turk, 
a  true  Turk,  who  had  entered  the  ser- 
vice of  France,  after  a  life  which  had 
been  very  much  knocked  about  and  not 
altogether  too  clean.  He  had  traveled  in 
many  places,  in  Greece,  in  Asia  Minor, 
in  Egypt,  in  Palestine,  and  he  had  been 
forced  to  pay  a  good  many  forfeits  on 
the  way.  He  was  an  ex-Bashi-Bazouk, 
bold,  ferocious,  and  gay,  with  the  calm 
gaiety  of  the  Oriental.  He  was  stout, 
very  stout,  but  supple  as  a  monkey  and 
he  rode  a  horse  marvelously  well.  His 
mustache,  incredibly  thick  and  long,  al- 
ways aroused  in  me  a  confused  idea  of 
the  crescent  moon  and  a  scimiter.  He 
hated  the  Arabs  with  a  deadly  hatred, 
and  he  pursued  them  with  frightful 
cruelty,  continually  inventing  new  tricks, 
calculated  and  terrible  perfidies.  He  was 
possessed,  too,  of  incredible  strength  and 
inconceivable  audacity. 

"The  commandant  said  to  him: 
'Choose  your  men,  my  blade.' 

"Mohammed  took  me.  He  had  confi- 
dence in  me,  the  brave  man,  and  I  was 


MOHAMMED  FRIPOULI 


921 


grateful  to  him,  body  and  soul,  for  this 
choice,  which  gave  me  as  much  pleasure 
as  the  Cross  of  Honor  later. 

"So  we  started  the  next  morning,  at 
dawn,  all  seven  of  us,  and  nobody  else. 
My  comrades  were  composed  of  those 
bandits,  those  plunderers,  who,  after 
marauding  and  playing  the  vagabond  in 
all  possible  countries,  finish  by  taking 
service  in  some  foreign  legion.  Our 
•army  in  Africa  was  then  full  of  these 
rascals,  excellent  soldiers  but  not  at  all 
scrupulous. 

"Mohammed  had  given  to  each  to 
carry  ten  pieces  of  rope  about  a  meter 
in  length.  I  was  charged,  besides  as  be- 
ing the  youngest  and  the  least  heavy, 
with  a  piece  about  a  hundred  meters 
long.  When  he  was  asked  what  he  was 
going  to  do  with  all  that  rope,  he  an- 
swered with  his  sly  and  placid  air: 

"  It  is  to  fish  for  the  Arabs.' 

"And  he  winked  his  eye  mischievously, 
an  action  which  he  had  learned  from  an 
old  Chasseur  d'Afrique  from  Paris. 

"He  marched  in  front  of  our  squad, 
his  head  wrapped  in  a  red  turban,  which 
he  always  wore  in  a  campaign,  and  he 
smiled  with  cunning  chuckles  in  his 
enormous  mustache. 

"He  was  truly  handsome,  this  big 
Turk,  with  his  powerful  paunch,  his 
shoulders  of  a  colossus  and  his  tranquil 
air.  He  rode  a  white  horse  of  medium 
height,  but  strong;  and  the  rider  seemed 
ten  times  too  big  for  his  mount. 

"We  were  passing  through  a  long,  dry 
ravine,  bare  and  yellow,  in  the  valley  of 
the  Chelif,  and  we  talked  of  our  expedi- 
tion. My  companions  had  all  possible 
accents,  there  being  among  them  a 
Spaniard,  a  Greek,  an  American,  and  two 
Frenchmen.     As   for   Mohammed    Fri- 


pouli,  he  spoke  with  an  incredibly  thick 
tongue. 

"The  sun,  the  terrible  sun,  the  sun  of 
the  south,  which  no  one  knows  anything 
about  on  the  other  side  of  the  Medi- 
terranean, fell  upon  our  shoulders,  and 
we  advanced  at  a  walk,  as  they  always 
do  in  that  country. 

"All  day  we  marched  without  meeting 
a  tree  or  an  Arab. 

"Toward  one  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
we  had  eaten,  near  a  little  spring  which 
flowed  between  the  rocks,  the  bread  and 
dried  mutton  which  we  had  brought  in 
cur  knapsacks;  then  after  twenty  min- 
utes' rest,  went  out  again  on  our  way. 

"Toward  six  o'clock  in  the  evening, 
finally,  after  a  long  detour  which  our 
leader  had  forced  us  to  make,  we  dis- 
covered behind  a  knob,  a  tribe  encamped. 
The  brown,  low  tents  made  dark  spots 
on  the  yellow  earth,  looking  like  great 
mushrooms  growing  at  the  foot  of  this 
red  hill  which  was  burned  by  the  sun. 

"They  were  our  game.  A  little  further 
away,  on  the  edge  of  a  meadow  of  aJfa 
of  a  dark  green  color,  the  tied  horses 
were  pasturing. 

"'Gallop!'  ordered  Mohammed,  and 
we  arrived  like  a  whirlwind  in  the  midst 
of  the  camp.  The  women,  terrified,  cov- 
ered with  white  rags  which  hung  float- 
ing upon  them,  ran  quickly  to  their 
canvas  huts,  cringing  and  crouching 
and  crying  like  hunted  beasts.  The  men, 
on  the  contrary,  came  from  all  sides  to 
defend  themselves.  We  struck  right  for 
the  tallest  tent,  that  of  the  agha. 

"We  kept  our  sabers  in  the  scabbards, 
after  the  example  of  Mohammed,  who 
galloped  in  a  singular  fashion.  He  sat 
absolutely    motionless,    erect    upon   his 


^n 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


small  horse,  which  strove  under  him 
madly  to  carry  such  a  weight.  And 
the  tranquillity  of  the  rider  with  his 
long  mustache  contrasted  strangely  with 
the  liveliness  of  the  animal. 

"The  native  chief  came  out  of  his 
tent  as  we  arrived  before  it.  He  was  a 
tall,  thin  man,  dark,  with  a  gleaming 
eye,  full  forehead,  and  arched  eyebrows. 

"He  cried  in  Arabic: 

"  'What  do  you  want?' 

"Mohammed,  stopping  his  horse  short, 
replied  in  his  language:  'Was  it  you 
who  killed  the  English  traveler?' 

"The  agha  said  in  a  strong  voice: 

"  *I  am  not  going  to  be  examined  by 
you!' 

"There  was  around  us,  as  it  were,  a 
rumbling  tempest.  The  Arabs  ran  up 
from  all  sides,  pressing  and  surrounding 
us,  all  the  time  vociferating  loudly. 

"They  had  the  air  of  ferocious  birds 
of  prey,  with  their  big  curved  noses, 
their  thin  faces  with  high  cheek-bones, 
their  flowing  garments,  agitated  by  their 
gestures. 

"Mohammed  smiled,  his  turban 
crooked,  his  eye  excited,  and  I  saw 
shivers  of  pleasure  on  his  cheeks  which 
were  pendulous,  fleshy,  and  wrinkled. 

"He  replied  in  a  thunderous  voice: 

"  'Death  to  him  who  has  given  death!' 

"And  he  pointed  his  revolver  at  the 
brown  face  of  the  agha.  I  saw  a  little 
smoke  leap  from  the  muzzle;  then  a  red 
foam  of  blood  and  brains  spurted  from 
the  forehead  of  the  chief.  He  fell,  like 
a  block,  on  his  back,  spreading  out  his 
arms,  which  lifted  like  wings  the  folds 
of  his  burnous. 

"Truly,  I  thought  my  last  day  had 
come,  such  a  terrible  tumult  rose  about 
us. 


"Mohammed  had  drawn  his  saber, 
We  unsheathed  ours,  like  him.  He  cried, 
whirHng  away  the  men,  who  were  press- 
ing him  the  closest: 

"  'Life  to  those  who  submit.  Death 
to  all  others.' 

"And  seizing  the  nearest  in  his  her- 
culean grasp,  he  dragged  him  to  his 
saddle,  tied  his  hands,  yelling  to  us: 

"  'Do  as  I,  and  saber  those  who  resist.' 

"In  five  minutes,  we  had  captured 
twenty  Arabs,  whose  wrists  we  securely 
bound.  Then  we  pursued  the  fleeing 
ones,  for  there  had  been  a  perfect  rout 
around  us  at  the  sight  of  the  naked 
sabers.  We  captured  about  twenty  more 
men. 

"Over  all  the  plains  might  be  seen 
white  objects  which  were  running.  The 
women  were  dragging  along  their  chil- 
dren and  uttering  piercmg  cries.  The 
yellow  dogs,  like  jackals,  barked  around 
us,  and  showed  us  their  white  fangs. 

"Mohammed,  who  seemed  mad  with 
joy,  leaped  from  his  horse  at  a  bound 
and  seizing  the  cord  which  I  had 
bought : 

"  'Attention!'  he  cried,  'two  men  to 
the  ground.'  fl 

"Then  he  made  a  terrible  and  pecu- 
liar thing — a  string  .of  prisoners,  or 
rather  a  string  of  hanged  men.  He  had 
firmly  tied  the  two  wrists  of  the  first 
captive,  then  he  made  a  running  knot 
around  his  neck  with  the  same  cord, 
which  bound  his  neck.  Our  fifty  pris- 
oners soon  found  themselves  fastened  in 
such  a  way  that  the  slightest  movement 
of  one  to  flee  would  strangle  him  as  well 
as  his  two  neighbors.  Every  gesture 
they  made  pulled  on  the  noose  around 
their  necks,  and  they  had  to  march 
with   the   same  step  with  but   a  pace 


MOHAMMED  FRIPOULI 


923 


separating  from  one  another,  under  the 
penalty  of  falling  immediately,  like  a 
hare  in  a  snare. 

''When  this  strange  deed  was  done, 
Mohammed  began  to  laugh,  with  his 
silent  laughter,  which  shook  his  stomach 
without  a  sound  leaving  his  mouth. 

**  That's  an  Arabian  chain,'  said  he. 

"We  began  to  twist  and  turn  before 
the  terrified  and  piteous  faces  of  the 
prisoners. 

"  *Now,'  cried  our  chief,  *at  each  end 
fix  me  that.' 

"A  stake  was  fastened  at  each  end  of 
this  ribbon  of  white-clad  captives,  like 
phantoms,  who  stood  motionless  as  if 
they  had  been  changed  into  stones. 

"'Now,  let  us  dine!'  said  the  Turk. 
A  fire  was  made  and  a  sheep  was  cooked, 
which  we  ate  with  our  fingers.  Then  we 
had  some  dates  which  we  found  in  the 
trees;  drank  some  milk  obtained  in  the 
Arab  tents;  and  we  picked  up  a  few 
silver  trinkets  forgotten  by  the  fugi- 
tives. We  were  tranquilly  finishing  our 
repast,  when  I  perceived,  on  the  hill  op- 
posite, a  singular  gathering.  It  was  the 
women  who  had  just  now  fled,  nothing 
but  v/omen.  They  came  running  toward 
us.  I  pointed  them  out  to  Mohammed 
Fripouli. 

"He  smiled: 

"*'It  is  the  dessert!'  said  he. 

"*Ah!  yes!  the  dessert.' 

"They  approached,  running  like  mad 
women,  and  soon  we  were  peppered  with 
stones  which  they  hurled  at  us  without 
stopping  their  pace;  then  we  saw  that 
they  were  armed  with  knives,  tent  stakes, 
and  old  utensils. 


"To  horse!*  cried  Mohammed.  It 
was  time.  The  attack  was  terrible. 
They  came  to  free  the  prisoners  and 
tried  to  cut  the  rope.  The  Turk,  under- 
standing the  danger,  became  furious  and 
shouted:  'Saber  them!  Saber  them! 
Saber  them!'  And  as  we  stood  motion- 
less, disturbed  by  this  new  kind  of 
charge,  hesitating  at  killing  women,  he 
threw  himself  upon  the  advancing  band. 

"He  charged  all  alone,  this  battalion 
of  women,  in  tatters,  and  he  began  to 
saber  them,  the  wretch,  like  a  madman, 
with  such  rage  and  fury,  that  a  white 
body  might  be  seen  to  fall  at  every 
stroke  of  his  arm. 

"He  was  so  terrible  that  the  women, 
terrified,  fled  as  quickly  as  they  had 
come,  leaving  on  the  ground  a  dozen 
dead  and  wounded,  whose  crimson  blood 
stained  their  white  garments. 

"And  Mohammed,  frowning,  turneo 
toward  us,  exclaiming: 

"  'Start,  start,  my  sons !  They  will 
come  back.' 

"And  we  beat  a  retreat,  conducting 
at  a  slow  step  our  prisoners,  who  were 
paralyzed  by  fear  of  strangulation. 

"The  next  day,  noon  struck  as  we 
arrived  at  Boghar  with  our  chain  of 
hanged  men.  Only  six  died  on  the  way. 
But  it  had  often  been  necessary  to 
loosen  the  knots  from  one  end  of  the 
convoy  to  the  other,  for  every  shock 
half  strangled  ten  captives  at  once." 

The  captain  was  silent.  I  did  not  say 
anything  in  reply.  I  thought  of  the 
strange  country  where  such  things  could 
be  seen  and  I  gazed  at  the  innumerable 
and  shining  flock  of  stars  in  the  dark  sky. 


■''Bell 


)) 


He  H^D  known  better  days,  in  spite  of 
his  misery  and  infirmity.  At  the  age 
of  fifteen,  he  had  had  both  legs  cut  off 
by  a  carriage  on  the  highway  near  Var- 
ville.  Since  that  time  he  had  begged, 
dragging  himself  along  the  roads,  across 
farmyards,  balanced  upon  his  crutches 
which  brought  his  shoulders  to  the  height 
of  his  ears.  His  head  seemed  sunk  be- 
tween two  mountains. 

Found  as  an  infant  in  a  ditch  by  the 
curate  of  Billettes,  on  the  morning  of 
All  Souls'  day,  he  was,  for  this  reason, 
baptized  Nicholas  Toussaint  (All 
Saints) ;  brought  up  by  charity,  he  was  a 
stranger  to  all  instruction ;  crippled  from 
having  drunk  several  glasses  of  brandy 
offered  him  by  the  village  baker,  for  the 
sake  of  a  laughable  story,  and  since 
then  a  vagabond,  knowing  how  to  do 
nothing  but  hold  out  his  hand. 

Formerly,  Baroness  d'Avary  gave  him 
a  kind  of  kennel  full  of  straw  beside  her 
poultry-house,  to  sleep  in,  on  the  farm 
adjoining  her  castle;  and  he  was  sure, 
in  days  of  great  hunger,  of  always  find- 
ing a  piece  of  bread  and  a  glass  of  cider 
in  the  kitchen.  He  often  received  a 
few  sous,  also,  thrown  by  the  old  lady 
from  her  steps  or  her  chamber  window. 
Now  she  was  dead. 

In  the  villages,  they  gave  him  scarcely 
anything.  They  knew  him  too  well. 
They  were  tired  of  him,  having  seen 
his  little,  deformed  body  on  the  two 
wooden  legs  going  from  house  to  house 
for  the  last  forty  years.  And  he  went 
there  because  it  was  the  only  corner  of 
I'.he  country  that  he  knew  on  the  face  of 
the  earth — these  three  or  four  hamlets 
where  he  dragged  out  his  miserable  life. 
He  had  tried  the  frontier  for  his  beg- 


ging, but  had  never  passed  the  wti»- 
daries,  for  he  was  not  accustomed  tc 
anything  new. 

He  did  not  even  know  whethfci-  the 
world  extended  beyond  the  trees  AAicb 
had  always  limited  his  vision.  He  had 
never  asked.  And  when  the  peasants, 
tire*d  of  meeting  him  in  their  fields  or 
along  their  ditches,  cried  out  to  him: 
"Why  do  you  not  go  to  some  other  vil- 
lages, in  place  of  always  stumping  about 
here?"  he  did  not  answer,  but  took  him- 
self off,  seized  by  a  vague  and  unknown 
fear,  that  fear  of  the  poor  who  dread  a 
thousand  things,  confusedly,—  new  faces, 
injuries,  suspicious  looks  from  people 
whom  they  do  not  knov;  the  police,  who 
patrol  the  roads  in  twos,  and  make  a 
plunge  at  them,  by  instinct,  in  the  bushCvS 
or  behind  a  heap  of  stones. 

When  he  saw  them  from  afar  shining 
in  the  sun,  he  suddenly  developed  a 
singular  agility,  the  agility  of  a  wild 
animal  to  reach  his  lair.  He  tumbled 
along  on  his  crutches,  letting  himself 
fall  like  a  bundle  of  rags  and  rolling 
along  like  a  ball,  becoming  so  small  as 
to  be  almost  invisible,  keeping  close  as 
a  hare  running  for  covert,  mingling  hii 
brown  tatters  with  the  earth.  He  had, 
however,  never  had  any  trouble  with 
them.  But  this  fear  and  this  slyness 
were  in  his  blood,  as  if  he  had  received 
them  from  his  parents  whom  he  had 
never  seen. 

He  had  no  refuge,  no  roof,  no  hut, 
no  shelter.  He  slept  anywhere  in  sum- 
mer, and  in  winter  he  slipped  under  the 
barns  or  into  the  stables  with  a  remark- 
able adroitness.  He  always  got  out  be* 
fore  anyone  was  aware  of  his  presence. 
He  knew  all  the  holes  in  the  buildings 


924 


♦*BELL" 


925 


tha/  could  be  penetrated;  and,  manipu- 
lating his  crutches  with  a  surprising 
vigor,  using  them  as  arms,  he  would 
sometimes  crawl,  by  the  sole  strength 
of  his  wrists,  into  the  hay-barns,  where 
he  would  remain  four  or  five  days  with- 
out budging,  when  he  had  gathered  to- 
gether sufficient  provisions  for  his  needs. 
He  lived  like  the  animals  in  -the 
woods,  in  the  midst  of  men  without 
knowing  anyone,  without  loving  anyone, 
and  exciting  in  the  peasants  only  a  kind 
of  indifferent  scorn  and  resigned  hos- 
tility. They  nicknamed  him  *'Bell,"  be- 
cause he  balanced  himself  between  his 
two  wooden  pegs  like  a  bell  between 
its  two  standards. 

For  two  days  he  had  had  nothing  to 
eat.  No  one  would  give  him  anything. 
They  would,  now,  have  nothing  more  to 
do  with  him.  The  peasants  in  their 
doors,  seeing  him  coming,  would  cry  out 
to  him  from  afar: 

"You  want  to  get  away  from  here, 
now.  Twas  only  three  days  ago  that  I 
gave  you  a  piece  of  bread!" 

And  he  would  turn  about  on  his  props 
and  go  on  to  a  neighboring  house,  where 
he  would  be  received  in  the  same 
fashion. 

The  women  declared,  from  one  door 
to  another : 

"One  cannot  feed  that  vagabond  the 
year  round  " 

Nevertheless,  the  vagabond  had  need 
of  food  every  day.  He  had  been 
through  Saint-Hilaire,  Varville,  and 
Billettes  without  receiving  a  centime  or 
a  crust  of  bread.  Tournolles  remained 
as  his  only  hope;  but  to  reach  it  he 
must  walk  two  leagues  upon  the  high- 
way, and  he  felt  too  weary  to  drag  him- 


self along,  his  stomach  being  as  empty 
as  his  pocket. 

He  set  out  on  the  way,  nevertheless. 

It  was  December,  and  a  cold  wind 
blew  over  the  fields,  whistling  among  the 
bare  branches.  The  clouds  galloped 
across  the  low,  somber  sky,  hastening 
one  knew  not  where.  The  cripple  went 
slowly,  placing  one  support  before  the 
other  with  wearisome  effort,  balancing 
himself  upon  the  part  of  a  leg  that  re- 
mained to  him,  which  terminated  in  a 
wooden  foot  bound  about  with  rags. 

From  time  to  time  he  sat  down  by  a 
ditch  and  rested  for  some  minutes. 
Hunger  gave  him  a  distress  of  soul,  con- 
fused and  heavy.  He  had  but  one  idea: 
"to  eat."  But  he  knew  not  by  what 
means. 

For  three  hours  he  toiled  along  the 
road;  then,  when  he  perceived  the  trees 
of  the  village,  he  hastened  his  move- 
ments. 

The  first  peasant  he  met,  of  whom  he 
asked  alms,  responded  to  him: 

"You  here  yet,  you  old  customer?  I 
wonder  if  we  are  ever  going  to  get  rid 
of  you!" 

And  Bell  took  himself  away.  From 
door  to  door  he  was  treated  harshly,  and 
sent  away  without  receiving  anything. 
He  continued  his  journey,  however, 
patient  and  obstinate.  He  received  not 
one  sou. 

Then  he  visited  the  farms,  picking  his 
way  across  ground  made  moist  by  the 
rains,  so  spent  that  he  could  scarcely 
raise  his  crutches.  They  chased  him 
away,  everywhere.  It  was  one  of  those 
cold,  sad  days  when  the  heart  shrivels, 
the  mind  is  irritated,  the  soul  is  somber, 
and  the  hand  does  not  open  to  give  or 
to  aid. 


926 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


When  he  had  finished  the  rounds  of 
all  the  houses  he  knew,  he  went  and 
threw  himself  down  by  a  ditch  which 
ran  along  by  M.  Chiquet's  yard.  He 
unhooked  himself,  as  one  might  say  to 
express  how  he  let  himself  fall  from 
between  his  two  high  crutches,  letting 
them  slip  along  his  arms.  And  he  re- 
mained motionless  for  a.  long  time,  tor- 
tured by  hunger,  but  too  stupid  to  well 
understand  his  unfathomable  misery. 

He  awaited  he  knew  not  what,  with 
that  vague  expectation  which  ever 
dwells  in  us.  He  awaited,  in  the  corner 
of  that  yard,  under  a  freezing  wind  for 
that  mysterious  aid  which  one  always 
hopes  will  come  from  heaven  or  man- 
kind, without  asking  how,  or  why,  or 
through  whom  it  can  arrive. 

A  flock  of  black  hens  passed  him, 
seeking  their  living  from  the  earth  which 
nourishes  all  beings.  Every  moment 
they  picked  up  a  grain  or  an  invisible 
insect,  then  continued  their  search 
slowly,  but  surely. 

Bell  looked  at  them  without  thinking 
of  anything;  then  there  came  to  him — 
to  his  stomach  rather  than  to  his  mind 
— the  idea,  or  rather  the  sensation,  that 
these  animals  were  good  to  eat  when 
roasted  over  a  fire  of  dry  wood. 

The  suspicion  that  he  would  be  com- 
mitting a  robbery  only  touched  him 
slightly.  He  took  a  stone  which  lay  at 
his  hand  and,  as  he  had  skill  in  this  way, 
killed  neatly  the  one  nearest  him  that 
was  approaching.  The  bird  fell  on  its 
side,  moving  its  wings.  The  others  fled, 
half  balanced  upon  their  thin  legs,  and 
Bell,  climbing  again  upon  his  crutches, 
began  to  run  after  them,  his  movements 
much  like  that  of  the  hens. 

When  he   came   to   the  little  black 


body,  touched  with  red  on  the  head,  he 
received  a  terrible  push  in  the  back, 
which  threw  him  loose  from  his  sup- 
ports and  sent  him  rolling  ten  steps 
ahead  of  them.  And  M.  Cliiquet,  exas- 
perated, threw  himself  upon  the  marau- 
der, rained  blows  upon  him,  striking  him 
like  a  madman,  as  a  robbed  peasant 
strikes  with  his  fist  and  his  knee,  upon 
all  the  infirm  body  which  could  not  de- 
fend itself. 

The  people  of  the  farm  soon  arrived 
and  began  to  help  tlie!r  master  beat  the 
beggar.  Then  when  they  were  tired  of 
beating,  they  picked  him  up,  carried  him, 
and  shut  him  up  in  the  woodhouse  while 
they  went  to  get  a  policeman. 

Bell,  half  dead,  bloody  and  dying  of 
hunger,  lay  stHl  upon  the  ground.  The 
evening  came,  then  the  night,  and  then 
the  dawTi.    He  had  had  nothing  to  eat. 

Toward  noon,  the  policemen  ap- 
peared, opening  the  door  with  precau- 
tion as  if  expecting  resistance,  for  M. 
Chiquet  pretended  that  he  had  been  at- 
tacked by  robbers  against  whom  he  had 
defended  himself   with  great  difficulty. 

The  policeman  cried  out: 

"Come  there,  now!  stand  up!'* 

But  Bell  could  no  longer  move,  al- 
though  he  did  try  to  hoist  himself  upon 
his  sticks.  They  believed  this  a  feint,  a 
sly  ruse  for  the  purpose  of  doing  some 
mischief,  and  the  two  men  handled  him 
roughly,  standing  him  up  and  planting 
him  by  force  upon  his  crutches. 

And  fear  had  seized  him,  that  native 
fear  of  the  yellow  long-belt,  that  fear 
of  the  Newgate-bird  before  the  detec- 
tive, of  the  mouse  before  the  cat.  And, 
by  superhuman  effort,  he  succeeded  in 
standing. 

"March!"  said  the  policeman.    And  he 


THE  VICTIM 


927 


marched.  All  the  employees  of  the 
farm  watched  him  as  he  went.  The 
Bi^omen  shook  their  fists  at  him ;  the  men 
sneered  at  and  threatened  him.  They 
had  got  him,  finally!     Good  riddance. 

He  went  away  between  the  two 
guardians  of  the  peace.  He  found 
energy  enough  in  his  desperation  to 
enable  him  to  drag  himself  along  until 
evening,  when  he  was  completely  stupe- 
fied, no  longer  knowing  what  had  hap- 
pened, too  bewildered  to  comprehend 
anything. 

The  people  that  he  met  stopped  to 
look  at  him  in  passing,  and  the 
peasants  murmured: 

*'So  that  is  the  'robber'!" 

They  came  toward  nightfall  to  the 
chief  town  in  the  district.  He  had 
never  been  seen  there.    He  did  not  ex- 


actly understand  what  was  taking  place^ 
nor  what  was  likely  to  take  place.  All 
these  frightful,  unheard-of  things,  these 
faces  and  these  new  houses,  filled  him 
with  consternation. 

He  did  not  say  a  word,  having  noth- 
ing to  say,  because  he  comprehended 
nothing.  Besides,  he  had  not  talked  to 
anybody  for  so  many  years  that  he  had 
almost  lost  the  use  of  his  tongue;  and 
his  thoughts  were  always  too  confused 
to  formulate  into  words. 

They  shut  him  up  in  the  town  prison. 
The  policemen  did  not  think  he  needed 
anything  to  eat,  and  they  left  him  until 
the  next  day. 

When  they  went  to  question  him,  in 
the  early  morning,  they  found  him  dead 
upon  the  ground.  Surprise  seized 
them! 


The  Victim 


The  north  wind  whistled  in  a  tem- 
pest, carrying  through  the  sky  the  enor- 
mous winter  clouds,  heavy  and  black, 
which  threw,  in  passing,  furious  rain- 
bursts  over  the  earth. 

A  heavy  sea  moaned  and  shook  the 
coast,  hurrying  upon  the  shore  enor- 
mous waves,  slow  and  dribbling,  which 
il  foiled  with  the  noise  of  artillery.  They 
'  come  in  slowly,  one  after  the  other,  as 
high  as  mountains,  scattering  from  their 
heads  in  the  wind  the  white  foam  that 
seems  like  the  sweat  of  monsters. 

The  tempest  rushed  into  the  little 
valley  of  Yport,  whistling  and  groaning, 
whirling  the  slates  from  the  roofs, 
breaking  down  fortifications,  kiiocking 
over    chimneys,    darting    through    the 


streets  in  such  gusts  that  one  could  not 
walk  there  without  keeping  close  to  the 
walls,  and  lifting  up  children  like  leaves 
and  throwing  them  into  the  fields  beyond 
the  houses. 

They  had  brought  the  fishing  boats  to 
land,  for  fear  of  the  sea  which  would 
sweep  the  whole  coast  at  full  tide,  and 
some  sailors,  concealed  behind  the  round 
wall  of  the  breakwater,  lay  on  their 
sides  watching  the  anger  of  the  heavens 
and  the  sea. 

Then  they  went  away,  little  by  littlt, 
because  night  fell  upon  the  tempest,  en- 
veloping in  shadow  the  excited  ocean  and 
all  the  disturbance  of  the  elements  la 
fury. 

Two  men  still  remained,  their  hands 


928 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


in  their  pockets,  with  back  rounded  un- 
der a  sudden  squall,  woolen  caps  drawn 
down  to  the  eyes,  two  great  Norman 
fishermen,  with  rough  beards  for  collars, 
with  skin  browned  by  the  salt  winds  of 
the  open  sea,  with  blue  eyes  pricked  out 
in  the  middle  in  a  black  dot,  the 
piercing  eyes  of  mariners  who  see  to  the 
end  of  the  horizon  Lke  birds  of  prey. 

One  of  them  said: 

"Come,  let  us  go,  Jeremy.  We  will 
pass  the  time  at  dominoes.    I  will  pay." 

The  other  still  hesitated,  tempted  by 
the  game  and  the  drink,  knowing  well 
that  he  would  get  drunk  if  he  went  into 
Paumelle's  and  held  back  by  the  thought 
of  his  wife  at  home  alone  in  their  hovel. 

He  remarked :  "It  looks  as  if  you  had 
made  a  bet  to  get  me  tipsy  every  night. 
Tell  me,  what's  the  object,  since  you 
always  pay?" 

And  he  laughed  at  all  the  brandy  he 
had  drunk  at  the  expense  of  the  other, 
laughed  with  the  contented  laugh  of  a 
Norman  who  has  the  best  of  It. 

Mathurin,  his  comrade,  kept  pulling 
him  hy  the  arm.  "Come,"  he  would  say, 
"come,  Jeremy.  It  is  not  the  evening  to 
go  home  without  anything  warm  on  the 
inside.  What  arc  you  afraid  of?  Vour 
wife  will  warm  the  bed  for  you!" 

Jeremy  responded:  "Only  the  other 
evening  I  couldn't  find  the  door — they 
pJmost  had  to  go  fishing  for  me  in  the 
brook  in  front  of  our  house!" 

And  he  laughed  still  at  the  memory 
of  this  vagary  and  went  patiently  toward 
Paumelle's  cajCy  where  the  illuminated 
glass  shone  brilliantly.  He  went,  drawn 
a.^ong  by  Mathurin  and  pushed  by  the 
Trmd,  incapable  of  resisting  these  two 
^^rces. 

The  low  hall  was  filled  with  sailors. 


smoke,  and  noise.  All  the  men,  clothed 
in  wool,  their  elbows  on  the  table,  were 
talking  in  loud  voices  to  make  them- 
selves heard.  The  more  drinkers  that 
entered,  the  more  was  it  necessary  to 
howl  into  the  uproar  of  voices  and  of 
dominoes  hitting  against  the  marble, 
with  an  attempt  to  make  more  noisf 
still. 

Jeremy  and  Mathurin  seated  them- 
selves in  a  corner  and  commenced  a 
game,  and  little  glasses  disappeared,  one 
after  another,  into  the  depth  of  their 
throats. 

Then  they  played  other  games  and 
drank  more  giasses.  Mathurin  always 
turned  and  winked  an  eye  to  the  pro- 
prietor, a  large  man  as  red  as  fire,  and 
who  laughed  as  if  he  knew  about  some 
good  farce;  and  Jeremy*  guzzled  the  al- 
cohol, balanced  his  head,  uttered  roars 
of  laughter,  looking  at  his  companion 
with  a  stupid,  contented  air. 

Finally,  all  the  clients  were  going. 
And,  each  time  that  one  of  them  opened 
the  doer  to  go  out,  a  blast  entered  the 
cajSj  driving  in  a  whirlwind  the  smoke 
of  the  pipes,  swinging  the  lamps  to  the 
end  of  their  chains  and  making  their 
flames  dance.  And  they  could  hear  sud- 
denly the  profound  shock  of  an  in-rolling 
wave,  and  the  moaning  of  the  squall. 

Jeremy,  his  clothing  loosened  at  the 
neck,  took  the  pose  of  a  tipsy  man,  one 
leg  extended,  one  arm  falling,  while  in 
the  other  hand  he  held  his  dominoes. 

They  were  alone  now  with  the  pro- 
prietor, who  approached  them  full  of  in- 
terest.   He  asked : 

"Well,  Jeremy,  how  goes  it  in  the 
interior?  Are  you  refreshed  with  all  this 
sprinkling?" 

And    Jerernv    muttered       "Since    it 


THE  VICTIM 


S>29 


slipped  down — makes  it  dry  in  there." 

The  caje  keeper  looked  at  Mathurin 
with  a  sly  air.    Then  he  asked: 

"And  your  brother,  Mathurin,  where 
i«  he  at  this  hour?" 

The  sailor  answered  with  a  quiet 
laugh : 

"Where  it  is  warm ;  don't  you  worry." 

And  the  two  looked  at  Jeremy  who 
triumphantly  put  down  the  double  six 
announcing : 

"There!  the  syndic." 

When  they  had  finished  the  game,  the 
proprietor  declared: 

"You  know,  my  lads,  I  must  put  up 
the  shutters.  But  I  will  leave  you  a 
lamp  and  bottle.  There's  twenty  sous 
left  for  it.  You  will  shut  the  outside 
door,  Mathurin,  and  slip  the  key  under 
the  step  as  you  did  the  other  night." 

Mathurin  answered:  "Don't  worry. 
I  understand." 

Paumelle  shook  hands  with  both  his 
tardy  clients,  and  mounted  heavily  his 
wooden  staircase.  For  some  minutes  his 
heavy  step  resounded  in  the  little  house ; 
then  a  loud  creaking  announced  that  he 
had  put  himself  in  bed. 

The  two  men  continued  to  play;  from 
time  to  time  a  more  violent  rage  of  th*^ 
tempest  shook  the  door,  making  the  walls 
tremble,  and  the  two  men  would  raise 
their  heads  as  if  some  one  was  about  to 
enter.  Then  Mathurin  took  the  bottle 
and  filled  Jeremy's  glass. 

Suddenly,  the  clock,  suspended  over 
the  counter,  sounded  midnight.  Its 
hoarse  ring  resembled  a  crash  of  pans 
and  the  blows  vibrated  a  long  time,  with 
the  resonance  of  old  iron. 

Mathurin  immediately  rose,  like  a 
sailor  whose  auart  is  finished.    He  said: 

"Come,  Jeremy,  we  must  break  off." 


The  other  put  himself  in  motion  with 
more  difficulty,  got  his  equilibrium  by 
leaning  against  the  table;  tlien  he 
reached  the  door  and  opened  it,  while 
his  companion  extinguished  the  light. 

When  they  were  in  the  street,  and 
Mathurin  had  locked  the  door,  he  said: 

"Well,  good  night,  till  to-morrow." 

And  he  disappeared  into  the  shadows. 

Jeremy  took  three  steps,  extended  his 
hands,  met  a  wall  which  held  him  up, 
and  then  began  to  walk  along  stum- 
blingly.  Sometimes,  a  gust  rushing 
through  the  straight  street,  threw  him 
forward,  making  him  run  for  some  steps; 
then  when  the  violence  of  the  wind 
ceased,  he  would  stop  short,  and  having 
lost  his  poise,  begin  to  vacillate  upop 
the  capricious  legs  of  a  drunken  man. 

He  went,  by  instinct,  toward  his  dwell- 
ing, as  birds  fly  to  their  nests.  Finally, 
he  recognized  his  door  and  began  to 
fumble  to  find  the  keyhole  to  place  his 
key  in  it.  He  could  not  find  it,  and 
swore  in  an  undertone.  Then  he  struck 
upon  it  with  his  fist,  calling  his  wife  to 
come  and  aid  him: 

"Melina!     Eh!     Melina!" 

As  he  leaned  against  the  dooi  i»i  order 
not  to  fall,  it  yielded,  flew  open,  and 
Jeremy,  losing  his  balance,  entered  his 
house  in  a  tumble,  then  rolled  upon  hia 
nose  into  the  room:  he  felt  that  some- 
thing heavy  had  passed  over  his  body 
and  then  fled  into  the  night. 

He  did  not  move,  perplexed  with 
fright,  astonished,  in  the  devil  of  a 
fright,  from  the  spirits  of  all  the  mys- 
tenous  and  shadowy  things,  and  he 
waited  a  long  time  without  daring  to 
make  a  sound.  But,  as  he  saw  that 
nothing  more   moved,    a   little    reason 


930 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


came  back  to  tim,  the  troubled  reason 
of  vagary. 

And  he  slowly  sat  up.  Then  he  waited 
itill  a  long  time  and  finally  s^'id: 

"Melina!" 

His  wife  did  not  answer. 

Then,  suddenly,  a  doubt  went  through 
his  obscure  brain,  a  wavering  doubt,  a 
vague  suspicion.  He  did  not  move;  he 
remained  there,  seated  on  the  floor  in 
the  dark,  gathering  his  ideas,  clutching 
his  reflections  as  incomplete  and  uncer- 
tain as  his  legs. 

lie  called  again : 

'Tell  me  who  it  was,  Melina,  tell  me 
who  it  was.    I  will  do  nothing  to  you.'* 

He  waited.  No  voice  came  out  of  the 
shadow\    lie  reasoned  out  loud  now: 

''1  am  drunk — all  same!  I  am  drunk! 
He  made  me  drink  like  this  now!  He 
kept  me  from  coming  back  home.  I  am 
drunk!" 

Then  he  repeated:  "Tell  me  who  it 
was,  Melina,  or  Tm  going  to  do  harm." 

After  having  waited  again,  he  con- 
tinued, with  the  slow  and  obstinate  logic 
of  an  intoxicated  maul 

*Tt  was  him  kept  me  at  th.it  lazy 
Paumelles ;  and  other  evenings  too,  so  I 
couldn't  come  home.  He*s  some  *com- 
plice.    Ah!  carrion!'* 

Slowly  he  ?ot  up  on  his  knees.  A 
sudde*.  anger  helped  him,  mingling  with 


the  fermentation  of  the  drink.  He  re« 
pcated: 

"Tell  me  who  it  was,  Melina,  or  i'm 
going  to  beat  you;  i  give  you  warning." 

He  was  standing  now,  trembling  with 
anger,  as  if  the  alcohol  which  he  had  in 
his  body  was  inflamed  in  his  veins.  He 
took  a  step,  hit  against  a  chair,  seiz'^d 
it,  walked  to  the  bed,  touched  it,  and 
felt  there  the  warm  body  of  his  wife. 

Then,  excited  with  rage,  he  cried: 

"Ah!  there  you  are,  filth,  and  you 
wouldn't  answer." 

And,  raising  the  chair  which  he  held 
in  his  robust  sailor's  fist,  he  brought  it 
down  before  him  with  exasperated  fury. 
A  scream  arose  from  the  bed;  a  terri- 
fied, piercing  cry.  Then  he  began  to 
beat  like  a  thrasher  in  a  barn.  Nothing 
moved  now.  The  chair  was  broken  in 
pieces.  One  leg  remained  in  his  hand 
and  he  hit  with  it  until  he  gasped. 

Then  suddenly  he  stopf>ed  and  asked: 

"Will  you  tell  me  who  it  was,  now?" 

Melina  did  not  answer. 

Then,  worn  out  with  fatigue  and 
stupid  from  his  violence,  he  sat  down 
again  upon  the  floor,  fell  over,  and  was 
asleep. 

When  the  day  appeared,  a  neighbor, 
seeing  the  door  open,  entered.  He  per- 
ceived Jeremy  snorinrr  upon  the  floor, 
where  lay  the  debris  of  a  chair,  and  on 
the  bed  a  pulp  of  flesh  and  blood. 


The  Englishman 


They  made  a  circle  around  Judge  Ber- 
mutier,  who  was  giving  his  opinion  of 
the  mysterious  affair  that  had  happened 


at  Saint-Cloud.  For  a  month  Paris  had 
doted  on  this  inexplicable  crime.  No 
one  could  understand  it  at  all. 


THE  ENGLISHMAN 


931 


M.  Bermutier,  standing  with  his  back 
to  the  cnimney,  talked  about  it,  discussed 
the  divers  opinions,  but  came  to  no  con- 
clusions. 

Many  women  had  risen  and  come 
nearer,  remaining  standing,  with  eyes 
fixed  upon  the  shaven  mouth  of  the 
magistrate,  whence  issued  these  grave 
words.  They  shivered  and  vibrated,  crisp 
through  their  curious  fear,  through  that 
eager,  insatiable  need  of  terror  which 
haunts  their  soul,  torturing  them  like  a 
hunger. 

One  of  them,  paler  than  the  others, 
after  a  silence,  said: 

*'It  is  frightful.  It  touches  the  super- 
natural. We  shall  never  know  anything 
about  it." 

The  magistrate  turned  toward  her, 
saying: 

"Yes,  Madame,  it  is  probable  that  we 
.never  shall  know  anything  about  it.  As 
for  the  word  'supernatural,'  when  you 
come  to  use  that,  it  has  no  place  lere. 
We  are  in  the  presence  of  a  crime  skill- 
fully conceived,  very  skillfully  executed, 
and  so  well  enveloped  in  mystery  that 
we  cannot  separate  the  impenetrable  cir- 
cumstances which  surround  it.  But,  once 
in  my  life,  I  had  to  follow  an  affair 
which  seemed  truly  to  be  mixed  up  with 
I  something  very  unusual.  However,  it 
was  necessary  to  give  it  up,  as  there 
was  no  means  of  explaining  it." 

Many  of  the  ladies  called  out  at  the 
same  time,  so  quickly  that  their  voices 
sounded  as  one : 

"Oh!  tell  us  about  it." 

M.  Bermutier  smiled  gravely,  as 
judges  should,  and  replied: 

'*You  must  not  suppose,  for  an  in- 
jtant,  that  I,  at  least,  believed  there 
vas   anything  superhuman  in   the  ad- 


venture. I  believe  only  m  normal 
causes.  And,  if  in  place  of  using  the 
word  'supernatural'  to  express  what  we 
cannot  comprehend  we  should  simply 
use  the  word  'inexplicable,'  it  would  be 
much  better.  In  any  case,  the  surround- 
ing circumstances  in  the  affair  I  am 
going  to  relate  to  you,  as  well  as  the 
preparatory  circumstances,  have  affected 
me  much.    Here  are  the  facts: 

"I  was  then  judge  of  Instruction  at 
Ajaccio,  a  little  white  town  lying  on  the 
border  of  an  admirable  gulf  that  was 
surrounded  on  all  sides  by  high  moun- 
tains. 

"What  I  particularly  had  to  look  after 
there  was  the  affairs  of  vendetta.  Some 
of  them  were  superb;  as  dramatic  as 
possible,  ferocious,  and  heroic.  We  find 
there  the  most  beautiful  subjects  of 
vengeance  that  one  could  dream  of, 
hatred  a  century  old,  appeased  for  a 
moment  but  never  extinguished,  abomi- 
nable plots,  assassinations  becoming 
massacres  and  almost  glorious  battles. 
For  two  years  I  heard  of  nothing  but 
the  price  of  blood,  of  the  terribly  prej- 
udiced Corsican  who  is  bound  to  avenge 
all  injury  up>on  the  person  of  him  who 
is  the  cause  of  it,  or  upon  his  nearest 
descendants.  I  saw  old  men  ana  infants, 
cousins,  with  their  throats  cut,  and  my 
head  was  full  of  these  stories. 

"One  day  we  learned  that  an  English- 
man had  rented  for  some  years  a  little 
villa  at  the  end  of  the  Gulf.  He  had 
brought  with  him  a  French  domestic, 
picked  up  at  Marseilles  on  the  way. 

"Soon  everybody  was  occupied  with 
this  singular  person,  who  lived  alone  in 
his  house,  only  going  out  to  hunt  and 
fish.  He  spoke  to  no  one,  never  came 
to  the  town,  and,  every  morning,  prac« 


9o2 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


deed  bhooting  with  a  pistol  and  a  rifle 
for  an  hour  or  two. 

**Some  legends  about  him  were 
abroad.  They  pretended  that  he  was  a 
high  personage  fled  from  his  own  coun- 
try for  political  reasons;  then  they  af- 
firmed that  he  was  concealing  himself 
after  having  committed  a  frightful  crime. 
They  even  cited  some  of  the  particularly 
horrible  details. 

"In  my  capacity  of  judge,  I  wished 
to  get  some  information  about  this  man. 
But  it  was  impossible  to  learn  anything. 
He  called  him.self  Sir  John  Rowell. 

"I  contented  myself  vath  watching 
him  closely;  although,  in  reality,  there 
seemed  nothing  to  suspect  regarding  him. 

"Nevertheless,  as  rumors  on  his  ac- 
count continued,  grew,  and  became  gen- 
eral, I  resolved  to  try  and  see  this 
stranger  myself,  and  for  this  purpose 
began  to  hunt  regularly  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  his  property. 

'1  waited  long  for  an  occasion.  It 
finally  came  in  the  form  of  a  partridge 
which  I  shot  and  killed  before  the  very 
nose  of  the  Englishman.  My  dog 
brought  it  to  me ;  but,  immediately  tak- 
ing it  I  went  and  begged  Sir  John 
Rowell  to  accept  the  dead  bird,  excusing 
myself  for  intrusion. 

"He  was  a  tall  man  with  red  hair  and 
red  beard,  very  large,  a  sort  of  placid, 
polite  Hercules.  He  had  none  of  the 
so-called  British  haughtiness,  and 
heartily  thanked  me  for  the  delicacy  in 
French,  with  a  beyond-the-Channel  ac- 
cent. At  the  end  of  a  month  we  had 
chatted  together  five  or  six  times. 

"Finally,  one  evening,  as  I  was  pass- 
ing by  h's  door,  I  perceived  him  astride 
a  chair  in  the  garden,  smoking  his  pipe. 
I  saluted  him  and  he  asked  me  in  to 


have  a  glass  of  beer.    It  was  not  nece» 
sary  for  him  to  repeat  before  I  accepted. 

"He  received  me  with  the  fastidious 
courtesy  of  the  English,  spoke  in  praise 
of  France  and  of  Corsica,  and  declared 
that  he  loved  that  country  and  that 
shore. 

"Then,  with  great  precaution  in  the 
form  of  a  lively  interest,  I  put  some 
questions  to  him  about  his  life  and  his 
projects.  He  responded  without  em- 
barrassment, told  me  that  he  had 
traveled  much,  in  Africa,  in  the  Indies, 
and  in  America.    He  added,  laughing: 

"  'I  have  had  many  adventures,  oh! 
yes.* 

"I  began  to  talk  about  hunting,  and 
he  gave  me  many  curious  details  of 
hunting  the  hippopotamus,  the  tiger,  the 
elephant,  and  even  of  hunting  the  gorilla. 

"I  said:  *A11  these  animals  are  ver>' 
formidable.' 

"He  laughed:  *0h!  no.  The  worst 
animal  is  man.'  Then  he  began  to 
laugh,  with  the  hearty  laugh  of  a  big 
contented  Englishman.     He  continued: 

"  'I  have  often  hunted  man,  also.* 

"He  spoke  of  weapons  and  asked  me 
to  go  into  hib  house  to  see  his  guns  of 
various  makes  and  kinds. 

"His  drawing-room  was  hung  in  black, 
in  black  silk  embroidered  with  gold. 
There  were  great  yellow  flov/ers  running 
over  the  somber  stuff,  shining  like  fire. 

"  It  is  Japanese  cloth,*  he  said.  fl 

"But  in  the  middle  of  a  large  panel, 
a  strange  thing  attracted  my  eye.  Upon 
a  square  of  red  velvet,  a  black  object 
was  attached.  I  approached  and  found 
it  was  a  hand,  the  hand  of  a  man.  Not 
a  skeleton  hand,  white  and  characteristic, 
but  a  black,  desiccated  hand,  with  yel- 
low joints  vnih  the  muscles  bare  and 


THE  ENGLISHMAN 


93a 


on  them  traces  of  old  blood,  of  blood 
that  seemed  like  a  scale,  over  the  bones 
sharply  cut  off  at  about  the  middle  of 
the  fore-arm,  as  with  a  blow  of  a 
hatchet.  About  the  wrist  was  an  enor- 
mous iron  chain,  riveted,  soldered  to 
this  unclean  member,  attaching  it  to  the 
wall  by  a  ring  sufficiently  strong  to  hold 
an  elephant. 

"I  asked:    'What  is  that?' 

"The  Englishman  responded  tran- 
duUly: 

"  'It  belonged  to  my  worst  enemy.  It 
came  from  America.  It  was  broken  with 
a  saber,  cut  off  with  a  sharp  stone,  and 
dried  in  the  sun  for  eight  days.  Oh. 
very  good  for  me,  that  was!' 

"I  touched  the  human  relic,  which 
must  have  belonged  to  a  colossus.  The 
fingers  were  immoderately  long  and  at- 
tached by  enormous  tendons  that  held 
the  straps  of  skin  in  place.  This  dried 
hand  was  frightful  to  see,  making  one 
think,  naturally,  of  the  vengeance  of  a 
savage. 

"I  said:  'This  man  must  have  been 
very  strong.* 

"With  gentleness  the  Englishman  an- 
swered : 

"'Oh!  yes;  but  I  v/as  stronger  than 
he.  I  put  this  chain  on  him  to  hold 
him.' 

"I  thought  he  spoke  in  jest  and  re- 
plied : 

"  'The  chain  is  useless  now  that  the 
hand  cannot  escape.' 

"Sir  John  Rowell  replied  gravely:  'It 
always  wishes  to  escape.  The  chain  is 
necessary.* 

"With  a  rapid,  questioning  glance,  I 
asked  myself :  'Is  he  mad,  or  is  that  an 
unpleasant  joke?' 

"But  the  face  remained  impenetrable. 


tranquil,  and  friendly.  I  spoke  of  othei 
things  and  admired  the  guns. 

"Nevertheless,  I  noticed  three  loaded 
revolvers  on  the  pieces  of  furniture,  as 
if  this  man  lived  in  constant  fear  of 
attack. 

"I  went  there  many  times  after  that} 
then  for  some  time  I  did  not  go.  We 
had  become  accustomed  to  his  presence; 
he  had  become  indifferent  to  us. 

"A  whole  year  slipped  away.  Then 
one  morning,  toward  the  end  of  Novem^ 
ber,  my  domestic  awoke  me  with  the 
announcement  that  Sir  John  Rowell  had 
been  assassinated  in  the  night. 
.  "A  half  hour  later,  I  entered  thi 
Englishman's  house  with  the  central 
Commissary  and  the  Captain  of  Police. 
The  servant,  lost  in  despair,  was  weep- 
ing at  the  door.  I  suspected  him  at 
first,  but  afterward  found  that  he  was 
innocent. 

"The  guilty  one  could  never  be  found. 

"Upon  entering  Sir  John's  drawing- 
room,  I  perceived  his  dead  body 
stretched  out  upon  its  back,  in  the 
middle  of  the  room.  His  waistcoat  was 
torn,  a  sleeve  was  hanging,  and  it  was 
evident  that  a  terrible  struggle  had  taken 
place. 

"The  Englishman  had  been  strangled! 
His  frightfully  black  and  swollen  face 
seemed  to  express  an  abominable  fear; 
he  heM  something  between  his  set  teeth; 
and  his  neck,  pierced  with  five  holes 
apparently  done  with  a  pointed  iron,  was 
covered  with  blood. 

"A  doctor  joined  us.  He  examined 
closely  the  prints  of  fingers  in  the  flesh 
and  pronounced  these  strange  words: 

"'One  would  think  he  had  been 
strangled  by  a  skeleton.' 


934 


W0RK3  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANl 


"A  shiver  ran  down  my  back  and  I 
cast  my  eyes  to  the  place  on  the  wall 
where  I  had  seen  the  horrible,  torn-off 
hand.  It  was  no  longer  there.  The 
chain  was  broken  and  hanging. 

"Then  I  bent  over  the  dead  man  and 
found  in  his  mouth  a  piece  of  one  of  the 
fingers  of  the  missing  hand,  cut  off,  or 
rather  sawed  off  by  the  teeth  exactly  at 
the  second  joint. 

"Then  they  tried  to  collect  evidence. 
They  could  find  nothing.  No  door  had 
been  forced,  no  window  opened,  or  piece 
of  furniture  moved.  The  two  watchdogs 
on  the  premises  had  not  been  aroused. 

"Here,  in  a  few  words,  is  the  deposi- 
tion of  the  servant: 

"For  a  month,  his  master  had  seemed 
agitated.  He  had  received  many  let- 
ters which  he  had  burned  immediately. 
Often,  taking  a  whip,  in  anger  which 
seemed  like  dementia,  he  had  struck  in 
fury,  this  dried  hand,  fastened  to  the 
wall  and  taken,  one  knew  not  how,  at 
the  moment  of  a  crime. 

"He  had  retired  late  and  shut  himself 
in  with  care.  He  always  carried  arms. 
Often  in  the  night  he  talked  out  loud,  as 
if  he  were  quarreling  with  some  one. 
On  that  night,  however,  there  had  been 
no  noise,  and  it  was  only  on  coming  to 
open  the  windows  that  the  servant  had 
found  Sir  John  assassinated.  He  sus- 
pected no  one. 

"I  communicated  what  I  knew  of  the 
death  to  the  magistrates  and  public  offi- 
cers, and  they  made  minute  inquiries 
upon  the  whole  island.  They  discovered 
rothing. 


"One  night,  three  months  after  the 
crime,  I  had  a  frightful  nightmare.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  I  saw  that  hand, 
that  horrible  hand,  running  Uke  a  scor- 
pion or  a  spider  along  my  curtains  and 
my  walls.  Three  times  I  awoke,  three 
times  I  fell  asleep  and  again  saw  that 
hideous  relic  galloping  about  my  room, 
moving  its  fingers  like  paws. 

"The  next  day  they  brought  it  to  me, 
found  in  the  cemetery  upon  the  tomb 
where  Sir  John  Rowell  was  interred^ 
for  they  had  not  been  able  to  find  his 
family.     The  index  finger  was  missing. 

"This,  ladies,  is  my  story.  I  know 
no  more  about  it." 

The  ladies  were  terrified,  pale,  and 
shivering.     One  of  them  cried: 

"But  that  is  not  the  end,  for  there 
was  no  explanation!  We  cannot  sleep 
if  you  do  not  tell  us  v/hct  was  your 
idea  of  the  reason  of  it  all." 

The  magistrate  smiled  vrltli  severity, 
and  answered: 

"Oh !  certainly,  ladies,  but  it  will  spoil 
all  your  terrible  dreams.  I  simply  think 
that  the  legiiimate  proprietor  of  the 
hand  was  not  dead  and  that  he  came 
for  it  with  the  one  that  remained  to  him. 
But  I  was  never  able  to  find  out  how 
he  did  it.    It  was  one  kind  of  revenge<*' 

One  of  the  women  murmured: 

"No,  it  could  not  be  thus." 

And  the  Judge  of  Information,  smil- 
ing still,  concluded: 

"I  told  you  in  the  beginning  that  my 
explanation  would  not  satisfy  you." 


VOLUME  X 


Sentiment 


It  was  during  the  hunting  season,  at 
the  country  seat  of  the  De  Bannevilles. 
The  autumn  was  rainy  and  dull.  The 
red  leaves,  instead  of  crackling  under 
foot,  rotted  in  the  hollows  after  the 
heavy  showers. 

The  forest,  almost  leafless,  was  as 
humid  as  a  bath-room.  There  was  a 
moldy  odor  under  the  great  trees, 
stripped  of  their  fruits,  which  enveloped 
one  on  entering,  as  if  a  lye  had  been 
made  from  the  steeped  herbs,  the  soakeif 
earth,  and  the  continuous  rainfall.  The 
hunters'  ardor  was  dampened,  the  dogs 
were  sullen,  their  tails  lowered  and  their 
hair  matted  against  their  sides,  while 
the  young  huntresses,  their  habits 
drenched  with  rain,  returned  each  eve- 
ning depressed  in  body  and  spirit. 

In  the  great  drawing-room,  after  din- 
ner, they  played  lotto,  but  without  en- 
thusiasm, as  the  wind  made  a  clattering 
noise  upon  the  shutters  and  forced  the 
old  weather  vanes  into  a  spinning-top 
tournament.  Some  one  suggested  tell- 
ing stories,  as  they  are  told  in  books; 
but  no  one  could  think  of  anything  very 
amusing.  The  hunters  narrated  some  of 
their  adventures  with  the  gun,  the 
slaughter  of  wolves,  for  example;  and 
the  ladies  racked  their  brains  without 
finding  anywhere  the  imagination  of 
Scheherazade. 

They  were  about  to  abandon  this  form 
of  diversion,  when  a  young  lady,  care- 
lessly playing  with  the  hand  of  her  old, 
unmarried  aunt,  noticed  a  little  ring 
made  of  blond  hair,  which  she  had  often 
seen  before  but  thought  nothing  about. 

Moving  it  gently  about  the  finger  she 
said,  suddenly:     "Tell   us  the  history 


of  this  ring.  Auntie;  it  looks  like  the 

hair  of  a  cMd — '* 

The  old  maiden  reddened  and  then 
grew  pale,  then  in  a  trembling  voice  she 
replied :  "It  is  sad,  so  sad  that  I  never 
care  to  speak  abcut  it.  All  the  unliappi- 
ness  of  my  life  is  centered  in  it.  I 
was  young  then,  but  the  memory  of  it 
remains  so  painful  that  I  weep  whenever 
I  think  of  it." 

They  wished  very  much  to  hear  the 
story,  but  the  aunt  refused  to  tell  it; 
finally,  they  urged  so  much  that  she  at 
length  consented. 

"You  have  often  heard  me  speak  of 
the  Senteze  family,  now  extinct.  I  knew 
the  last  three  men  of  this  family.  They 
all  died  within  three  months  in  the  same 
manner.  This  hair  belonged  to  the  last 
one.  He  was  thirteen  years  old,  when 
he  killed  himself  for  me.  That  appears 
very  strange  to  you,  doesn't  it? 

"It  was  a  singular  race,  a  race  of 
fools,  if  you  will,  but  of  charming  fools, 
of  fools  for  love.  All,  from  father  to 
son,  had  these  violent  passions,  waves 
of  emotion  which  drove  them  to  deeds 
most  exalted,  to  fanatical  devotion,  and 
even  to  crime.  Devotion  was  to  them 
what  it  is  to  certain  religious  souls. 
Those  who  become  monks  are  not  of  the 
same  nature  as  drawing-room  favorites. 
One  might  almost  say,  as  a  proverb,  *He 
loved  like  a  Santeze.' 

"To  see  them  was  to  divine  this 
characteristic.  They  all  had  curly  hair, 
growing  low  upon  the  brow,  beard 
crinkly,  eyes  large,  very  large,  whose 
rays  seemed  to  penetrate  and  disturb 
you,  without  your  knowing  just  why. 

"The  grandfather  of  the  one  of  whom 
this  is  the  only  souvenir,  after  many 


955 


936 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


adventures,  and  some  dueb  on  account 
of  entanglements  with  women,  when 
toward  sixty,  became  passionately  taken 
with  the  daughter  of  his  farmer.  I 
knew  them  both.  She  was  blond,  pale, 
distinguished  looking,  with  a  soft  voice 
and  a  sweet  look,  so  sweet  that  she  re- 
minded one  of  a  madonna.  The  old  lord 
took  her  home  with  him,  and  immedi- 
ately became  so  captivated  that  he  was 
unable  to  pass  a  minute  away  from  her. 
His  daughter  and  his  daughter-in-law 
who  lived  in  the  house,  found  this  per- 
fectly natural,  so  much  was  love  a  tradi- 
tion of  the  family.  When  one  was 
moved  by  a  great  passion,  nothing  sur- 
prised them,  and,  if  anyone  expressed  a 
different  notion  before  them,  of  dis- 
united lovers,  or  revenge  after  some 
treachery,  they  would  both  say,  in  the 
same  desolate  voice:  'Oh!  how  he  (or 
she)  must  have  suffered  before  coming 
to  that!'  Nothing  more.  They  were 
moved  with  pity  by  all  dramas  of  the 
heart  and  never  spoke  slightingly  of 
them,  even  when  they  were  unworthy. 

"One  autumn,  a  young  man,  M.  de 
Gradelle,  invited  for  the  hunting,  eloped 
with  the  young  woman. 

"M.  de  Santeze  remained  calm,  as  if 
nothing  had  happened.  But  one  morn- 
ing they  found  him  in  the  kennel  in  the 
midst  of  the  dogs. 

"His  son  died  in  the  same  fashion,  in 
a  hotel  in  Paris,  while  on  a  journey  in 
1841,  after  having  been  deceived  by  an 
opera  smger. 

"He  left  a  child  of  eleven  years,  and 
a  widow,  the  sister  of  my  mother.  She 
came  with  the  little  one  to  live  at  my 
father's  house,  on  the  De  Bertillon  es- 
tate.   I  was  then  seventeen. 

**You  could  not  imagine  what  an  as- 


tonishing, precocious  child  this  little 
Santeze  was.  One  would  have  said  that 
all  the  powers  of  tenderness,  all  the 
exaltation  of  his  race  had  fallen  upon 
this  one,  the  last.  He  was  always  dream- 
ing and  walking  alone  in  a  great  avenue 
of  elms  that  led  from  the  house  to  the 
woods.  I  often  watched  this  sentimental 
youngster  from  my  window,  as  he 
walked  up  and  down  with  his  hands  be- 
hind his  back,  with  boved  head,  some- 
times stopping  to  look  up,  as  if  he  saw 
and  comprehended  things  beyond  his 
age  and  experience. 

"Often  after  dinner,  on  :lear  nights, 
he  would  say  to  me:  'Lei  us  go  and 
dream.  Cousin.'  And  we  would  go  to- 
gether into  the  park.  He  would  stop 
abruptly  in  the  clear  spaces,  where  the 
white  vapor  floats,  that  soft  light  with 
which  the  moon  lights  up  the  clearings 
in  the  woods,  and  sny  to  me,  seizing  my 
hands:  'Look!  Look  there!  But  you 
do  not  understand,  I  feel  it.  If  you 
comprehended,  you  would  be  happy. 
One  must  know  how  to  love.'  I  would 
laugh  and  embrace  him,  this  boy,  who 
loved  me  until  his  dying  day. 

"Often,  too,  after  dinner,  he  would 
seat  himself  upon  my  mother's  knee. 
'Come,  Aunt,'  he  would  say  to  her,  *tell 
us  some  love  story.'  And  my  mother, 
for  his  pleasure,  would  tell  him  all  the 
family  legends,  the  passionate  adven- 
tures of  his  fathers,  as  they  had  been 
told  a  thousand  times,  true  and  false. 
It  is  these  stories  that  have  ruined  these 
men ;  they  never  concealed  anything^  and 
prided  themselves  upon  not  allowing  a 
descendant  of  their  house  to  lie. 

"He  would  be  uplifted,  this  li'tle  one, 
by  these  terrible  or  affecting  tales,  and 
sometimes  he  would  clap  his  hands  and 


SENTIMENT 


937 


cry  out:     *I,  too;  I,  too,  know  how  to 
love,  better  than  any  of  them.* 

"Then  he  began  to  pay  me  his  court; 
a  timid,  profoundly  tender  devotion,  so 
droll  that  one  could  but  laugh  at  it. 
Each  morning  I  had  flowers  picked  by 
him,  and  each  evening,  before  going  to 
his  room,  he  would  kiss  my  hand,  mur- 
muring:    *I  love  you!' 

"I  was  guilty,  very  guilty,  and  I  have 
wept  since,  unceasingly,  doing  penance 
all  my  life,  by  remaining  an  old  maid — 
or  rather  an  affianced  widow,  his  widow. 
I  amused  myself  with  this  childish  devo- 
tion, even  inciting  him.  I  was  coquettish, 
enticing  as  if  he  were  a  man,  caressing 
and  deceiving.  I  excited  this  child.  It 
was  a  joke  to  me,  and  a  pleasing  diver- 
sion to  his  mother  and  mine.  He  was 
eleven  years  old!  Think  of  it!  Who 
would  have  taken  seriously  this  passion 
of  a  midget !  I  kissed  him  as  much  as 
he  wished.  I  even  wrote  sweet  letters  to 
him  that  our  mothers  read.  And  he 
responded  with  letters  of  fire,  that  I  still 
have.  He  had  a  belief  all  his  own  in 
)ur  intimacy  and  love,  judging  himself  a 
man.  We  had  forgotten  that  he  was  a 
Santeze ! 

"This  lasted  nearly  a  year.  One  eve- 
ning, in  the  park,  he  threw  himself  down 
at  my  knees,  kissing  the  hem  of  my 
dress,  with  furious  earnestness,  repeat- 
ing: 'I  love  you!  I  love  you!  I  love 
you  I  and  shall  even  to  death.  If  you 
ever  deceive  me,  understand,  if  you  ever 
leave  me  for  another,  I  shall  do  as  my 
father  did — '  And  he  added  in  a  low 
voice  that  gave  one  the  shivers:  *You 
know  what  I  shall  do!' 

"Then,  as  I  remained  amazed  and 
dum founded,  he  got  up  and,  stretching 
himself  on  tiptoe,  for  I  was  much  taller 


than  he,  he  repeated  in  my  ear,  my  name, 
my  first  name,  'Genevieve!'  in  a  voice  so 
sweet,  so  pretty,  so  tender  that  I 
trembled  to  my  very  feet. 

"I  muttered:  'Let  us  return  to  the 
house!'  He  said  nothing  further,  but 
followed  me.  As  we  were  ascending  the 
steps,  he  stopped  me  and  said:  *You 
know  if  you  abandon  me,  I  shall  kil) 
myself.* 

"I  understood  now  that  I  had  gone 
too  far,  and  immediately  became  more 
reserved.  When  he  reproached  me  for 
it,  one  day,  I  answered  him:  'You  are 
now  too  large  for  this  kind  of  joking, 
and  too  young  for  serious  love.  I  will 
wait.* 

"I  believed  myself  freed  from  him. 

*'He  was  sent  away  to  school  in  the 
autumn.  When  he  returned,  the  follow- 
ing summer,  I  had  become  engaged.  He 
understood  at  once,  and  for  over  a  week 
preserved  so  calm  an  appearance  that  1 
was  much  disturbed. 

"The  ninth  day,  in  the  morning,  I  per- 
ceived,, on  rising,  a  little  paper  siippe<?, 
under  my  door.  I  seized  it  and  read: 
'You  have  abandoned  me,  and  you  know 
what  I  Slid.  You  have  ordered  my 
death.  As  I  do  not  wish  to  be  found 
by  anyone  but  you,  come  into  the  park, 
at  the  place  where  last  year  I  said  that 
I  loved  you,  and  look  up.* 

"I  felt  myself  becoming  mad.  I 
dressed  quickly  and  ran  quickly,  so 
quickly  that  I  fell  exhausted  at  the 
designated  spot.  His  Kttle  school  cap 
was  on  the  ground  in  the  mud.  It  had 
rained  all  night.  I  raised  my  eyes  and 
saw  something  concealed  by  the  leixv^s, 
for  there  was  a  wind  blowing,  a  strofij 
wind. 


938 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"After  that,  I  knew  nothing  of  what  I 
did.  I  shouted,  fainted,  perhaps,  and 
fell,  then  got  up  and  ran  to  the  house.  I 
recovered  my  reason  in  my  bed,  with  my 
mother  for  my  pillow. 

*'l  at  first  believed  that  I  had  dreamed 
all  this  in  a  frightful  delirium.  I  mut- 
tered: 'And  he,  he — Gontran,  where  is 
he—' 

**Then  they  told  me  it  was  all  true.  I 
dared  not  look  at  him  again,  but  I  asked 
for  a  lock  of  his  blond  hair.  Here — it 
—is — "  And  the  old  lady  held  out  her 
hand  in  a  gesture  of  despair. 


Then,  after  much  use  of  her  hand* 
kerchief  and  drying  of  her  eyes,  she  con- 
tinued: **I  broke  off  my  engagement 
without  saying  why — and  I — have  re- 
mained always  the — widow  of  this  child 
thirteen  years  old." 

Then  her  head  fell  upon  her  breast 
and  she  wept  pensively  for  a  long  time. 

And,  as  they  dispersed  to  their  rooms 
for  the  night,  a  great  hunter,  whose 
quiet  she  had  disturbed  somewhat,  whis- 
pered in  the  ear  of  his  neighbor: 

"What  a  misfortune  to  be  so  sent)* 
mental!     Don't  you  think  so?" 


Francis 


'We  were  going  out  of  the  asylum 
when  I  perceived  in  one  corner  of  the 
courtyard  a  tall  thin  man,  who  was  for- 
ever calling  an  imaginary  dog.  He 
would  call  out,  with  a  sweet  and  tender 
voice:  "Cocotte,  my  little  Cocotte, 
come  here,  Cocotte,  come  here  my 
beauty,"  striking  his  leg,  as  one  does  to 
attract  the  attention  of  an  animal.  I 
asked  the  doctor  what  the  matter  was 
with  the  man. 

"Oh!  that  is  an  interesting  case,"  said 
he,  "he  is  a  coachman  named  Francis, 
and  he  became  insane  from  drowning  his 
dog." 

I  insisted  upon  his  telling  me  the  story. 
The  most  simple  and  humble  things 
sometimes  strike  most  to  our  hearts. 

And  here  is  the  adventure  of  this  man 
which  was  known  solely  to  a  groom,  his 
comrade. 

In  the  suburbs  of  Paris  lived  a  rich, 
middle-class  familv.     Their  villa  was  in 


the  midst  of  a  park,  on  the  bank  of  the 
Seine.  Their  coachman  was  this  Francis, 
a  country  boy,  a  iittle  awkward,  but  of 
good  heart,  simple  and  easily  duped. 

When  he  was  returning  one  evening  to 
his  master's  house  a  dog  began  to  follow 
him.  At  first  he  took  no  notice  of  it,  but 
the  persistence  of  the  beast  in  walking 
on  his  heels  caused  him  finally  to  turn 
around.  He  looked  to  see  if  he  knew 
this  dog.  No,  he  had  never  seen  it 
before. 

The  dog  was  frightfully  thin  and  had 
great  hanging  dugs.  She  totted  behind 
the  man  with  a  woeful,  famished  look, 
her  tail  between  her  legs,  her  ears  close 
to  her  head,  and  stopped  when  he 
stoppv^d,  starting  again  when  lie  started. 

He  tried  to  drive  away  this  skeleton 
of  a  beast:  "Get  cut!  If  you  want  to 
save  yourself —  Go,  now!  Houl 
Hou!"  She  would  run  away  a  few 
steps  and  then  sit  down  waiting:  then, 


FRANCIS 


039 


when  the  coachman  started  on  again,  she 
followed  behind  him. 

He  made  believe  to  pick  up  stones. 
The  animal  fled  a  little  way  with  a  great 
shaking  of  the  flabby  mammillae,  but 
foUowed  again  as  soon  as  the  man  turned 
his  back. 

Then  the  coachman,  Francis,  took  pity 
and  called  her.  The  dog  approached 
timidly,  her  back  bent  in  a  circle,  and 
^U  the  ribs  showing  under  the  skin.  The 
man  smoothed  these  projecting  bones 
and,  moved  by  pity,  for  the  misery  of 
the  beast,  said:  "Come  along,  then!' 
Immediately  the  tail  began  to  move;  she 
felt  the  welcome,  the  adoption;  and  in- 
stead of  staying  at  her  new  master's 
jeels,  she  began  to  run  ahead  of  him. 

He  installed  her  on  some  straw  in  his 
stable,  then  ran  to  the  kitchen  in  search 
of  bread.  When  she  had  eaten  her  fill, 
she  went  to  sleep,  curled  up,  ringlike. 

The  next  day  the  coachman  told  his 
master  who  allowed  him  to  keep  the  ani- 
mal. She  was  a  good  beast,  intelligent 
and  faithful,  affectionate  and  gentle. 

But  immediately  they  discovered  in 
tier  a  terrible  fault.  She  was  inflamed 
with  love  from  one  end  of  the  year  to 
the  other.  In  a  short  time  she  had 
i  made  the  acquaintance  of  every  dog 
i  about  the  country,  and  they  roamed 
about  the  place  day  and  night.  With 
the  indifference  of  a  girl,  she  shared  her 
favors  with  them,  feigning  to  like  each 
one  best,  dragging  behind  her  a  veritable 
mob  composed  of  many  different  models 
of  the  barking  race,  some  as  large  as  a 
fist,  others  as  tall  as  an  ass.  She  took 
them  to  walk  through  routes  with  inter- 
minable courses,  and  when  she  stopped 
*o  rest  in  the  shade,  they  made  a  circle 


about  her  and  looked  at  her  with  tongues 
hanging  out. 

The  people  of  the  country  considered 
her  a  phenomenon;  they  had  never  seen 
anything  like  it.  The  veterinary  could 
not  understand  it. 

When  she  returned  to  the  stable  in 
the  evening,  the  crowd  of  dogs  made 
siege  for  proprietorship.  They  wormed 
their  way  through  every  crevice  in  the 
hedge  which  inclosed  the  park,  devas- 
tated the  flower  beds,  broke  down  the 
flowers,  dug  holes  in  the  urns,  exasper- 
ating the  gardener.  They  would  howl 
the  whole  night  about  the  building  where 
their  friend  lodged  and  nothing  could 
persuade  them  to  go  away. 

In  the  daytime,  they  even  entered  the 
house.  It  was  an  invasion,  a  plague,  a 
calamity.  The  people  of  the  house  met 
at  any  moment,  on  the  staircase,  and 
even  in  the  rooms  little  yellow  pug  dogs 
v;ith  tails  decorated,  hunting  dogs,  bull- 
dogs, wolf  hounds  with  filthy  skin,  vaga- 
bonds without  life  or  home,  beside  some 
new-world  enormities  which  frightened 
the   children. 

All  the  unknown  dogs  for  ten  .niles 
around  came,  from  one  knew  not  where, 
and  lived,  no  one  knew  how,  disappear- 
ing all  together. 

Nevertheless,  Francis  adored  Cocotte. 
He  had  named  her  Cocotte,  "without 
malice,  sure  that  she  merited  her  name." 
And  he  repeated  over  and  over  again: 
"This  beast  is  a  person.  It  only  lacks 
speech." 

He  had  a  magnificent  collar  in  red 
leather  made  for  her,  which  bore  these 
words,  engraved  on  a  copper  plate: 
"Mademoiselle  Cocotte,  from  Francis, 
the  coachman." 

She  became  enormous.     She  was  as 


940 


W0RK3  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


fat  as  she  had  been  thin,  her  body  puffed 
out,  under  which  hung  always  the  long, 
swaying  mammillse.  She  had  fattened 
suddenly  and  walked  with  difficulty,  the 
paws  wide  apart,  after  the  fashion  of 
people  that  are  too  large,  the  mouth 
open  for  breath,  wide  open  as  soon  as 
she  tried  to  run. 

She  showed  a  phenomenal  fecundity, 
producing,  four  times  a  year,  a  litter  of 
little  animals,  belonging  to  all  varieties 
of  the  canine  race.  Francis,  after  hav- 
ing chosen  the  one  he  would  leave  her 
"to  take  the  milk,"  would  pick  up  the 
others  in  his  stable  apron  and  pitilessly 
throw  them  into  the  river. 

Soon  the  cook  joined  her  complaints 
to  those  of  the  gardener.  She  found 
dogs  under  her  kitchen  range,  in  the  cup- 
boards, and  in  the  coal  bin,  always  flee- 
ing whenever  she  encountered  them. 

The  master,  becoming  impatient,  or- 
dered Francis  to  get  rid  of  Cocotte.  The 
man,  inconsolable,  tried  to  place  her 
somewhere.  No  one  wanted  her.  Then 
he  resolved  to  lose  her,  and  put  her  in 
charge  of  a  wagoner  who  was  to  leave 
her  in  the  country  the  other  side  of 
Paris,  beyond  De  Joinville-le-Pont. 

That  same  evening  Cocotte  was  back. 

It  became  necessary  to  take  measures. 
For  the  sum  of  five  francs,  they  per- 
suaded a  cook  on  the  train  to  Havre  to 
take  her.  He  was  to  let  her  loose  when 
they  arrived. 

At  the  end  of  three  days,  she  appeared 
again  in  her  stable,  harassed,  emaciated, 
exhausted. 

The  master  was  merciful,  and  insisted 
on  nothing  further. 

But  the  dogs  soon  returned  in  greater 
numbers  than  ever,  and  were  more  pro- 
voking.   And  as  they  were  giving  a  jfreat 


dinner,  one  evening,  a  stuffed  chicken 
was  carried  off  by  a  dog,  under  the  nose 
of  the  cook,  who  dared  not  dispute  the 
right  to  it. 

This  time  the  master  was  angry,  and 
calling  Francis  to  him,  said  hotly:  "If 
you  don't  kick  this  beast  into  the  water 
to-morrow  morning,  I  shall  put  you  out, 
do  you  understand?" 

The  man  was  undone,  but  he  went 
up  to  his  room  to  pack  his  trunk,  pre- 
ferring to  leave  the  place.  Then  he  re- 
flected that  he  would  not  be  likely  to  get 
in  anywhere  else,  dragging  this  unwel- 
come beast  behind  him ;  he  remembered 
that  he  was  in  a  good  house,  well  paid 
and  well  fed;  and  he  said  to  himself  that 
it  was  not  worth  while  giving  up  all  this 
for  a  dog.  He  enumerated  his  own  in- 
terests and  finished  by  resolving  to  get 
rid  of  Cocotte  at  dawn  the  next  day. 

However,  he  slept  badly.  At  daybreak 
he  was  up;  and,  preparing  a  strong  cord, 
he  went  in  search  of  the  dog.  She 
arose  slowly,  shook  herself,  stretched  her 
limbs,  and  came  to  greet  her  master. 
Then  his  courage  failed  and  he  began 
to  stroke  her  tenderly,  smoothing  her 
long  ears,  kissing  her  on  the  muzzle, 
lavishing  upon  her  all  the  loving  names 
that  he  knew. 

A  neighboring  clock  struck;  he  could 
no  longer  hesitate.  He  opened  the  door; 
"Come,"  said  he.  The  beast  wagged  her 
tail,  understanding  only  that  she  was  to 
go  out. 

They  reached  the  bank  and  chose  a 
place  where  the  water  seemed  deepest 
Then  he  tied  one  end  of  the  cord  to  the 
beautiful  leather  collar,  and  taking  a 
preat  stone,  attached  it  to  the  other  end. 
Then  he  seized  Cocotte  in  his  arms  and 
kissed  her  furiously,  as  one  does  when 


I 


FRANCIS 


941 


he  is  taking  leave  of  a  person.  Then 
be  held  her  right  around  the  neck,  fon- 
dling her  and  calling  her  "My  pretty 
Cocotte,  my  little  Cocotte,"  and  she  re- 
sponded as  best  she  could,  growling  with 
pleasure. 

Ten  times  he  tried  to  throw  her  in, 
and  each  time  his  heart  failed  him. 

Then,  abruptly,  he  decided  to  do  it, 
and,  with  all  his  force,  hurled  her  as  far 
as  possible.  She  tried  at  first  to  swim, 
as  she  did  when  taking  a  bath,  but  her 
head,  dragged  by  the  stone,  went  under 
again  and  again.  She  threw  her  master  a 
look  of  despair,  a  human  look,  battling, 
as  a  person  does  when  drowning.  Then, 
before  the  whole  body  sank,  the  hind 
paws  moved  swiftly  in  the  water;  then 
they  disappeared  also. 

For  five  minutes  bubbles  of  air  came 
to  the  surface  as  if  the  river  had  begun 
to  boil.  And  Francis,  haggard,  excited, 
with  heart  palpitating,  believed  be  saw 
Cocotte  writhing  in  the  slime.  And  he 
said  to  himself,  with  the  simplicity  of  a 
peasant:  "What  does  she  think  of  me 
by  this  time,  that  beast?" 

He  almost  became  idiotic.  He  was 
jjick  for  a  month,  and  each  nij^ht,  saw 
the  dog  again.  He  felt  her  licking  his 
hands;  he  henrd  her  bark. 

It  was  necessary  to  call  a  physician. 
Finally  he  grew  better;  and  his  master 
and  mistress  took  him  to  their  estate 
lear  Roue^. 

There  he  was  still  on  the  h-^nk  of  the 
Seine.    He  began  to  take  baths.    Every 


morning  he  went  down  with  the  groom 
to  swim  across  the  river. 

One  day,  as  they  were  amusing  them- 
selves splashing  in  the  water,  Francis 
suddenly  cried  out  to  his  companion: 

"Look  at  what  is  coming  toward  us. 
I  am  going  to  make  you  taste  a  cutlet.'* 

It  was  an  enormous  ca^rass,  swelled 
and  stripped  of  its  hair,  its  paws  moving 
forward,  in  the  air,  following  the  cur- 
rent. 

Francis  approached  it  making  his 
jokes : 

"What  a  prize,  my  boy!  My!  But 
it  is  not  fresh!  It  is  not  thin,  that  is 
sure!" 

And  he  turned  about,  keeping  at  a 
distance  from  the  great,  putrefying 
body. 

Then,  suddenly,  ho  kept  still  and 
looked  at  it  in  strange  fashion.  He  ap- 
proached it  again,  this  time  near  enough 
to  touch.  He  examined  carefully  the 
collar,  took  hold  of  the  leg,  seized  the 
neck,  made  it  turn  over,  drew  it  toward 
him,  and  read  upon  the  green  copper 
fhat  still  adhered  to  the  discolored 
leather:  "Mademoiselle  Cocotte,  from 
Francis,  the  coachman." 

The  dead  dog  had  found  her  master, 
sixty  miles  from  their  home ! 

He  uttered  a  fearful  cry,  and  began 
to  swim  with  all  his  might  toward  the 
bank,  shouting  all  the  way.  And  when 
he  reached  the  land,  he  ran,  all  bare 
through  the  country,    He  was  mad! 


The  Assassin 


The  guilty  man  was  defended  by  a 
very  young  lawyer,  a  beginner,  who 
spoke  thus : 

"The  facts  are  undeniable,  gentlemen 
of  the  jury.  My  client,  an  honest  man, 
an  irreproachable  employee  gentle  and 
timid,  assassinated  his  employer  in  a 
moment  of  anger  which  seems  to  me 
incomprehensible.  If  you  will  allow  me, 
I  would  like  to  look  into  the  psychology 
of  the  crime,  so  to  speak,  without  wast- 
ing any  time  or  attempting  to  excuse 
anything.  We  shall  then  be  able  to 
judge  better. 

"John  Nicholas  Lougere  is  the  son  of 
very  honorable  people,  who  made  of 
him  a  simple,  respectful  man. 

"That  is  his  crime:  respect!  It  is  a 
sentiment,  gentlemen,  which  we  of  to- 
day no  longer  know,  of  which  the  name 
alone  seems  to  exist  while  its  power  has 
disappeared.  It  is  necessary  to  enter 
certain  old,  modest  families  to  find  this 
severe  tradition,  this  religion  of  a  thing 
or  of  a  man,  this  sentiment  where  be- 
lief takes  on  a  sacred  character,  this 
faith  which  doubts  not,  nor  smiles,  nor 
entertains  a  suspicion. 

"One  cannot  be  an  honest  man,  a 
truly  honest  man  in  the  full  force  of 
the  term,  and  be  respectful.  The  man 
who  respects  has  his  eyes  closed.  He 
believes.  We  others,  whose  eyes  are 
wide  open  upon  the  world,  who  live  here 
in  this  hall  of  justice,  this  purger  of 
society,  where  all  infamy  runs  aground, 
we  others  who  are  the  confidants  of 
shame,  the  devoted  defenders  of  all  hu- 
man meanness,  the  support,  not  to  say 
thp  supporters,  of  male  and  female 
sharpers,  from  a  pnnce  to  a  tramp,  we 
who  welcome  with  indulgence,  with  com- 


placence, with  a  smiling  benevolence  all 
the  guilty  and  defend  them  before  you, 
we  who,  if  we  truly  love  our  profession, 
measure  our  legal  sympathy  by  the  siiie 
of  the  crime,  we  could  never  have  a 
respectful  soul.  We  see  too  much  of 
this  river  of  corruption,  which  catches 
the  chiefs  of  power  as  well  as  the  lowest 
scamp;  we  know  too  much  of  how  it 
gives  and  takes  and  sells  itself.  Places, 
ofi5ces,  honors  brutally  exchanged  for  a 
little  money,  or  skillfully  exchanged  for 
titles  and  interests  in  industrial  enter- 
prises, or  sometimes,  simply  for  the  kiss 
of  a  woman. 

"Our  duty  and  our  profession  force 
us  to  be  ignorant  of  nothing,  to  suspect 
everybody,  because  everybody  is  doubt* 
ful;  and  we  are  taken  by  surprise  wher 
we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  a 
man,  Hke  the  assassin  seated  before  you, 
who  possesses  the  religion  of  respect  to 
such  a  degree  that  he  will  become  a 
martyr  for  it. 

"We  others,  gentlemen,  have  a  sense 
of  honor,  a  certain  need  of  propriety, 
from  a  disgust  of  baseness,  from  a  senti- 
ment of  personal  dignity  and  pride;  but 
we  do  not  carry  at  the  bottom  of  our 
hearts  the  blind,  inborn,  brutal  faith  of 
this  man. 

"Let  me  tell  you  the  story  of  his  life: 
"He  was  brought  up,  like  many  an- 
other child,  to  separate  all  human  acts 
into  two  parts:  the  good  and  the  bad. 
He  was  shown  the  good  with  an  irresist- 
ible authority  which  made  him  only  dis- 
tinguish the  bad,  as  we  distinguish  day 
and  night.  His  father  did  not  belong  to 
the  superior  race  of  minds  who,  looking 
from  a  height,  see  the  souices  of  belief 


Q42 


THK  ASSASSIN 


043 


and  recognize  the  social  necessities  bom 
of  these  distinctions. 

"He  grew  up,  religious  and  confident, 
enthusiastic  and  limited.  At  twenty-two 
he  married.  His  wife  was  a  cousin, 
brought  up  as  he  was,  simple  and  pure 
ys  he  was.  His  was  the  inestimable 
privilege  of  having  for  a  companion  an 
honest  woman  with  a  true  heart,  the 
rarest  and  most  respectable  thing  in  the 
world.  He  had  for  his  mother  that 
veneration  which  surrounds  mothers  in 
patriarchal  families,  that  profound  re- 
spect which  is  reser\'ed  for  divinities. 
This  religion  he  reflected  somewhat 
upon  his  wife,  and  it  became  scarcely 
less  as  conjugal  familiarity  increased. 
He  lived  in  absolute  ignorance  of  double 
dealing,  in  a  state  of  constant  upright- 
ness and  tranquil  happiness  which  made 
him  a  hdr.z  apart  from  the  world.  De- 
ceiving no  one  he  had  never  a  suspicion 
that  any  one  would  deceive  him. 

"Some  time  before  his  marriage,  he 
had  become  cashier  in  the  office  of  Mr. 
Langlais,  the  man  who  was  lately  assassi- 
nated by  him. 

"We  know,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  by 
the  testimony  of  Mrs.  Langlais  and  of 
her  brother,  Mr.  Perthuis,  a  partner  of 
her  husband,  of  all  the  family  and  of 
all  the  higher  employees  of  the  bank, 
that  Lougere  was  a  model  employee, 
upright,  submissive,  gentle,  prompt,  and 
deferential  toward  his  superiors.  They 
treated  him  with  the  consideration  due 
to  his  exemplary  conduct.  He  was 
accustomed  to  this  homage  and  to  a 
kind  of  respect  shown  o  Mrs.  Lougere, 
whose    worthiness    was    upon    dl    lips. 

*'But  she  died  oi  typhoid  fever  in  a 


few  days'  time.  Tit  assuredly  felt  a 
profound  grief,  but  the  cold,  calm  grief 
of  a  methodical  heart.  Only  from  his 
pallor  and  from  a  change  in  his  looks 
was  one  able  to  judge  how  deeply  he 
had  been  wounded. 

"Then,  gentlemen,  the  most  nat.ural 
tiling  in  the  world  happened. 

"This  man  had  been  married  tea 
years.  For  ten  years  he  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  feel  the  presence  of  a  woman 
near  him  always.  He  was  habituated  to 
her  care,  her  familiar  voice  upon  his 
return,  the  good  night  at  evening,  the 
cheerful  greeting  of  the  morning,  the 
gentle  rustle  of  the  dress  so  dear  to  the 
feminine  heart,  to  that  caress,  at  once 
lover-like  and  maternal,  which  renders 
life  pleasant,  to  that  loved  presence  that 
made  the  hours  move  less  slov;ly.  He 
v;as  also  accustomed  to  being  spoiled  at 
table,  perhaps,  and  to  all  those  atten- 
tions which  become,  little  by  little,  so 
indispensable. 

"He  could  no  longer  live  alone.  Theii, 
to  pass  the  interminable  evenings,  he 
got  into  the  habit  of  spending  an  hour 
or  two  in  a  neighboring  wine  shop.  He 
would  drink  a  glass  and  sit  there  motion- 
less, following,  with  heedless  eye,  the 
billiard  balls  running  after  one  another 
under  the  smoke  of  the  pipes,  li>tening 
to,  without  hearing,  the  discussion  of 
the  players,  the  disputes  of  his  neigh- 
bors over  politics,  and  the  sound  of 
laughter  that  sometimes  went  up  from 
the  other  end  of  the  room,  from  some 
unusual  joke.  He  often  ended  by  i^oing 
to  sleep,  from  sheer  lassitude  and  weari- 
ness. But,  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart 
and  of  his  flesh,  there  was  the  irresist- 


«)44 


W0?vn:3  C7  GUY  Di:  MAUPASSANT 


fl)Ie  need  of  a  woman's  heart  and  flesh; 
and,  without  thinking,  he  approached 
each  evening  a  Lttle  nearer  to  the  desk 
where  the  cashier,  a  pretty  blonde,  sat, 
attracted  to  her  unconquerably,  because 
she  was  a  woman. 

"At  first  they  chatted,  and  he  got  into 
the  habit,  so  pleasant  for  him,  of  pass- 
ing the  evening  by  her  side.  She  was 
gracious  and  kind,  as  one  learns  in  this 
occupation  to  smile,  and  she  amused  her- 
self by  making  him  renev/  his  order  as 
often  as  possible,  which  makes  business 
good. 

"But  each  day  Lougere  was  becoming 
mors  and  mere  attached  to  this  woman 
whom  he  did  not  know,  whose  whole 
existence  he  was  ignorant  of,  and  whom 
he  loved  only  because  he  was  in  the 
way  of  seeing  nobody  else. 

"The  little  creature  was  crafty,  and 
soon  perceived  that  she  could  reap  some 
benef.t  from  this  guileless  man;  she  then 
sougLt  out  tho  be'-t  means  of  exploiting 
him.  The  most  effective,  surely,  was  to 
marry  him. 

"This  she  accomplished  without  diffi- 
culty. 

"Need  I  tell  you,  gentlemen  cf  the 
jur>',  that  the  conduct  of  this  girl  had 
been  most  irregular  and  that  marriage, 
far  from  putting  a  check  to  her  flight, 
seemed  on  the  contrary  to  render  it  more 
shameless? 

"From  the  natural  sport  of  feminine 
astuteness,  she  seemed  to  take  pleasure 
in  deceiving  this  honest  man  with  all 
Ithe  employees  of  his  office.  I  said  with 
all.  We  have  letters,  gentlemen.  There 
was  soon  a  public  scandal,  of  which  the 
husband  alone,  as  usual,  was  the  only 
one  ignorant. 

*Vrinally,  tb's  wretch,  with  an  interest 


easy  to  understand,  seduced  the  son  of 
the  proprietor,  a  young  man  nineteen 
years  old,  upon  whose  mind  and  judg- 
ment she  had  a  deplorable  influence.  Mr. 
Langlais,  whose  eyes  had  been  closed  up 
to  that  time,  through  friendship  for  his 
employee,  resented  having  his  son  in  the 
hands,  I  should  say  iii  the  arms  of  this 
dangerous  woman,  and  was  legitimately 
angry. 

"He  made  the  mistake  of  calling 
Lougere  to  him  on  the  spot  and  of 
speaking  to  him  of  his  paternal  indig- 
nation. 

"There  remains  nothing  more  for  me 
to  say,  gentlemen,  except  to  read  to  you 
the  recital  of  the  crime,  made  by  the 
lips  of  the  dying  man,  and  submitted  as 
evidence.    It  says: 

"T  learned  that  my  son  had  given  to 
this  woman,  that  same  night,  ten  thou- 
sand francs,  and  my  anger  ^.as  stronger 
on  that  account.  Certainly,  I  never  sus- 
pected the  honorableness  of  Lougere,  but 
a  certain  kind  of  blindness  is  more  dan- 
gerous than  positi"e  faults.  And  so  I 
had  him  come  to  me  and  told  him  that  I 
fhonld  be  obliged  to  deprive  myself  of 
his  services. 

"  'He  remained  standing  before  me, 
terrified,  and  not  comprehending.  He 
ended  by  demanding,  ralhcr  excitedly, 
some  explanation.  I  refused  to  give  him 
any,  affirming  thnt  my  reasons  were 
v;holly  person r.l.  II?  believed  then  that 
I  suspected  him  of  indelicacy  and,  very 
pale,  besought,  im;^lored  me  to  explain. 
Held  by  this  idea,  he  was  strong  and 
began  to  talk  loud.  As  I  kept  silent, 
he  abused  and  insulted  me,  until  he  ar- 
rived at  such  a  degree  of  exasperation 
that  I  was  fearful  of  results. 

"  'Then,  suddenly,  upon  a  wounding 
vord  that  struck  upon  a  full  heart,  I 
thre-'v  the  vhole  truth  in  his  face. 

"  *He  stood  Ftill  some  seconds,  looking 
ct  me  with  liaggard  eyes.     Then  I  saw 


SEMILLANTE 


943^ 


him  take  from  my  desk  the  lonj?  shears, 
which  1  use  for  making  margins  to  cer- 
tain registers,  I  saw  him  fall  upon  me 
with  uplifted  arm,  and  "  felt  something 
enter  my  throat  just  above  the  breast, 
without  noticing  any  pain/ 

"This,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  is  the 


simple  recital  of  this  murder.  What 
more  can  be  said  for  his  defense?  He 
rospected  his  second  wife  with  blindness 
because  he  respected  his  first  with 
reason." 

After  a  short  deliberation,  the  prisoner 
was  acquitted. 


Semillante 


The  widow  of  Paolo  Saverini  lived 
j.lone  with  her  son  in  a  poor  little  house 
on  the  rampans  of  Bonifacio.  The 
town,  built  upon  the  side  of  the  moun- 
tain, suspended  in  spots  above  the  sea, 
overlooks,  through  a  defile  bristling 
with  rocks,  the  lowest  part  of  Sardinia. 
At  its  foot,  on  the  other  side,  and 
almost  entirely  surrounding  it,  is  a  cut 
in  the  cl'ff,  which  resembles  a  gigantic 
corridor  and  serves  as  a  port;  it  leads 
up  to  the  first  houses  (after  a  long 
circuit  between  the  two  abrupt  walls), 
the  little  Italian  or  Sardinian  fishing- 
boats,  and,  every  two  weeks,  the  old, 
broken-winded  steamer  that  plies  be- 
tween there  and  Ajaccio. 

Upon  the  white  mountains,  the  bunch 
of  houses  makes  a  spot  whiter  still. 
They  hav3  the  appearance  of  nests  of 
wild  birds,  fastened  thus  upon  this  rock, 
overlooking  this  terrible  passageway 
where  ships  scarcely  dare  venture.  The 
wind,  without  repose,  harasses  the  sea, 
harasses  the  bare  coast,  which  is 
nibbled  by  it  until  it  has  but  little  vege- 
tation; it  rushes  into  the  defile,  whose 
two  sides  it  strips  bare.  The  track  of 
pale  foam,  fastened  to  black  points  on 
ths  innumerabh  rocks  which  pierce  the 
waves,  has  the  look  of  bits  of   cloth 


floating  and  palpitating  upon  the  surface 
cf  the  water. 

The  house  of  the  widow  Saverini^ 
soldered  to  the  edge  of  the  cliff,  had 
three  windows  opening  upon  this  wild 
and  desolated  horizon. 

She  lived  there  alone,  with  her  son 
Antoine  and  their  dog  Semillante,  a 
great,  thin  beast  with  long,  coarse  hair, 
of  a  race  that  watches  the  herds.  This 
dog  served  the  young  m::n  for  hunting. 

One  evening,  after  a  dI:pi:to,  Antoine 
Saverini  was  killed  traitorously  with  a 
blow  of  a  knife  by  Nicholas  Ravolati 
who,  the  same  night,  went  over  t<}-. 
Sardinia. 

When  the  old  woman  received  the 
body  of  her  child,  which  some  passers- 
by  brought  to  her,  she  did  not  weep  but 
remained  a  long  time  motionless,  look- 
ing at  him.  Then,  extending  her 
v;nnkled  hand  upon  the  dead  body,  she 
promised  revenge.  She  did  not  wish 
anyone  to  remain  with  her,  and  she  shut 
herself  up  with  the  body  and  the  dog. 

The  dog  howled.  She  howled,  this 
beast,  in  a  continuous  fashion,  at  the 
foot  of  the  bed,  her  head  extended 
toward  her  master,  her  tail  held  fast  be- 
tween her  legs.  She  no  more  stirred 
than  did  the  mother,  who,  hanging  non* 


946 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


upon  the  body,  her  eyes  fixed,  was 
weeping  great  tears  while  gazing  at  him. 

The  young  man,  upon  his  back, 
clothed  in  his  coat  of  gray  cloth,  torn 
and  bloody  about  the  breast,  seemed  to 
be  asleep.  And  there  was  blood  every- 
where: on  his  shirt,  drawn  up  in  the  first 
moments,  on  his  waistcoat,  his  trousers, 
upon  his  face,  and  his  hands.  Little 
clots  of  blood  had  coagulated  in  his 
beard  and  in  his  hair. 

The  old  mother  began  to  speak  to 
him.  At  the  sound  of  her  voice,  the 
dog  was  silent. 

"Come,  come,*'  she  said,  "you  shall 
be  avenged,  my  little  one,  my  boy,  my 
poor  child.  Sleep,  sleep,  you  shall  be 
avenged,  do  you  heat?  It  is  your 
mother  who  promises !  And  she  always 
keeps  her  word,  does  your  mother,  as 
you  know  well." 

And  gently  she  bent  over  him,  gluing 
her  cold  lips  to  his  dead  mouth.  Then 
Semillante  began  to  groan  again.  She 
uttered  a  long,  plaintive  monotone,  har- 
rowing and  terrible. 

There  they  remained,  the  corpse,  the 
woman  and  the  beast,  until  morning 

Antoine  Saverini  was  buried  the  next 
day,  and  soon  no  one  spoke  of  him  more 
in  Bonifacio. 

He  had  left  no  brother,  no  near  rela- 
tives. There  was  no  man  to  follow  up 
the  revenge.  Alone,  the  mother  thought 
of  it,  the  old  woman. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  defile  she 
saw,  each  morning  and  evening,  a  white 
spot  on  the  coast.  It  was  the  little 
Sardinian  village,  Longosardo,  where 
Corsican  bandits  took  refuge  when  too 
closely  pursued.  They  almost  peopled 
this  hamlet,  onposite  the  shore  of  their 


own  country,  and  awaited  there  the 
moment  of  returning,  of  going  back 
again  to  the  brakes.  It  was  in  this 
village,  she  knew,  that  Nicholas  Ravolati 
had  taken  refuge. 

All  alone,  the  whole  day  long,  seated 
before  her  window,  she  would  look  down 
there  and  think  of  vengeance.  How 
could  she  do  it  without  anyone  to  help, 
infirm  as  she  was  and  so  near  death? 
But  she  had  promised,  she  had  sworn  it 
upon  his  dead  body.  She  could  not 
forget,  she  must  not  delay.  How 
should  she  accomplish  it?  She  could  not 
sleep  at  night;  she  had  no  repose,  no 
ease;  she  sought  obstinately.  The  dog 
slept  at  her  feet,  and,  sometimes  raising 
her  head,  howled  to  the  distance.  Since 
her  master  was  no  longer  there,  she 
often  howled  thus,  as  if  she  were  call- 
ing him,  as  if  her  soul,  that  of  an  in- 
consolable beast,  had  preserved  a  re< 
membrance  of  him  that  nothing  could 
efface. 

One  night,  as  Semillante  began  to 
howl  in  this  v;ay,  the  mother  suddenly 
had  an  idea,  a  savage,  vindictive,  fero- 
cious idea.  She  meditated  upon  it  until 
morning;  then,  rising  at  the  approach  of 
day,  she  betook  herself  tc  the  church. 
She  prayed,  prostrate  upon  the  floor, 
humbled  before  God,  supplicating  him  to 
aid  her,  to  sustain  her,  to  give  to  her 
poor,  spent  body  force  that  would  be 
sufficient  to  avenge  the  death  of  her  son. 

Then  she  returned.  She  had  in  her 
yard  an  old  barrel  with  the  head 
knocked  in,  which  caught  the  rain  from 
the  gutters.  She  emptied  it  and  turned 
it  over,  making  it  fast  to  the  soil  by 
means  of  some  stakes  and  stones;  then 
she  chained  Semillante  in  this  niche  anc^ 
went  into  her  house. 


SEMILLANTE 


947 


Now  she  walked  about  constantly  in 
her  room,  without  repose,  her  eye  fixed 
upon  the  coast  of  Sardinia.  He  was 
down  there,  was  that  assassin. 

The  doj  hov/led  all  day  and  all  night. 
The  old  woman  carried  her  some  water 
in  the  morning,  in  a  bowl.  But  nothing 
more;  no  soup,  no  bread. 

The  day  slipped  away.  Semillante, 
weakened  from  want  of  food,  slept. 
The  next  day  she  had  shining  eyes  and 
bristling  hair;  she  pulled  desperately  at 
her  chain. 

Still  the  old  woman  gave  her  nothing 
to  eat.  The  beast  became  furious,  bay- 
ing with  raucous  voice.  The  night 
passed  away  thus.  Then,  at  the  break 
of  day,  Mother  Saverini  went  to  the 
house  of  a  neighbor  and  begged  him  to 
give  her  two  bundles  of  straw.  She 
took  some  old  clothes  that  her  husband 
had  formerly  worn  and  filled  them  full 
of  the  fodder,  to  simulate  a  human  body. 

Having  stuck  a  stick  in  the  ground 
before  Semillante's  niche,  she  bound  the 
manikin  to  it,  giving  him  the  appearance 
of  standing.  Then  she  formed  a  head 
by  means  of  a  package  of  old  linen. 

The  dog,  surprised,  looked  at  the 
straw  man  and  was  silent,  although  de- 
voured with  hunger. 

Then  the  old  woman  went  to  the 
butcher's  and  bought  a  long  piece  of 
black  pudding.  She  returned  home, 
lighted  a  wood  fire  in  her  yard,  and 
cooked  this  pudding.  Semillante,  ex- 
cited, bounded  about  and  frothed  at  the 
mouth,  her  ej^es  fixed  upon  the  meat, 
the  fumes  of  Vv^hich  entered  her  stomach. 

Next  the  woman  made  a  cravat  for 
the  straw  man  of  this  smoking  sausage. 
She  wound  it  many  times  about  his 
neck,  as  if  to  make  it  penetrate  him. 


When  this  was  done,  she  unchained  the 
dog. 

With  a  formidable  leap,  the  beast 
reached  the  manikin's  throat,  and,  her 
paws  upon  his  shoulders,  began  to  tear 
him  to  pieces.  She  fell  back,  a  piece 
of  her  prey  in  her  mouth,  then  leaped 
upon  him  again,  sinking  her  teeth  in  the 
cords,  snatching  some  particles  of 
nourishment,  fell  back  again,  and  re- 
bounded enraged.  She  tore  away  the 
face  with  great  blows  of  the  teeth,  tear- 
ing into  shreds  the  whole  neck. 

The  old  woman,  mute  and  motionless, 
looked  on,  her  eyes  lighting  up.  She 
rechained  the  beast,  made  him  fast  two 
days  again,  and  repeated  this  strange 
operation. 

For  three  months,  she  accustomed  the 
dog  to  this  kind  of  struggle,  to  a  re- 
past conquered  by  tooth  and  claw.  She 
did  not  chain  her  now,  but  set  her  upon 
the  manikin  with  a  gesture. 

She  taught  her  to  tear  him,  to  devour 
him,  even  without  anything  eatable  hung 
around  his  throat.  She  would  give  hex 
afterward,  as  a  recompense,  the  pudding 
she  had  cooked  for  her. 

Whenever  she  perceived  the  manikin, 
Semillante  growled  and  turned  her  eyes 
toward  her  mistress,  who  would  cry: 
*'Go!"  in  a  whistling  tone,  at  the  same 
time  raising  her  finger. 

When  she  thought  the  right  time  had 
come.  Mother  Saverini  went  to  con* 
fession  and  to  communion  one  morning 
in  ecstatic  fer\^or;  then,  having  clothed 
herself  in  male  attire,  so  that  she  looked 
like  a  feeble,  old  man,  she  went  with  a 
Sardinian  fisherman,  who  took  her  and 
her  dog  to  the  other  side  of  the  defile. 


948 


WORKS  07  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


She  had,  in  a  sack  of  cloth,  a  large 
piece  of  pudding.  Semillante  had  fasted 
for  two  days.  Every  few  moments  the 
old  woman  made  her  smell  of  the  pleas- 
and  food  and  endeavored  to  excite  her. 

They  entered  into  Longosardo.  The 
Corsican  went  into  a  wine-shop.  She 
presented  herself  at  a  baker's  and  asked 
where  Nicholas  Ravolati  lived.  He  had 
taken  his  old  trade,  that  of  a  carpenter. 
He  WIS  working  alone  at  the  back  of 
his  shop. 

The  old  woman  opened  the  door  and 
called : 

"Hey,  Nicholas!'* 

He  turned  around;  then,  loosing  the 
dog,  she  cried  out: 


"Go !  go !  Devour  him !  devour  him  !** 
The  animal,  excited,  threw  herself 
upon  him  and  seized  him  by  the  throat. 
The  man  extended  his  arms,  clinched 
her,  and  rolled  upon  the  floor.  For 
some  minutes  he  twisted  himself,  beat- 
ing the  soil  with  his  feet;  then  he  re- 
mained motionless,  while  Semillante  dug 
at  his  neck  until  it  was  in  shreds. 

Two  neighbors,  seated  before  their 
doors,  recalled  perfectly  having  seen  an 
old  man  go  out  of  the  shop,  v/ith  a  black 
dog  at  his  side,  which  was  eating,  as 
he  went  along,  something  brown  that 
his  master  gave  him. 

That  evening,  the  old  woman  returned 
to  her  house.    She  slept  well  that  night 


On  the  River 


Last  summer  I  rented  a  cottage  on 
ihe  banks  of  the  Seine,  several  miles 
from  Paris,  and  I  used  to  go  out  to  it 
every  evening.  After  a  while,  I  formed 
the  acquaintance  of  one  of  my  neigh- 
bors, a  man  between  thirty  and  forty 
years  of  age,  who  really  was  one  of  the 
queerest  characters  I  ever  have  met. 
He  was  an  old  boating-man,  crazy  on  the 
subject  of  boats,  and  was  always  either 
in,  or  on,  or  by  the  water.  Surely  he 
must  have  been  born  in  a  boat,  and  prob- 
ably he  will  die  in  one,  some  day,  while 
taking  a  last  outing. 

One  evening,  as  we  were  walking  along 
the  edge  of  the  river,  I  asked  him  to 
tell  me  about  some  of  his  nautical  ex- 
periences. Immediately  his  face  lighted 
up,  and  he  became  eloquent,  almost 
poetical,  for  his  heart  was  full  of  an 


all-absorbing,  irresistible,  devouring  pas- 
sion— a  love  for  the  river. 

"Ah!"  said  he,  "how  many  recollec- 
tions I  have  of  the  river  that  flows  at 
our  feet!  You  street-dwellers  have  nr- 
idea  what  the  river  really  is.  But  let  a 
fisherman  pronounce  the  word.  To  him 
it  means  mystery,  the  unknown,  a  land 
of  mirage  and  phantasmagoria,  where 
odd  things  that  have  no  real  existence 
are  seen  at  night  and  strange  noises  are 
heard;  where  one  trembles  without 
knoving  the  reason  why,  as  when  pass- 
ing through  a  cemetery, — and  indeed 
the  river  is  a  cemetery  without  graves. 

"Land,  for  a  fisherman,  has  boun- 
daries, but  the  river,  on  moonless  nights, 
appears  to  him  unlimited.  A  sailor 
doesn't  feel  the  same  v/ay  about  the 
sea.    The  sea  is  often  cruel,  but  it  roars 


ON  TI-IE  RIVER 


949 


and  foams,  it  gives  as  fair  warning;  the 
river  is  silent  and  treacherous.  It  flows 
stealthily,  without  a  murmur,  and  the 
eternal  gentle  motion  of  the  water  is 
more  awful  to  me  than  the  big  ocean 
waves. 

"Dreamers  believe  that  the  deep  hides 
immense  lands  of  blue,  where  the 
drowned  roll  around  among  the  big  fish, 
in  strange  forests  or  in  crystal  caves. 
The  river  has  only  black  depths,  where 
the  dead  decay  in  the  slime.  But  it's 
beautiful  when  the  sun  shines  on  it,  and 
the  waters  splash  softly  on  the  banks 
covered  with  whispering  reeds. 

"In  speaking  cf  the  ocean  the  poet 
says: 

**  *Ohi  what  tragic  tales  of  the  vast,  blue 
deep, — 
The  vast  blue  deep  prayerful  mothers 

fear, — 
The  snd  waves  tell,  v.hen  at  night, 
we  hear. 
Their      ceaseless      meanings      in     our 
sleep !' 

Well,  I  believe  that  the  stories  the 
slender  reeds  tell  one  another  in  their 
wee,  silvery  voices  are  even  more  ap- 
palling than  the  ghastly  tragedies  related 
by  the  roaring  waves, 

"But  as  you  have  asked  me  to  relate 
some   of  my  recollections,  I  will   tell 
f,     you  a  strange  adventure  that  happened 
to  me  here,  about  ten  years  ago. 

"Then,  as  now,  I  lived  in  old  mother 
Lafon's  house  and  a  chum  of  mine, 
Louis  Bernet,  who  since  has  given  up 
boating,  as  well  as  his  happy-po-lucky 
ways,  to  become  a  State  Councilor,  was 

camping  out  in  the  village  of  C ,  two 

miles  away.  We  used  to  take  dinner 
together  every  day,  either  at  his  place 
sr  at  mine. 


"One  evening,  as  I  was  returning  home 
alone,  feeling  rather  tired,  and  with  diffi- 
culty rowing  the  twelve-foot  boat  that  I 
always  took  out  at  night,  I  stopped  to 
rest  a  little  while  near  that  point  over 
there,  formed  by  reeds,  about  two  hun- 
dred yards  in  front  of  the  railway 
bridge.  The  weather  was  gorgeous :  the 
moon  shed  a  silvery  light  on  the  shining 
river,  and  the  air  was  soft  and  still. 
The  calmness  of  the  surroundings 
tempted  me,  and  I  thought  how  pleasant 
it  would  be  to  fill  my  pipe  here  and 
smoke.  The  thought  was  immediately 
executed,  and,  laying  hold  of  the  anchor, 
I  d'oppcd  it  overboard.  The  boai, 
v/hich  was  following  the  stream,  slid  to 
the  end  of  the  chain  and  came  to  a  stop; 
I  settled  myself  aft  on  a  rug,  as  com- 
fortably as  I  could.  There  was  not  a 
cound  to  be  heard  nor  a  movement  to 
be  seen,  though  sometimes  I  noticed  the 
almost  imperceptible  rippling  of  the 
water  on  the  banks,  and  watched  the 
highest  clumps  of  reeds,  which  at  times 
assumed  strange  shapes  that  appeared  to 
move. 

The  river  was  perfectly  calm,  but  1 
was  affected  by  the  extraordinary  stills 
ness  that  enveloped  me.  The  frogs  and 
toads,  the  nocturnal  musicians  of  the 
swamps,  were  voiceless.  Suddenly,  at 
my  right,  a  frog  croaked.  I  started ;  it 
stopped,  and  all  was  silent.  I  resolved 
to  light  my  pipe  for  distraction.  But, 
strange  to  say,  though  I  was  an  in- 
veterate smoker  I  failed  to  enjoy  it, 
and  after  a  few  puffs  I  grew  sick  and 
stopped  smoking.  Then  I  began  to  hunx 
an  afr,  but  the  sound  of  my  voice  de* 
pressed  me. 

At  last  I  lay  down  in  the  bont  and 
watched   the  sky.     For  a   while   I   re- 


950 


WORKS  OP  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


mained  quiet,  but  presently  the  slight 
pitching  of  the  boat  disturbed  me.  I 
felt  as  if  it  were  swaying  to  and  fro 
from  one  side  of  the  river  to  the  other, 
and  that  an  invisible  force  or  being  was 
drawing  it  slowl}^  to  the  bottom  and  then 
raising  it  to  let  it  drop  again.  I  was 
knocked  about  as  if  in  a  storm ;  I  heard 
strange  noises;  I  jumped  up;  the  water 
was  shining  and  all  was  still.  Then  I 
knew  that  my  nerves  were  slightly 
shaken,  and  decided  to  leave  the  river. 
I  pulled  on  the  chain.  The  boat  moved 
along,  but  presently  I  felt  some  resist- 
ance and  pulled  harder.  The  anchor  re- 
fused to  come  up;  it  had  caught  in  some- 
thing at  the  bottom  and  remained  stuck. 
I  pulled  and  tugged  but  to  no  avail. 
With  the  oars  I  turned  the  boat  around 
and  forced  her  up-stream,  in  order  to 
alter  the  position  of  the  anchor.  This 
was  all  in  vain,  however,  for  the  anchor 
did  not  yield;  so  in  a  rage,  I  began  to 
shake  at  the  chain,  which  wouldn't 
budge. 

I  sat  down  discouraged,  to  ponder 
over  my  mishap.  It  was  impossible  to 
break  the  chain  or  to  separate  it  from 
the  boat,  as  it  was  enormous  and  was 
riveted  to  a  piece  of  wood  as  big  as  my 
arm;  but  as  the  weather  continued  fine, 
I  did  not  doubt  but  that  some  fisher- 
man would  come  along  and  rescue  me. 
The  accident  calmed  me  so  much  that  I 
managed  to  remain  quiet  and  smoke  my 
pipe.  I  had  a  bottle  of  rum  with  me  so 
I  drank  two  or  three  glasses  of  it  and 
began  to  laugh  at  my  situation.  It  was 
50  warm  that  it  would  not  have  mat- 
tered much  had  I  been  obliged  to  spend 
ill  night  out  of  doors. 

Suddenly  something  jarred  slightly 
against  the  side  of  tlv2  boat.    I  started. 


and  a  cold  sweat  broke  over  me  from 
head  to  foot.  The  noise  was  due  to  a 
piece  of  wood  drifting  along  with  the 
current,  but  it  proved  sufficient  to  dis- 
turb my  mind,  and  once  more  I  felt  the 
same  strange  nervousness  creep  over  me. 
The  anchor  remained  firm.  Exhausted, 
I  seated  myself  again. 

"Meantime  the  river  was  covering  it- 
self with  a  white  mist  that  lay  close  to 
the  water,  so  that  when  I  stood  up 
neither  the  stream,  nor  my  feet,  nor  the 
boat,  were  visible  to  me;  I  could  dis- 
tinguish only  the  ends  of  the  reeds  and, 
a  little  further  away,  the  meadow,  ashen 
in  the  moonlight,  with  large  black 
patches  formed  by  groups  of  Italian 
poplars  reaching  toward  the  sky.  I  was 
buried  up  to  my  waist  in  something  that 
looked  like  a  blanket  of  down  of  a 
peculiar  whiteness ;  and  all  kinds  of  fan- 
tastic visions  arose  before  me.  I  im- 
agined that  some  one  was  trying  to  crawl 
into  the  boat,  which  I  could  no  longer 
see  and  that  the  river  hidden  under  the 
thick  fog  was  full  of  strange  creatures 
that  were  swimming  all  around  me.  I 
felt  a  horrible  depression  steal  over  me, 
my  temples  throbbed,  my  heart  beat 
wildly,  and,  losing  all  control  over  my* 
self,  I  was  ready  to  plunge  overboard 
and  swim  to  safety.  But  this  idea  sud- 
denly filled  me  with  horror.  I  imag- 
ined myself  lost  in  the  dense,  mist, 
floundering  about  aimlessly  among  the 
reeds  and  water-plants,  unable  to  find 
the  banks  of  the  river  or  the  boat ;  and 
I  felt  as  if  I  should  certainly  be  drawn 
by  my  feet  to  the  bottom  of  the  dark 
waters.  As  I  really  should  have  had  to 
swim  against  the  current  for  at  least 
five  hundred  yards  before  reaching  a 
spot  where  I  could  safely  land,  it  was 


ON  THE  RIVER 


951 


nine  chances  to  ten  that,  being  unable  to 
see  in  the  fog,  I  should  drown,  although 
I  Mas  a  fine  swimmer. 

'I  tried  to  overcome  my  dread.  I 
determined  not  to  be  afraid,  but  there 
was  something  in  me  besides  my  will 
and  that  something  was  faint-hearted. 
I  asked  myself  what  there  was  to  fear; 
my  courageous  self  railed  at  the  other, 
the  timid  one;  never  before  had  I  so 
fully  realized  the  opposition  that  exists 
between  the  two  beings  v/e  have  in  us; 
the  one  willing,  the  other  resisting,  and 
each  one  triumphing  in  turn.  But  this 
foolish  and  unaccountable  fear  was 
growing  worse  and  worse,  and  was  be- 
coming positive  terror.  I  remained 
motionless,  with  open  eyes  and  straining 
ears,  waiting.  For  what?  I  scarcely 
knew,  but  it  must  have  been  for  some- 
thing terrible.  I  believe  that  had  a  fish 
suddenly  taken  it  into  its  head  to  jump 
out  of  the  water,  as  frequently  happens, 
I  should  have  fallen  in  a  dead  faint. 
However,  I  managed  to  keep  my  senses 
after  a  violent  effort  to  control  myself. 
I  took  my  bottle  of  brandy  and  again 
raised  it  to  my  lips. 

"Suddenly  I  began  to  shout  at  the  top 
of  my  voice,  turning  successively 
toward  the  four  points  of  the  horizon. 
After  my  throat  had  become  completely 
paralyzed  with  shoutinj^,  I  listened.  A 
dog  was  barking  in  the  distance. 

"I  drank  some  more  rum  and  lay 
down  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat.  I  re- 
mained thus  at  least  one  hour,  perhaps 
two,  without  shutting  my  eyes,  visited 
by  nightmares.  I  did  not  dare  to  sit  up, 
though  I  had  an  insane  desire  to  do  so; 
I  put  it  off  from  second  to  second,  say- 
ing: *Now  then,  I'll  get  up,'  but  I  was 
afraid  to  move.    At  last  I  raised  myself 


with  infinite  care,  as  if  my  life  depended 
on  the  slightest  sound  I  might  make,  and 
peered  over  the  edge  of  the  boat.  I 
was  greeted  by  the  most  marvelous,  stu- 
pendous sight  that  it  is  possible  to  im- 
agine. It  was  a  vision  of  fairyland,  one 
of  those  phenomena  that  travelers  in 
distant  countries  tell  us  about,  but  that 
we  are  unable  to  believe. 

"The  mist,  which  two  hours  ago  hung 
over  the  water,  had  lifted  and  settled  on 
the  banks  of  the  stream.  It  formed  on 
each  side  an  unbroken  hill,  six  or  seven 
yards  in  height,  that  shone  in  the  moon- 
light with  the  dazzling  whiteness  of 
snow.  Nothing  could  be  seen  but  the 
flashing  river,  moving  between  the  twc 
white  mountains,  and  overhead  a  full 
moon  that  illuminated  the  milky-blue 
sky. 

"All  the  hosts  of  the  water  had 
awakened;  the  frogs  were  croaking  dis- 
mally, while  from  time  to  time  a  toad 
sent  its  short,  monotonous,  and  gloomy 
note  to  the  stars.  Strange  to  say,  I  was 
no  longer  frightened;  I  was  surrounded 
by  a  landscape  so  utterly  unreal  that  the 
strangest  freaks  of  nature  would  not 
have  surprised  me  at  all. 

"How  long  this  situation  lasted  I  am 
unable  to  tell,  for  I  finally  dozed  off  to 
sleep.  When  I  awoke,  the  moon  was 
gone  and  the  sky  was  covered  with 
clouds.  The  water  splashed  dismally, 
the  wind  was  blowing,  it  was  cold  and 
completely  dark.  I  finished  the  brandy 
and  lay  listening  to  the  rustling  of  the 
reeds  and  the  murmur  of  the  river.  I 
tried  to  see,  but  failed  to  distinguish 
the  boat  or  even  my  hands,  although  I 
held  them  close  to  my  tyes.  The  dark- 
ness, however,  was   slowly  decreasing, 


952 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Suddenly  I  thought  I  saw  a  shadow 
glide  past  me.  I  shouted  to  it  and  a 
voice  responded:  it  was  a  fisherman.  I 
called  to  him  and  told  him  of  my  plight. 
He  brought  his  boat  alongside  mine  and 
both  began  tugging  at  the  chain.  The 
anchor  still  would  not  yield.  A  cold, 
rainy  day  was  setting  in,  one  of  those 
iays  that  bring  disaster  and  sadness.    I 


perceived  another  boat,  which  we  hailed. 
The  owner  added  his  strength  to  ours, 
and  little  by  little  the  anchor  gave  way. 
It  came  up  very  slowly,  laden  with 
considerable  v/eight.  Finally  a  black 
heap  appeared  and  we  dragged  it  into 
my  boat.  It  was  the  body  of  an  old 
woman,  with  a  big  stone  tied  around 
her  neck!" 


Suicides 


Scarcely  a  day  goes  by  without  the 
newspapers  contaimng  an  account  like 
ihis: 

"Tenants  of  No.  40  B street  were 

startled  Wednesday  night  by  the  report 
of    two   shots    that    proceeded    from  the 

apartment  occupied  by  Mr.  X .    The 

door  was  bur^t  open  and  he  was  found 
on  the  floor,  in  a  pool  of  blood,  his  hand 
still  grasping  the  revolver  with  which  he 

committed  suicide.   Mr.  X was  fifly- 

seven  years  old  and  prosperous.  He  had 
everythin'ij  to  live  for,  and  no  reason  can 
be  ascribed  for  his  tiagic  act." 

What  grief  and  secret  despair,  what 
burning  sorrov^s  lead  these  people,  who 
are  supposed  to  be  happy,  to  end  their 
lives?  Financial  troubles  and  love 
iragedies  are  hinted  at,  but  as  nothing 
really  precise  ever  becomes  known, 
these  deaths  are  pronounced  "mys- 
rerious." 

A  letter  that  was  found  on  the  table 
of  one  of  these  suicides,  who  wrote  it 
during  his  last  night  on  earth,  with  the 
loaded  pistol  within  his  re^ch,  has  come 
into  our  possession.  We  deem  it  inter- 
esting, though  it  reveals  no  great  tragedy 


such  as  one  usually  expects  to  fino  at 
the  bottom  of  these  rash  acts.  It  only 
tells  of  the  slow  succession  of  the  little 
ills  of  life,  of  the  inevitable  disorganiza- 
tion of  a  solitary  existence  weaned  from 
its  illusions;  it  makes  clear  those  tragic 
endings  which  no  others  but  people  of 
high-strung,  supersensitive  tempera- 
ments can  understand. 
This  is  the  letter: 

"It  is  midnight.  When  I  finish  this 
letter  I  intend  to  destroy  myself.  Why? 
I  will  endeavor  to  explain,  not  for  those 
who  read  this,  but  for  myself,  in  order 
to  strengthen  my  failing  courage  and  to 
convince  myself  of  the  now  fatal  neces- 
sity of  my  determination  which,  if  not 
carried  out  to-night,  could  only  be  de- 
ferred. 

"I  was  brought  up  by  parents  who  be- 
lieved in  everything,  and  so  I,  too,  be- 
lieved. My  dream  lasted  a  long  time. 
But  now  its  last  illusions  have  fled. 

"The  past  few  years  have  wrought  a 
great  change  in  me.  The  things  that 
used  to  seem  most  alluring  and  desirable 
have   lost    their  attraction.     The   true 


SUICIDES 


953 


meaning  of  Kfe  has  dawned  upon  me  in 
all  its  brutal  reality;  the  true  reason  of 
love  disgusts  me  even  with  poetical 
sentiment. 

**We  are  nothing  but  the  eternal  toys 
of  illusions  as  foolish  as  they  arc  charm- 
ing, which  reblossom  as  soon  as  they 
fade. 

"Getting  on  in  years,  I  became  re- 
signed to  the  utter  shallowness  of  life, 
to  the  uselessness  of  any  effort,  to  the 
vanity  of  any  hope,  when  suddenly  to- 
night, after  dinner,  I  viewed  the  futility 
of  everything  in  a  different  light. 

"Formerly  I  was  happy.  Everything 
charmed  me;  the  women  I  met  in  the 
streets;  the  streets  themselves;  my  own 
home ;  even  the  shape  of  my  clothes  was 
a  subject  of  interest  to  me.  But  finally 
the  repetition  of  tnese  visions  bored  and 
annoyed  me;  I  feel  like  a  theater-goer 
seeing  the  same  play  night  after  night. 

"During  the  last  thirty  years  I  have 
arisen  at  the  same  hour;  have  dined  at 
the  same  place,  eating  the  same  things 
served  at  the  same  times  by  different 
waiters. 

"I  have  tried  to  travel !  But  the  sen- 
sation of  forlornness  that  came  over  me 
in  strange  places  deterred  me.  I  felt  so 
isolated  and  small  on  this  immense  earth 
that  I  hastened  to  return  home. 

"But  the  furnishings  of  my  apartment, 
that  have  not  been  changed  in  thirty 
odd  years,  the  worn  places  on  the  chairs 
which  I  recollect  when  they  were  new, 
even  the  odor  of  the  place  (for  after  a 
while  each  home  acquires  a  distinctive 
atmosphere)  gave  me  every  night  an 
awful,  nauseating  sense  of  melancholy. 

"Does  not  everything  repeat  itself  in 
an  eternal,  heartrending  fashion?  The 
way  in  which  I  put  my  key  into  tne 


latch-hole,  the  spot  v;herc  I  find  the 
match-box,  the  first  glance  I  give  the 
room  after  striking  a  lignt,  all  these 
little  things  make  me  desire  to  filng  my- 
self out  of  the  window,  so  as  to  end  for 
good  and  all  the  series  of  monotonous 
incidents  which  fill  life  and  from  which 
there  is  no  escape. 

"Every  day  when  shaving  in  front  of 
my  little  mirror  I  feel  like  cutting  my 
throat;  the  same  face  with  soap  on  its 
cheeks  that  stares  at  me  has  driven 
me  many  a  time  to  cry  out  from  sheer 
despondency. 

"To-dny  I  hardly  care  to  meet  the 
people  v;hose  society  I  used  to  enjoy, 
because  I  know  too  well  what  they  are 
going  to  say  and  what  I  shall  reply; 
the  trend  of  their  thoughts  is  as  familial 
as  the  drift  of  their  arguments.  Each 
brain  is  like  a  circus-ring  around  which 
gallops  a  poor,  imprisoned  horse.  No 
matter  what  our  efforts  or  dodges  may 
be,  we  cannot  escape  from  the  circulai 
ring,  which  has  no  unexpected  turns,  no 
door  opening  on  the  unknown.  We 
must  go  around  forever,  through  the 
same  joys,  the  same  jokes,  the  samje 
beliefs,  habits,  disgusts. 

"The  fog  was  dreadful  to-night.  It 
covered  the  boulevard,  dimming  the 
gas-lights  that  shone  like  so  many  smoky 
candles.  A  heavier  weight  than  usual 
oppressed  me.  My  digestion  was  prob- 
ably in  bad  shape.  A  good  digestion  is 
a  great  blessing.  It  gives  to  artists  in- 
spiration, to  thinkers  clear  ideas,  to 
young  men  amorous  desires,  and  to 
everyone  happiness. 

"It  lets  us  eat  our  fill  and,  after  all, 
this  is  the  greatest  satisfaction.  A 
weak  stomach  predisposes  one  to 
scepticism  and  unbelief,  and  incites  bad 


954 


WORKS  OF  GXTT  DE  MAUPASSANT 


dreams  and  morbidity.  I  have  noticed 
it  very,  very  often.  Perhaps  I  would 
not  care  to  die,  to-night,  if  my  diges- 
tion were  perfect. 

"When  I  seated  myself  in  the  chair 
in  which  I  have  sat  ever>'  night  the  past 
thirty  years,  I  glanced  around  and  felt 
so  depressed  that  I  thought  I  should 
become  distracted. 

"I  wondered  how  I  could  escape  from 
myself?  To  be  occupied  appeared  to  me 
even  more  intolerable  than  to  remain 
inactive.  I  had  the  idea  of  putting  my 
old  papers  in  order.  I  have  intended  to 
arrange  them  for  a  long  time.  For  thirty 
years  I  have  flung  letters  and  bills  to- 
gether in  the  same  drawer,  and  the  con- 
fusion resulting  therefrom  has  often 
caused  me  a  great  deal  of  trouble.  But 
the  mere  idea  of  straightening  out  any- 
thing gives  me  such  mental  and  physical 
distress  that  I  never  have  had  sufiRcient 
courage  to  undertake  the  odious  task. 

"So  I  sat  down  at  my  desk  and 
opened  it,  intending  to  look  over  my  old 
papers  and  to  destroy  some.  At  first  I 
felt  quite  helpless  before  the  heaps  of 
yellowed  leaves;  but  finally  I  extricated 
one  of  them. 

"Never,  if  you  value  your  life,  dare 
touch  the  desk  or  the  tomb  that  contains 
old  letters!  And  if  by  chance  you 
should  open  it,  close  your  eyes  so  as  to 
shut  out  the  letters,  lest  a  long-forgotten 
but  suddenly  recognized  handwriting 
awaken  a  world  of  recollections;  take 
the  fatal  pages  and  throw  them  into  the 
fire,  and  when  they  are  ashes  stamp 
them  into  invisible  dust  or  else  you  will 
be  lost — as  I  have  been — for  the  last 
hour. 

"The  first  letters  I  picked  out  did  not 


interest  me.  They  were  from  men  1 
meet  once  in  a  while,  and  for  whom  I 
feel  no  great  interest.  But  all  at  once 
an  envelope  attracted  my  eyes.  It  bore 
my  name  written  in  a  broad,  firm  hand; 
tears  filled  my  eyes.  Here  was  a  letter 
from  my  dearest  friend,  the  one  in  whom 
I  used  to  confide  in  my  youth,  and  who 
knew  my  hopes;  he  arose  before  me  so 
clearly  with  his  outstretched  hand  and 
good-natured  smile,  that  a  shudder  ran 
through  my  frame.  Yes,  the  dead  come 
back,  for  I  saw  him !  Our  memory  is  a 
world  far  more  perfect  than  the  real 
universe,  for  it  brings  to  life  those  who 
have  gone  forever. 

"With  misty  eyes  and  trembling  hands 
I  read  over  all  the  letters,  while  my 
poor  crushed  heart  throbbed  with  a  pain 
so  acute  that  I  groaned  aloud  like  a 
man  whose  limbs  are  being  tortured. 

*'I  went  over  my  whole  life,  and  it 
was  like  floating  along  a  familiar  river. 
I  recognized  people  whose  names  long 
ago  had  been  blotted  from  my  mind. 
Only  their  faces  had  stamped  themselves 
upon  my  memory.  My  mother's  letters 
revived  recollections  of  the  old  servants 
of  our  household,  brought  back  all  the 
little  insignificant  details  that  impress 
theniselves  on  a  child's  brain. 

"Yes,  I  even  saw  my  mother  as  she 
looked  in  the  gowns  of  years  ago,  with 
the  changed  appearance  she  would  as- 
sume with  each  new  style  of  hair-dress- 
ing she  successively  adopted.  She 
haunted  me  most  in  a  silk  gown  of  some 
gorgeous  pattern,  and  I  remembered 
what  she  said  to  me  one  day,  wearing 
that  robe:  'Robert,  my  child,  if  you 
f?il  to  hold  yourself  erect,  you  will  be 
round-shouldered  all  your  life-' 


A  MIRACLE 


95S 


'*0n  opening  another  drawer,  I  sud- 
denly gazed  on  my  love  trinkets — a 
satin  slipper,  a  torn  handkerchief,  sev- 
eral locks  of  hair,  some  pressed  flowers, 
even  a  garter. 

"My  romances,  whose  heroines,  if  still 
living,  must  have  white  hair,  arose  be- 
fore me  with  all  the  bitterness  of  loved 
things  forever  gone.  Oh!  the  young 
brows  shaded  by  golden  hair,  the  clasped 
hands,  the  speaking  glances,  the  throb- 
bing hearts,  the  smile  that  promises  the 
lips,  and  the  lips  that  promise  all — then 
the  first  kiss — long,  unending,  with  no 
thought  but  of  the  immense  ecstasy  to 
come! 

"I  grasped  with  both  hands  the 
cherished  tokens  and  I  kissed  them 
passionately.  My  harassed  soul  beheld 
each  one  of  my  loves  at  the  moment 
of  sweet  surrender — and  I  suffered  worse 
torments  than  those  imagined  in  the  de- 
scriptions of  hell. 

"a   single   letter   remained.     It   had 


been  written  by  me  and  was  dictated 
6fty  years  ago  by  my  teacher. 
"It  ran: 

"*i\fy  Dear  Mamma: 

*'  'I  am  seven  years  old  to-day.    As  it 
is  the  age  of  reason,  I  want  to  thank  you 
for  having  brought  me  into  this  world. 
''Your  loving  little  son, 
•'  'Robert.' 

"This  was  the  last.  I  had  arrived  at 
the  very  beginning  of  my  life  and  I 
turned  to  face  the  prospect  of  the  re- 
maining years.  I  see  nothing  but  a 
hideous  and  lonely  old  age  with  all  its 
accompanying  disablements — all  is  over, 
over,  over!    Nobody  to  care  for  me, 

"The  revolver  lies  here  on  the  table. 
I  am  loading  it—  Never  read  over  your 
old  letters." 

And  this  is  the  reason  why  so  many 
men  kill  themselves,  while  one  searches 
their  lives  in  vain  for  the  discovery  of 
some  hidden  tragedy. 


A  Miracle 


Doctor  Bonenfant  was  searching 
his  memory,  saying,  half  aloud:  "A 
Christmas  story — some  remembrance  of 
Christmas?" 

Suddenly  he  cried :  "Yes,  I  have  one, 
and  a  strange  one  too;  it  is  a  fantastic 
story.  I  have  seen  a  miracle!  yes,  ladies, 
a  miracle,  and  on  Christmas  night." 

It  astonishes  you  to  hear  me  speak 
thus,  a  man  who  believes  scarcely  any- 
thing. Nevertheless,  I  have  seen  a 
miracle!  I  have  seen  it,  I  tell  you,  seen, 
with  my  own  eyes,  that  is  what  I  call 
seeing. 


Was  I  very  much  surprised,  you  ask? 
Not  at  all;  because  if  I  do  not  believe 
from  your  view  point,  I  believe  in  faith, 
and  I  know  that  it  can  remove  moun- 
tains. I  could  cite  many  examples;  but 
I  might  make  you  indignant,  and  I 
should  risk  diminishing  the  eftect  of  my 
story. 

In  the  first  place,  I  must  confess  that 
if  I  have  not  been  convinced  and  con- 
verted by  what  I  have  seen,  I  have  at 
least  been  strongly  moved;  and  I  am 
going  to  strive  to  tell  it  to  you  naively, 
as  if  I  had  the  credulity  of  an  Auverg- 
nat 


956 


WORKS  Or  GUY  DZ  MAUPASSANT 


I  was  then  a  country  doctor,  living  in 
the  town  of  RoUeville,  on  the  plains  of 
Normandy.  The  winter  that  year  was 
terrible.  By  the  end  of  November  the 
snow  came  after  a  week  of  heavy  frosts. 
One  could  see  from  afar  the  great  snow 
clouds  coming  from  the  north,  and  then 
the  descent  of  the  white  flakes  com- 
menced. In  one  night  the  whole  plain 
was  in  its  winding-sheet.  Farms,  iso- 
lated in  their  square  inclosures,  behind 
their  curtains  of  great  trees  powdered 
with  hoar-frost,  seemed  to  sleep  under 
the  accumulation  of  this  thick,  light 
covering. 

No  noise  could  reach  this  dead  coun- 
try. The  crows  alone  in  large  flocks 
outlined  long  festoons  in  the  sky,  living 
their  lives  to  no  purpose,  swooping  down 
upon  the  livid  fields  and  picking  at  the 
snow  with  their  great  beaks.  There  was 
nothing  to  be  heard  but  the  vague,  con- 
tinued whisper  of  this  white  powder  as 
it  persistently  fell.  This  lasted  for  eight 
days  and  then  stopped.  The  earth  had 
on  its  back  a  mantle  five  feet  in  thick- 
ness. And,  during  the  next  three  weeks, 
a  sky  spread  itself  out  over  this  smooth, 
white  mass,  hard  and  glistening  with 
frost,  which  was  clear  blue  crystal  by 
day,  and  at  night  all  studded  with  stars, 
as  if  the  hoar-frost  grew  by  their  light. 

Tlie  plain,  the  hedges,  the  elms  of  the 
inclosures,  all  seemed  dead,  killed  by  the 
cold.  Neither  man  nor  beast  went  out. 
Only  the  chimneys  of  the  cottages, 
clothed  in  white  linen,  revealed  con- 
cealed life  by  the  fine  threads  of  smoke 
•vhich  mounted  straight  into  the  frosty 
air.  From  time  to  time  one  heard  the 
trees  crack,  as  if  their  wooden  limbs 
were  breaking  under  the  bark.  And 
sometimes  a  great  branch  would  detach 


itself  and  fall,  the  resistless  cold  petri- 
fying the  sap  and  breaking  the  fibers. 
Dwellings  set  here  and  there  in  fields 
seemed  a  hundred  miles  away  from  one 
another.  One  lived  as  he  could.  I  alone 
endeavored  to  go  to  my  nearest  cHents, 
constantly  exposing  myself  to  the 
danger  of  remaining  in  some  hole  in  the 
winding-sheet  of  snow. 

I  soon  perceived  that  a  mysterious 
terror  had  spread  over  the  country. 
Such  a  plague,  they  thought,  was  not 
natural.  They  pretended  that  they  heard 
voices  at  night,  and  sharp  whistling  and 
cries,  as  of  some  one  passing.  These 
cries  and  the  whistles  came,  without 
doubt,  from  emigrant  birds  which 
traveled  at  twilight  and  flew  in  flocks 
toward  the  south.  But  it  was  impos- 
sible to  make  this  frightened  people 
listen  to  reason.  Fear  had  taken  pos- 
session of  their  minds,  and  they  listened 
to  every  extraordinary  event. 

The  forge  of  Father  Vatinel  was  sit- 
uated at  the  end  of  the  hamlet  of 
Epivent,  on  the  highway,  now  invisible 
and  deserted.  As  the  people  needed 
bread,  the  blacksmith  resolved  to  go  to 
the  village.  He  remained  some  hours 
chattering  with  the  inhabitants  of  the 
six  houses  which  formed  the  center  of 
the  country,  took  his  bread  and  his  news 
and  a  little  of  the  fear  which  had  spread 
over  the  region  and  set  out  before  night. 

Suddenly,  in  skirting  a  hedge,  he  be- 
lieved he  saw  an  egg  on  the  snow;  yes, 
an  egg  was  lying  there,  all  white  like 
the  rest  of  the  world.  He  bent  over  it, 
and  in  fact  it  was  an  egg.  Where  did 
it  come  from?  What  hen  could  have 
cone  out  there  and  laid  an  egg  in  that 
spot?     TTie  smith  was  astonished:   he 


A  MIRACLE 


937 


'Could  not  comprehend  it;  but  he  j.icked 
it  up  and  took  it  to  his  wife. 

"See,  wife,  here  is  an  egg  that  I  found 
on  the  way." 

The  woman  tossed  her  head,  replying: 

"An  egg  on  the  way?  And  this  Und 
of  weather!  You  must  be  drunk, 
surely.'' 

"No,  no,  my  lady,  it  surely  was  at  the 
foot  of  the  hedge,  and  not  frozen  but 
still  warm.  Take  it;  I  put  it  in  my 
bosom  so  that  it  wouldn't  cool  off.  You 
shall  have  it  for  your  dinner.'* 

The  egg  was  soon  shining  in  the  sauce- 
pan where  the  soup  was  simmering,  and 
the  smith  began  to  relate  what  he  had 
heard  around  the  country.  The  woman 
listened,  p::le  with  excitement. 

"Surely  I  have  heard  some  whistling," 
said  she,  "but  it  seemed  to  come  from 
the  chimney.** 

They  sat  down  to  table,  ate  their  soup 
first  and  then,  while  the  husband  was 
spreading  the  butter  on  his  bread,  the 
woman  took  the  egg  and  examined  it 
with  suspicious  eye. 

"And  if  there  should  be  something  in 
this  eg^,"  said  she. 

"What,  think  you,  you  would  like  to 
have  in  it?'* 

"I  know  very  well.'* 

"Go  ahead  and  eat  it.  Don't  be  a 
fool." 

She  opened  the  egg.  It  was  like  all 
eggs,  and  very  fresh.  She  started  to  eat 
it  but  hesitated,  tasting,  then  leaving, 
then  tasting  it  again.    The  husband  said: 

"Well,  how  does  it  taste,  that  egg?'* 

She  did  not  answer,  but  finished 
swallowing  it.  Then,  suddenly,  she  set 
her  eyes  on  her  husband,  fixed,  haggard, 
and  excited,  raised  her  arms,  turned  and 
twisted  them,  convulsed  from  head  to 


foot,  and  rolled  on  the  floor,  sending 
forth  horrible  shrieks.  All  night  she 
struggled  in  these  frightful  spasms, 
trembling  with  fright,  deformed  by 
hideous  convulsions.  The  smith,  unable 
to  restrain  her,  was  obliged  to  bind  her. 
And  she  screamed  without  ceasing,  with 
voice  indefatigable: 

"I  have  it  in  my  body!  I  have  it  in 
my  body!'* 

I  was  called  the  next  day.  I  ordered 
all  the  sedatives  known,  but  without 
effect.  She  was  mad.  Then,  with  in- 
credible swiftness,  in  spite  of  the  ob- 
stacle of  deep  snow,  the  news,  the 
strange  news  ran  from  farm  to  farm: 
"The  smith's  wife  is  possessed!"  And 
they  came  fiom  all  about,  not  daring  to 
go  into  the  house,  to  listen  to  the  cries 
of  the  frightened  woman,  whose  voice 
was  so  strong  that  one  could  scarcely 
believed  it  belonged  to  a  human 
creature. 

The  curate  of  the  village  was  sent  for. 
He  v»ds  a  simple  old  priest.  He  came  in 
surplice,  as  if  lo  administer  comfort  to 
the  dying,  and  pronounced  with  extended 
hands  some  formulas  of  exorcism,  while 
four  men  held  the  foaming,  writhing 
woman  on  the  bed.  But  the  spirit  was 
not  driven  out. 

Christmas  came  without  any  change  in 
the  weather.  In  the  early  morning  the 
priest  came  for  me. 

"I  wish,"  said  he,  "to  ask  you  to  assist 
me  to-night  at  a  service  for  this  unfor- 
tunate woman.  Perhaps  God  will  work 
a  miracle  in  her  favor  at  the  same  hour 
that  he  was  born  of  a  woman." 

I  replied:  "1  approve  heartily,  M. 
I'Abbe,  but  if  the  spell  is  to  be  broken 
by  ceremony   (and  there  could  be  no 


958 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


more  propitious  time  to  start  it)  slie  can 
be  saved  without  remedies." 

The  old  priest  murmured:  "You  are 
not  a  believer,  Doctor,  but  aid  me,  will 
you  not?"    I  promised  him  my  aid. 

The  evening  came,  and  then  the  night. 
The  clock  of  the  church  was  striking, 
throwing  its  plaintive  voice  across  the 
extent  of  white,  glistening  snow\  Some 
black  figures  were  wending  their  way 
slowly  in  groups,  drawn  by  the  bronze 
call  from  the  bell.  The  full  moon  shone 
with  a  dull,  wan  light  at  the  edge  of  the 
horizon,  rendering  more  visible  the  deso- 
lation of  the  fields.  I  had  taken  four 
robust  men  with  me,  and  with  them  re- 
paired to  the  forge. 

The  Possessed  One  shouted  continu- 
ally, although  bound  to  her  bed.  They 
had  clothed  her  properly,  in  spite  of  her 
resistance,  and  now  they  brought  her 
out.  The  church  wase  full  of  people, 
illuminated  but  cold;  the  choir  chanted 
their  monotonous  notes;  the  serpent 
hummed;  the  little  bell  of  the  acolyte 
tinkled,  regulating  the  movements  of  the 
faithful. 

I  had  shut  the  woman  and  her  guards 
into  the  kitchen  of  the  parish  house  and 
awaited  the  movement  that  I  believed 
favorable. 

I  chose  the  time  immediately  follow- 
ing communion.  All  the  peasants, 
men  and  women,  had  received  their  God, 
resolving  to  submit  to  the  severity  of 
His  will.  A  great  silence  prevailed  while 
the  priest  finished  the  divine  mystery. 
Upon  my  order,  the  door  opened  and  the 
four  men  brought  in  the  mad  woman. 

When  she  saw  the  lights,  the  crowd  on 
their  knees,  the  choir  illuminated,  and 
the  gilded  tabernacle,  she  struggled  with 


such  vigor  that  she  almost  escaped  fiom 
us,  and  she  gave  forth  cries  so  piercing 
that  a  shiver  of  fright  ran  through  the 
church.  All  bowed  their  heads;  some 
fled.  She  had  no  longer  the  form  of  a 
woman,  her  hands  being  distorted,  her 
countenance  drawn,  her  eyes  protruding. 
They  held  her  up  until  after  the  march 
of  the  choir,  and  then  allowed  her  to 
squat  on  the  floor. 

Finally,  the  priest  arose;  he  waited. 
When  there  was  a  moment  of  quiet,  he 
took  in  his  hands  a  silver  vessel  with 
bands  of  gold,  upon  which  was  the  con- 
secrated white  wafer  and,  advancing 
some  steps,  extended  both  arms  above 
his  head  and  presented  it  to  the  fright- 
ened stare  of  the  maniac.  She  con- 
tinued to  shout,  but  with  eyes  fixed 
upon  the  shining  object.  And  the  priest 
remained  thus,  motionless,  as  if  he  had 
been  a  statue. 

This  lasted  a  long,  long  tune.  The 
woman  seemed  seized  with  fear,  fas- 
cinated; she  looked  fixedly  at  the  bright 
vessel,  trembled  violently  but  at  inter- 
vals, and  cried  out  incessantly,  but  with 
a  less  piercing  voice. 

It  happened  that  she  could  no  longer 
lower  her  eyes;  that  they  wert  riveted 
on  the  Host;  that  she  could  no  longer 
groan ;  that  her  body  became  pliable  and 
that  she  sank  down  exhausted.  The 
crowd  was  prostrate,  brows  to  earth. 

The  Possessed  One  now  lowered  her 
eyelids  quickly,  then  raised  them  again, 
as  if  powerless  to  endure  the  sight  of 
her  God.  She  was  silent.  And  then  I 
myself  perceived  that  her  eyes  were 
closed.  She  slept  the  sleep  of  the  som- 
nambulist, the  hypnotist — ^pardon!  con- 


THE  ACCURSED  BREAD 


05Q 


quered  by  the  contemplation  of  the  sil- 
ver vessel  with  the  bands  of  gold,  over- 
come by  the  Christ  victorious. 

They  carried  her  out,  inert,  while  the 
priest  returned  to  the  altar.  The  assis- 
tants, thrown  into  wonderment,  intoned 
a  'Te  Deum." 

The  smith's  wife  slept  for  the  next 
four  hours ;  then  she  awoke  without  any 


remembrance  either  of  the  possession  or 
of  the  deliverance.  This,  ladies,  is  the 
miracle  that  I  saw. 

Doctor  Bonenfant  remained  silent  foi 
a  moment,  then  he  added,  in  rather  dis- 
agreeable voice : 

"And  I  could  never  refuse  to  sweat 
to  it  in  writing." 


The  Accursed  Bread 


Daddy  Taille  had  three  daughters: 
Anna,  the  eldest,  who  was  scarcely  ever 
mentioned  in  the  family;  Rose,  the 
second  girl,  who  was  eighteen;  and 
Clara,  the  youngest,  who  was  a  girl  of 
fifteen. 

Old  Taille  was  a  widower,  and  a  fore- 
man in  M.  Lebrument's  button-manu- 
factory. He  was  a  very  upright  man, 
very  well  thought  of,  abstemious;  in 
fact  a  sort  of  model  workman.  He  lived 
at  Havre,  in  the  Rue  d'Angouleme. 

When  Anna  ran  away  the  old  man 
flew  into  a  fearful  rage.  He  threatened 
to  kill  the  seducer,  who  was  head  clerk 
in  a  large  draper's  establishment  in  that 
town.  Then  when  he  was  told  by  vari- 
ous people  that  she  was  keeping  very 
steady  and  investing  money  in  govern- 
ment securities,  that  she  was  no  gada- 
bout,  but  was  maintained  by  a  Monsieur 
Dubois,  who  was  a  judge  of  the  Tribunal 
of  Commerce,  the  father  was  appeased. 

He  even  showed  some  anxiety  as  to 
how  she  was  faring,  asked  some  of  her 
old  friends  who  had  been  to  see  her 
how  she  was  getting  on;  and  when  told 
that  she  had  her  own  furniture,  and  that 


her  mantelpiece  was  covered  with  vase 
and  the  walls  with  pictures,  that  then- 
were  clocks  and  carpets  everywhere,  hf 
gave  a  broad,  contented  smile.  He  had 
been  working  for  thirty  years  to  get  to- 
gether a  wretched  five  or  six  thousand 
francs.    This  girl  was  evidently  no  fool 

One  fine  morning  the  son  of  Touchard, 
the  cooper  at  the  other  end  of  the  street, 
came  and  asked  him  for  the  hand  of 
Rose,  the  second  girl.  The  old  man's 
heart  began  to  beat,  for  the  Touchards 
were  rich  and  in  a  good  position.  He 
w^as  decidedly  lucky  with  his  girls. 

The  marriage  was  agreed  upon.  It 
was  settled  that  it  should  be  a  grand  ( 
affair,  and  the  wedding  dinner  was  to  be ; 
held  at  Sainte-Addresse,  at  Mother 
Lusa's  restaurant.  It  would  cost  a  Jot 
certainly;  but  never  mind,  it  did  not 
matter  just  for  once  in  a  way.  i 

But  one  morning,  just  as  the  old  man 
was  going  home  to  breakfast  with  his 
two  daughters,  the  door  opened  sud- 
denly and  Anna  appeared.  She  was  ele- 
gantly dressed,  wore  rings  and  an  ex- 
pensive bonnet,  and  looked  undeniably 
pretty  and  nice.     She  threw  her  arms 


960 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


round  her  father's  neck  before  he  could 
say  a  word,  then  fell  into  her  sisters' 
arms  with  many  tears,  and  then  asked 
for  a  plate,  so  that  she  might  share  the 
family  soup.  Taille  was  moved  to  tears 
in  his  turn  and  said  several  times: 

"That  is  right,  dear;  that  is  right." 

Then  she  told  them  about  herself. 
She  did  not  wish  Rose's  weddmg  to  take 
place  at  Sainte-Addresse, — certainly  not. 
It  should  take  place  at  her  house,  and 
would  cost  her  father  nothing.  She  had 
settled  everything,  so  it  was  ''no  good 
to  say  any  more  about  it, — there!" 

"Very  well,  my  dear!  very  well!"  the 
old  man  said,  "w-e  will  leave  it  so." 
But  then  he  felt  some  doubt.  Would 
the  Touchards  consent?  But  Rose,  the 
bride-elect,  was  surprised,  and  asked, 
"Why  should  they  object,  I  should  like 
to  know?  Just  leave  that  to  me,  I  will 
talk  to  Philip  about  it." 

She  mentioned  it  to  her  lover  the 
very  same  day,  and  he  declared  that  it 
would  suit  him  exactly.  Father  and 
Mother  Touchard  were  naturally  de- 
lighted at  the  idea  of  a  good  dinner 
which  W'ould  cost  them  nothing  and  said: 

*^ou  may  be  quite  sure  that  every- 
thing will  be  in  first-rate  style,  as  M. 
Dubois  is  made  of  money.'* 

They  asked  to  be  allow^ed  to  bring  a 
friend,  Mme.  Florence,  the  cook  on  the 
first  floor,  and  Anna  agreed  to  every- 
thing. The  wedding  was  fixed  for  the 
last  Tuesday  of  the  month. 

n. 

After  the  civil  formalities  and  the  re- 
ligious ceremony  the  wedding  party  went 
to  Anna's  house.  Among  those  whom  the 
Tallies  had  brought  was  a  cousin  of  a 
certain  aee.  a  "M,   Sauvetanin,  a  man 


given   to   philosophical   reflections,  seri 
ous,  and  always  very  self-possessed,  and 
Mme.  Lamonoois,  an  old  aunt. 

M.  Sauvetanin  had  been  told  off  to 
give  Anna  his  arm,  as  they  v;ere  looked 
upon  as  the  two  most  important  persons 
in  the  company. 

As  soon  as  they  had  arrived  at  the 
door  of  Anna's  house  she  let  go  hei 
companion's  arm,  and  ran  on  ahead,  say- 
ing, "I  will  show  y\ja  the  way,"  while 
the  invited  guests  follov/ed  more  slowly. 
When  they  got  upstairs,  she  stood  on 
one  side  to  let  them  pass,  and  they 
rolled  their  eyes  and  turned  their  heads 
in  all  directions  to  admire  this  mys- 
terious  and  luxurious  dwelling. 

The  table  was  laid  in  the  drawing- 
room  as  the  dining-room  had  been 
thought  too  small.  Extra  knives,  forks, 
and  spoons  had  been  hired  from  a  neigh- 
boring restaurant,  and  decanters  full  of 
wine  glittered  under  the  rays  of  the  sun, 
v/hich  snone  in  through  the  window. 

The  ladies  went  into  the  bedroom  to 
take  off  their  shawls  and  bonnets,  and 
Father  Touchard,  who  was  standing  at 
the  door,  squinted  at  the  low,  wide  bed, 
and  made  funny  signs  to  the  men,  with 
many  a  wink  and  nod.  Daddy  Taille,  [ 
who  thought  a  great  deal  of  himself, 
looked  with  fatherly  pride  at  his  child's 
well-furnished  rooms,  and  went  from  one 
to  the  other  holding  his  hat  in  his  hand, 
making  a  mental  inventory  of  every- 
thing, and  walking  like  a  verger  in  a 
church. 

Anna  went  backward  and  forward,  and 
ran  about  giving  orders  and  hurrying  on 
the  wedding  feast.  Soon  she  appeared 
at  the  door  of  the  dining-room,  and 
cheo:  "C^me  here,  all  of  you,  for  a 
moment,"  axio  when  thp  twelve  guests 


THE  ACCURSED  BREAD 


961 


did  as  they  were  asked  they  saw  twelve 
glasses  of  Madeira  on  a  small  table. 

Rose  and  her  husband  had  their  arms 
round  each  other's  waists,  and  were  kiss- 
ing each  other  in  every  corner.  M. 
iSauvetanin  never  took  his  eyes  off 
i\nna;  he  no  doubt  felt  that  ardor,  that 
sort  ot  expectation  which  all  men,  even 
if  they  are  old  and  ugly,  feel  for  women 
of  a  certain  stamp. 

They  sat  down,  and  the  wedding 
breakfast  began;  the  relatives  sitting  at 
one  end  of  the  table  and  the  young 
people  at  the  other.  Mme.  Touchard, 
the  mother,  presided  on  the  right  and 
the  bride  on  the  left.  Anna  looked  after 
everybody,  saw  that  the  glasses  were 
kept  filled  and  the  plates  well  supplied. 
The  guests  evidently  felt  a  certain  re- 
spectful embarrassment  at  the  sight  of 
the  sum.ptuousness  of  the  rooms  and  at 
the  lavish  manner  in  which  they  were 
treated.  They  all  ate  heartily  of  the 
good  things'  provided,  but  there  were 
no  jokes  such  as  are  prevalent  at  wed- 
dings of  that  sort,  it  was  all  too  grand, 
and  it  made  them  feel  uncomfortable. 
Old  Madame  Touchard,  who  was  fond 
of  a  bit  of  fun,  tried  to  enliven  matters 
a  Httle  and  at  the  beginning  of  the 
dessert  she  exclaimed:  *T  say,  Philip, 
do  sing  us  something."  The  neighbors 
in  their  street  considered  that  he  had 
the  finest  voice  in  all  Havre. 

The  bride-groom  got  up,  smiled,  and 
turning  to  his  sister-m-law,  from  polite- 
ness and  gallantry,  tried  to  think  of 
something  suitable  for  the  occasion, 
something  serious  and  correct,  to  har- 
monize with  the  seriousness  of  the  re- 
past. 

Anna  had  a  satisfied  look  on  her  face, 
and  leaned  back  in  her  chair  to  listen, 


and  all  assumed  looks  of  attention, 
though  prepared  to  smile  should  smiles 
be  called  for. 

The  singer  announced,  'The  Accursed 
Bread,"  and  extending  his  right  arm, 
which  made  his  coat  ruck  up  into  his 
neck,  he  began. 

It  was  decidedly  long,  three  verses  of 
eight  lines  each,  with  the  last  line  and 
the  last  line  but  one  repeated  twice. 

All  went  well  for  the  first  two  verses; 
they  were  the  usual  commonplaces  about 
bread  gained  by  honest  labor  and  by 
dishonesty.  The  aunt  and  the  bride 
wept  outright.  The  cook,  who  was  pres- 
ent, at  the  end  of  the  first  verse  looked 
at  a  roll  which  she  held  in  her  hand 
with  moist  eyes,  as  if  they  applied  to 
her,  while  all  applauded  vigorously.  At 
the  end  of  the  second  verse  the  two  ser- 
vants, who  were  standing  with  their 
backs  to  the  wall,  joined  loudly  in  the 
chorus,  and  the  aunt  and  the  bride  wept 
outright.  Daddy  Taille  blew  his  nose 
with  the  noise  of  a  trombone,  old  Tou- 
chard brandished  a  whole  loaf  half  over 
the  table,  and  the  cook  shed  silent  tears 
on  to  the  crust  which  she  was  still  hold- 
ing. 

Amid  the  general  emotion  M.  'oSM* 
vetanin  said: 

*That  is  the  right  sort  of  song;  very 
different  to  the  pointed  things  one  gener- 
ally hears  at  weddmgs." 

Anna,  who  was  visibly  affected,  kissed 
her  hand  to  her  sister  and  pointed  to 
her  husband  .dth  an  affectionate  nod,  as 
if  to  congratulate  her. 

Intoxicated  by  his  success,  the  young 
man  continued,  and  unfortunately  the 
last  verse  contained  words  about  the 
bread  of  dishonor  gained  by  young  girls 


962 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


who  had  been  led  astray  from  the  paths 
of  virtue.  No  one  took  up  the  refrain 
about  this  bread,  supposed  to  be  eaten 
with  tears,  except  old  Touchard  and  the 
two  servants.  Anna  had  grown  deadly 
pale  and  cast  down  her  eyes,  while  the 
bridegroom  looked  from  one  to  the  other 
without  understanding  the  reason  for  this 
sudden  coldness,  and  the  cook  hastily 
dropped  the  crust  as  if  it  were  poisoned. 

M.  Sauvetanin  said  solemnly,  in  order 
to  save  the  situation :  "That  last  couplet 
is  not  at  all  necessary";  and  Daddy 
Taille,  who  had  got  red  up  to  his  ears, 
looked  round  the  table  fiercely. 

Then  Anna,  with  her  eyes  swimming 
•"  tears,  told  the  servants,  in  the  falter- 


ing voice  of  a  woman  trying  to  stifle  hei 
sobs,  to  bring  the  champagne. 

All  the  guests  were  suddenly  seized 
with  exuberant  joy,  and  their  faces  be- 
came radiant  again.  And  when  old  Tou« 
chard,  who  had  seen,  felt,  and  under- 
stood nothing  of  what  was  going  on,  and, 
pointing  to  the  guests  so  as  to  emphasize 
his  words,  sang  the  last  words  of  the 
refrain:  "Children,  I  warn  you  all  to 
eat  not  of  that  bread,"  the  whole  com- 
pany, when  they  saw  the  champagne 
bottles  with  their  necks  covered  with 
gold  foil  appear,  burst  out  singing,  as  if 
electrified  by  the  sight: 

"Children,  I  warn  you  all  to  eat  not 
of  that  bread," 


My  Tiventy-five  Days 


I  K>J3  ju3t  taken  possession  of  my 
room  in  the  hotel,  a  narrow  apartment 
between  two  papered  partitions,  so  that 
1  could  hear  all  the  sounds  made  by  my 
neighbors.  I  was  beginning  to  arrange 
in  the  glass  cupboard  my  clothes  and  my 
lir.en,  when  I  opened  the  drawer  which 
was  in  the  middle  of  this  piece  of  fur- 
niture, I  immediately  noticed  a  manu- 
script of  lolled  paper.  Having  unrolled 
it,  I  spread  it  open  before  me,  and  read 
this  title: 

"My  Twenty-five  Days." 

It  was  the  diary  of  a  bather,  of  the 
I?y<;  occupant  of  my  room,  and  had  been 
kft  behind  there  in  forgetfulness  at  the 
bour  of  departure. 

These  notes  may  be  of  some  interest 

tO  sensible   and   healthy   persons   who 

ever  leave  their  own  homes.    It  is  for 


their  benefit  that  I  here  transcribe  therr: 
without  altering  a  letter. 

"Chatel-Guyon,  July  15. 
"At  the  first  glance,  it  is  not  gay,  this 
country.  So,  I  am  going  to  spend 
twenty-five  days  here  to  have  my  liver 
and  my  stomach  treated,  and  to  get 
rid  of  flesh.  The  twenty-five  days  of  a 
bather  are  very  like  the  twenty-eight 
days  of  a  reserviste;  they  are  all  de- 
voted to  fatigue-duty,  severe  fatigue- 
duty.  To-day,  nothing  as  yet;  I  am 
installed;  I  have  made  the  acquain- 
tance of  locality  and  the  doctors. 
Chatel-Guyon  is  composed  of  a  stream 
in  which  flows  yellow  water,  in  the 
midst  of  several  mountain-peaks,  where 
are  erected  a  Casino,  houses,  and  stone- 
crosses.  At  the  side  of  the  stream,  in 
the  depths  of  the  valley,  may  be  seen  a 
square  building  surrounded  by  a  little 


MY  TWENTY-FIVE  DAYS 


963 


garden:  this  is  the  establishment  of  the 
baths.  Sad  people  wander  around  this 
building — the  invalids.  A  great  silence 
reigns  in  these  walks  shaded  by  trees, 
this  is  not  a  pleasure-station  but  a  true 
health-station:  you  take  care  of  your 
health  here  through  conviction,  but  you 
cannot  get  cured,  it  seems. 

'"'Competent  people  declare  that  the 
mineral  springs  perform  true  miracles 
here.  However,  no  votive  offering  is 
hung  around  the  cashier's  office. 

"From  time  to  time,  i.  gentleman  or 
a  lady  comes  over  to  a  kiosk  with  a  slate 
roof,  which  shelters  a  woman  of  smiling 
and  gentle  aspect  and  a  spring  boiling 
in  a  basin  of  cement.  Not  a  word  is 
exchanged  between  the  invalid  and  the 
female  custodian  of  the  healing  water. 
She  hands  to  the  newcomer  a  little  glass 
in  which  air-bubbles  quiver  in  the  trans- 
parent liquid.  The  other  drinks  and 
goes  off  with  a  grave  step  in  order  to 
resume  his  interrupted  walk  under  the 
trees. 

"No  noise  in  the  little  park,  no  breath 
of  air  in  the  leaves,  no  voice  breaks 
through  this  silence.  Inscribed  over  the 
entrance  to  this  district  should  be :  'Here 
you  no  longer  laugh;  you  nurse  yourself.* 

"The  people  who  chat  resemble  mutes 
who  open  their  mouths  in  order  to 
simulate  sounds,  so  much  are  they 
afraid  of  letting  their  voices  escape. 

"In  the  hotel,  the  same  silence.  It 
is  a  big  hotel  where  you  dine  solemnly 
with  people  of  good  position,  who  have 
nothing  to  say  to  each  other.  Their 
manners  bespeak  good-breeding  and  their 
faces  reflect  the  conviction  of  a  supe- 
riority of  which  it  would  be  difficult  to 
giv'e  actual  proof. 

**At  two  o'clock.  I  make  my  way  up 


to  the  Casino,  a  little  wooden  hut 
perched  on  a  hillock  to  which  one  cUmbs 
by  paths  frequented  by  goats.  But  the 
view  from  that  height  is  admirable. 
Chatel-Guyon  is  situated  in  a  very  nar- 
row valley,  exactly  between  the  plain 
and  the  mountains.  At  the  left  I  see 
the  first  great  waves  of  the  mountains 
of  Auvergne  covered  with  woods,  ex- 
hibiting here  and  there  big  gray  spotS; 
their  hard  lava-bones,  for  we  are  at  the 
foot  of  the  extinct  volcanoes.  At  the 
right,  through  the  narrow  slope  of  the 
valley,  I  discover  a  plain  infinite  as  the 
sea,  steeped  in  a  bluish  fog  which  lets 
one  only  dimly  discern  the  villages,  the 
towns,  the  yellow  fields  of  ripe  corn,  and 
the  green  square  of  meadow-land 
shaded  with  appletrees.  It  is  the  Li- 
magne,  immense  and  flat,  always  en- 
veloped in  a  light  veil  of  vapor. 

"The  night  has  come.  And  now,  aftei 
having  dined  alone,  I  write  these  lines 
beside  my  open  window.  I  hear,  over 
there,  in  front  of  me,  the  little  orchestra 
of  the  Casino,  which  plays  airs  just  as  a 
wild  bird  sings  all  alone  in  ^he  desert. 

"From  time  to  time  a  dog  barks.  This 
great  calm  does  me  good.     Good  night. 

'Vw/y  16.  Nothing.  I  have  taken  a 
bath,  or  rather  a  douche.  I  have  swal- 
lowed three  glasses  of  water  and  I  have 
walked  in  the  pathways  of  the  park  for 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  between  each  glass, 
then  half-an-hour  after  the  last.  I  have 
begun  my  twenty-five  days. 

"July  17.  Remarked  two  mysterious 
pretty  women  who  are  taking  their 
baths  and   their  meals  after   everyone 

else. 

"My  18.     Nothing. 

"July  19.  Saw  the  two  pretty  wo« 
men    again.      They   have    style    and   a 


■•t»"f 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


little  indescribable  air  which  I  like  very 
much. 

"July  20.  Long  walk  in  a  charming 
wooded  valley  as  far  as  the  Hermitage 
of  Sans-Souci.  This  country  is  delight- 
ful though  sad;  it  is  so  calm,  so  sweet, 
so  green.  Along  the  mountain-roads  you 
meet  the  long  wagons  loaded  with  hay 
drawn  by  two  cows  at  a  slow  pace  or 
held  back  in  descending  the  slopes  by 
their  straining  heads,  which  are  tied  to- 
gether. A  man  with  a  big  black  hat  on 
his  head  is  driving  them  with  a  slight 
switch,  tipping  them  on  the  side  or  on 
the  forehead;  and  often  with  an  ample 
gesture,  a  gesture  energetic  and  grave, 
he  suddenly  draws  them  up  when  the 
excessive  load  hastens  their  journey 
down  the  rougher  descents. 

"The  air  is  good  in  these  valleys. 
And,  if  it  is  very  warm,  the  dust  bears 
with  it  a  light  odor  of  vanilla  and  of  the 
stable,  for  so  many  cows  pass  over  these 
routes  that  they  leave  a  little  scent 
ever3rwhere.  And  the  odor  is  a"  perfume, 
whereas  it  would  be  a  stench  if  it  came 
from  other  animals. 

"July  21.  Excursion  to  the  valley  of 
the  Enval.  It  is  a  narrow  gorge  in- 
closed in  superb  rocks  at  the  very  foot 
of  the  mountain.  A  stream  flows 
through  the  space  between  the  heaped- 
up  bowlders. 

*'As  I  reached  the  bottom  of  this 
ravine,  I  heard  women's  voices,  and  I 
soon  perceived  the  two  mysterious  ladies 
of  my  hotel,  who  were  chatting  seated 
on  a  stone. 

"The  occasion  appeared  to  me  a  good 
one,  and  without  hesitation  I  presented 
myself.  My  overtures  were  received 
without  embarrassment.  We  walked 
^rV  together  to  the  hotel.     And  we 


talked  about  Paris.  They  knew,  il 
seemed,  many  people  whom  I  knew  too. 
Who  can  they  be? 

"I  shall  see  them  to-morrow.  There 
is  nothing  more  amusing  than  such 
meetings  as  this. 

"July  22.  Day  almost  entirely 
passed  with  the  two  unknown  ladies. 
They  are  very  pretty,  by  Jove,  one  a 
brunette  and  the  other  a  blonde.  They 
say  they  are  widows.    Hum ! 

'*I  offered  to  accompany  them  in  a 
visit  to  Royat  to-morrow,  and  they  ac- 
cepted my  offer. 

"Chatel-Guyon  is  less  sad  than  I 
thought  on  my  arrival. 

"July  23.  Day  spent  at  Royat.  Royat 
is  a  little  cluster  of  hotels  at  the  bottom 
of  a  valley,  at  the  gate  of  Clermont- 
Ferrand.  A  great  deal  of  society  there. 
A  great  park  full  of  movement.  Superb 
view  of  the  Puy-de-D6me,  seen  at  the 
end  of  a  perspective  of  vales. 

"I  am  greatly  occupied  with  my  fair 
companions,  which  is  flattering  to  myself. 
The  man  who  escorts  a  pretty  woman 
always  believes  himself  crowned  with  an 
aureole,— with  much  more  reason, 
therefore,  the  man  who  goes  along  with 
one  on  each  side  of  him.  Nothing  is  so 
pleasant  as  to  dine  in  a  restaurant  well 
frequented,  with  a  female  companion  at 
whom  everybody  stares,  and  besides 
there  is  nothing  better  calculated  to  set 
a  man  up  in  the  estimation  of  his 
neighbors. 

"To  go  to  the  Bois  in  a  trap  drawn  by 
a  sorry  nag,  or  to  go  out  into  the  boule- 
vard escorted  by  a  plain  woman,  are  the 
two  most  humiliating  accidents  which 
could  strike  a  delicate  heart  preoccupied 
with  the  opinions  of  others.  Of  all 
luxuries  woman  is  the  rarest  and  the 


MY  TWENTY-FIVE  DAYS 


965 


-nosL  distinguished;  she  is  the  one  that 
costs  most,  and  which  we  desire  most; 
i.ie  is,  therefore,  the  one  that  we  like 
Dest  to  exhibit  under  the  jealous  eyes  of 
the  public. 

"To  show  the  world  a  pretty  woman 
leaning  on  your  arm  is  to  excite,  all  at 
once,  every  kind  of  jealousy.  It  is  as 
much  as  to  say:  Look  here!  I  am  rich, 
since  I  possess  this  rare  and  costly  ob- 
ject; I  have  taste,  since  I  have  known 
how  to  discover  this  pearl;  perhaps  even 
I  am  loved,  unless  I  am  deceived  by  her, 
which  would  still  prove  that  others,  too, 
consider  her  charming. 

"But  what  a  disgraceful  thing  it  is  to 
bring  an  ugly  woman  with  you  through 
the  city!  And  how  many  humiliating 
things  this  gives  people  to  understand! 

"In  the  first  place,  they  assume  she 
must  be  your  wife,  for  how  could  it  be 
supposed  that  you  would  have  an  unat- 
tractive mistress?  A  real  wife  might  be 
ungraceful;  but  then  her  ugliness  sug- 
gests a  thousand  things  disagreeable  to 
you.  One  supposes  you  must  be  a 
notary  or  a  magistrate,  as  those  two  pro- 
fessions have  a  monopoly  of  grotesque 
and  well-dowered  spouses.  Now,  is  this 
not  painful  for  a  man?  And  then  it 
seems  to  proclaim  to  the  public  that  you 
have  the  odious  courage,  and  are  even 
under  a  legal  obligation,  to  caress  that 
ridiculous  face  and  that  ill-shaped  body, 
and  that  you  will,  without  doubt,  be 
shameless  enough  to  make  :l  mother  of 
this  by  no  mes-ns  desirable  being, — 
which  is  the  ver>'  beight  of  ridicule. 

"July  24.  I  never  leave  the  side  of 
the  two  unknown  widows,  whom  I  am 
beginning  to  know  well.  This  country  is 
delightful    and    our   hotel    is    excellent. 


Good  season.     The  treatment  has  done 
me  an  immense  amount  of  good. 

*^July  25.  Drive  in  a  landau  to  the 
lake  of  Tazenat.  An  exquisite  and  un- 
expected party,  decided  on  at  lunch. 
Abrupt  departure  after  getting  up  from 
the  table.  After  a  long  journey  through 
the  mountains,  we  suddenly  perceived  an 
admirable  little  lake,  quite  round,  quite 
blue,  clear  as  glass,  and  situated  at  the 
bottom  of  a  dead  crater.  One  edge  of 
this  immense  basin  is  barren,  the  othei 
is  wooded.  In  the  midst  of  the  trees 
is  a  small  house,  where  sleeps  a  good- 
natured,  intellectual  man,  a  sage  who 
passes  his  days  in  this  Virgilian  region. 
He  opens  his  dwelling  for  us.  An  idea 
comes  into  my  head.  I  exclaim 
'Suppose  we  bathe?' 

"  'Yes,'  they  said,  'but — costumes?' 
"'Bah!  we  are  in  the  desert.' 

"And  we  did  bathe ! 

"If  I  were  a  poet,  how  I  would  de- 
scribe this  unforgettable  vision  of  bodies 
young  and  naked  in  the  transparency  of 
the  water!  The  sloping  high  sides  shut 
in  the  lake,  motionless,  glittering,  and 
round,  like  a  piece  of  silver;  the  sun 
pours  into  it  its  warm  light  in  a  flood; 
and  along  the  rocks  the  fair  flesh  slips 
into  the  almost  invisible  wave  in  which 
the  swimmers  seemed  suspended.  On 
the  sand  at  the  bottom  of  the  lake  we 
saw  the  shado.vs  of  the  light  movements 
passing  and  repassing! 

"July  26.  Some  persons  seemed  to 
look  with  shocked  and  disapproving  eyes 
at  my  rapid  intimacy  with  the  two  fair 
widows!  Persons  sc  constituted  im- 
agine that  life  is  made  for  worrying  one- 
self. Everything  that  appears  to  be 
amusing  becomes  immediately  a  breach 
of  good-breeding  or  morality,    ^^or  them 


966 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


duty   has    inflexible    and    mortally   sad 
rules. 

'1  would  draw  their  attention  with 
all  respect  to  the  fact  that  duty  is  not 
the  same  for  Mormons,  Arabs,  Zulus, 
Turks,  Englishmen,  and  Frenchmen;  and 
that  one  will  find  very  virtuous  people 
among  all  those  nations.  /,s  for  me,  I 
take  a  little  off  each  people's  notion  of 
duty,  and  of  the  whole  I  make  a  result 
comparable  to  the  morality  of  holy  King 
Solomon. 

"July  27.  Good  news.  I  havt  grown 
620  grams  thinner.  Excellent,  this  water 
of  Chatel-Guyon !  I  am  bringing'  the 
widows  to  dine  at  Riom.  Sad  town! 
Its  anagram  constitutes  an  offense  in 
the  vicinity  of  healing  springs:  Riom, 
Mori. 

'7w/y  28.  Hoity-toity!  My  two  wid- 
o-ws  have  been  visited  by  two  gentle- 
men who  came  to  look  for  them.  Two 
widows,  without  doubt.  They  are  leav- 
ing this  evening.  They  have  written  to 
CQC  on  lanty  note-paper. 

"July  29.  Alone!  Long  excursion  on 
foot  to  the  extinct  crater  of  Nackere. 
Splendid  view. 

"July  30.  Nothing.  I  am  taking  the 
treatment. 

"July  31.  Ditto.  Ditto.  This  pretty 
country  is  full  of  polluted  streams.  I 
am  drawing  the  notice  of  the  munici- 
pality to  the  abominable  sink  which  poi- 
sons the  road  in  front  of  the  hotel.  All 
the  remains  of  the  kitchen  of  the  estab- 
lishment are  thrown  into  it.  This  is  a 
good  way  to  breed  cholera. 

"August  1.    Nothing.    The  treatment. 

"August  2.  Admirable  walk  to 
Chateauneuf ,  a  station  for  rheumatic  pa- 
rents where  everybody  is  lame.  NotMng 


can  be  queerer  than  this  population  of 
cripples ! 

"August  3.     Nothing.    The  treatment. 

"August  4.     Ditto.  Ditto. 

"August  5.    Ditto.    Ditto. 

"August  6.  Despair!  I  have  just 
weighed  mysell.  I  have  got  fatter  by 
310  grams.    Bul  what  then? 

"August  7.  66  kilometers  in  a  car- 
riage in  the  mountain.  I  will  not  men- 
tion the  name  of  the  country-  through 
respect  for  its  women. 

'This  excursion  had  been  pointed  out 
to  me  as  a  beautiful  one,  and  one  that 
was  rarely  made.  After  four  hours  on 
the  road  I  arrived  at  a  rather  pretty 
village,  on  the  border  of  a  river  in  the 
midst  of  an  admirable  wood  of  walnut- 
trees.  I  had  not  yet  seen  a  forest  of 
walnut-trees  of  such  dimensions  in  Au- 
vergne.  It  constitutes,  moreover,  all  the 
wealth  of  the  district,  for  it  is  planted 
on  the  common.  This  common  was  for- 
merly only  a  hillside  covered  with  brush- 
wood. The  authorities  had  tried  in  vain 
to  get  it  cultivated.  It  was  scarcely 
enough  to  feed  a  few  sheep. 

"To-day  it  is  a  superb  wood,  thanks  to 
the  women,  and  it  has  a  curious  name: 
it  is  called — 'the  Sins  of  the  Cure.' 

"Now  it  is  right  to  say  that  the  wo- 
men of  the  mountain  district  have  the 
reputation  of  being  hght,  lighter  than  in 
the  plain.  A  bachelor  who  meets  them 
owes  them  at  least  a  kiss ;  and  if  he  does 
not  take  more,  he  is  only  a  blockhead. 
If  we  think  rightly  on  it,  this  way  of 
looking  at  the  matter  is  the  only  one 
that  is  logical  and  reasonable.  As  wo- 
man, whether  she  be  of  the  town  or  the 
country,  has  for  her  natural  mission  to 
please  man,  man  should  always  prove 
that  she  pleases  him.  If  he  abs^tains  from 


A  LUCKY  BURGLAR 


967 


every  sort  of  demonstration,  this  means 
that  he  has  found  her  ugly ;  it  is  almost 
an  insult  to  her.  If  I  were  a  woman,  I 
would  not  receive  a  second  time  a  man 
who  failed  to  show  me  respect  at  our 
first  meeting,  for  I  would  consider  that 
he  had  failed  to  appreciate  my  beauty, 
my  charm,  and  my  feminine  qualities. 

"So  the  bachelors  of  the  village  X 

often  proved  to  the  women  of  the  dis- 
trict that  they  found  them  to  their 
taste,  and,  as  the  cure  was  unable  to 
prevent  these  demonstrations  as  gallant 
as  they  were  natural,  he  resolved  to 
utilize  them  for  the  profit  of  the  natural 
prosperity.  So  he  imposed  as  a  pen- 
ance on  every  woman  who  had  gone 
wrong  a  walnut  to  be  planted  on  the 
common.  And  every  night  lanterns  were 
seen  moving  about  like  will-o'-the-wisps 
on  the  hillock,  for  the  erring  ones 
scarcely  liked  to  perform  their  penances 
in  broad  daylight. 

"In  two  years  there  was  no  room  any 
longer  on  the  lands  belonging  to  the 
village;  and  to-day  they  calculate  that 
there  are  more  than  three  thousand  trees 


around  the  belfry  which  rings  for  the 
offices  through  their  foliage.  These  are 
'the  Sins  of  the  Cure.' 

"Since  we  have  been  seeking  for  so 
many  plans  for  rewooding  in  France,  the 
Administration  of  Forests  might  surely 
enter  into  some  arrangement  with  the 
clergy  to  employ  a  method  so  simple  as 
that  employed  by  this  humble  cure. 

"August  8.    Treatment. 

"August  9.  I  am  packing  up  my 
trunks,  and  saying  good-bye  to  the 
charming  little  district  so  calm  and  si- 
lent, to  the  green  mountain,  to  the  quiet 
valleys,  to  the  deserted  Casino  from 
which  you  can  see,  almost  veiled  by  its 
light,  bluish  mist,  the  immense  plain  of 
the  Limagne. 

"I  shall  leave  to-morrow." 

Here  the  manuscript  stopped.  I 
wish  to  add  nothing  to  it,  my  impres- 
sions of  the  country  not  having  been 
exactly  the  same  as  those  of  my  prede- 
cessor. For  I  did  not  find  the  two 
widows! 


A  Lucky  burglar 


They  were  seated  in  the  dining-room 
of  a  hotel  in  Barbizon. 

"I  tell  you,  you  will  not  believe  it." 

"Well,  tell  it  anyhow." 

"All  right,  here  goes.  But  first  I 
must  tell  you  that  my  story  is  abso- 
lutely true  in  every  respect;  even  if  it 
does  sound  improbable."  And  the  old 
artist  commenced: 

"We  had  dined  at  Soriel's  that  night. 


When  I  say  dined,  that  means  that  wt 
were  all  pretty  well  tipsy.  We  were 
three  young  madcaps.  Soriel  (poor  fel- 
low! he  is  dead  now),  Le  Poittevin,  the 
marine  painter,  and  myself.  Le  Poitte- 
vin is  dead,  also. 

"We  had  stretched  ourselves  on  the 
floor  of  the  little  room  adjoining  the 
studio  and  the  only  one  in  the  crowd 
whi^  ^as    rational    was    Le    Poittevia 


968 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSAxNT 


Soriel,  who  was  always  the  maddest,  lay 
flat  on  his  back,  with  his  feet  propped 
up  on  a  chair,  discussing  war  and  the 
uniforns  of  the  Empire,  when,  sud- 
denly, he  got  up,  took  out  of  the  big 
wardrobe  where  he  kept  his  accessories  a 
complete  hussar's  uniform  and  put  it 
on.  He  then  took  a  grenadier's  uniform 
and  told  Le  Poittevin  to  put  it  on;  but 
he  objected,  so  we  forced  him  into  it. 
It  was  so  big  for  him  that  he  was  com- 
pletely lost  in  it.  I  arrayed  myself  as  a 
cuirassier.  After  we  were  ready,  Soriel 
made  us  go  through  a  compHcated  drill. 
Then  he  exclaimed :  'As  long  as  we  are 
troopers  let  us  drink  like  troopers.' 

"The  punch-bowl  had  been  brought 
out  and  filled  for  the  second  time.  We 
were  bawling  some  old  camp  songs  at 
the  top  cf  our  voice,  when  Le  Poittevin, 
who  in  npite  of  all  the  punch  had  re- 
tained his  self-control,  held  up  his  hand 
md  said:  'Hush!  I  am  sure  I  heard 
some  one  walking  in  the  studio.' 

"  'A  burglar!'  said  Soriel,  staggering  to 
his  feet.  'Good  luck!'  And  he  began 
the  'Marseillaise': 

"  'To   arms,   citizens  1* 

"Then  he  seized  several  weapons  from 
the  wall  and  equipped  us  according  to 
our  uniforms.  I  received  a  musket  and 
a  saber.  Le  Poittevin  was  handed  an 
enormous  gun  with  a  bayonet  attached. 
Soriel,  not  finding  just  what  he  wanted, 
seized  a  pistol,  stuck  it  in  his  belt,  and 
brandishing  a  battle-axe  in  one  hand,  he 
opened  the  studio  door  cautiously.  The 
army  advanced.  Having  reached  the 
middle  of  the  room,  Soriel  said : 

"  'I  am  general.  You  [pointing  to 
me] ,  the  cuirassiers,  will  keep  the  enemy 
from  retreating — that  is,  lock  the  door. 


You  [pointing  to  Le  Poittevin],  the 
grenadiers,  will  be  my  escort.' 

"I  executed  my  orders  and  rejoined 
the  troops,  who  w^re  behind  a  large 
screen  reconnoitering.  Just  as  I  reached 
it  I  heard  a  terrible  noise.  I  rushed  up 
with  the  candle  to  investigate  the  cause 
of  it  and  this  is  what  I  saw.  Le  Poitte- 
vin was  piercing  the  dummy's  breast 
with  his  bayonet  and  Soriel  was  spHtting 
his  head  open  with  his  axe!  When  the 
mistake  had  been  discovered  the  General 
commanded:     'Be  cautious!' 

"We  had  explored  every  nook  and 
comer  of  the  studio  for  the  past  twenty 
minutes  without  success,  when  Le  Poitte- 
vin thought  he  would  look  in  the  cup- 
board. As  it  was  quite  deep  and  very 
dark,  I  advanced  with  the  candle  and 
looked  in.  I  drew  back  stupefied.  A 
man,  a  real  live  man  this  time,  stood 
there  looking  at  me!  I  quickly  recov- 
ered myself,  however,  and  locked  the 
cupboard  door.  W^e  then  retired  a  few 
paces  to  hold  a  council. 

"Opinions  were  divided.  Soriel  wanted 
to  smoke  the  burglar  out;  Le  Poittevin 
.suggested  starvation,  and  I  proposed  to 
blow  him  up  with  dynamite.  Le  Poitte- 
vin's  idea  being  finally  accepted  as  the 
best,  we  proceed  to  bring  the  punch  and 
pipes  into  the  studio,  while  Le  Poittevin 
kept  guard  wdth  his  big  gun  on  his 
shoulder,  and  settling  ourselves  in  front 
of  the  cupboard  we  drank  the  prisoner's 
health.  We  had  done  this  repeatedly, 
when  Soriel  suggested  that  we  bring  out 
the  prisoner  and  take  a  look  at  him. 

"'Hooray!'  cried  L  We  picked  up 
our  weapons  and  made  a  mad  rush  for 
the  cupboard  door.  It  was  finally 
opened,  and  Soriel,  cocking  his  pistol 
which  was  not   loaded,  rushed  in  first* 


A  LUCKY  BURGLAR 


Q69 


Le  Poittevin  and  1  followed  yelling  like 
lunatics  and,  after  a  mad  scramble  in 
the  dark,  we  at  last  brought  out  the 
burglar.  He  was  a  haggard-looking, 
white-hired  old  bandit,  with  shabby, 
ragged  clothes.  We  bound  him  hand 
and  foot  and  dropped  him  in  an  arm- 
chair.   He  said  nothing. 

''  'We  will  try  this  wretch'  said  Soriel, 
whom  the  punch  had  made  very  solemn. 
I  was  so  far  gone  that  it  seemed  to  me 
quite  a  natural  thing.  Le  Poittevin  was 
named  for  the  defense  and  I  for  the 
prosecution.  The  prisoner  was  con- 
demned to  death  by  all  except  his 
counsel. 

"  'We  will  now  execute  him,'  said 
Soriel.  'Still,  this  man  cannot  die 
without  repenting,'  he  added,  feeling 
somewhat  scrupulous.  'Let  us  send  for 
a  priest.' 

"I  objected  that  it  was  too  late,  so  he 
proposed  that  I  officiate  and  forthwith 
told  the  prisoner  to  confess  his  sins  to 
me.  The  old  man  was  terrified.  He 
wondered  what  kind  of  wretches  we 
were  and  for  the  first  time  he  spoke. 
His  voice  was  hollow  and  cracked: 

"  'Say,  you  don't  mean  it,  do  you?* 

*'Soriel  forced  him  to  his  knees,  and 
for  fear  he  had  not  been  baptized,  poured 
a  glass  of  rum  over  his  head,  saying: 
'Confess  your  sins;  your  last  hour  has 
come!' 

"'Help!  Help!'  screamed  the  old 
man  rolling  himself  on  the  floor  and 
kicking  everything  that  came  his  way. 
For  fear  he  should  wake  the  neighbors 
we  gagged  him. 

"  'Come,  let  us  end  this';  said  Soriel 
impatiently.  He  pointed  his  pistol  at 
the  old  man  and  pressed  the  trigger.  I 
followed  his  example,  but  as  neither  of 


our  guns  were  loaded  we  made  very 
little  noise.  Le  Poittevin,  who  had  been 
looking  on  said: 

"  'Have  we  really  the  right  to  kill  this 
man?' 

"  'We  have  condemned  him  to 
death!'  said  Soriel. 

"  'Yes,  but  we  have  no  right  to  shoot 
a  civilian.  Let  us  take  him  to  the 
station-house.' 

"We  agreed  with  him,  and  as  the  old 
man  could  not  walk  we  tied  him  to  a 
board,  and  Le  Poittevin  and  I  carried 
him,  while  Soriel  kept  guard  in  the  rear. 
We  arrived  at  the  station-house.  The 
chief,  who  knew  us  and  was  well  ac- 
quainted with  our  manner  of  joking, 
thought  it  was  a  great  lark  and  laugh- 
ingly refused  to  take  our  prisoner  in. 
.Soriel  nisisted,  but  the  chief  told  us  very 
sternly  to  quit  our  fooling  and  go  home 
and  be  quiet.  There  w^^s  nothing  else 
to  do  but  to  take  him  back  to  Soriel'^' 

"  'What  are  we  going  to  do  with  him?' 
I  asked. 

"  'The  poor  man  must  be  awfull> 
tired!'  said  Le  Poittevin,  sympathiz- 
ingly. 

"He  did  look  half  dead,  and  in  my 
turn  I  felt  a  sudden  pity  for  him  (the 
punch,  no  doubt),  and  I  relieved  him  of 
his  gag. 

"  'How  do  you  feel  old  man?'  1 
asked. 

"  'By  Jingo !  I  have  enough  of  this,' 
he  groaned. 

"Then  Soriel  softened.  He  unbound 
him  and  treated  him  as  a  long-lost  friend 
The  three  of  us  immediately  brewed  a 
fresh  bowl  of  punch.  As  soon  as  it  was 
ready  we  handed  a  glass  to  the  prisoner 
who  quaffed  it  without  flinching.  Toasl 
followed   toast.      Th^    old   man    could 


970 


WORKS  OF' GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


drink  more  tlian  the  three  of  us  put  to- 
gether; but  as  daylight  appeared,  he  got 
up  and  calmly  said:     'I  shall  be  obliged 
to  leave  you ;  I  must  get  home  now.' 
''We  begged  him  not  to  go,  but  he 


positively  refused  to   stay  any   longei 
We  were  awfully  sorry  and  took  him  tc 
the  door,  while   Soriel  held  the  candk 
above  his  head  saying:     'Look  out  foi 
the  last  step.'  " 


An  Odd  Feast 


It  was  in  the  winter  of — I  do  not  re- 
member what  year,  that  I  went  to  Nor- 
mandy to  visit  my  bachelor  cousin, 
Jules  de  Bannevalle,  who  lived  alone  in 
the  old  manor,  with  a  cook,  a  valet,  and 
a  keeper.  I  had  the  hunting  fever  and 
for  a  month  did  nothing  else  from  morn- 
ing until  night. 

The  castle,  an  old,  gray  building  sur- 
rounded with  pines  and  avenues  of  tall 
oak-trees,  looked  as  if  it  had  been  de- 
serted for  centuries.  The  antique  fur- 
niture and  the  portraits  of  Jules's  an- 
cestors were  the  only  inhabitants  of  the 
spacious  rooms  and  halls  now  closed. 

We  had  taken  shelter  in  the  only 
habitable  room,  an  immense  kitchen, 
which  had  been  plastered  all  over  to 
keep  the  rats  out.  The  big,  white  walls 
were  covered  with  whips,  guns,  horns, 
(itc,  and  in  the  huge  fireplace  a  brush- 
wood fire  was  burning,  throwing  strange 
lights  around  the  corners  of  the  dismal 
room.  We  would  sit  in  front  of  the  fire 
every  night,  our  hounds  stretched  in 
every  available  space  between  our  feet, 
dreaming  and  barking  in  their  sleep, 
until,  getting  drowsy,  we  would  climb  to 
our  rooms  and  slip  into  our  beds  shiv- 
ering. 

It  had  been  freezing  hard  that  day 
fend  we  were  sitting  as  usual  in  front  of 


the  fire,  watching  a  hare  and  two  par- 
tridges being  roasted  for  dinner,  and  the 
savory  smell  sharpened  our  appetites. 

"It  will  be  awfully  cold  going  to  bed 
to-night,"  said  Jules. 

"Yes,  but  there  will  be  plenty  of 
ducks  to-morrow  morning,"  I  replied  in- 
differently. 

The  servant  had  set  our  plates  at  one 
end  of  the  table  and  those  of  the  ser- 
vants at  the  other. 

"Gentlemen,  do  you  know  it  is  Christ- 
mas eve?"  she  asked. 

We  certainly  did  not ;  we  never  looked 
at  the  calendar. 

"That  accounts  for  the  bells  ringing 
all  day,"  said  Jules.  "There  is  midnight 
service  to-night." 

"Yes,  sir;  but  they  also  rang  because 
old  Fournel  is  dead." 

Foumel  was  an  old  shepherd,  well 
known  in  the  country.  He  was  nmety- 
six  years  old  and  had  never  known  a 
day's  sickness  until  a  month  ago,  when 
he  had  taken  cold  by  falling  into  a  pool 
on  a  dark  night  and  had  died  of  the 
consequences. 

"If  you  like,"  said  Jules,  "we  will  go 
and  see  these  poor  people  after  dinner." 

The  old  man's  family  consisted  of  his 
grandson,  fifty-eight  years  old  and  the 
latter's  wife,    one   year  younger.     His 


AN  ODD  FEAST 


971 


children  had  died  years  ago.  They  lived 
m  a  miserable  hut  at  the  entrance  of 
the  village. 

Perhaps  Christmas  eve  m  a  lonely 
"Castle  was  an  incentive,  at  ail  events  we 
were  very  talkative  that  night.  Our 
dinner  had  lasted  way  into  the  night  and 
long  after  the  servant  had  left  us,  we 
sat  there  smoking  pipe  after  pipe,  nar- 
rating old  experiences,  telling  of  past 
revels  and  the  surprises  of  the  morrow 
which  followed  our  adventures.  Our 
solitude  had  brought  us  closer  together 
and  we  exchanged  those  confidences 
v/hich  only  intimate  friends  can. 

"I  am  going  to  church,  sir,"  said  the 
servant,  reappearing. 

"What,  so  soon!"  exclaimed  Jules. 

*'It  lacks  only  a  quarter  of  twelve, 
sir." 

"Let  us  go  to  church  too,"  said  Jules. 
"The  midnight  service  is  very  attractive 
in  the  country." 

I  assented  and  having  wrapped  our- 
selves up  we  started  for  the  village,  it 
was  bitterly  cold,  but  a  clear,  beautiful 
night.  We  could  hear  the  peasants' 
wooden  shoes  on  the  crisp,  frozen  earth 
and  the  church  bell  ringing  in  the  dis- 
tance. The  road  was  dotted  here  and 
there  with  dancing  lights.  It  was  the 
peasants  carrying  lanterns,  lighting  the 
way  for  their  wives  and  children.  As 
we  approached  the  village,  Jules  said: 

"Here  is  where  the  Fournels  live,  let 
us  go  in." 

We  knocked  repeatedly,  but  in  vain. 
A  neighboring  peasant  informed  us  that 
they  had  gone  to  church  to  pray  for  their 
grandfather. 

"We  will  see  them  on  our  way  back," 
said  Jules. 
The  service  had  begun  when  we  en- 


tered the  church.  It  was  profusely  deco- 
rated with  small  candles,  and  to  the  left, 
in  a  small  chapel,  the  birth  of  Christ 
was  represented  by  wax  figures,  pine 
brush  forming  a  background.  The  men. 
stood  with  bowed  heads,  and  the  women, 
kneeling,  clasped  their  hands  in  deep 
devotion.  After  a  few  minutes  Jules 
said: 

"It  is  stifling  in  here,  let  us  go  out- 
side." 

We  left  the  shivering  peasants  to  their 
devotions  and  regaining  the  deserted 
road,  w^e  resumed  our  conversation.  We 
had  talked  so  long  that  the  service  was 
over  when  we  came  back  to  the  village. 
A  small  ray  of  light  filtered  through  the 
Fournels'  door. 

"They  are  w^atching  their  dead,"  said 
Jules.    "They  will  be  pleased  to  see  us.'* 

We  went  in.  The  low,  dark  room  was 
lighted  only  by  a  smoking  candle,  placed 
in  the  middle  of  the  large,  coarse  table, 
under  which  a  bread  bin  had  been  built, 
taking  up  the  whole  length  of  it.  A 
suffocating  odor  of  roasted  blood  pud' 
ding  pervaded  every  corner  of  the  room. 
Seated  face  to  face,  were  Fournel  and 
his  wife,  a  gloomy  and  brutish  expres- 
sion on  their  faces.  Between  the  two, 
a  single  plate  of  the  pudding,  tne  popu- 
lar dish  on  Christmas  eve,  out  of  which 
they  would  take  turns  in  cutting  a  piece 
off,  spread  it  on  their  bread  and  munch 
in  silence.  When  the  man's  glass  was 
empty,  the  woman  would  fill  it  out  of  an 
earthen  jar  containing  cider. 

They  asked  us  to  be  seated  and  tc 
"join  them,"  but  at  our  refusal  they 
continued  to  munch.  After  a  few  min- 
utes' silence  Jules  said : 

"Well,  Anthime,  so  your  grandfather 
is  dead!" 


Q72 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"Yes,  sir,  he  died  this  afternoon." 

The  woman  snuffed  the  candle  in  si- 
lence and  I,  for  the  want  of  something 
to  say,  added: 

"He  was  quite  old,  was  he  not?" 

"Oh,  his  time  was  up,"  she  answered; 
"he  was  no  earthly  use  here." 

An  invincible  desire  to  see  the  old 
man  took  possession  of  me  and  I  asked 
to  see  him.  The  two  peasants  suddenly 
became  agitated  and  exchanged  ques- 
tioning glances.  Jules  noticed  this  and 
insisted.  Then  the  man  with  a  sly,  sus- 
picious look,  asked: 

"What  good  would  it  do  you?" 

"No  good,"  said  Jules;  "but  why  will 
v*)u  not  let  us  see  him?" 

"I  am  willing,"  said  the  man,  shrug- 
gmg  his  shoulders,  "but  it  is  kind  of 
unhandy  just  now." 

We  conjectured  all  sorts  of  thingc. 
Neither  of  them  stirred.  They  sat  there 
with  eyes  lowered,  a  sullen  expression 
on  their  faces  seeming  to  say:  "Go 
away." 

"Come  Anthime,  take  us  to  his  room," 
said  Jules  with  authority. 

"It's  no  use,  my  good  sir,  he  isn't 
^here  any  more,"  said  the  man  resolutely. 

"Where  is  he?"  said  Jules. 

The  woman  interrupted,  saying: 

"You  see,  sii,  we  had  no  other  place 
to  put  him  so  we  put  him  in  the  bin 


until  morning."  And  having  taken  the 
top  of  the  table  off,  she  held  the  candle 
near  the  opening.  We  looked  in  and  sure 
enough,  there  he  was,  a  shriveled  gray 
mass,  his  gray  hair  matted  about  his 
face,  barefooted  and  rolled  up  in  his 
shepherd's  cloak,  sleeping  his  last  sleep 
among  crusts  of  bread  as  ancient  as  him- 
self. 

His  grandchildren  had  used  as  a  table 
the  bin  which  held  his  body! 

Jules  was  indignant,  and  pale  with 
anger,  said: 

"You  villains !  Why  did  you  not  leave 
him  in  his  bed?'* 

The  woman  burst  into  tears  and  speak- 
ing rapidly: 

"You  see,  my  good  gentlemen,  it's  just 
this  way.  We  have  but  one  bed,  and 
being  only  three  we  slept  together;  but 
since  he's  been  so  sick  we  slept  on  the 
floor.  The  floor  is  awful  hard  and  cold 
these  days,  my  good  gentlemen,  so  when 
he  died  this  afternoon  we  said  to  our- 
selves :  *As  long  as  he  is  dead  he  doesn't 
feel  anything  and  what's  the  use  of  leav- 
ing him  in  bed?  He'll  be  just  as  com- 
fortable in  the  bin.'  We  can't  sleep  with 
a  dead  man,  my  good  gentlemen! — now 
can  we?" 

Jules  was  exasperated  and  went  out 
banging  the  door,  and  I  after  him,  laugh- 
ing myself  sick. 


Sympathy 


He  was  going  up  tha  Rue  des  Martyrs 
in  a  melancholy  frame  of  mind,  and  in  a 
melancholy  frame  of  mind  she  also  was 
going  up  the  Rue  des  Martyrs.  He  was 
already   old,  nearly  sixty,  with  a  bald 


head  under  nis  seedy  tall  hat,  a  gray 
beard,  half  buried  in  a  high  shirt  collar, 
with   dull   eyes,   an   unpleasant   mouth, 
and  yellow  teeth. 
She  was  past  forty,  with  thin  hair  ove> 


SYMPATHY 


9?c- 


her  puffs,  and  with  a  false  plait;  her 
linen  was  doubtful  in  color,  and  she  had 
evidently  bought  her  unfashionable  dress 
at  a  hand-me-down  shop.  He  was  thin, 
while  she  was  chubby.  He  had  been 
handsome,  proud,  ardent,  full  of  self- 
confidence,  certain  of  his  future,  and 
seeming  to  hold  in  his  hands  all  the 
trumps  with  which  to  win  the  game  on 
the  green  table  of  Parisian  life,  while 
she  had  been  pretty,  sought  after,  fast, 
and  in  a  fair  way  to  have  horses  and 
carriages,  and  to  win  the  first  prize  on 
the  turf  of  gallantry  among  the  favorites 
of  fortune. 

At  times,  in  his  dark  moments,  he  re- 
membered the  time  when  he  had  come 
to  Paris  from  the  country,  with  a  volume 
of  poetry  and  plays  in  his  portmanteau, 
feeling  a  supreme  contempt  for  all  the 
writers  who  v/ere  then  in  vogue,  and  sure 
of  supplanting  them.  She  often,  when 
she  awoke  in  the  morning  to  another 
day's  unhappiness,  remembered  that 
happy  time  when  she  had  been  launched 
on  to  the  world,  when  she  already  saw 
that  she  was  more  sought  after  than 
Marie  G.  or  Sophie  N.  or  any  other 
woman  of  that  class,  who  had  been  her 
companions  in  vice,  and  whose  lovers  she 
had  stolen  from  them. 

He  had  had  a  splendid  start.  Not, 
indeed,  as  a  poet  and  dramatist,  as  he 
had  hoped  at  first,  but  by  a  series  of 
scandalous  stories  which  had  made  a  sen- 
sation on  the  boulevards,  so  that  after 
an  action  for  damages  and  several  duels, 
he  had  become  "our  witty  and  brilliant 
colleague  who,  etc.,  etc." 

She  had  had  her  moments  of  extraor- 
dinary good  luck,  though  she  certainly 
did  not  eclipse  Marie  P.  or  Camille  L., 
whom    men    compared    to    Zenobia    or 


Ninon  de  I'Enclos.  Still  her  fortune 
caused  her  to  be  talked  about  in  the 
newspapers,  and  brought  about  a  revolu- 
tion at  certain  tables  d'hote  in  Mont- 
martre.  But  one  fine  day,  the  news- 
paper in  which  our  brilliant  and  witty 
colleague  used  to  write  became  defunct, 
having  been  killed  by  a  much  more 
cynical  rival,  thanks  to  the  venomous 
pen  of  a  much  more  brilliant  and  witty 
colleague.  Then  the  insults  of  the  for- 
mer having  become  pure  and  simple 
mud-pelting,  his  style  soon  became  worn 
out,  to  the  disgust  of  the  public,  and  the 
celebrated  "Mr.  What's-his-name"  had 
great  difficulty  in  getting  on  to  some 
minor  paper,  where  he  wos  transformed 
into  the  obscure  penny-a-liner  "Machin." 
Now  one  evening  the  quasi-rival  of 
Marie  P.  and  Camille  L.  had  fallen  ill, 
and  consequently  into  pecuniary  diffi- 
culties, and  the  prostitute  "No-matter^ 
who"  was  now  on  the  lookout  for  a 
dinner,  and  would  have  been  only  too 
happy  to  get  it  at  some  table  d'hote  in 
Montmartre.  Machin  had  had  a  return 
of  ambition  with  regard  to  his  poetry 
and  his  dramas,  but  then,  his  verses  of 
former  days  had  lost  their  freshness,  and 
his  youthful  dramas  appeared  to  him  to 
be  childish.  He  would  have  to  write 
others,  and,  by  Jove!  he  felt  himself 
capable  of  doing  it,  for  he  had  plenty  of 
ideas  and  plans  in  his  head,  and  he  could 
easily  demolish  many  successful  writers 
if  he  chose  to  try!  But  then,  the  diffi 
culty  was,  how  to  set  about  it,  and  to 
find  the  necessary  leisure  and  time  for 
thought.  He  had  his  daily  bread  to 
gain,  and  something  besides;  his  coffee, 
his  game  of  cards  and  other  little  re- 
quirements, and  the  inces'^ant  writing 
article  upon  article   barely  sufficed  foi 


974 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


that,  and  so  days  and  years  went  by,  and 
Machin  was  Machin  still. 

She  also  longed  for  former  years,  and 
surely  it  could  not  be  so  very  hard  to 
find  a  lover  to  start  her  on  her  career 
once  more,  for  many  of  her  female 
friends,  who  were  not  nearly  so  nice  as 
she,  had  unearthed  one,  so  why  should 
not  she  be  equally  fortunate?  But 
there,  her  youth  had  gone  and  she  had 
lost  all  her  chances;  other  women  had 
their  fancy  men,  and  she  had  to  take  men 
on  every  day  at  reduced  prices,  and  so 
day  after  day  and  months  and  years 
passed,  and  the  prostitute  No-matter- 
who  had  remained  the  prostitute  No- 
matter-who. 

Often,  in  a  fit  of  despondency,  he  used 
to  say  to  himself,  thinking  of  some  one 
who  had  succeeded  in  life:  ''But,  after 
all,  I  am  cleverer  than  that  fellow." 

And  she  always  said  to  herself,  when 
she  got  up  to  her  miserable,  daily  round, 
when  she  thought  of  such  and  such  a 
woman,  who  was  now  settled  in  life: 
"In  what  respect  is  that  slut  better  than 
I  am?" 

And  Machin,  who  was  nearly  sixty, 
and  whose  head  was  bald  under  his 
shabby  tall  hat,  and  whose  gray  beard 
was  half  buried  in  a  high  shirt  collar, 
who  had  dull  eyes,  an  unpleasant  mouth, 
and  yellow  teeth,  was  mad  with  his 
fellow-men,  while  the  prostitute  No- 
matter-who,  with  thin  hair  over  her  puffs, 
and  with  false  plait,  with  linen  of  a 
doubtful  color,  and  with  her  unfashion- 
able dress,  which  she  had  evidently 
bought  at  a  hand-me-down  shop,  was 
enraged  with  society. 

Ah!  Those  miserable,  dark  hours,  and 
the  wretched  awakenings !  That  evening 
he  was  more  than  usually  wretched,  as  he 


had  just  lost  all  his  pay  for  the  next 
month,  that  miserable  stipend  which  he 
earned  so  hardly  by  almost  editing  the 
newspaper,  for  three  hundred  francs* 
a  month,  in  a  brothel. 

And  she,  too,  that  evening,  was  in  a 
state  of  semi-stupidity,  as  she  had  had 
too  many  glasses  of  beer,  which  a 
charitable  female  friend  had  given  her. 
She  was  almost  afraid  to  go  back  to  her 
room,  as  her  landlord  had  told  her  in 
the  morning  that  unless  she  paid  the 
fortnight's  back  rent  that  she  owed  at 
the  rate  of  a  franc  a  day,  he  would  turn 
her  out  of  doors  and  keep  her  things. 

This  was  the  reason  why  they  were 
both  going  up  the  Rue  des  Martyrs  in  a 
melancholy  frame  of  mind.  There  was 
scarcely  a  soul  in  the  muddy  streets;  it 
was  getting  dark  and  beginning  to  rain, 
and  the  drains  smell  horribly. 

He  passed  her,  and  in  a  mechanical 
voice  she  said:  "Will  you  not  come 
home  with,  me,  you  handsome,  dark 
man?" 

"I  have  no  money,"  he  replied. 

But  she  ran  after  him,  and  catching 
hold  of  his  arm,  she  said:  "Only  a 
franc;  that  is  nothing." 

And  he  turned  round,  looked  at  her, 
and  seeing  that  she  must  have  been 
pretty,  and  that  she  was  still  stout  (and 
he  was  fond  of  fat  women),  he  said: 
"Where  do  you  live?    Near  here?" 

"In  the  Rue  Lepic." 

"Why!     So  do  I." 

"Then  that  is  all  right,  eh?  Come 
along,  old  fellow." 

He  felt  in  his  pockets  and  pulled  out 
all  the  money  he  found  there,  which 
amounted  to  thirteen  sous,t  and  said: 


"$60. 


fThirteen  cents. 


A  TRAVELER'S  TALE 


975 


That  is  all  I  have,  upon  my  honor." 

"All  right,"  she  said;  "come  along." 

And  they  continued  their  melancholy 

walk  along  the  Rue  des  Martyrs,  side 

b"  "ide  now,  but  without  speaking,  and 


without  guessing  that  their  two  exis- 
tences harmonized  and  corresponded  with 
each  other,  and  that  by  huddling  up  to- 
gether, they  would  be  merely  accom- 
plishing the  acme  of  their  twin  destinies. 


A  Traveler's  Tale 


L 


The  car  was  full  as  we  left  Cannes. 
We  were  conversing;  everybody  was  ac- 
quainted. As  we  passed  Tarascon  some 
one  remarked :  "Here's  the  place  where 
they  assassinate  people." 

And  we  began  to  talk  of  the  mysteri- 
ous and  untraceable  murderer,  who  for 
the  last  two  years  had  taken,  from  time 
to  time,  the  life  of  a  traveler.  Every- 
one made  his  guess,  everyone  gave  his 
opinion;  the  women  shudderingiy  gazed 
at  the  dark  night  through  the  car  win- 
dows, fearing  suddenly  to  see  a  man's 
head  at  the  door.  We  all  began  telling 
frightful  stories  of  terrible  encounters, 
meetings  with  madmen  in  a  flying-ex- 
press, of  hours  passed  opposite  a  sus- 
pected individual. 

Each  man  knew  an  anecdote  to  his 
credit,  each  one  had  intimidated,  over- 
powered, and  throttled  some  evildoer  in 
most  surprising  circumstances,  with  an 
admirable  presence  of  mind  and 
audacity. 

A  physician,  who  spent  every  winter 
in  the  south,  desired,  in  his  turn,  to 
tell  an  adventure : 

"I,*'  said  he  "never  have  had  the  luck 
to  test  my  courage  in  an  affair  of  this 
kind;  but  I  knew  a  woman,  now  dead. 


one  of  my  patients,  to  whom  the  most 
singular  thing  in  the  world  happened, 
and  also  the  most  mysterious  and 
pathetic. 

"She  was  Russian,  the  Countess 
Marie  Baranow,  a  very  great  lady,  of  an 
exquisite  beauty.  You  know  how  beau- 
tiful the  Russian  women  are,  or  at  least 
how  beautiful  they  seem  to  us,  with 
their  fine  noses,  their  delicate  mouths, 
their  eyes  of  an  indescribable  color,  a 
blue  gray,  and  their  cold  grace,  a  little 
hard !  They  have  something  about  them, 
mischievous  and  seductive,  haughty  and 
sweet,  tender  and  severe,  altogether 
charming  to  a  Frenchman.  At  the  bot- 
tom, it  is,  perhaps,  the  difference  of 
race  and  of  type  which  makes  me  see 
so  much  in  them. 

"Her  physician  had  seen  for  many 
years  that  she  was  threatened  with  a 
disease  of  the  lungs,  and  had  tried  to 
persuade  her  to  come  to  the  south  of 
France;  but  she  obstinately  refused  to 
leave  St.  Petersburg.  Finally,  the  last 
autumn,  deeming  her  lost,  the  doctor 
warned  her  husband,  who  directed  his 
v.'ife  to  start  at  once  for  Mentone. 

"She  took  the  train,  alone  in  her  car, 
her  servants  occupying  another  compart- 
ment. She  sat  by  the  door,  a  little  sad, 
seeinfir  the  fields  and  villages  pass,  feel- 


976 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ing  very  lonely,  very  desolate  in  life, 
without  children,  almost  without  rela- 
tives, with  a  husband  whose  love  was 
dead  and  who  cast  her  thus  to  the  end 
of  the  world  without  coming  with  her, 
as  they  send  a  sick  valet  to  the  hospital. 

"At  each  station  her  servant  Ivan 
came  to  see  if  his  mistress  wanted  any- 
thing. He  was  an  old  domestic,  blindly 
devoted,  ready  to  accomplish  dU  the  or- 
ders which  she  should  give  him. 

"Night  fell,  and  the  train  rolled  along 
at  full  speed.  She  could  not  sleep, 
being  wearied  and  nervous. 

"Suddenly  C\e  thought  struck  her  to 
count  the  money  which  her  husband  had 
given  her  at  the  last  minute,  in  French 
gold.  She  opened  her  little  bag  and 
emptied  the  shining  flood  of  metal  on 
her  lap. 

"But  all  at  once  a  breath  of  cold  air 
struck  her  face.  Surprised,  she  raised 
her  head.  The  door  had  just  opened. 
The  Countess  Marie,  bewildered,  hastily 
threw  a  shawl  over  the  money  spread 
upon  her  lap,  and  waited.  Some  seconds 
passed,  then  a  man  in  evening  dress  ap- 
peared, bareheaded,  wounded  on  the 
hand,  and  panting.  He  closed  the  door, 
sat  down,  looked  at  his  neighbor  with 
gleaming  eyes,  and  then  wrapped  a  hand- 
kerchief around  his  wrist,  which  was 
bleeding. 

"The  young  woman  felt  herself  faint- 
ing with  fear.  This  man,  surely,  had 
seen  her  counting  her  money  and  had 
come  to  rob  and  kill  her. 

"He  kept  gazing  at  her,  breathless, 
his  features  convulsed,  doubtless  ready 
to  spring  upon  her. 

**He  suddenly  said : 

"*Mudame,   don't  be  afraid!' 

"She  made  no  response,  being  incapa- 


ble of  opening  her  mouth,  hearing  het 
heart-beats,  and  a  buzzing  in  her  ears. 

"He  continued: 

"  *I  am  not  a  malefactor,  Madame. 

"She  continued  to  be  silent,  but  by  a 
sudden  movement  which  she  made,  her 
knees  meeting,  the  gold  coins  began  to 
run  to  the  floor  as  water  runs  from  a 
spout. 

"The  man,  surprised,  looked  at  this 
stream  of  metal,  and  he  suddenly 
stooped  to  pick  it  up. 

"She,  terrified,  rose,  casting  her  whole 
fortune  on  the  carpet  and  ran  to  the 
door  to  leap  out  upon  the  track. 

"But  he  understood  what  she  was  go- 
ing to  do,  and  springing  forward,  seized 
her  in  his  arms,  seated  her  by  force,  and 
held  her  by  the  wrists. 

"  'Listen  to  me,  Madame,'  said  he,  *I 
am  not  a  malefactor;  the  proof  of  it  is 
that  I  am  going  to  gather  up  this  gold 
and  return  it  to  you.  But  I  am  a  lost 
man,  a  dead  man,  if  you  do  not  assist 
me  to  pass  the  frontier.  I  cannot  tell 
you  more.  In  an  hour  we  shall  be  at 
the  last  Russian  station;  in  an  hour 
and  twenty  minutes  we  shall  cross  the 
boundary  of  the  Empire.  If  you  do  not 
help  me  I  am  lost.  And  yet  I  have 
neither  killed  anyone,  nor  robbed,  nor 
done  anything  contrary  to  honor.  This 
I  swear  to  you.    I  cannot  tell  you  more.* 

"And  kneeling  down  he  picked  up  the 
fold,  even  hunting  under  the  seats  for 
the  last  coins,  which  had  rolled  to  a 
distance.  Then,  when  the  little  leather 
bag  was  full  again  he  gave  it  to  his 
neighbor  without  sayirg  a  word,  and 
returned  to  seat  himself  at  the  other 
corner  of  the  compartment.  Neither  of 
them  moved.  She  kept  motionless  and 
mute,  still  faint  from  terror,  but  recov- 


A  TRAVELER'S  TALE 


977 


ering  little  by  little.  As  for  him,  he  did 
not  make  a  gesture  or  a  motion,  re- 
mained sitting  erect,  his  eyes  staring  in 
front  of  him,  very  pale,  as  if  he  were 
dead.  From  time  to  time  she  threw  a 
quick  look  at  him,  and  as  quickly  turned 
her  glance  away.  He  appeared  to  be 
about  thirty  years  of  age,  and  was  very 
handsome,  with  the  mien  of  a  gentleman. 

"The  train  ran  through  the  darkness, 
giving  at  intervals  its  shrill  signals,  now 
slowing  up  in  its  progress,  and  again 
starting  off  at  full  speed.  But  presently 
its  progress  slackened,  and  after  several 
sharp  whistles  it  came  to  a  full  stop. 

"Ivan  appeared  at  the  door  for  his 
orders. 

"The  Countess  Marie,  her  voice  trem- 
bling, gave  one  last  look  at  her  com- 
panion; then  she  said  to  her  servant,  in  a 
quick  tone: 

"  Tvan,  you  will  return  to  the  Count; 
I  do  not  need  you  any  longer.' 

"The  man,  bewildered,  opened  his 
enormous  eyes.    He  stammered: 

"  'But,  my  lady—* 

"She  replied: 

"  'No,  you  will  not  come  with  me,  I 
have  changed  my  mind.  I  wish  you  to 
stay  in  Russia.  Here  is  some  money 
for  your  return  home.  Give  me  your 
cap  and  cloak.* 

"The  old  servant,  frightened,  took  off 
his  cap  and  cloak,  obeying  without  ques- 
tion, accustomed  to  the  sudden  whims 
and  caprices  of  his  masters.  And  he 
went  away,  with  tears  in  h'3  eyes. 

*The  tro'n  started  again,  rushing 
toward  the  frontier. 

"Then  the  Countess  Marie  said  to  her 
^ighbor : 

"  These  things  are  for  you,  Monsieur, 
i^^ou  are  Ivan,  mv  servant.     I  make 


only  one  condition  to  what  I  am  doing: 
that  is,  that  you  shall  not  speak  a  word 
to  me,  neither  to  thank  me,  nor  for 
anything  whatsoever.' 

"The  unknown  bowed  without  utter- 
ing a  syllable. 

"Soon  the  train  stopped  again,  and 
officers  in  uniform  visited  the  train. 

"The  Countess  handed  them  her  pa- 
pers, and  pointing  to  the  man  seated  at 
the  end  of  the  compartment  said: 

"  That  is  my  servant  Ivan,  whose 
passport  is  here." 

"The  train  again  started. 

"During  the  night  they  sat  opposite 
each  other,  both  mute. 

"When  morning  came,  as  they  stopped 
at  a  German  station,  the  unknown  got 
out;  then,  standing  at  the  door,  he  said: 

"  'Pardon  me,  Madame,  for  breaking 
my  promise,  but  as  I  have  deprived  you 
of  a  servant,  it  is  proper  that  I  should 
replace  him.  Have  you  need  of  any- 
thing?' 

"She  replied  coldly: 

"  'Go  and  find  rry  maid.* 

"He  went  to  summon  her.  Then  he 
disappeared. 

"When  she  alighted  ct  some  station 
for  luncheon  she  saw  him  at  a  distance 
looking  at  her.  They  finally  arrived  at 
Mentone." 

II. 

The  doctor  was  silent  for  a  second, 
and  then  resumed: 

"One  day,  while  I  was  receiving  pa- 
tients in  my  office,  a  tall  young  man 
entered.    He  said  to  me: 

"  'Doctor,  I  have  come  to  ask  5'OU 
news  of  the  Courtess  Marie  Baranow. 
I  am  a  friend  of  her  husband,  although 
she  does  not  know  me.* 

"I  answered: 


978 


^ORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


"  *She  is  lost.  She  will  never  return  to 
Russia.' 

"And  suddenly  this  man  began  to  sob, 
then  he  rose  and  went  out,  staggering 
like  a  drunken  man. 

"I  told  the  Countess  that  evening 
that  a  stranger  had  come  to  make  in- 
quiries about  her  health.  She  seemed 
moved,  and  told  me  the  story  which  I 
have  just  related  to  you.     She  added: 

"  'That  man,  whom  I  do  not  know  at 
all,  follows  me  now  like  my  shadow. 
I  meet  him  every  time  I  go  out. 
He  looks  at  me  in  a  strange  way,  but 
he  has  never  spoken  to  me!* 

"She  pondered  a  moment,  then  added: 

"  'Come,  I'll  wager  that  he  is  under 
the  window  now.* 

"She  left  her  reclining-chair,  went  to 
the  window  and  drew  back  the  curtain, 
and  actually  showed  me  the  man  who 
had  come  to  see  me,  seated  on  a  bench 
at  the  edge  of  the  side  wall  with  his 
eyes  raised  toward  the  house.  He  per- 
ceived us,  rose,  and  went  away  without 
once  turning  around. 

"Then  I  understood  a  sad  and  JJur- 
prising  thing,  the  mute  love  of  these  two 
beings,  who  were  not  acquainted  fdih 
each  other. 

"He  loved  her  with  the  devotion  of  a 
rescued  animal,  grateful  and  devoted  to 
the  death.  He  came  every  day  to  ask 
me,  'How  is  she?'  understanding  that  I 
had  guessed  his  feelings.  And  he  wept 
frightfully  when  he  saw  her  pt^s,  weaker 
and  paler  every  day. 

"She  said  to  me: 

"'I  have  never  spoken  but  once  to 
that  singular  man,  and  yet  it  seems  as 
if  I  nad  known  him  for  twenty  years.* 

"And  when  they  met  she  returned  his 
bow  with  a  serious  and  charming  smile. 


I  felt  that — although  she  was  given  up» 
and  knew  herself  lost— she  was  happy  to 
be  loved  thus,  with  this  respect  and 
constancy,  with  this  exaggerated  poetry, 
with  this  devotion,  ready  for  anything. 

"Nevertheless,  faithful  to  her  super- 
excited  obstinacy,  she  absolutely  refused 
to  learn  his  name,  to  speak  to  him.  She 
said: 

"  'No,  no,  that  would  spoil  this  strange 
friendship.  We  must  remain  strangers 
to  each  other.* 

"As  for  him,  he  was  certainly  a  kind 
of  Don  Quixote,  for  he  did  nothing  to 
bring  himself  closer  to  her.  He  intended 
to  keep  to  the  end  the  absurd  promise 
never  to  speak  to  her  which  he  had  made 
in  the  car. 

"Often,  during  her  long  hours  of  weak- 
ness, she  rose  from  her  reclining-chair 
and  partly  opened  the  curtain  to  see 
whether  he  were  there,  beneath  the  win- 
dow. And  when  she  had  seen  him,  ever 
motionless  upon  his  bench,  she  came 
back  to  lie  down  again  with  a  smile  upon 
her  lips. 

"She  died  one  morning  about  ten 
o'clock. 

"As  I  left  ihe  house  he  came  to  me, 
his  countenance  showing  that  he  had 
already  learned  the  news. 

"  'I  would  like  to  see  her,  for  a 
second,  in  your  presence,'  said  he. 

"I  took  him  by  the  arm  and  we  en- 
tered the  house  together. 

•'When  he  was  beside  the  bed  of  the 
dead  woman,  he  seized  her  hand  and 
gave  it  a  long  and  passionate  kiss;  then 
he  went  away  like  a  man  bereft  of  hia 
senses." 

The  doctor  again  was  silent.  Then  be 
resumed: 


LITTLi:  LO'CISE  ROQU 


rcf. 


"There  you  have,  certainly,  the  most 

singular  railroad  adventure  that  I  know. 

It  must  also  be  said  that  men  are  queer 

lunatics." 

A  woman  murmured  in  a  low  tone : 

"Those  two  people  were  less  crazy 


979 
They    were — they 


than    you     think, 
were — " 

But  she  could  speak  no  longer  because 
she  was  weeping.  As  the  conversation 
was  changed  to  calm  her,  no  one  ever 
knew  what  she  had  intended  to  say. 


Little  Louise  Roque 


Mederic  Rompel,  the  postman, 
familiarly  called  by  the  country  people 
*'Mederi,"  started  at  his  usual  hour  from 
the  posthouse  at  Rouy-le-Tors.  Having 
passed  through  the  little  town,  striding 
like  an  old  trooper,  he  cut  across  the 
meadows  of  Villaumes  in  order  to  reach 
the  bank  of  the  Brindelle,  which  led  him 
along  the  water's  edge  to  the  village  of 
Carvelin,  where  his  distribution  com- 
menced. He  traveled  quickly,  follow- 
ing the  course  of  the  narrow  river,  which 
frothed,  murmured,  and  boiled  along  its 
bed  of  grass  under  the  arching  willow- 
trees.  The  big  stones,  impeding  the 
flow  of  water,  created  around  them  a 
sort  of  aqueous  necktie  ending  in  a  knot 
of  foam.  In  some  places,  there  were 
cascades  a  foot  wide,  often  invisible, 
which  made  under  the  leaves,  under  the 
tendrils,  under  a  roof  of  verdure,  a  noise 
at  once  angry  and  gentle.  Further  on, 
the  banks  widened  out,  and  you  saw  a 
small,  placid  lake  where  trout  were 
swimming  in  the  midst  of  all  that  green 
vegetation  which  keeps  undulating  in  the 
depths  of  tranquil  streams. 

Mederic  went  on  without  a  halt,  see- 
ing nothing  and  with  only  one  thought 
in  his  mind:  *'My  first  letter  is  for  the 
Poivron  family;  then  I  have  one  for  M. 


Renardet;  so  I  must  cross  thfe  ^ood.** 

His  blue  blouse,  fastened  round  his 
waist  by  a  black  leathern  belt,  moved 
in  quick  regular  fashion  above  the  green 
hedge  of  willow-trees;  and  his  stick  of 
stout  holly  kept  time  with  the  steady 
march  of  his  feet. 

He  crossed  the  Brindelle  over  a  bridge 
formed  of  a  single  tree  thrown  length- 
wise, with  a  rope  attached  to  two  stakes 
driven  into  the  river  banks  as  its  only 
balustrade. 

The  wood,  which  belonged  to  M. 
Renardet,  the  mayor  of  Carvelin,  and 
the  largest  landowner  in  the  district, 
consisted  of  a  number  of  huge  old  trees, 
straight  as  pillars,  and  extended  for 
about  half  a  league  along  the  left  bank 
of  the  stream  which  served  as  a  bound- 
ary for  this  immense  arch  of  foliage. 
Alongside  the  water  there  were  large 
shrubs  warmed  by  the  sun:  but  under 
the  trees  you  found  nothing  but  moss, 
thick,  soft,  plastic  moss,  which  exhaled 
into  the  stagnant  air  a  light  odor  of 
loam  and  v;ithered  branches. 

Mederic  slackened  his  pace,  took  oft 
his  black  cap  trimmed  with  red  lace,  and 
wiped  his  forehead,  for  it  was  by  this 
time  hot  in  the  meadows,  though  not 
yet  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning. 


980 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


He  had  just  recovered  from  the  ef- 
fects of  the  neat,  and  had  accelerated 
his  pace  when  he  noticed  at  the  foot  of 
a  tree  a  knife,  a  child's  small  knife.  As 
he  picked  it  up,  he  discovered  a  thim- 
ble, and  then  a  needlecase,  not  far  away. 

Having  found  these  objects,  he 
thought:  "I'll  intrust  them  to  the 
mayor,"  and  resumed  this  journey.  But 
now  he  kept  his  eyes  open,  expecting  to 
find  something  else. 

All  of  a  sudden,  he  drew  up  stiffly  as 
if  he  had  run  up  against  a  wooden  bar. 
Ten  paces  in  front  of  him  on  the  moss, 
lay  stretched  on  her  back  a  little  girl, 
quite  naked.  She  was  about  twelve 
years  old.  Her  arms  were  hanging 
down,  her  legs  parted,  and  her  face  cov- 
ered with  a  handkerchief.  There  were 
little  spots  of  blood  on  her  thighs. 

Mederic  now  advanced  on  tiptoe,  as  if 
afraid  to  make  a  noise;  he  apprehended 
some  danger,  and  glanced  toward  the 
spot  uneasily. 

What  was  this?  No  doubt,  she  was 
asleep.  Then,  he  reflected  that  a  person 
does  not  go  to  sleep  thus,  naked,  at 
half  past  seven  in  the  morning  under 
cool  trees.  Then  she  must  be  dead; 
and  he  must  be  face  to  face  with  a 
crime.  At  this  thought,  a  cold  shiver 
ran  through  his  frame,  although  he  was 
an  old  soldier.  And  then  a  murder  was 
such  a  rare  thing  in  the  country — and 
above  all  the  murder  of  a  child — that 
he  could  not  believe  his  eyes.  But  she 
had  no  wound — nothing  save  these  blood 
drops  on  her  legs.  How,  then,  had  she 
been  killed? 

He  stopped  when  quite  near  her  and 
stared  at  her,  while  leaning  on  his  stick. 
Certainly,  he  knew  her,  as  he  knew  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  district;  but,  not 


being  able  to  get  a  look  at  her  face,  ht 
could  not  guess  her  name.  He  stooped 
forward  in  order  to  take  off  the  hand- 
kerchief which  covered  her  face;  then 
paused  with  outstretched  nand,  re- 
strained by  an  idea  that  occurred  to 
him. 

Had  he  the  right  to  disarrange  any^ 
thing  in  the  condition  of  the  corpse  be- 
fore the  magisterial  investigation?  He 
pictured  justice  to  himself  as  a  general 
whom  nothing  escapes,  who  attaches  as 
much  importance  to  a  lost  button  as  to 
a  stag  of  a  knife  in  the  stomach.  Per- 
haps under  this  handkerchief  evider-ce 
to  support  a  capital  charge  could  be 
found;  in  fact  if  there  were  suffici»'.nt 
proof  there  to  secure  a  conviction,  it 
might  lose  its  value  if  touched  by  an 
awkward  hand. 

Then  he  straightened  up  with  the  in- 
tention of  hastening  toward  the  mayor's 
residence,  but  again  another  tho-ight 
held  him  back.  If  the  little  girl  was 
still  alive,  by  any  chance — he  could  not 
leave  her  lying  there  in  this  way.  He 
sank  on  his  kness  very  gently,  a  yard 
away  from  her,  through  precaution,  and 
stretched  his  hand  toward  her  feet.  The 
flesh  was  icy  cold,  with  that  terrible 
coldness  which  makes  dead  flesh  fright- 
ful, and  leaves  us  no  longer  in  doubt. 
The  letter-carrier,  as  he  touched  her^ 
felt  his  heart  leap  to  his  mouth,  as  he 
said  himself  afterward,  and  his  lips  were 
parched  with  dry  saliva.  Rising  lip 
abruptly  he  rushed  off  through  the  trees 
to  M.  Renardet's  house. 

He  hurried  on  in  double-quick  time, 
with  his  stick  under  his  arm,  his  hands 
clenched,  and  his  head  thrust  forward, 
and  his  leathern  bag,  filled  with  letters 


LITTLE  LOUISE  ROQUE 


981 


and  newspapers,  flapping  regularly  at  his 
side. 

The  mayor's  residence  was  at  the  end 
cf  the  wood,  which  he  used  as  a  park, 
and  one  side  of  it  was  washed  by  a  little 
Jagoon  formed  at  this  epot  by  the  Brin- 
delle. 

It  was  a  big,  square  house  of  gray 
stone,  very  old.  It  had  stood  many  a 
siege  in  former  days,  and  at  the  end  of 
it  was  a  huge  tower,  twenty  meters  high, 
built  in  the  water.  From  the  top  of  this 
fortress  the  entire  country  around  could 
be  seen  in  olden  times.  It  was  called 
the  Fox's  Tower,  w.thout  anyone  know- 
ing exactly  why;  and  from  the  appella- 
tion, no  doubt,  had  come  the  name 
Renardet,  borne  by  the  owners  of  this 
fief,  which  had  remained  in  the  same 
family,  it  was  said,  for  more  ihan  two 
hundred  years.  For  the  Renardets 
formed  part  of  that  upper  middle  class 
which  is  all  but  noble  and  was  met  with 
so  often  in  the  provinces  before  the 
Revolution, 

The  postman  dashed  into  the  kitchen 
where  the  servants  were  taking  break- 
fast, and  exclaimed: 

"Is  the  mayor  up?  I  want  to  speak 
to  him  at  once." 

Mederic  was  recognized  as  a  man  of 
weight  and  authority,  and  it  was  soon 
understood  that  something  serious  had 
happened. 

As  soon  as  word  was  brought  to  M. 
Renardet,  he  ordered  the  postman  to  be 
sent  up  to  him.  Pale  and  out  of  breath, 
with  his  cap  in  his  hand,  Mederic  found 
the  mayor  seated  in  front  of  a  long  table 
covered  v/ith  scattered  papers. 

He  was  a  big,  tall  man,  heavy  and 
red-faced,  strong  as  an  ox,  and  greatly 
liked  in  the  district,  though  of  an  ex- 


cessively violent  disposition.  Very 
nearly  forty  years  old,  and  a  widower 
for  the  past  six  months,  he  Lved  on  his 
estate  hke  a  country  gentleman.  His 
choleric  temperament  had  often 
brought  him  into  trouble,  from  which 
the  magistrates  of  Rouy-le-Tors,  like 
indulgent  and  prudent  friends,  had  ex- 
tricated him.  Had  he  not  one  day 
thrown  the  conductor  of  the  diligence 
from  the  top  of  liis  seat  because  the 
letter  had  nearly  crushed  his  retriever, 
Micmac?  Had  he  not  broken  the  ribs 
of  a  gamekeeper,  who  had  abused  him 
for  having  passed  through  a  neighbor's 
property  with  a  gun  in  his  hand?  Had 
he  not  even  caught  by  the  collar  the 
sub-prefect,  who  stopped  in  the  village  in 
the  course  of  an  administrative  round 
described  by  M.  Renardet  as  an  elec- 
tioneering tour;  for  he  was  against  the 
government,  according  to  his  family 
tradition? 

The  mayor  asked: 

"What's  the  matter  now,  Mederic?" 

"I  have  found  a  little  girl  dead  in 
your  wood." 

Renardet  rose  up,  with  his  face  the 
color  of  brick. 

*'A  Httle  girl,  do  you  say?" 

*'Yes,  M'sieu',  a  little  girl,  quite 
naked,  on  her  back,  with  blood  on  her, 
dead — quite  dead!" 

The  mayor  gave  vent  to  an  oath: 

"By  God,  I'd  make  a  bet  'tis  litde 
Louise  Roque !  /  have  just  learned  that 
she  did  not  go  home  to  her  mother  last 
night.     Where  did  you  find  her?" 

The  postman  pointed  out  where  the 
place  was,  gave  full  details,  and  offered 
to  conduct  the  mayor  to  the  spot. 
But  Renardet  became  brusque: 
"No,    I   don't   need    you.      Send   thp- 


9S2 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


steward,  the  mayor*s  secretary,  and  the 
doctor  immediately  to  me,  and  resume 
your  rounds.  Quick,  go  quick,  and  tell 
them  to  meet  me  in  the  wood." 

The  letter-carrier,  a  man  used  to  dis- 
cipline, obeyed  and  withdrew,  angry  and 
grieved  at  not  being  able  to  be  present 
ul  the  investigation. 

The  mayor,  in  his  turn,  prepared  to 
go  out.  He  took  his  hat,  a  big  soft  hat, 
and  paused  for  a  few  seconds  on  the 
threshold  of  his  abode.  In  front  of  him 
stretched  a  wide  lawn  in  which  three 
large  patches  were  conspicuous — three 
large  beds  of  flowers  in  full  bloom,  one 
facing  the  house  and  the  others  at  either 
side  of  it.  Further  on,  rose  skyward 
the  principal  trees  in  the  wood,  while 
at  the  left,  above  the  spot  where  the 
Brindelle  widened  into  a  pool,  could  be 
seen  long  meadows,  an  entirely  flat  green 
sweep  of  country,  cut  by  dykes  and 
monster-like  willows,  twisted  drawf- 
trees,  always  cut  short,  having  on  their 
thick  squat  trunks  a  quivering  tuft  of 
branches. 

To  the  right,  behind  the  stables,  the 
outhouses,  and  the  buildings  connected 
with  the  property,  might  be  seen  the 
village,  which  was  prosperous,  being 
mainly  inhabited  by  raisers  of  oxen. 

Renardet  slowly  descended  the  steps 
in  front  of  his  house,  and,  turning  to 
the  left,  gained  the  water's  edge,  which 
he  followed  at  a  slow  pace,  his  hands 
behind  his  back.  He  went  on,  with  bent 
head,  and  from  time  to  time  he  glanced 
round  in  search  of  the  persons  for 
whom  he  had  sent 

When  he  stood  beneath  the  trees,  he 
stopped,  took  off  his  hat,  and  wiped  his 
forehead  as  Mederic  had  done;  for  the 
burning  sun  was  shedding  its  fiery  rain 


upon  the  ground.  Then  the  mayor  re- 
sumed his  journey,  stopped  once  more, 
and  retraced  his  steps.  Suddenly  stoop- 
ing down,  he  stepped  his  handkerchief 
in  the  stream  that  glided  at  his  feet 
and  stretched  it  round  his  head,  under 
his  hat.  Drops  of  water  flowed  along  his 
temples,  over  his  purple  ears,  over  his 
strong  red  neck,  and  trickled  one  after 
the  other,  under  his  white  shirt-collar. 

Az  yet  nobody  had  appeared;  he  be- 
gan tapping  with  his  foot,  then  he  called 
out:     "Hallo!  Hallo!" 

A  voice  at  his  right  answered: 
*'Hallo!  Hallo!"  and  the  doctor  ap- 
peared under  the  trees.  He  was  a  thin 
little  man,  an  ex-military  surgeon,  who 
passed  in  the  neighborhood  for  a  very 
skillful  practitioner.  He  limped,  hav- 
ing been  wounded  while  in  the  service, 
and  had  to  use  a  stick  to  assist  him  in 
walking. 

Next  came  the  steward  and  the 
mayor's  secretary,  who,  having  been  sent 
for  at  the  same  time,  arrived  together. 
They  seemed  scared,  as  they  hurried 
forward,  out  of  breath,  walking  and  trot- 
ting in  turn  in  order  to  hasten,  and  mov- 
ing their  arms  up  and  down  so  vigorously 
that  they  seemed  to  do  more  work  with 
them  than  with  their  legs. 

Renardet  said  to  the  doctor: 

"You  know  what  the  trouble  is 
about?" 

"Yes,  a  child  found  dead  in  the  wood 
by  Mederic." 

"That's    quite    correct.      Come    on." 

They  walked  on  side  by  side,  followed 
by  the  two  men. 

Their  steps  made  no  noise  on  the 
moss,  their  eyes  were  gazing  downward 
right  in  front  of  them. 

The    doctor   hastened   his   steps,    in- 


LITTLE  LOUISE  ROQUE 


983 


terested  by  the  discovery.  As  soon  as 
they  were  near  the  corpse,  he  bent  down 
to  examine  it  without  touching  it.  He 
had  put  on  a  pair  of  glasses,  as  you  do 
when  you  are  looking  at  some  curious 
object;  then  he  turned  round  very 
quietly  and  said,  without  rising  up: 

"Violated  and  assassinated,  as  we 
shall  prove  presently.  The  little  girl, 
moreover,  is  almost  a  w^oman — ^look  at 
her  throat." 

Her  two  breasts,  already  nearly  full- 
developed,  fell  over  her  chest,  relaxed 
by  death.  The  doctor  lightly  drew  away 
the  handkerchief  which  covered  her  face. 
It  was  almost  black,  frightful  to  look 
at,  the  tongue  protruding,  the  eyes 
bloodshot.    He  went  on: 

"Faith,  she  was  strangled  the  moment 
the  deed  was  done." 

He  felt  her  neck: 

"Strangled  with  the  hands  without 
leaving  any  special  trace,  neither  the 
mark  of  the  nails  nor  the  imprint  of 
the  fingers.  Quite  right.  It  is  little 
Louise  Roque,  sure  enough!" 

He  delicately  rephced  the  handker- 
chief : 

"There's  nothing  for  me  to  do.  She's 
\)een  dead  for  the  last  hour  at  least. 
We  must  give  notice  of  the  matter  to 
the  authorities." 

Renardet,  standing  up,  with  his  hands 
behind  his  back,  kept  staring  with  a 
stony  look  at  the  little  body  exposed  to 
view  on  the  grass.    He  murmured: 

"What  a  wretch!  We  must  find  the 
clothes." 

The  doctor  felt  the  hands,  the  arms, 
the  legs.    He  said: 

"She  must  have  been  bathing,  no 
doubt.  They  ought  to  be  at  the  water's 
edge." 


The  mayor  thereupon  gave  directions: 

"Do  you,  Princepe  [this  was  his  sec- 
retary], go  and  look  for  those  clothes 
for  me  along  the  river.  Do  you, 
Maxime  [this  was  the  steward],  hurry 
on  towards  Rouy-le-Tors,  and  bring  on 
here  to  me  the  examining  magistrate  with 
the  gendarmes.  They  must  be  here 
within  an  hour.    You  understand.'* 

The  two  men  quickly  departed,  and 
Renardet  said  to  the  doctor: 

"What  miscreant  has  been  able  to  do 
such  a  deed  in  this  part  of  the  country?" 

The  doctor  murmured: 

"Who  knows?  Everyone  is  capable 
of  that!  Everyone  in  particular  and 
nobody  in  general.  However,  it  must  be 
some  prowler,  some  workman  out  of  em- 
ployment. As  we  live  under  a  Republic, 
we  must  expect  to  meet  this  sort  of  mis- 
creant along  the  roads." 

Both  of  them  were  Bonapartists.  The 
mayor  went  on: 

"Yes,  it  could  only  be  a  stranger,  a 
passer-by,  a  vagabond  without  heart  or 
home." 

The  doctor  added  with  the  shadow  of 
a  smile  on  his  face: 

"And  without  a  wife.  Having  neither 
a  good  supper  nor  a  good  bed,  he  pro- 
cured the  rest  for  himself.  You  can't 
tell  how  many  men  there  may  be  in  the 
world  capable  of  a  crime  at  a  given 
moment.  Did  you  know  that  this  little 
girl  had  disappeared?" 

And  with  the  end  of  his  stick  he 
touched  one  after  the  other  the  stiffened 
fingers  of  the  corpse,  resting  on  them  as 
on  the  keys  of  a  piano. 

"Yes,  the  mother  came  last  night  to 
look  for  me  about  nine  o'clock,  the  child 
not  having  come  home  for  supper  up  to 


98^ 


WORKS  OF  GU\'  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ceven.  We  went  to  try  and  find  her 
^long  the  roads  up  to  midnight,  but  we 
did  noi  think  of  the  wood.  However, 
we  needed  daylight  to  carry  out  a 
search  w.'ih  a  prpctical  result." 

''Will  you  hav'e  a  cigar?"  said  the 
doctor. 

"Thanks,  I  don't  care  to  smoke.  It 
gives  me  a  turn  to  look  at  this." 

They  remained  standing  in  front  of 
the  young  girl's  body,  pale  and  still,  on 
the  dark  background  of  moss.  A  big  fly 
was  walking  along  one  of  the  thighs,  it 
stopped  at  the  blood-stains,  went  on 
again,  always  rising  higher,  ran  along 
the  side  with  his  lively,  jerky  move- 
ments, clin::bcd  up  one  of  the  breasts, 
then  came  back  again  to  explore  the 
other.  The  two  men  silently  watched 
this  wandering  black  speck.  The  doc- 
tor said: 

"How  tantalizing  it  is,  a  fly  on  the 
skin!  The  ladies  of  the  last  century 
had  good  reason  to  paste  them  on  their 
faces.    Why  hai  the  fashion  gone  out?" 

But  the  mayor  seemed  not  to  hear, 
plunged  as  he  was  in  deep  thought. 

All  of  a  sudden  he  turned  around, 
surprised  by  a  shrill  noise.  A  woman 
in  a  cap  and  a  blue  apron  rushed  up 
through  the  trees.  It  was  the  mother. 
La  Roque.  As  soon  as  she  saw  Renardet 
she  began  to  shriek: 

"My  little  girl,  w^here's  my  little 
girl?"  in  such  a  distracted  manner  that 
she  did  not  glance  down  at  the  ground. 
Suddenly,  she  saw  the  corpse,  stopped 
short,  clasped  her  hands,  and  raised  both 
her  arms  while  she  uttered  a  sharp, 
heartrending  cry — the  cry  of  a  mutilated 
animal.  Then,  she  rushed  toward  the 
body,  fell  on  her  knees,  and  snatched 
the  handkerchief  that  covered  the  face. 


When  she  saw  that  frightful  counte- 
nance, black  and  convulsed,  she  recoiled 
with  a  shudder,  then  pressed  her  face 
r.gainst  the  ground,  giving  vent  to  ter- 
rible and  continuous  choking  screams, 
her  mouth  close  to  the  thick  moss. 

Her  tall,  thin  frame,  to  which  her 
clothes  clung  tightly,  was  palpitating^ 
shaken  with  convulsions.  They  could 
£ee  her  bony  ankles  and  withered  limbs 
covered  with  thick  blue  stockings, 
shivering  horribly.  Unconsciously  she 
dug  at  the  soil  with  her  crooked  fingers 
as  if  to  make  a  grave  in  which  to  hide 
herself. 

The  doctor  pityingly  said  in  a  low 
tone: 

"Poor  old  woman!" 

Renardet  felt  a  strange  rumbling  in 
his  stomach;  then  he  gave  vent  to  a 
sort  of  loud  sneeze  that  issued  at  the 
same  time  through  nose  and  mouth; 
and,  drawing  his  handkerchief  from  his 
pocket,  began  to  weep  copiously,  cough- 
ing, sobbing  noisily,  wiping  his  face,  and 
fitammering: 

"Damm  — ■  damn  —  damned  pig  to  do 
this!  I  would  like  to  see  him  guil- 
lotined!" 

But  Princepe  reappeared,  with  his- 
hands  empty.    He  murmured: 

"I  have  found  nothing,  M'sieu',  le 
Maire,  nothing  at  all  anywhere." 

The  mayor,  scared,  replied  in  a  tliiclr 
voice,  drowned  in  tears: 

"What  is  it  you  could  not  find?" 

'The  little  girl's  clothes.'* 

"Well — well  —  look  again,  and  find- 
them — or  you'll  have  to  answer  to  me.'* 

The  man,  knowing  that  the  mayor 
would  not  brook  opposition,  set  forth 
again  with  hesitating  steps,  casting  on. 
the  corpse  horrified  and  timid  glances. 


LITTLE  LOUISE  ROQUE 


085 


Distant  voices  arose  under  the  trees, 
i  confused  sound,  the  noise  of  an  ap- 
proaching crowd;  for  Mederic  had,  in 
:he  course  of  his  rounds,  carried  the 
news  from  door  to  door.  The  people 
of  the  neighborhood,  stupefied  at  first, 
had  gone  gossiping  from  their  own  fire- 
sides into  the  street,  and  from  one  thres- 
nold  to  another.  Then  they  gathered  to- 
gether. They  talked  over,  discussed, 
and  commented  on  the  event  for  some 
minutes,  and  they  had  now  come  to  see 
it  for  themselves. 

They  arrived  in  groups,  a  little  falter- 
ing and  uneasy  through  fear  of  the  first 
impression  of  such  a  scene  on  their 
minds.  When  they  saw  the  body  they 
stopped,  not  daring  to  advance,  and 
speaking  low.  Then  they  grew  bold, 
went  on  a  few  steps,  stopped  again,  ad- 
vanced once  more,  and  soon  formed 
around  the  dead  girl,  her  mother,  the 
doctor,  and  Renardet,  a  thick  circle, 
agitated  and  noisy,  which  swayed  for- 
ward under  the  sudden  pushes  of  the 
last  comers.  And  now  they  touched  the 
corpse.  Some  of  them  even  bent  down 
to  feel  it  with  their  fingers.  The  doctor 
kept  them  b-^ck.  But  the  mayor,  waking 
abruptly  out  of  h"s  torpor,  broke  into  a 
rage,  and,  seizing  Dr.  Labarbe's  stick, 
flung  himself  on  his  townspeople,  stam- 
mering : 

"Clear  out — clear  out — you  pack  of 
brutes — clear  out!" 

And  iTi  a  second  the  crowd  of  sight- 
seers had  fallen  back  two  hundred 
metres. 

La  Roque  was  lifted  up,  turned  round, 
and  placed  in  a  s'tting  posture;  she  re- 
mained weeping  with  her  hands  clasped 
over  her  face. 

The  occurrence  was  discussed  amonj: 


the  crowd;  and  young  lads,  with  eager 
eyes,  curiously  scrutinized  the  nude 
body  of  the  girl.  Renardet  perceived 
this,  and,  abruptly  taking  off  his  vest, 
flung  it  over  the  little  girl,  who  was  en« 
tirely  lost  to  view  under  the  wide  gar- 
ment. 

The  spectators  drew  quietly  nearer. 
The  wood  was  filled  with  people,  and  a 
continuous  hum  of  voices  rose  up  under 
the  tangled  foliage  of  the  tall  trees. 

The  mayor,  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  re- 
mained standing,  with  his  stick  in  his 
hands,  in  a  fighting  attitude.  He  seemed 
exasperated  by  this  curiosity  on  the  part 
of  the  people,  and  kept  repeating: 

"If  one  of  you  comes  nearer,  Til 
break  his  head  just  as  I  would  a  dog's." 

The  peasants  were  greatly  afraid  of 
him.  They  held  back.  Dr.  Labarbe, 
who  was  smoking,  sat  down  beside  La 
Roque,  and  spoke  t^  her  in  order  to  dis- 
tract her  attention.  The  old  woman 
soon  removed  her  hands  from  her  face, 
and  replied  with  a  flood  of  tearful  words, 
pouring  forth  her  grief  in  rapid  sen- 
tences. She  told  the  whole  story  of  her 
life,  her  marriage,  the  death  of  her  man 
— a  bull-sticker,  who  had  been  gored  to 
death — the  infancy  of  her  daughter,  her 
wretched  existence  as  a  widow  without 
resources  and  with  a  child  to  support. 
She  had  only  this  one,  her  little  Louise, 
and  the  child  had  been  killed — ^killed  in 
this  wood.  All  of  a  sudden,  she  felt  anx- 
ious to  see  it  again,  and  dragging  her- 
self on  her  knees  toward  the  corpse,  she 
raised  up  one  corner  of  the  garment  that 
covered  it ;  then  she  let  it  fall  again,  and 
began  wailing  once  more.  The  crowd 
remained  silent,  eagerly  watching  the 
mother's  gestures. 

But  all  of  a  sudden  there  was  a  sway- 


986 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


ing  of  the  crowd,  and  a  cry  of  "The 
gendarmes!    The  gendarmes!" 

Two  gendarmes  appeared  in  the  dis- 
tance, coming  on  at  a  rapid  trot,  escort- 
ing their  captain  and  a  little  gentleman 
with  red  whiskers,  who  was  bobbing  up 
and  down  like  a  monkey  on  a  big  white 
mare. 

The  steward  had  found  M.  Putoin, 
the  examining  magistrate,  just  at  the 
moment  when  he  was  mounting  to  take 
his  daily  ride,  for  he  posed  as  a  good 
horseman,  to  the  great  amusement  of 
the  officers. 

He  dismounted  along  with  the  cap- 
tain, and  pressed  ths  hands  of  the 
mayor  and  the  doctor,  casting  a  ferret- 
like glance  on  the  linen  vest  which 
swelled  above  the  body  lying  underneath. 

When  he  was  thoroughly  acquainted 
with  the  facts,  he  first  gave  orders  to 
get  rid  of  the  public,  whom  the  gen- 
darmes drove  out  of  the  wood,  but 
who  soon  reappeared  in  the  meadow,  and 
formed  a  line,  a  long  line  of  excited  and 
moving  heads  all  along  the  Brindelle,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  stream. 

The  doctor  in  his  turn  gave  explana- 
tions of  which  Renardet  took  a  note  in 
his  memorandum  book.  All  the  evi- 
dence was  given,  taken  down,  and  com- 
mented on  without  leading  to  any  dis- 
covery. Maxime,  too,  came  back  with- 
out having  found  any  trace  of  the 
clothes. 

This  surprised  everybody;  no  one 
could  explain  it  on  the  theory  of  theft, 
since  these  rags  were  not  worth  twenty 
sous;   so  this  theory  was  inadmissible. 

The  examining  magistrate,  the  mayor, 
the  captain,  and  the  doctor  set  to  work 
by  searching  in  pairs,  putting  aside  the 
smallest  branches  along  the  water. 


Renardet  said  to  the  judge: 

"How  does  it  happen  that  this  wretch 
should  conceal  or  carry  away  the  clotheG, 
and  should  then  leave  the  body  exposed 
in  the  open  air  and  visible  to  everj^one?" 

The  other,  sly  and  knowing,  answered : 

"Perhaps  a  dodge.  This  crime  has 
been  committed  either  by  a  brute  or  by 
a  crafty  blackguard.  In  any  case,  we'll 
easily  succeed  in  finding  him." 

The  rolling  of  a  vehicle  made  them 
turn  their  heads.  It  was  the  deputy 
magistrate,  another  doctor,  and  the 
registrar  of  the  court  who  had  arrived 
in  their  turn.  They  resumed  their 
searches,  all  chatting  in  an  animated 
fashion. 

Renardet  said  suddenly: 

"Do  you  know  that  I  am  expecting 
you  to  lunch  with  me?" 

Everyone  smilingly  accepted  the  in- 
vitation, and  the  examining  magistrate, 
finding  that  the  case  of  little  Louise 
Roque  was  quite  enough  to  bother  about 
for  one  day,  turned  toward  the  mayor: 

*'I  can  have  the  body  brought  to  your 
house,  can  I  not?  You  have  a  room  in 
which  you  can  keep  it  fcr  me  till  this 
evening." 

The  other  got  confused,  and  stam- 
mered : 

"Yes— no— no.  To  tell  the  truth,  I 
prefer  that  it  should  not  come  into  my 
house  on  account  of— on  account  of  my 
servants  who  are  already  talking  about 
ghosts  in — ^in  my  tower,  in  the  Fox's 
Tower.  You  know — I  could  no  longer 
keep  a  single  one.  No — I  prefer  not  to 
have  it  in  my  house." 

The  magistrate  began  to  smile: 

"Good !  I  am  going  to  get  it  carrieJ 
off  at  once  to  Rouy,  for  the  legal  ex- 
amination." 


LITTLE  LOUISE  ROQU] 


987 


Turning  toward  the  doctor: 

*T  can  make  use  of  your  trap,  can  I 

ttCt?" 

"Yes,  certainly.'* 

Everybody  came  back  to  the  place 
where  the  corpse  lay.  La  Roque,  now 
seated  beside  her  daughter,  had  caught 
hold  of  her  hand,  and  was  staring  right 
before  her,  with  a  wandering  listless  eye. 

The  two  doctors  endeavored  to  lead 
her  away,  so  that  she  might  not  witness 
the  dead  girl's  removal;  but  she  un- 
derstood at  once  what  they  wanted  to 
do,  and,  flinging  herself  on  the  body,  she 
seized  it  in  both  arms.  Lying  on  top  of 
the  corpse,  she  exclaimed: 

"You  shall  not  have  it — 'tis  mine — 
'tis  mine  now.  They  have  killed  her 
for  me,  and  I  want  to  keep  her — ^you 
shall  not  have  her !" 

All  the  men,  affected  and  not  knowing 
how  to  act,  remained  standing  around 
her.  Renardet  fell  on  his  knees,  and 
said  to  her: 

"Listen,  La  Roque,  it  is  necessary — in 
order  to  find  out  who  killed  her.  With- 
out this  it  could  not  be  found  out.  We 
must  make  a  search  for  him  in  order 
to  punish  him.  When  we  have  found 
him,  we'll  give  her  up  to  you.  I  promise 
you  this." 

This  explanation  shook  the  woman's 
mind,  and  a  feeling  of  hatred  manifested 
in  her  distracted  glance. 

"So  then  they'll  take  him?" 

''Yes,  I  promise  you  that." 

"She  rose  up,  deciding  to  let  them  do 
as  they  liked;  but  when  the  captain 
remarked:  "'Tis  surprising  that  her 
clothes  cannot  be  found,"  a  new  idea, 
which  she  had  not  previously  thought 
of,  abruptly  found  an  entrance  into  her 
brain,  and  she  asked: 


"Where  are  her  clothes?  They're 
mine.  I  want  him.  Where  have  they 
been  put?" 

They  explained  to  her  that  they  had 
not  been  found,  then  she  called  out  for 
them  with  desperate  obstinacy  and  with 
repeated  moans: 

"They're  mine — ^I  want  them.  Where 
are  they?    I  want  them!" 

The  more  they  tried  to  calm  her,  the 
more  she  sobbed,  and  persisted  in  her 
demands.  She  no  longer  wanted  the 
body,  she  insisted  on  h::ving  the  clothes, 
as  much  perhaps  through  the  uncon- 
scious cupidity  of  a  wretched  being  to 
whom  a  piece  of  silver  represents  a  for* 
tune,  as  through  maternal  tenderness. 

And  when  the  little  body,  rolled  up  i^ 
blankets  which  had  been  brought  out 
from  Renardet's  house,  had  disappeared 
in  the  vehicle,  the  old  woman,  standing 
under  the  trees,  held  up  by  the  mayor 
and  the  captain,  exclaimed: 

"I  have  nothing,  nothing,  nothing  in 
the  world,  not  even  her  little  cap — her 
little  cap." 

The  cure  had  just  arrived,  a  young 
priest  already  growing  stout.  He  took 
it  on  himself  to  carry  off  La  Roque, 
and  they  went  away  together  toward  the 
village.  The  mother's  grief  was  modi- 
fied under  the  sugary  words  of  tht 
clergyman,  who  promised  her  a  thou- 
sand compensations.  But  she  incessant^ 
ly  kept  repeating:  "If  I  had  only  her 
little  cap." 

This  idea  now  dominated  every  other. 

Before  they  were  out  of  hearing 
Renardet  exclaimed: 

"You  will  lunch  with  us,  Monsicul 
I'Abbe — in  an  hour's  time?" 

The  priest  turned  his  head  round,  hod 
rephed: 


98S 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


**With  pleasure,  Monsieur  le  Maire. 
I'll  be  with  you  at  twelve." 

And  they  ail  directed  their  steps  to- 
ward the  house,  whose  gray  front  and 
large  tower,  bu'lt  on  the  edge  of  the 
Brindclle,  could  be  seen  through  the 
brand  es. 

The  meal  lasted  a  long  time.  They 
talked  about  the  crime  and  everybody 
was  of  the  same  opinion.  It  had  been 
committed  by  some  tramp  passing  there 
by  chance  while  the  little  girl  was  bath- 
ing. 

Then  the  magistrates  returned  to 
Rouy,  announcing  that  they  would  re- 
turn next  day  at  an  early  hour.  The 
doctor  and  the  cure  went  to  their  re- 
spective homes,  while  Renardet,  after  a 
long  v/alk  through  the  meadows,  re- 
turned to  the  wood,  where  he  remained 
walking  till  nightfall  with  slow  steps, 
his  hands  behind  his  back. 

He  went  to  bed  early,  and  was  still 
asleep  next  morning  when  the  examin- 
ing magistrate  entered  his  room.  He 
rubbed  his  hands  together  with  a  self- 
satisfied  air.    He  said: 

*'Ha!  ha!  Still  sleeping?  Well,  my 
dear  follow,  we  have  news  ihis  morning." 

The  mayor  sat  up  on  his  bed. 

"What  pray?" 

'*0h!  Something  strange.  You  re- 
member well  how  the  mother  yesterday 
clamored  for  some  memento  of  her 
daughter,  especially  her  little  cap?  Well, 
on  opening  her  door  this  morning,  she 
found  on  the  threshold  her  child's  two 
little  wooden  shoes.  This  proves  that 
the  crime  was  perpetrated  by  some  one 
from  the  district,  some  one  who  felt  pity 
for  her.  Besides,  the  postman  Mederic 
found  and  brought  me  the  thimble,  the 
scissors,  ahd  the  needlecase  of  the  dead 


girl.  So  then  the  man  in  carrying  ot* 
the  clothes  in  order  to  hide  them,  muse 
have  let  fall  the  articles  which  were  in 
the  pocket.  As  for  me,  I  attach  special 
importance  to  the  wooden  shoes,  as  they 
indicate  a  certain  moral  culture  and  a 
faculty  for  tenderness  on  the  part  of 
the  assassin.  We  will  therefore,  if  you 
have  no  objection,  pass  in  review  to- 
gether the  principal  inhabitants  of  your 
district." 

The  mayor  got  up.  He  rang  for  hot 
water  to  shave  with,  and  said: 

**Wilh  pleasure,  but  it  will  take  rather 
a  long  time,  so  let  us  begin  at  once." 

M.  Putoin  sat  astride  on  a  chair,  thus 
pursuing  even  in  a  room,  his  mania  for 
horsemanship.  Renardet  now  covered 
his  chin  with  a  white  lather  while  he 
looked  at  himself  in  the  glass;  then  he 
sharpened  his  razor  on  the  strop  and 
v;ent  on: 

"The  principal  inhabitant  of  Carvelin 
bears  the  name  of  Joseph  Renardet, 
mayor,  a  rich  landowner,  a  rough  man 
who  beats  guards  and  coachmen — " 

The  examining  magistrate  burst  out 
laughing : 

"That's  enough;  let  us  pass  on  to  the 
next." 

"The  second  in  importance  is  ill. 
Pelledent,  his  deputy,  a  rearer  of  oxen, 
an  equally  rich  landowner,  a  crafty 
peasant,  very  sly,  very  close-fisted  on 
every  question  of  money,  but  incapable 
in  my  opinion  of  having  perpetrated 
such  a  crime." 

M.  Putoin  said: 

"Let  us  pass  on." 

Then,  while  continuing  to  shave  and 
wash  himself,  Renardet  went  on  with 
the  moral  inspection  of  all  the  inhabi- 
tants  of   Carvelin.     After   two   hours' 


LITTLE  LOUISE  ROQUE 


989 


discussion,  their  suspicions  were  fixed  on 
thite  individuals  who  had  hitherto 
borne  a  shady  reputation — a  poacher 
named  Cavalle,  a  fisher  for  club  and 
cray-lish  named  Paquet,  and  a  bull- 
sticker  named  Clovis. 

II 

The  search  for  th^  perpetrator  of  the 
crim.e  lasted  ail  the  summer,  but  he 
was  not  discovered.  Those  who  were 
suspected  and  those  who  were  arrested 
easily  proved  their  innocence,  and  the 
authorities  were  compelled  to  abandon 
the  attempt  to  capture  the  criminal. 

But  the  murder  seemed  to  have 
moved  the  entire  country  in  a  singular 
fashion.  It  left  a  disquietude,  a  vague 
fear,  a  sensation  of  mysterious  terror, 
springing  not  merely  from  the  impossi- 
bility of  discovering  any  trace  of  the 
assassin,  but  above  all  from  that  strange 
finding  of  the  wooden  shoes  in  front  of 
La  Roque's  door  on  the  day  after  the 
crime.  The  certainty  that  the  murderer 
had  assisted  at  the  investigation  and 
that  he  was  doubtless  still  living  in  the 
village,  left  a  gloomy  impression  on 
every  mird,  and  hung  over  the  neigh- 
borhood like  a  constant  menace. 

The  wood,  besides,  had  become  a 
dreaded  spot,  a  place  to  be  avoided, 
and  supposed  to  be  haunted. 

Formerly,  the  inhabitants  used  to 
come  and  lounge  there  every  Sunday 
afternoo".  They  used  to  sit  down  on 
the  moss  at  the  foot  of  the  huge  trees, 
or  walk  along  the  water's  edge  watch- 
ing the  trout  gliding  under  the  green 
undergrowth.  The  boys  used  to  play 
bowls,  hide-and-seek,  and  other  games 
in  certain  pinces  where  they  had  up- 
turned, smoothed  out,  and  leveled  the 
•oil,  and  the  girls,  in  rows  of  four  or 


five,  used  to  trip  along  holding  in© 
another  by  the  arms,  and  screaming  out 
with  their  shrill  voices  ballads  which 
grated  on  the  ear,  disturbed  th2  tranquil 
air  with  discord  and  set  the  teeth  on 
edge  like  vinegar.  Now  nobody  ven- 
tured into  and  under  the  towering  trees, 
as  if  afraid  of  finding  there  some  corpse 
lying  on  the  ground. 

Autumn  arrived;  the  leaves  began  to 
fall.  They  fell  day  and  night  from  the 
tall  trees,  whirling  round  and  round  to 
the  ground;  and  the  sky  could  be  seen 
through  the  bare  branches  Sometimes 
when  a  gust  of  wind  s\v'ept  over  the 
tree-tops,  the  slow,  continuous  rain 
suddenly  grew  heavier,  and  became  a 
hoarsely  growling  storm,  which  drenched 
the  moss  with  thick  yellow  water  that 
made  the  ground  swampy  and  yielding. 
And  the  almost  imperceptible  murmur, 
the  floating,  ceaseless  whisper,  gentle 
and  sad,  of  this  rainfall  seemed  like  a 
low  wail,  and  the  continually  falling 
leaves,  like  tears,  big  te.:rs  shed  by  the 
tall  mournful  trees,  which  were  weeping, 
as  it  were,  day  and  night  over  the  close 
of  the  year,  over  the  ending  of  warm 
dawns  and  soft  twilights,  over  the  end- 
ing of  hot  breezes  and  bright  suns,  and 
rlso  perhaps  over  the  crime  which  they 
had  seen  committed  under  the  shade  of 
their  branches,  over  the  girl  violated  and 
killed  at  their  feet.  They  wept  in  the 
silence  of  the  desolate  empty  wood,  the 
abandoned,  dreaded  wood,  where  the 
soul,  the  childish  soul  of  the  dec^d  little 
girl  must  have  been  wandering  all  alone 

The  Brindelle,  swollen  by  the  storms, 
rushed  on  more  quickly,  yellow  and 
angry,  between  its  dry  banks,  lined  with 
thin,  bare  willow-hedges. 

Renardet  suddenlv  resumed  his  walki 


99C  WORKS  Ox    GUY  DE  MAUPASSA.N  T 

under  the  trees.    Every  day,  at  sunset,  both  arms,  then,  lifting  one  leg,  struck 

he  came  out  of  his  house,  descended  the  the  tree  hard  with  the  edge  of  a  steel 

front  steps  slowly,  and  entered  the  wood,  instrument  attached  to  each  foot.    The 

in  a  dreamy  fashion  with  his  hands  in  edge  penetrated  the  wood  and  remained 

his  pockets.    For  a  long  time  he  would  stuck  in  it;  and  the  man  ro:e  up  as  if 

pace  over  the  damp,  soft  moss,  while  a  on  a  step  in  order  to  strike  v.'ilh  the  steel 

legion  of  rooks,  rushing  to  the  spot  from  attached  to   the  other  foot,  and  then 

all  the  neighboring  haunts  in  order  to  once   more   supported   himself    till    he 

rest  in  the  tall  summits,  spread  them-  could  lift  his  first  foot  again, 

selves  through  space,  like  an  immense  With  every   upward  movement   was 

mourning  veil  floating  in  the  wind,  ut-  slipped   higher   the    rope    collar   which 

tering    violent    and    sinister    screams,  fastened  him  to  the  tree.    Over  his  loins 

Sometimes   they   v;ouId  perch   on    the  hung  and  gLttered   the    steel   hatchet, 

tangled    branches    dotting    with    black  He  kept  continually  climbing  in   easy 

spots  the   red  sky,   the  shy  crimsoned  fashion  lihe  some  parasite  attacking  a 

with  autumn  twilight.     Then,  ail  of  a  giant,  mounting  slowly  up  the  immense 

sudden,  they  would  set  off  again,  croak-  trunk,  embracing  it  and  spurring  it  in 

ing  frightfully  and  trailing  once  more  crdcr  to  decapitate  it. 

above  the  wood  the  long  darkness  of  ;vs   soon   as   he   reached   the   lowest 

their   flight.     Then  they  would   swoop  branches,  he  stopped,  detached  from  his 

down,  at  last,  on  the  highest  tree-tops,  g-j^g  ^^^  gij^rp  ax,  and  struck.     Slowly, 

and  gradually  their  tdwings  would  die  methodically,  he   chopped  at  the   limb 

away,    while    advancing   night    merged  dose  to  the  trunk.    Suddenly  the  branch 

their  black  plumes  into  the  blackness  of  cracked,  gave  way,  bent,  to-e  itself  off, 

space.  aji(j  fcU^  grazing  the  neighboring  trees 

Renardet  was  still  strolling  slowly  un-  [^  j^s  fall.     Then  it  crashed  down  on 

der  the  trees;  then,  when  the  darkness  ^v^q  ground  with  a  great  sound  of  broken 

prevented  him  from  walking  any  longer,  ^qq^,  and  it  shghter  branches  quivered 

he  went  back  to  the  house,  sank  all  of  fQj.  ^  Iq^^^  time, 

a  heap  into  his  armchair  in  front  of  the  ^j^^  ^^^^  ^^^  ^^^^^^^  ^.^^  fragments 

glowmg  hearth  and  dried  his  feet  at  the  ^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^^  ^^^  .^  ^^^:^  ^^^^^  ^^^^^ 

^^'  in  bundles,  and  plied  in  heaps,  v/hl!e  the 

Now,  one  morning,  an  important  bit  ^^^^5    which    were    still    left    standing 

of  news  was  circulated  around  the  dis-  looked    like    enormous    posts,    gigantic 

trict:  the  mayor  was  getting  his  wood  f^^^^  amputated  and  shorn  by  the  keen 

cut  down.  steel  axes  of  the  cutters. 

Twenty  woodcutters  were  already  at  When    the    lopper    had    finished    his 

work.      They   had   commenced  at   the  task,  he  left  at  the  top  of  the  straight 

corner  nearest  to  the  house,  and  they  slender  shaft  of  the  tree  the  rope  collar 

worked  rapidly  in  the  master's  presence,  which  he  had  brought  up  with  him,  de- 

At  first  the  loppers  climbed  up  the  scending  again  with  spur-like  prods  along 

trunk.    Tied  to  it  by  a  rope  collar,  they  the  d:scrov;ned  trunk,  which  the  wood- 

dmig   round   it   in   the  beginning   with  cutter?  below  attacked  at  ihe  base,  strik- 


LfriLi^  LOUISE  ROQUE 


991 


ing  it  with  heavy  blows  which  resounded 
through  all  the  rest  of  the  wood. 

When  the  base  of  the  tree  seemed 
pierced  deeply  enough,  some  men  com- 
menced dragging,  to  the  accompaniment 
of  a  signal  cry  in  which  all  joined  har- 
moniously, at  the  rope  attached  to  the 
top.  All  of  a  sudden,  the  immense 
column  cracked  and  tumbled  to  the 
earth  with  the  dull  sound  and  shock  of 
a  distant  cannon-shot.  Each  day  the 
wood  grew  thinner,  losing  its  trees  one 
by  one  as  an  army  loses  its  soldiers. 

Renardet  no  longer  walked  up  and 
down.  He  remained  from,  morning  till 
night,  contemplating,  motionless,  with 
his  hands  behind  his  back,  the  slow 
death  of  iiis  wood.  ^Vhen  a  tree  fell, 
he  placed  his  foot  on  it  as  if  it  were  a 
corpse.  Then  he  raised  his  eyes  to  the 
next  with  a  kind  of  secret,  calm  im- 
patience, as  if  he  expected  or  hoped  for 
something  at  the  end  of  this  massacre. 

Meanv/hile,  they  were  approaching  tho 
place  where  little  Louise  Roque  had 
been  found.  At  length,  they  came  to 
it — one  evening,  at  the  hour  of  twilight. 

As  it  v/as  dark,  the  sky  being  over- 
cast, the  woodcutters  wanted  to  stop 
their  work,  putting  off  till  next  day  the 
fall  of  an  enormous  beech-tree.  But 
Renardet  objected  to  this,  insisting  that 
even  at  this  late  hour  they  should  lop 
and  cut  down  this  giant,  which  had 
overshadowed  and  seen  the  crime. 

When  the  lopper  had  laid  it  bare,  had 
finished  its  toilet  for  the  guillotine,  and 
the  woodcutters  had  sapped  its  base, 
five  men  commenced  hauling  at  the  rope 
attached  to  the  top. 

The  tree  resisted;  its  powerful  trunk, 
although  cut  half-way  through,  was  as 
rigid  as  iron.    The  workmen,  altogether, 


with  a  sort  of  regular  jump,  strainetl 
at  the  rope,  stooping  down  to  the  ground, 
and  they  gave  vent  to  a  cry  with  lungs 
out  of  breath,  so  as  to  indicate  and 
direct  their  efforts. 

Two  woodcutters  stood  close  to  the 
giant,  with  axes  in  their  grip,  like  tv/o 
executioners  ready  to  strike  once  more, 
and  Renardet,  motionless,  with  his  hand 
en  the  bark,  awaited  the  fall  with  an 
measy,  nervous  feeling. 

One  of  the  men  said  to  him: 

"You're  too  near,  Monsieur  le  Maire, 
When  it  falls,  it  may  hurt  you." 

He  did  not  reply  and  did  not  recoiL 
He  seemed  ready  to  catch  the  beech- 
tree  in  his  open  arms  in  order  to  cast 
it  on  the  ground  like  a  wrestler. 

All  at  once,  at  the  foot  of  the  tall 
column  of  wood  there  was  a  shudder 
which  seemed  to  run  to  the  top,  like 
a  painful  shiver;  it  bent  slightly,  ready 
to  fall,  but  still  resisted.  The  men, 
in  a  state  of  excitement,  stiffened  their 
arms,  renewed  their  efforts  with 
greater  vigor,  and,  just  as  the  tree, 
breaking,  came  crashing  down,  Renar- 
det suddenly  made  a  forward  step,  then 
stopped,  his  shoulders  raised  to  receive 
the  irresistible  shock,  the  mortal  blow 
v.'hich  would  crush  him  to  the  eartL 

But  the  bepch-tree,  having  deviated 
a  little,  only  grazed  against  his  loins^ 
throwing  him  on  his  face  five  metres 
away. 

The  workmen  rushed  forward  to  Kft 
him  up.  He  had  already  risen  to  his 
knees,  stupefied,  with  wandering  eyes, 
and  passing  his  hand  across  his  for- 
head,  as  if  he  were  awaking  out  of  ao 
attack  of  madness. 

When  he  had  got  to  b's  feet  once 
more,  the  men,  astonished,   questioneil 


992 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANl 


him,  not  being  able  to  understand  what 
he  had  done.  He  replied,  in  faltering 
tones,  that  he  had  had  for  a  moment 
a  fit  of  abstraction,  or  rather  a  return 
to  the  days  of  his  childhood,  that  he 
imagined  he  had  to  pass  under  that 
tree,  just  as  street-boys  rush  in  front 
of  vehicles  driving  rapidly  past,  that 
he  had  played  at  danger,  that,  for  the 
past  eight  days,  he  felt  this  desire 
growing  stronger  within  him,  asking 
himself  whether,  every  time  a  tree  was 
cracking,  was  on  the  point  of  falling, 
he  could  pass  beneath  it  without  being 
touched.  It  was  a  piece  of  stupidity, 
he  confessed;  but  everyone  has  these 
moments  of  insanity,  these  temptations 
to  boyish  felly. 

He  made  th!s  explanation  in  a  slow 
tone,  searching  for  his  words  and  speak- 
ing in  a  stupefied  fashion. 

Then  he  went  off  saying: 

"Till  to-morrow,  my  friends — till  to- 
morrow." 

As  scon  as  he  had  reached  his  study, 
he  sat  down  before  his  table,  which  his 
lamp,  covered  with  a  shade,  lighted  up 
brightly,  and,  clasping  his  hands  over 
his  forehead,  began  to  cry. 

He  remained  crying  for  a  long  time, 
then  wiped  his  eyes,  raised  his  h3ad,  and 
looked  at  the  clock.  It  was  not  yet  six 
o*clock. 

*'I  have  time  before  dinner.'* 

And  he  went  to  the  door  and  locked 
It.  He  then  came  back,  and  sat  down 
before  his  table.  He  pulled  out  a 
drawer  in  the  middle  of  it,  and  taking 
from  it  a  revolver,  laid  it  down  over  his 
papers,  under  the  glare  of  the  lamp. 
[The  barrel  of  the  firearm  glittered,  and 
Jast  reflections  which  resembled  flames. 

Renardct  rrazed  at  it  for  some  time 


with  the  uneasy  glance  of  a  drunkctt 
man;  then  he  rose  and  began  to  pace 
up  and  down  the  room. 

He  walked  from  one  end  of  the  apart- 
ment to  the  other,  stopped  from  time  to 
time  and  started  to  pace  up  and  down 
again  a  moment  afterward.  Suddenly, 
he  opened  the  door  of  his  dressing- 
room,  steeped  a  towel  in  the  water-jug 
and  moistened  his  forehead,  as  he  had 
done  on  the  morning  of  the  crime. 

Then  he  began  to  walk  up  and  down 
once  more.  Each  time  he  passed  the 
table  the  gleaming  revolver  attracted 
his  glance,  and  tempted  h:s  hand;  but 
he  kept  watching  the  clock,  thinking: 

"I  have  still  time." 

It  struck  half  past  six.  Then  he  took 
up  the  revolver,  opened  his  mouth  wide 
with  a  frightful  grimace,  and  stuck  the 
barrel  into  it,  as  if  he  wanted  to  swal- 
low it.  He  remained  in  this  position  for 
some  seconds  without  moving,  his  fin- 
ger on  the  lock;  then,  suddenly,  seized 
with  a  shudder  of  horror,  he  dropped 
the  pistol  en  the  carpet,  and  fell  back 
on  his  armchair,  sobbing: 

"I  can'to  I  uare  not!  My  God! 
My  God!  My  God!  How  can  I  have 
the  courage  to  kill  myself?" 

There  was  a  knock  at  the  door.  He 
rose  up  in  a  stupefied  condition.  A 
servant  said: 

"Monsieur's  dinner  is  ready." 

He  replied:  "All  right.  I'm  going 
down." 

He  picked  up  the  revolver,  locked  it 
up  again  in  the  drawer,  then  looked  at 
himself  in  the  glass  over  the  mantel- 
piece to  see  whether  his  face  did  not 
look  too  much  troubled.  It  was  as  red 
as  usual,  a  little  redder  perhaps.    That 


1.ITTLE  LOUISE  ROQUE 


997 


was  all.     He  went  down,   and  seated 
himself  before  the  table. 

He  ate  slowly,  like  a  man  who  wants 
to  drag  on  the  meal,  who  does  not  want 
to  be  alone  with  himself. 

Then  he  smoked  several  pipes  in  the 
diring-room  while  the  plates  were  being 
removed.  After  that,  he  went  back  to 
his  room. 

As  soon  as  he  was  alone,  he  looked 
under  his  bed,  opened  all  his  cupboards, 
explored  every  corner,  rummaged 
through  all  the  furniture.  Then  he 
lighted  the  tapers  over  the  mantelpiece, 
and,  turning  round  several  times,  ran 
his  eye  all  over  the  apartment  in  an 
ftnguish  of  terror  that  made  his  face  lose 
its  color,  for  he  knew  well  that  he  was 
going  to  see  her,  as  he  did  every  night — 
little  Louise  Roque,  the  little  girl  he  had 
violated  and  afterward  strangled. 

Every  night  the  odious  vision  cam.e 
back  again.  First,  it  sounded  in  his 
cars  like  the  snorting  that  is  made  by  a 
thrashing  machine  or  the  distant  passage 
of  a  train  over  a  bridge.  Then  he  com- 
menced to  pant,  to  feel  suffocated,  and 
had  to  unbutton  his  shirt-collar  and 
loosen  his  belt.  He  moved  about  to 
make  h's  blood  circulate,  he  tried  to 
read,  he  attempted  to  sing.  It  was  in 
vain.  His  thoughts,  in  spite  cf  him- 
self, went  back  to  the  day  of  the  mur- 
der, made  him  go  through  it  again  in 
all  its  most  secret  details,  with  all  the 
violent  emotions  he  had  experienced 
from  first  to  last. 

He  had  felt  on  rising  up  that  morning, 
the  morning  of  the  horrible  day,  a  little 
vertigo  and  dizziness  which  he  attributed 
to  the  heat,  so  that  he  remained  in  his 
room  till  the  time  came  for  lunch. 

After  the  meal  he  had  taken  a  siesta, 


then,  toward  the  close  of  the  afternoon, 
he  had  gone  out  to  breatne  tne  fresh, 
soothing  breeze  under  the  trees  in  the 
wood. 

But,  as  soon  as  he  was  outside,  the 
heavy  scorching  air  of  the  plain  op- 
pressed him  more.  The  sun,  still  high 
in  the  heavens,  poured  out  on  the 
parched,  dry,  and  thirsty  soil,  floods  of 
ardent  light.  Not  a  breath  of  wind 
stirred  the  leaves.  Beasts  and  birds, 
even  the  grasshoppers,  were  silent. 
Renardct  reached  the  tall  trees,  and  be- 
gan to  walk  over  the  moss  where  the 
Brindclle  sent  forth  a  slight,  cool  vapor 
under  the  immense  roof  of  trees.  But 
he  felt  ill  at  ease  It  seemed  to  him 
that  an  unknown,  invisible  hand  was 
squeezing  his  neck,  and  he  could 
scarcely  think  rationally,  having  usually 
few  ideas  in  his  head.  For  the  last  three 
months,  only  one  thought  haunted  him, 
the  thought  of  marrying  again.  He  suf- 
fered from  living  alone,  suffered  from  it 
morally  and  physicallv.  Accustomed  for 
ten  years  past  to  feeling  a  woman  near 
him,  habituated  to  her  presence  every 
moment,  to  her  embrace  each  succes- 
sive day,  he  had  need,  an  imperious  and 
perplexing  need  of  incessant  contact 
with  her  and  the  regular  touch  of  her 
lips.  Since  Madame  Renardet's  death, 
he  had  suffered  continually  without 
knowing  why,  had  suffered  from  not 
feeling  her  dress  brush  against  his  legs 
every  day,  and,  above  all,  from  no 
longer  being  able  to  grow  calm  and 
languid  in  her  arms.  He  had  been 
scarcely  six  months  a  widower,  and  he 
had  already  been  looking  out  through 
the  district  for  some  younj  girl  or  some 
widow  he  might  marry  when  his  period 
of  mourning  was  at  an  end. 


994 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


He  had  a  chaste  souL  but  it  was 
lodged  in  a  vigorous  Herculean  body, 
and  carnal  images  began  to  disturb  his 
sleep  and  his  vigils.  He  drove  them 
away;  they  came  back  again;  and  he 
murmured  from  time  to  time,  smiling  at 
himself : 

"Here  I  am,  like  St.  Antony." 

Having  had  this  morning  several  be- 
setting visions,  the  desire  suddenly  came 
into  liis  breast  to  bathe  in  the  Brindelle 
in  order  to  refresh  himself  and  reduce 
his  feverishness. 

He  knew,  a  little  further  on,  of  a 
large  deep  spot  where  the  people  of  the 
neighborhood  came  sometimes  to  take  a 
dip  in  the  summer.    He  went  there. 

Thick  willow-trees  hid  this  clear  pool 
of  water  where  the  current  rcbi-cd  anc! 
went  to  sleep  for  a  little  while  before 
starting  on  its  way  again.  Renardet, 
as  he  appeared,  thought  he  heard  a  light 
sound,  a  faint  plash  which  was  not  that 
of  the  stream  or  the  banks.  He  softly 
put  aside  the  leavas  and  looked.  A  lit- 
tle girl,  quite  naked  in  the  transparent 
water,  was  beating  the  waves  with  both 
hands,  dancing  about  in  them  a  little, 
and  dipping  herself  with  pretty  n'ove- 
ments.  She  was  not  a  child  nor  was  she 
yet  a  woman.  She  was  plump  and  well 
formed,  yet  had  an  air  of  youthful 
precocity,  as  of  one  who  had  grown 
rapidly,  and  who  was  now  almost  ripe. 
He  no  longer  moved,  overcome  with  sur- 
prise, with  a  pang  of  desire,  holding  his 
breath  with  a  strange,  poignant  emotion. 
He  remained  there,  his  heart  beating  as 
If  one  of  his  sensual  dreams  had  just 
been  realized ;  as  if  an  impure  fairy  had 
wnjured  up  before  him  this  young  crea- 
ture, this  little  rustic  Vepus  bom  of  the 


river  foam,  who  was  making  his  hear| 
beat  faster. 

Suddenly  the  little  girl  came  out  of 
the  water,  and  without  seeing  him  came 
over  to  where  he  stood  looking  for  her 
clothes  in  order  to  dress  herself.  While 
she  was  gradually  approaching  him  with 
little  hesitating  steps,  through  fear  of 
the  sharp  pointed  stones,  he  felt  him- 
self pushed  toward  her  by  an  irresisti- 
ble force,  by  a  bestial  transport  of  pas- 
sion, which  stirred  up  all  his  carnality, 
stupefied  his  soul,  and  made  him  trem- 
ble from  head  to  foot. 

She  remained  standing  some  seconds 
behind  the  willow-tree  which  concealed 
him  from  view.  Then,  losing  his  reason 
entirely,  he  opened  the  branches,  rushed 
on  her,  and  seized  her  in  his  arms.  She 
fell,  too  scared  to  offer  any  resistance, 
too  much  terror-sticken  to  cry  out,  and 
he  possessed  her  without  understanding 
what  he  was  doing. 

He  woke  up  from  his  crime,  as  one 
wakes  out  of  a  nightmare.  The  child 
burst  out  weeping. 

He  said: 

"Hold  your  tongue!  Hold  your 
tongue!    1*11  give  you  money." 

But  she  did  not  hear  him,  she  went 
on  sobbing. 

He  went  on: 

"Come  now,  hold  your  tongue  f  Do 
hold  your  tongue.    Keep  quiet." 

She  still  kept  shrieking,  writhing  in 
the  effort  to  get  away  from  him.  He 
suddenly  realized  that  he  was  ruined, 
and  he  caught  her  by  the  neck  to  stop 
her  from  uttering  these  heartrending, 
dreadful  screams.  As  she  continued  ta 
struggle  with  the  desperate  strength  of  a 
being  who  is  flying  from  death,  h« 
pressed  his  enormous  hands  on  that  littli 


LlTTLi:  LOUISE  KUgUE 


995 


throat  swollen  with  cries.  In  a  few 
seconds  he  had  strangled  her,  so  furi- 
ously did  he  grip  her,  yet  not  intending 
to  kill  but  only  to  silence  her. 

Then  he  rose  up  overwhelmed  with 
horror. 

She  lay  before  him  with  her  face 
bleeding  and  blackened.  He  was  going 
to  rush  away  when  there  sprang  up  in 
his  agitated  soul  the  mysterious  and 
undefined  instinct  that  guides  all  beings 
in  the  hour  of  danger. 

It  was  necessary  to  throw  the  body 
into  the  water;  but  he  did  not;  another 
impulse  drove  him  toward  the  clothes, 
of  which  he  made  a  thin  parcel.  Then, 
as  he  had  a  piece  of  twine,  he  tied  it 
up  and  hid  it  in  a  deep  portion  of  the 
stream,  under  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  the 
foot  of  which  was  immersed  in  the 
Brindelle. 

Then  he  went  off  at  a  rapid  pace, 
reached  the  meadows,  took  a  wide  turn 
in  order  to  show  himself  to  peasants 
who  dwelt  some  distance  away  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  district,  and  came 
back  to  dine  at  the  usual  hour,  telling 
his  servants  all  that  was  supposed  to 
have  happened  during  his  wallc. 

He  slept,  however,  that  night — slept 
with  a  heavy,  brutish  sleep,  such  as  the 
sleep  of  persons  condemned  to  death 
must  occasionally  be.  He  opened  his 
eyes  at  the  first  glimmer  of  dawn,  and 
waited,  tortured  by  the  fear  of  having 
his  crime  discovered,  for  his  usual  wak- 
ing hour. 

Then  he  would  have  to  be  present  at 
all  the  stages  of  the  inquiry  as  to  the 
cause  of  death.  He  did  so  after  the 
fashion  of  a  somnambulist,  in  a  hallu- 
cination which  showed  him  things  and 
human  beings  in  a  sort  of  di^am,  in  a 


cloud  of  intoxication,  with  that  dubious 
sense  of  unreality  which  perplexes  the 
mind  at  times  of  the  greatest  catas- 
trophes. 

The  only  thing  that  pierced  his  heart 
was  La  Roque's  cry  of  anguish.  At  that 
moment  he  felt  incUned  to  cast  himself 
at  the  old  woman's  feet,  and  to  exclaim: 

"Tis  L" 

But  he  restrained  himself.  He  went 
back,  however,  during  the  night,  to  fish 
up  the  dead  girl's  wcod^n  shoes,  in 
order  to  carry  them  to  her  mother's 
threshold. 

As  long  as  the  inquiry  lasted,  so  long 
as  it  was  necessary  to  guide  and  aid 
justice,  he  was  calm,  master  of  himself, 
sly  and  smiling.  He  discussed  quietly 
with  the  magistrates  all  the  suppositions 
that  passed  through  their  minds,  com' 
bated  their  opinions,  and  demolished 
their  arguments.  He  even  took  a  keen 
and  mournful  pleasure  in  disturbing 
their  investigations,  in  confuting  their 
ideac,  in  showing  the  innocence  of  those 
whom  they  suspected. 

But  from  the  day  when  the  investiga- 
tion came  to  a  clcse,  he  became  gradu- 
ally nervous,  more  excitable  than  he  had 
been  before,  although  he  mastered  his 
irritability.  Sudden  noises  made  him 
jump  up  with  fear;  he  shuddered  at  the 
slightest  thing,  trembled  sometimes 
from  head  to  foot  when  a  fly  alighted 
on  his  forehead.  Then  he  was  seized 
with  an  imperious  desire  for  motion, 
which  compelled  him  to  keep  continu- 
ally on  foot,  and  made  him  remain  up 
whole  nights  walking  to  and  fro  in  his 
own  room. 

It  was  not  that  he  was  goaded  by  re^ 
morse.  His  brutal  mind  did  not  lend  it- 
self to  any  shade  of  sentiment   or  of 


996 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUFr.SSANT 


moral  terror.  A  man  of  energy  and 
even  of  violence,  born  to  make  war,  to 
ravage  couquered  countries,  and  to  mas- 
sacre the  vanquished,  full  of  the  savage 
instincts  of  the  hunter  and  the  fighter, 
he  scarcely  took  cour.t  of  human  life. 
Though  he  respected  the  Church 
through  policy,  he  believed  neither  in 
God  nor  in  the  devil,  expecting  conse- 
quently in  another  Lre  neither  chastise- 
ment nor  recompense  for  his  acts.  As 
his  sole  creed,  he  retained  a  vague 
philosophy  composed  of  all  the  ideas  of 
the  encyclopedists  of  tlie  laGt  century. 
He  regarded  religion  as  a  moral  sanction 
of  th:  h\",  bcth  one  and  the  other 
having  been  invented  by  men  to  regulate 
social  relations. 

To  kill  anyone  in  a  duel,  or  in  a  bat- 
tle, or  in  a  quarrel,  or  by  accident,  or 
for  the  sake  of  revenge,  or  even  through 
bravado,  would  have  peemed  to  him  an 
amusing  and  clever  thing,  and  would  not 
have  left  more  impression  on  his  mind 
than  a  shot  fired  at  a  hare;  but  he  had 
experienced  a  profound  emotion  at  the 
murder  of  this  child.  lie  had,  in  the 
first  place,  perpetrated  it  in  the  distrac- 
tion of  an  irresistible  gust  of  passion, 
in  a  sort  of  sensuel  tempest  that  had 
overpowered  his  reason.  And  he  had 
cherished  in  his  heart,  cherished  in  his 
flesh,  cherished  on  his  lips,  cherished 
even  to  the  very  tips  of  his  murderous 
fingers,  a  kind  of  bestial  love,  as  well 
as  a  feeling  of  horror  and  grief,  to- 
ward  this  little  girl  he  had  surprised  and 
basely  killed.  Every  moment  his 
thoughts  returned  to  that  horrible  scene, 
and,  though  he  endeavored  to  drive 
away  the  p'eture  from  his  mind,  though 
he  put  it  aside  with  terror,  with  dis- 
^st,  he  felt  it  surging  through  his  soul, 


moving  about  in  him,  waiting  incessantly 
for  the  moment  to  reappear. 

Then,  in  the  nignt,  he  was  afraid, 
afraid  of  the  shadows  falling  around 
him.  He  did  not  yet  know  why  the 
darkness  seemed  frightful  to  him;  but 
le  instinctively  feared  it,  felt  that  it 
v/as  peopled  with  terrors.  The  bright 
daylight  did  not  lend  itself  to  fears. 
Things  and  beings  were  seen  there; 
tiiere  only  natural  things  and  beings 
v/hich  could  exhibit  themselves  in  the 
I'ght  cf  day  could  be  met.  But  the 
night,  the  impenetrable  night,  thicker 
than  walls,  and  empty,  the  infinite  night, 
so  black,  so  vast,  in  which  one  might 
brush  against  frightful  things,  the  night 
when  one  feels  that  mysterious  terror  is 
wandering,  prowling  about,  appeared  to 
him  to  conceal  an  unknown  danger, 
close  and  menacing. 

What  was  it? 

He  knew  it  ere  long.  As  he  sat  in 
his  armchair,  rather  late,  one  evening 
when  he  could  not  sleep,  he  thought  he 
saw  the  curtain  of  his  window  move. 
He  waited,  in  an  uneasy  state  of  mind, 
with  beating  heart.  The  drapery  did  not 
stir,  then,  all  of  a  sudden  it  moved  once 
more.  He  did  not  venture  to  rise  up; 
he  no  longer  ventured  to  breathe,  and 
yet  he  was  brave.  He  had  often  fought, 
and  he  v/ould  have  liked  to  catch  thieves 
in  his  house. 

Was  it  true  that  this  curtain  did 
move?  he  asked  himself,  fearing  that 
his  eyes  had  deceived  him.  It  was, 
moreover,  such  a  slight  thing,  a  gentle 
flutter  of  lace,  a  kind  of  trembling  in 
its  folds,  less  than  such  an  undula- 
tion as  is  caused  by  the  wind. 

Renardet  sat  still,  with  staring  eyes, 
and  outstretched  neck.    Then  he  sprang 


LITTLE  LOUISE  ROQUE 


997 


to  his  feet  abruptly,  ashamed  of  his 
fear,  tooK  four  steps,  seized  the  drapery 
with  both  hands,  and  pulled  it  wide 
apart.  At  first,  he  saw  nothing  but 
darkened  glass,  resembling  plates  of 
glitterir.g  ir.k.  The  night,  the  vast,  im- 
penetrable night  stretched  out  before 
him  as  far  as  the  invisible  horizon.  He 
remained  standing  in  front  of  the  illimit- 
able shadow,  and  suddenly  perceived  a 
light,  a  moving  light,  which  seemed  some 
distance  away. 

Then  he  put  his  face  close  to  the  win- 
dowpane,  thinking  th::t  a  person  look- 
ing for  crayfish  might  be  poaching  in 
the  Brindelle,  for  it  was  past  midnight. 
The  light  rose  up  at  the  edge  of  the 
stream,  ur.dor  the  trees.  As  he  was  not 
yet  able  to  see  clearly,  Renardct  placed 
his  hands  over  his  eyes.  Suddenly  this 
light  became  an  illumination,  and  he 
beheld  little  Louise  Roque  naked  and 
bleeding  on  the  moss.  He  recoiled 
frozen  with  horror,  sr.r.k  ir.to  his  chair, 
and  fell  b::ck  /ard.  He  remained  there 
some  minutes,  his  soul  in  distress;  then 
he  sat  up  and  began  to  reflect.  He  had 
had  a  hallucination — that  was  all:  a 
hallucination  due  to  the  fact  that  a 
marauder  of  the  ni^ht  was  walking  with 
a  lantern  in  his  hand  near  the  water's 
cd^e.  What  was  the-e  astonishing,  be- 
sides, in  the  circumstance  that  the  recol- 
lection of  his  crime  should  sometimes 
bring  before  him  the  vision  of  the  dead 
girl? 

He  rose  up,  swallowed  a  glass  of  wine, 
and  sat  down  again.    He  thought: 

"What  am  I  to  do  if  this  came  back?" 

And  it  did  come  back;  he  felt  it;  he 

vn.s  sure  of  it.    Already  his  glance  was 

t^rawn    toward    the   window;    it    called 

liim;   it   attracted  him.     In  order  to 


uvold  looking  at  it,  he  turned  aside  his 
chair.  Then,  he  took  a  book  and  tried 
to  read*  but  it  seemed  to  him  tliat  he 
presently  heard  something  stirring  be- 
hind him,  and  he  swung  round  his  arm- 
chair on  one  foot. 

The  curtain  still  moved — unquestion- 
ably, it  did  move  this  time;  he  could 
no  longer  have  any  doubt  about  it. 

He  rushed  forward  and  seized  it  in 
Lis  grasp  so  violently  that  >he  knocked 
it  down  with  i.s  fastener.  Then,  he 
eagerly  prcescd  his  face  against  the 
glass.  He  saw  nothing.  All  was  black 
v/ithout;  and  he  breathed  with  the  de- 
light of  a  man  whose  life  has  just  been 
saved. 

Then  he  v/ent  back  to  his  chair,  and 
sat  down  again ;  but  almost  immediately 
he  felt  a  longing  to  look  out  through 
the  window  once  more.  Since  the  cur- 
tain had  fallen,  the  space  in  front  of 
him  made  a  sort  of  dark  patch,  fascinat- 
ing and  terrible,  on  the  obscure  land- 
scape. In  order  not  to  yield  to  this 
dangerous  temptation,  he  took  off  his 
clothes,  extinguished  the  lamp,  and  lay 
down,  shutting  his  eyes. 

Lying  on  his  back  motionless,  his  skin 
hot  and  moist,  he  awaited  sleep.  Sud- 
denly a  great  gleam  of  light  flashed 
across  his  eyelids.  He  opened  them  be- 
lieving that  his  dwelling  v/as  on  fire. 
All  was  black  as  before,  and  he  leaner' 
on  his  elbow  in  order  to  try  to  dis 
tinguish  his  window,  which  had  still  fo^ 
him  an  unconquerable  attraction.  By 
dint  of  straining  his  eyes,  he  could  per- 
ceive some  stars,  and  he  arose,  g-oped 
his  way  across  the  room,  discovered  the 
panes  with  his  outstretched  hands,  and 
placed  his  forehead  close  to  them.  There 
below,  under  the  trees,  the  body  of  the 


^98 


VVORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSAN> 


little    girl    glittered    like    phosphorus, 
lighting  up  the  surrounding  darkness. 

Renardet  uttered  a  cry  and  rushed  to. 
ward  his  bed,  where  he  lay  till  morning, 
his  head  hidden  under  the  pillow. 

From  that  moment,  his  life  became 
intolerable.  He  passed  his  days  in  ap- 
prehension of  each  succeeding  night; 
and  each  night  the  vision  came  back 
again.  As  soon  as  he  had  locked  him- 
self up  in  his  room,  he  strove  to  strug- 
gle; but  in  vain.  An  irresistible  force 
lifted  him  up  and  pushed  him  against 
the  glass,  as  if  to  call  the  phantom,  and 
ere  long  he  saw  it  lying  in  the  spot 
where  the  crime  was  committed,  lying 
with  arms  and  legs  outspread,  just  in  the 
way  the  body  had  been  found. 

Then  the  dead  girl  rose  up  and  came 
toward  him  with  little  steps  just  as  the 
child  had  done  when  she  came  out  of 
the  river.  She  advanced  quietly,  pass- 
ing straight  across  the  grass,  and  over 
the  border  of  withered  flowers.  Then 
she  rose  up  into  the  air  toward  Ren- 
ardet's  window.  She  came  toward  him, 
as  she  had  come  on  the  day  of  the 
crime.  And  the  man  recoiled  before 
the  apparition — ^he  retreated  to  his  bed, 
and  sank  down  upon  it,  knowing  well 
that  the  little  one  had  entered  the  room, 
and  that  she  now  was  standing  behind 
the  curtain,  which  presently  moved. 
And  until  daybreak,  he  kept  staring  at 
thus  curtain,  with  a  fixed  glance,  ever 
waiting  to  see  his  victim  depart. 

But  she  did  not  show*  herself  any 
more;  she  remained  there  behind  the 
curtain  which  quivered  tremulously  now 
and  then. 

And  Renardet,  his  fingers  clinging  to 
the  bedclothes,  squeezed  them  as  he  had 


squeezed    the    throat    of   little   Louir 
Roque. 

He  heard  the  clock  striking  ttie 
hours ;  and  in  the  stillness  the  pendulum 
kept  time  with  the  loud  beating  of  his 
heart.  And  he  suffered,  the  wretched 
man,  more  than  any  man  had  ever  suf- 
fered before. 

Then,  as  soon  as  a  white  streak  of 
light  on  the  ceiling  announced  the  ap- 
proaching day,  he  felt  himself  free, 
alone  at  last,  alone  in  his  room ;  and  then 
he  went  to  sleep.  He  slept  some  hours 
— a  restless,  feverish  sleep  in  which  he 
retraced  in  dreams  the  horrible  vision 
of  the  night  just  past. 

When,  later  on,  he  went  down  to 
breakfast,  he  felt  exhausted  as  if  after 
prodigious  fatigue;  and  he  scarcely  ate 
anything,  haunted  as  he  was  by  the  fear 
of  what  he  had  seen  the  night  before 

He  knew,  however,  that  it  was  not 
an  apparition — that  the  dead  do  not 
come  back,  and  that  his  sick  soul,  pos- 
sessed by  one  thought  alone,  by  an  in- 
delible remembrance,  was  the  only  cause 
of  his  punishment,  was  the  only  evoker 
of  that  awful  image,  brought  back  by 
it  to  life,  called  up  by  it  and  raised  by 
it  before  his  eyes,  in  which  the  in- 
effaceable resemblance  remained  im- 
printed. But  he  knew,  too,  that  he, 
could  not  cure  it,  that  he  could  never  ^ 
escape  from  the  savage  persecution  of, 
his  memory;  and  he  resolved  to  die, 
rather  than  endure  these  tortures  any 
longer. 

Then,  he  pondered  how  he  would  kill 
himself.  He  wished  for  some  simple 
and  natural  death  which  would  preclude 
the  idea  of  suicide.  For  he  clung  to 
his  reputation,  to  the  name  bequeathed 
to  him  by  his  ancestors;  and  if  there 


LITTLE  LOUISE  ROQUE 


999 


was  any  suspicion  as  to  the  cause  of  his 
death,  people's  thoughts  might  be  per- 
haps directed  toward  the  mysterious 
crime,  toward  the  murderer  who  could 
not  be  found,  and  they  would  not  hesi- 
tate to  accuse  him. 

A  strange  idea  came  into  his  head, 
that  of  letting  himself  be  crushed  by  the 
tree  at  the  foot  of  which  he  had  assas- 
sinated little  Louise  Roque.  So  he  de- 
termined to  have  the  v;ood  cut  down 
and  to  simulate  an  accident.  But  the 
beech-tree  refused  to  smash  his  ribs. 

Returning  to  his  house,  a  prey  to  ut- 
ter despair,  he  had  snatched  up  his  re- 
volver, and  then  he  did  not  dare  to 
fire  it. 

The  dinner  bell  summoned  him.  He 
could  eat  nothing,  and  went  upstairs 
again.  But  he  did  not  know  what  he 
was  going  to  do.  Now  that  he  had  es- 
caped the  first  time,  he  felt  himself  a 
coward.  Presently,  he  would  be  ready, 
fortified,  decided,  master  of  his  cour- 
age and  of  his  resolution;  just  now,  he 
was  weak,  and  feared  death  as  much  as 
he  did  the  dead  girl. 

He  faltered  out  to  himself: 

"I  will  not  venture  it  again — ^I  will 
not  venture  it." 

Then  he  glanced  with  terror,  first  at 
the  revolver  on  the  table,  and  next  at 
the  curtain  which  hid  his  window.  It 
seemed  to  him,  moreover,  that  some- 
thing horrible  would  occur  as  soon  as 
his  life  was  ended.  Something?  What? 
A  meeting  with  her,  perhaps!  She  was 
watching  for  him;  she  was  waiting  for 
him;  she  was  calling  him;  and  her  ob- 
ject was  to  seize  him  in  her  turn,  to  ex- 
hibit herself  to  him  every  night  so  that 
she  might  draw  him  toward  the  doom 


that  would  avenge  her,  and  lead  him  to 
death. 

He  began  to  cry  like  a  child,  repeat- 
ing: 

"I  will  not  venture  it  again — I  will 
not  venture  it," 

Then,  he  fell  on  his  knees,  and  mur- 
mured: "My  God!  my  God!"  without 
believing,  nevertheless,  in  God.  He  no 
longer  dared,  in  fact,  to  look  out 
through  his  window  where  he  knew  the 
apparition  was  visible,  nor  at  the  table 
where  his  revolver  gleamed. 

When  he  had  risen  up,  he  said: 

'This  cannot  last;  there  must  be  an 
end  of  it." 

The  sound  of  his  voice  in  the  silent 
room  made  a  shiver  of  fear  pass  through 
his  limbs,  but,  as  he  could  not  come  te 
a  decision,  as  he  felt  certain  that  his 
finger  would  always  refuse  to  pull  the 
trigger  of  his  revolver,  he  turned  round 
to  hide  his  head  under  the  bedclothes, 
and  to  plunge  into  reflection. 

He  would  have  to  find  some  way  in 
which  he  could  force  himself  to  die,  to 
invent  some  device  against  himself, 
which  would  not  permit  of  any  hesita- 
tion on  his  part,  any  delay,  any  possible 
regrets.  He  began  to  envy  condemned 
criminals  who  are  led  to  the  scaffold 
surrounded  by  soldiers.  Oh!  if  he  could 
only  beg  of  some  one  to  shoot  him;  if 
he  could,  confessing  the  state  of  his 
soul,  confessing  his  crime  to  a  sure 
friend  who  would  never  divulge  it,  ob- 
tain from  him  death. 

But  from  whom  could  he  ask  this  ter- 
rible service?  From  whom?  He  cast 
about  for  one  among  his  friends  whom 
he  knew  intimately.  The  doctor?  No, 
he  would  talk  about  it  afterward,  most 
certainly.      And    suddenly    a    fantastic 


1000 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


Idea  entered  his  mind.  He  would  write 
to  the  examining  magistrate,  who  was 
on  terms  of  close  friendship  with  him 
and  would  denounce  himself  as  the 
perpetrator  of  the  crime.  He  would  in 
this  letter  confess  everything,  reveal- 
ing how  his  soul  had  been  tortured, 
how  he  had  resolved  to  die,  how  he  had 
hesitated  about  carrying  out  his  resolu- 
tion, and  what  means  he  had  employed 
to  strengthen  his  failing  courage.  And 
in  the  name  of  their  old  friendship 
he  would  implore  of  the  other  to  destroy 
the  letter  as  soon  as  he  had  ascertained 
that  the  culprit  had  inflicted  justice  on 
himself.  Renardet  could  rely  on  this 
magistrate;  he  knew  him  to  be  sure, 
discreet,  incapable  of  even  an  idle  word. 
He  was  one  of  those  men  who  have  an 
inflexible  conscience,  governed,  directed, 
regulated  by  their  reason  alone. 

Scarcely  had  he  formed  this  project 
when  d  strange  feeling  of  joy  took  pos- 
session of  his  heart.  He  was  calm  now. 
He  would  write  his  letter  slowly,  then 
at  daybreak  he  would  dc;"osit  it  in  the 
box  nailed  to  the  wall  in  his  office,  then 
he  would  ascend  his  tov/er  to  watch 
for  the  postman's  arrival,  and  when  the 
man  in  the  blue  blouse  came  in  sight, 
he  would  cast  himself  headlong  on  to 
the  rocks  on  which  th^,  foundations 
rested.  First  he  would  take  care  to  be 
seen  by  the  workmen  who  were  cutting 
down  his  wood.  He  would  then  climb 
to  the  parapet  some  distance  up  which 
bore  the  flagstaff  displayed  on  fete  days. 
He  would  smash  this  pole  with  a  shake 
and  precipitate  it  along  with  him. 

Who  would  suspect  that  it  was  not 
an  accident?  And  he  would  be  dashed 
to  pieces,  having  regard  to  his  weight 
and  the  height  of  the  tower. 


Presently  he  got  out  of  bed,  went 
over  to  the  table,  and  began  to  write. 
He  omitted  nothing,  not  a  single  detail 
of  the  crime,  not  a  single  detail  of  the 
torments  of  his  heart,  and  he  ended  by 
announcing  that  he  had  passed  sentence 
on  himself — that  he  was  going  to  ex- 
ecute the  criminal — and  begged  of  his 
friend,  his  old  friend,  to  b3  careful  that 
there  should  never  be  any  stain  on  his 
memory. 

When  he  had  finished  his  letter,  he 
saw  that  the  day  had  dawned. 

He  closed  it,  sealed  it,  and  wrote  the 
address;  then  he  descer.dcd  with  light 
steps,  hurried  toward  the  littb  white 
box  fastened  to  the  wcill  in  the  corner 
of  the  farmhouse,  ar.d  when  he  had 
thrown  into  it  the  falal  paper  which 
made  his  hand  tremble,  he  came  back 
quickly,  shot  the  bolts  of  the  great 
door,  and  climbed  up  to  his  tower  t(» 
v;ait  for  the  passing  of  the  postman, 
who  would  convey  his  death  sentence. 

He  felt  self-possessed,  now.  Liber* 
ated!    Saved! 

A  cold  dry  wind,  an  icy  wind,  passed 
across  his  face.  He  inhaled  it  eagerly, 
v/ith  open  mouth,  drinking  in  its  chill 
ing  kiss.  The  sky  was  red,  with  a  burn  • 
ing  red,  the  red  of  winter,  and  all  th2 
plain  whitened  with  frost  glistened  un- 
der the  first  rays  of  the  sun,  as  if  it  had 
been  powdered  with  bruised  glass. 

Renardet,  standing  up,  ^vith  his  head 
bare,  gazed  at  the  vast  tract  of  country 
before  him,  the  meadow  to  the  left,  and 
to  the  right  the  village  whose  chimneys 
were  beginning  to  smoke  with  the  prep- 
arations for  the  morning  meal.  At  his 
feet  he  saw  the  Brindelle  flowing  toward 
the  rocks,  where  he  would  soon  be 
Tushed  to  death.     He  felt  himself  re* 


LITTLE  LOUISE  ROQUB 


1001 


bom  on  that  beautiful  frosty  morning, 
fu'l  of  strength,  full  of  liie.  The  hght 
bathed  him  and  penetrated  him  like  a 
new-born  hope.  A  thousand  recollec- 
tions assailed  him,  recollections  of  sim- 
ilar mornings,  of  ranid  walks,  the  hard 
earth  which  rang  under  his  footsteps,  of 
happy  chases  on  the  edges  of  pools 
where  wild  ducks  sleep.  At  the  good 
things  that  he  loved,  the  good  things  of 
existence  rushed  into  memory,  pene- 
trated him  with  fresh  desires,  awakened 
all  the  vigorous  appetites  of  his  active, 
powerful  body. 

And  he  was  about  to  die?  Why? 
He  was  going  to  kill  himself  stupidly, 
because  lie  was  afraid  of  a  shadow — 
afraid  of  nothing.  He  was  still  rich 
and  in  the  prime  of  life!  What  folly! 
All  he  wanted  was  distraction,  absence, 
a  voyage  in  order  to  forget. 

This  night  even  he  had  not  seen  the 
little  girl  because  his  mind  was  pre- 
occupied, and  so  had  wandered  toward 
some  other  subject.  Perhaps  he  would 
not  see  her  ar.y  more?  And  even  if  she 
still  haunted  him  in  his  house,  certainly 
she  would  not  follow  him  elsewhere! 
The  earth  was  wide,  the  future  was  long. 

Why  die? 

His  glance  traveled  across  the  mea- 
dows, and  he  perceived  a  blue  spot  in 
the  path  which  wound  along-side  of  the 
Brindelle.  It  was  Mederic  coming  to 
bring  letters  from  the  town  and  to  carry 
away  those  of  the  village. 

Renardet  got  a  start,  a  sensation  of 
pain  shot  through  his  breast,  and  he 
rushed  toward  the  winding  staircase  to 
get  back  his  letter,  to  demand  it  back 
from  the  postman.  Little  did  it  mat- 
ter to  him  now  whether  he  was  seen. 
He  hurried  across  the  grass  moistened 


by  the  light  frost  of  the  previous  night, 
and  he  arrived  in  front  of  the  box  in 
the  corner  of  the  farmhouse  exactly  at 
the  same  time  as  the  letter-carrier. 

The  latter  had  opened  the  little 
wooden  door,  and  drew  forth  the  papers 
deposited  there  by  the  inhabitants  of 
the  locality. 

Renardet  said  to  him: 
"Good  morrow,  Mederic.** 
*'Good  morrow,  M'sieu'  le  il^^aire*" 
*'I  say,  Mederic,  I  threw  a  letter  into 
the  box  that  I  want  back  again.    I  came 
to  ask  you  to  give  it  back  to  me." 

"Thafs  all  right,  M'sieu'  le  Make-- 
you'll  get  it." 

And  the  postman  raised  his  eyes. 
He  stood  petrified  at  the  sight  of 
Renardet's  face.  The  Mayor's  cheeks 
were  purple,  his  eyes  were  glaring  with 
black  circles  round  them  as  if  they 
were  sunk  in  his  head,  his  hair  was  all 
tangled,  his  beard  untrimmed,  his  neck- 
tie unfastened.  It  wa,'>  evident  that 
he  had  not  gone  to  bed. 

Tlie  postman  asked: 

"Are  you  ill,  M'sieu'  le  Maire?'* 

The  other  suddenly  comprehending 
that  his  appearance  must  be  unusual^ 
lost  countenance  and  faltered: 

"Oh!   no — -oh!   no.     Only  T  jumped 
out  of  bed  to  ask  you  for  this  letter 
I  was  asleep.    You  understand?'* 

Said  Mederic:     "What  letter?" 
"The    one    you    are    going    to    give 
back  to  me." 

Mederic  now  began  to  hesitate.  The 
mayor's  attitude  did  not  strike  him 
as  natural.  There  was  perhaps  a  secret 
in  that  letter,  a  political  secret.  He 
knew  Renardet  was  not  a  Republican 


1002 


WORKS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


and  he  knew  all  the  tricks  and  chican- 
eries employed  at  elections. 

He  asked: 

"To  whom  is  it  addressed,  this  letter 
of  yours?" 

'"X'o  M.  Putoin,  the  examining  magis- 
tratc% — you  know  my  friend,  M.  Pu- 
toip,  well!" 

The  postman  searched  through  the 
papers,  and  found  the  one  asked  for. 
Then  he  began  looking  at  it,  turning  it 
round  and  round  between  his  fingers, 
much  perplexed,  much  troubled  by  the 
fear  of  committing  a  grave  offense  or 
of  making  an  enemy  for  himself  of  the 
mayor. 

Seeing  his  hesitation,  Renardet  made 
a  movement  for  the  purpose  of  seizing 
the  letter  and  snatching  it  away  from 
him.  This  abrupt  action  convinced 
Mederic  that  some  important  secret 
was  at  stake  and  made  him  resolve  to 
do  his  duty,  cost  what  it  might. 

So  he  flung  the  letter  into  his  bag 
and  fastened  it  up,  with  the  reply: 

"No,  I  can't,  M'sieu'  le  Maire.  From 
the  moment  it  is  addressed  and  sent 
to  the  magistrate,  I  can't." 

A  dreadful  pang  wrung  Renardet's 
heart,  and  he  murmured: 

"Why,  you  know  me  well.  You  are 
even  able  to  recognize  my  handwrit- 
ing.   I  tell  you  I  want  that  paper." 

"I  can't." 

"Look  here,  Mederic,  you  know  that 
I'm  incapable  of  deceiving  you — I  tell 
you  I  want  it." 

"No,  I  can't." 

A  tremor  of  rage  passed  through 
Renardet's  soul. 

"Damn  it  all,  take  care!  You  know 
'hat  I  don't  go  in  for  chaffing,  and 
that  I  could  get  you  out  of  your  job. 


my  good  fellow,  and  without  much  de- 
lay either.  And  then,  I  am  the  mayor 
of  the  district  after  all;  and  I  now 
order  you  to  give  me  back  that  paper." 

The  postman  answered  firmly: 

"No,  I  can't,  M'sieu'  le  Maire." 

Thereupon  Renardet,  losing  his  head, 
caught  hold  of  the  postman's  arms  in 
order  to  take  away  his  bag;  but,  free- 
ing himself  by  a  strong  effort,  and 
springing  backward,  the  letter-carrier 
raised  his  holly  stick.  Without  losing 
his  temper,  he  said  emphatically: 

"Don't  touch  me,  M'sieu'  le  Maire,  oi 
I'll  strike.  Take  care,  I'm  only  doing 
my  duty!" 

Feeling  that  he  was  lost,  Renardet 
suddenly  became  humble,  gentle,  ap» 
pealing  to  him  like  a  crying  child: 

"Look  here,  look  here,  my  friend, 
give  me  back  that  letter,  and  I'll  give 
3'ou  money.  Stop!  Stop!  I'll  give  you 
a  hundred  francs  you  understand — a 
hundred  francs!" 

The  postman  turned  on  his  heel  and 
started  on  his  journey. 

Renardet  followed  him,  out  of 
breath,  faltering: 

"Mederic,  Mederic,  listen!  I'll  give 
you  a  thousand  francs,  you  understand 
— a  thousand  francs." 

The  postman  still  went  on  without 
giving  any  answer. 

Renardet  went  on: 

"I'll  make  your  fortune,  you  under- 
stand— ^whatever  you  wish — fifty  thou- 
sand francs — fifty  thousand  francs — 
fifty  thousand  francs  for  that  letter! 
What  does  it  matter  to  you?  You 
won't?  Well,  a  hundred  thousand — ^I 
say — a  hundred  thousand  francs — t 
hundred  thousand  francs." 


LITTLE  LOUISE  ROQUE 


1003 


The  postman  turned  back,  bis  face 
hard,  his  eye  severe: 

"Enough  of  this,  or  else  I'll  repeat 
to  the  magistrate  everything  you  have 
just  said  to  me." 

Renardet  stopped  abruptly.  It  was 
all  over.  He  turned  back  and  rushed 
toward  his  house,  running  like  a  hunted 
animal. 

Then,  in  his  turn,  Mederic  stopped, 
and  watched  this  flight  with  stupefac- 
tion. He  saw  the  mayor  re-entering 
his  own  house  and  he  waited  still  as  if 
something  astonishing  was  about  to 
happen. 

Presently  the  tall  form  of  Renardet 
appeared  on  the  summit  of  the  Fox's 
Tower,     He  ran   round   the  platform 


like  a  madman.  Then  he  seized  the 
flagstaff  and  shook  it  furiously  with- 
out succeeding  in  breaking  it;  then,  all 
of  a  sudden,  like  a  swimmer  taking  a 
plunge,  he  dived  into  the  air  with  his 
two  hands  in  front  of  him. 

Mederic  rushed  forward  to  give  suc- 
cor. As  he  crossed  the  park,  he  saw 
the  woodcutters  going  to  work.  He 
called  out  to  them,  telling  them  an  ac- 
cident had  occurred,  and  at  the  foot 
of  the  walls  they  found  a  bleeding  body 
the  head  of  which  was  crushed  on  a 
rock.  The  Brindelle  surrounded  this 
rock,  and  over  its  clear,  calm  waters, 
swollen  at  this  point,  could  be  seen  a 
long,  thin,  red  stream  of  mingled  brains 
and  blood, 


DATE  DUE 


DfC  i ':  ^' 


'^^tC  1  b  20B 


APR  2  7  lOQ"! 


DEC  1,3  21)06 


•"it  ' 


AU 


Al.in  7  ■:  II 


JQQi 


ji£ij_ajaia 


P~  1  2  ail 


■W*-ii 


'  4-i-!^ 


OCT  *.  8  '::3 


NOV  1 8  200? 


NOV  :/  1 


on  1 3  ?nn3 


2  6  7988 
0  9  199? 


iC  cii^ 


V    ii^  .tf ' 


j^jijlWS* 


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"« 


Brigham  Young  University  ^  « 

P"^"  0  4  7G06        '  -  —^-  -^   "  "St P  ""  Wm 


BRIGHAM    VOUNG   UNIVERSITY 


31197  20179  2253 


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